The pre-9/11 blunder you’ve probably never heard of

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/20/news-corn.php

The real question for the 9/11 commission — and the American public — is not whether George W. Bush considered al Qaeda an urgent threat before 9/11, but this: How did the U.S. government let Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi get away with it?

Don’t know who al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi are — or were? Their names should be household words; they should be as famous as Lee Harvey Oswald. They were two of the 9/11 hijackers who took control of Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon. But they were

different from the other 19 hijackers. The CIA had been watching them as early as January 2000. Yet the CIA failed to let the FBI know that these two men — who had attended an al Qaeda summit in Malaysia in early 2000 — were in the United States or heading toward it. Consequently, the FBI lost what probably was the best opportunity it had to unravel the 9/11 plot.

-snip-

Here’s the story in short, according to the final report of the 9/11 congressional inquiry. The CIA had spied on an al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur that occurred the first week of January 2000. Within days, the CIA knew that al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi had been present, and the agency had enough information on the two to add them to a State Department watch list that could have been used to deny them entry to the United States. Yet it did not do so. In early March 2000, the CIA learned that a week after the Malaysia gathering, al-Hazmi traveled to Los Angeles. It also knew that al-Mihdar had accompanied al-Hazmi part of the way, but the CIA did consider the possibility that al-Mihdar, too, had been heading toward the United States. In February 2000, the two settled in San Diego. They rented a place and obtained driver’s licenses using their own names. They took flight lessons. In July 2000, al-Hazmi applied for a visa extension. In December, he moved to Arizona with another 9/11 hijacker. And at some point, al-Hazmi’s brother came to the United States. He, too, would become one of the 9/11 hijackers.
-snip-
------------------------------

more fuel for the fire under the feet of the criminal bushgang

has one of the hijackers residing with an FBI informant ...anyone else heard details of this story?

...

Anybody know about this one?

There are some seriously fishy aspects to this whole thing. If you get deep into it, you can find yourself sliding from LIHOP to MIHOP pretty fast . . .

http://www.wgoeshome.com

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id2661/pg1/

Randi Rhodes has been getting this story out on her show. The line is definitely starting to blur between LIHOP and MIHOP. Why were the FBI informants living with the hijackers - to make sure they got on the planes? This is all really sinister stuff! I fear for my country.

...why did at least five of the alleged hijackers attend U. S. military schools?:

<http://www.madcowprod.com/issue06.html>

Excerpts:

"Three days after the WTC disaster, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Knight Ridder newspapers reported claims that five of the terrorist hijackers in the Sept 11 attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations during the 1990s. The reports also claimed three of the terrorists had listed their address as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., and had participated in military exchange programs for foreign officers at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

In an interview with a reporter questioning the vaguely-worded Sept 16 Pentagon denial, the Defense Dept spokesman was asked to explain the particulars of fuzzy statements in which officials said 'name matches may not necessarily mean the students were the hijackers', and that discrepancies in biographical data indicate 'we are probably not talking about the same people.' (Italics added.)

Pressed repeatedly to provide specifics, the spokesperson finally admitted, 'I do not have the authority to tell you who (which terrorists) attended which schools.'

So it appears certain that at least some of the previous denials have been rendered inoperative, and that a list exists in the Defense Dept which names Sept 11 terrorists who received training at U.S. military facilities, a list the Pentagon is in no hurry to make public. This admission has significant import.

Consider: Foreign nationals training at secure U.S. facilities do so almost solely at the behest of governments considered friendly to the United States.

Gaining admittance to the International Officer’s School at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery—which terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta was reported to have attended—would have required Atta to be someone well-connected with a friendly Arab government. (For the record, the spokesperson denied that the International Officer’s School attendee named Mohamed Atta is the same Mohamed Atta who piloted a passenger plane into the WTC, while repeatedly declining requests for biographical details about a second Arab pilot with the same name as the terrorist.)"

It's all adding up to what most of us have feared the most...that the NeoCon Junta was willing to trade American lives to justify an invasion of the Middle East to gain control of the oil.

concerned about bin Laden and his followers, forced out?

On edit: Correction made

...but the question still stands, doesn't it?

Combined with everything else that we've known about 911, and what we're still learning, the answers are becoming clearer, and much more disturbing, by the day.

..."Who in the U.S. government let Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi get away with it", and did they actually materially assist the attacks?

Think about it.

These guys were listed in the phonebook - and were on the FBI watch list - yet they weren't caught by our intelligence agencies? Worse, the terrorists that received training at Flight School in Florida needed federal approval to learn how to fly jet planes - how did they get this approval?

Who was the top terrorist or security official who died in the WTC?

