Terror Tort Reform & did the CIA watch a key 9-11 plotter plan the strikes

http://www.msnbc.com/news/936852.asp?0cl=c1

The Bush administration, alarmed about a rash of lawsuits over international acts of terrorism, is pushing a controversial plan that would set up a new federally funded “compensation fund” for the victims—with sharp limits on how much they can recover.

--snip-- And 2nd story - and this could be a bombshell

Was master terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at an Al Qaeda “planning” summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000 that was being secretly monitored by the Malaysian secret services—all under the watchful eyes of CIA?

That surprising claim was made today by Rohan Gunaratna, a widely respected academic expert on Al Qaeda who claims to have had access to top-secret U.S. intelligence “debriefs” of captured Al Qaeda terrorists. Gunaratna was an initial witness at a public hearing conducted by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Gunaratna, who said he has specifically reviewed transcripts of the interrogations of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed since his capture in Pakistan last March, testified that Mohammed actually “chaired” the meeting of 12 Al Qaeda principals in which the September 11 plot and other future Al Qaeda attacks were discussed.

--snip--

If true, Gunaratna’s claims about Mohammed’s presence would make the intelligence failure of the CIA even greater. It would mean the agency literally watched as the 9-11 scheme was hatched—and had photographs of the attack’s mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, doing the plotting.

'Terror Tort Reform plus the FBI/CIA/GOP are murderers!'

Such obvious blatant bias in this 'Liberl Media' must be investigated by a Special Prosecutor!

What would be the circulation of this story if it was
Did the CIA watch a key 9-11 plotter plan the strikes?

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/
http://www.geocities.com/darkerxdarker

Or something else :bounce:

Seems to happen a lot with these people. Funny, that.

committed by the US and other parties (like Saudi's) Wow! 50 lawsuits filed, it's an epidemic!!! :eyes: The reason they want to push this through is less for the dough than the discoverable info.

As far as the latter story, the CIA needs to go the way of the OSS. They are a money sucking pit with a million heads.

If you just forget about something for a while, and then come across that info again, does that make it "news"?

The fact that Mohammed attended that pivotal meeting in Malaysia is old news. Take for instance this CNN article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/07/30/seasia.state/

"In January of 2000, about a dozen of Osama bin Laden's trusted followers met here. The host was Hambali. Among those who attended: Tawfiq bin Attash, a key suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole 9 months later; Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, who nearly two years later crashed a plane into the Pentagon, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant, a key planner, U.S. officials say, of September 11."

---

The CIA is covering this fact up big time, because if he was there, the failure to stop 9/11 is completely inexplicable. Note what else they learned about Mohammed after the meeting, but before 9/11 (from my 9/11 timeline):

June 2001 (I): US intelligence learns that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is interested in "sending terrorists to the United States" and planning to assist their activities once they arrive. The 9/11 Congressional inquiry says the significance of this is not understood at the time, and data collection efforts are not subsequently "targeted on information about that might have helped understand al-Qaeda's plans and intentions." (Committee Findings, 12/11/02, Los Angeles Times, 12/12/02, USA Today, 12/12/02)

Summer 2001: Around this time, the NSA intercepts telephone conversations between 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohamed Atta, but apparently does not share the information with any other agencies. (Knight Ridder, 6/6/02, Independent, 6/6/02) Additionally, the NSA either fails to translate these messages in a timely fashion or fails to understand the significance of what was translated. (Knight Ridder, 6/6/02)

September 10, 2001 (F): Mohamed Atta calls Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, in Afghanistan. Mohammed gives final approval to Atta to launch the attacks. This call is monitored and translated by the US, though it isn't known how quickly that takes, and the specifics of the conversation haven't been released. (Independent, 9/15/02)


So given their communication intercepts, they should have unravelled the plot easily. Mohammed was not some small potato at the time. He was already wanted for his role in the first WTC bombing, the Operation Bojinka plot, and many other plots. In 1997, the government of Qatar told the US that he was planning further airplane hijackings. By 1998, the US had a multi-million dollar bounty on his head, and he was easily one of the top 10 most wanted terrorists in the world by then.

He was able to attend that meeting in Malaysia, converse freely and repeatedly with Mohammed Atta, and talk about sending terrorists to the US, and the CIA and NSA didn't do anything with this info, or even give deciphering of communication with him a high priority??? (The NSA boasts of being able to decipher and translate top priority messages within an hour, so they should have had plenty of time with that last communication). And this is only what we know - the US gvmt is trying to keep all info about him classified. The Congressional 9/11 inquiry wasn't even allowed to refer to him by his name.

Sorry, I don't buy the "hopeless incompetence" argument. There's more here than meets the eye, including the likelihood that Mohammed was a double agent (read for instance this article, where his ties to the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, are laid out: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayksmcapture.html ).

:kick:

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.

NYer99
DU Moderator

You must have misunderstood something. I only posted one paragraph from the CNN article in my above posting. The rest of that posting are my comments, or excerpts from my 9/11 timeline (www.complete911timeline.org), also written by me.

Just off the wire minutes ago...

Terror expert lists missed clues

But CIA disputes that U.S. knew al-Qaida operative was at meeting

By REBECCA CARR
COX NEWS SERVICE

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/130227_terror10.html

"WASHINGTON -- A senior al-Qaida operative was present at a high-level meeting in January 2000 where the plans for the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington unfolded, a terrorism expert told the 9-11 Commission yesterday, placing the operative at the meeting for the first time."


Are there any journalists in the universe with something called a "memory"? Is remembering that this was revealed last year already really that hard?

Did the CIA forward this information to the higher-ups? Did this information find its way into the hands of the Bush national security circles? If so, (and I know this is begging the question) what was policy on this development either globally or specifically?

Where is the outrage over this sort of bs? They create this war on terror and then fan the flames but if someone wants compensation for the loss of a loved one in their war....forget about it.