Richard Clarke was devastated when he realized John O'Neill was dead. They had, together, been tracing Al Qaida/Osama for several years, and they KNEW what was going down. FBI's Freeh (asshole), and Condi (Clarke's boss) REFUSED to give Clarke or O'Neill free rein to do what needed to be done. Clarke said Clinton was all over the issue, but bush just let it all slide.

:kick:

pre 9/11 and 9/11 itself, it is difficult to keep track of all of it.

...911 was his second day on the job. He had been the FBI's top counter-terrorism operative prior to resigning in disgust at the FBI being pulled off all terrorism investigations involving Saudi Arabia.

<http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/victim.wtc.security/>

<http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7479>

<http://www.september11victims.com/september11victims/VictimInfo.asp?ID=2052>

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP206A.html>

Very odd "coincidence", no? Does Clarke mention this in his book?

job change from N.Y. to Chicago just days prior to 9/11 (he officially took up his new office on Sept. 1, 2001). If you'll recall, Fitzgerald was selected to oversee the Plame case.

Fitzgerald was named Co-Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Section of the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Shortly thereafter he became National Security Coordinator for the Office. In these capacities, he was responsible for supervising the investigation and development and prosecution of the case against Osama Bin-Ladin. He was the chief counsel in the prosecution of those alleged to have perpetrated the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.


Patrick Fitzgerald participated in the sentencing of four defendants convicted of participating in the 1998 bombings of the two U.S. Embassies in Africa. Earlier this year, Fitzgerald prosecuted the defendants, securing convictions.

Senator Fitzgerald expressed his deep appreciation toward his colleague from Illinois, Senator Dick Durbin, for his help in moving Patrick Fitzgerald's nomination through the confirmation process.

Patrick Fitzgerald was sworn in as interim U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in September.

_________


This piece to the 9/11 puzzle has been unexamined as far as I know....

Here's the thread I posted on this. At the time the press was falling all over itself to send the message that Fitzgerald was tough and was not an insider making him an ideal choice to oversee the Plame case:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=973585

but you have to wonder...IF this was just incompetence then WHY didn't heads roll in these agencies? In most cases it seems that these failures occurred at the upper levels, while the agents in the field were doing their job and reporting on activities:

From CNN story in 2002:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/04/column.billpress/

...As reported by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman — under the chilling headline "The Hijackers We Let Escape" — the CIA was aware of at least two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, at least 21 months before September 11. The agency knew both men had ties to al-Qaida. They knew one was connected to the bombing of the USS Cole. They knew both men once lived in the United States. They knew both attended a January 2000 al-Qaida summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And they knew both men were returning to the States afterwards.

Yet, as hard as it is to believe, the agency did nothing. It didn't alert the INS, which could have stopped them at the border. It didn't notify U.S. Naval Intelligence, even though both men were living near the San Diego naval base. And it failed to inform the FBI, which could have tracked their movements and contacts with other al-Qaida members around the country.

Instead, thanks to the inaction of the CIA, from January 2000 to August 2001, Almihdhar and Alhazmi lived openly in the United States, all the while plotting to destroy us. They rented an apartment, got driver's licenses, opened bank accounts and took flying lessons — all in their own names. They were even listed in the San Diego phone directory! And they remained in constant contact with their co-conspirators living in other states.

Only in August 2001, after receiving additional "static" about a potential terrorist attack, did the CIA wake up and inform other agencies to be on the lookout for the two San Diego men. By then it was too little, too late. Almihdhar, Alhazmi and 17 other murderers were already underground, in final preparations for 9/11. If only the CIA had done its job and alerted them earlier, one FBI official told Newsweek, "There's no question we could have tied all 19 hijackers together" — and prevented the horror of September 11.

Where's the outrage?

The question all Americans should be asking is: Why isn't someone being held accountable for the intelligence failures that led to September 11? They happened on CIA Director George Tenet's watch. Why is he still on the job? It's hard to blame FBI Director Robert Mueller, since he only took office a week before 9/ll. But who are the knuckleheads at FBI Central who ignored the warnings from Phoenix and Minneapolis? And why haven't they been fired?


If local police officers failed to act after receiving a tip that a gang of thieves was about to rob a bank, you can bet they'd all be out of a job. We should demand no less of the FBI and CIA. The best way to prevent future terrorist attacks is to fire those responsible for the last ones.
__________

he kept saying, "and what's WORSE", because what was worse, is that there was a CIA meeting with some FBI agents, in which they SHOWED PICTURES of these guys to the FBI agents, and WOULDNT TELL THEM WHO THEY WERE!!!!!!!!!

said they weren't authorized!

Isikoff said the meeting resulted in a shouting match

how insane is that?

STRUCTURAL problems?

WTF?

He collected the dots and filed them away. He was promoted for keeping the dot collection intact and out of the WH.

the vital nerve center of the vast 400 some BILLION dollar military empire that is the modern American "defense" system is utterly defenseless against an airborne attack?

We're supposed to believe that for ninety minutes or so, the radar scanners in the Pentagon watched a hi-jacked plane swerve wildly off course and head straight for them (after seeing the WTC crash and burn), and no body could do a damn thing about it?

They couldn't even evacuate the building?

If you believe that, you have to believe that the Pentagon could be successfully attacked by a dude in a hot air balloon with a case of dynamite

(Note for the slow of wit, i.e. FReeper lurkers--I am NOT endorsing such an idea, just pointing out how ludicrous it is.)

If he had swung into emergency mode, called tons of meetings w/ FBI and CIA, pulled everyone in and REALLY gotten to the bottom of it, sharing the pertinent info w/ the American people, the whole thing would APPEAR so different than what he actually did.

But, NOOOOOOO!

Instead, he told everyone to go shopping (!), he tried to quash the 9/11 investigation, he underfunded any investigation, and has had to be pushed, prodded and threatened to allow ANYONE to try to make sure it didn't happen again. He hasn't even gotten $$ to protect our seaports.

Then, he put Condi's best bud in charge of the commission, and insured the hard questions would never see the light of day.

Bush's ACTIONS AFTER 9/11 show his attitude.

:kick::kick::

legally tap the appropriate sources, as well as the coordination of info problem between agencies and being understaffed.

...what is so embarrassing is that the intelligence chain only appears to have been broken after the hijackers arrived in the US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2272259.stm


From US News and World Report this past March:

....But looking back, the missed opportunities surrounding one hijacker in particular are sobering. Al-Mihdar's U.S. calls are only one point in a series of events that could have led U.S. officials to the 9/11 conspiracy. A Saudi then in his mid-20s, al-Mihdar first appeared on U.S. radar in late 1999, when the NSA analyzed calls tied to a suspected al Qaeda associate named Khalid. From eavesdropping on the Yemen safehouse, officials had learned of a now infamous meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, where planning for the 9/11 attack took place. Al-Mihdar was surveilled as he attended the meeting, along with a handful of other al Qaeda operatives, including another future hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi. But the CIA failed to get the two men placed on government watch lists, and they entered the United States within days, settling in San Diego. There is one more quirk of fate pointed out by the congressional inquiry. If intelligence on al-Mihdar had made its way from the CIA, NSA, or FBI headquarters to the FBI's San Diego field office, agents say they would have almost certainly started an investigation. They wouldn't have had to look far: One of the field office's longtime informants had had repeated contacts with al-Mihdar.

But, unwatched by U.S. authorities, al-Mihdar left for the Middle East later that year. He returned in 2001, just as America was celebrating its Inde-pendence Day. Two months later, he and four others boarded American Airlines Flight 77 and plunged it into the Pentagon.

http://www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDetails.do?item_id=392037&pageId=2

White House and FBI Reward 9/11 Bungler

Senate Republicans are angry and baffled that the White House and FBI are making taxpayers reward a bureaucrat whose office denied a pre-9/11 search warrant against terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.

"The FBI's deputy general counsel, Marion 'Spike' Bowman, was among nine current and former FBI officials who last month received a Presidential Rank Award for career senior executives, which carries with it a cash bonus of 20 percent to 30 percent of an annual salary," the Associated Press reported today.

FBI Director Robert Mueller advised the White House to give Bowman the award for recruiting "a staff of attorneys to examine diverse and highly complex issues for which little or no formal legal education has been available."

However, critics of the bureau say Bowman's lawyers improperly rejected a search warrant request by FBI agents in Minnesota investigating Moussaoui in August 2001. Moussaoui is the only person charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

'Someone Will Die'

In addition, Senate investigators have criticized Bowman's unit for blocking an urgent request on Aug. 29, 2001, by FBI agents in New York to begin searching for Khalid Almihdar, one of the 9/11 hijackers.

An FBI agent, whose identity was shielded, testified that Bowman's lawyers deemed that information linking Almihdar to terrorism had been obtained through intelligence channels and thus could not legally be used in a criminal inquiry.

"Some day, someone will die ... and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems," the agent wrote to FBI headquarters. He said he hoped that Bowman's law unit "will stand behind their decisions then."

Invasion of the Public's Privacy

Furthermore, Bowman's office has admitted that FBI agents accidentally intercepted e-mails of innocent Americans during a terrorism probe in Denver using the controversial Carnivore surveillance system, which the government now prefers to call "DCS-1000."

One more thing: "Bowman also headed the law unit in early 2000, when the FBI acknowledged serious blunders in surveillance it conducted during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations," AP reported.

'Sending the Wrong Signal'

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, complained in a letter to the FBI director, "You are sending the wrong signal to those agents who fought - sometimes against senior FBI bureaucrats at headquarters - to prevent the attacks."

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the award showed "no accountability for poor performance at the bureau."

http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2003/1/10/144716