"As soon as the 9/11 Commission issued its report & closed up shop-CIA quickly destroyed evidence"

Timing, Again
By: emptywheel Saturday December 22, 2007 6:01 am

Marty Lederman http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/12/impeccable-timing.html points out that today's NYT story clarifies one of the issues I've been trying to pinpoint on timing.



http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2007/12/22/timing-again/#comments

writes its report after it is told there are no tapes, then the tapes are destroyed? Was there not a disconnect here, an illegal one?

Seems like CIA officials committed perjury if they didn't tell all of whatever they knew.

I am starting to believe it wasn't only allowed to happen, but it was an inside job as well. This is fucking sick!

Jesus, what does it take -- a signed confession?

made in the US but they can't keep a few boxes of interrogation tapes. Nothing incriminating there, nosiree.

How could the 9/11 commission not know about them?

so he would have been the person to "steer" the committee in the language.

"While at Harvard he worked...on the use, and misuse, of history in policymaking".

"The idea of 'public presumption'," he explained, "is akin to William McNeill's notion of 'public myth'...Such presumptions are beliefs (1) thought to be true (although not necessarily known to be true with certainty), and (2) shared in common within the relevant political community."

"In writing about the importance of beliefs about history, Zelikow has called attention to what he has called "'searing' or 'molding' events take on 'transcendent' importance and, therefore, retain their power even as the experiencing generation passes from the scene".

"In the November-December 1998 issue of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article entitled "Catastrophic Terrorism," in which he speculated that if the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, "the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security...Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after.The United States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zelikow

There are a number of journalists who have speculated that one of the reasons the tapes were destroyed is that they implicated the Saudi government in the 9/11 attacks.

The person being interrogated was Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi national and al Qaeda operative who allegedly was involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks.

He was captured in Pakistan in 2003. During his interrogation, the CIA carried out a "fake flag" operation, in which they pretended to transfer him to Saudi intelligence. The Americans believed that Zubaydah would fear that the Saudis would torture or kill him, and that he would then talk.

Instead, Zubaydah appeared relieved that he had been transfered to the fake Saudis. According to Gerald Posner:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. "He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah assured them.

That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd's nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

...

It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.

He named two other Saudi princes, and also the chief of Pakistan's air force, as his major contacts. Moreover, he stunned his interrogators, by charging that two of the men, the King's nephew, and the Pakistani Air Force chief, knew a major terror operation was planned for America on 9/11.

<end quote>

So the speculation is that the tapes were destroyed to eliminate evidence that the Saudis and Pakistanis were state sponsors of the 9/11 attacks.

It is a huge lie. And, it speaks volumes about the ignorance & patriotism of American citizens, that the majority would let this go.

Unlock 9/11, you unlock the truth.

I didn't read the book but will asap.

Another quote from the article you link to. Zubaydah's contacts conveniently died soon after he talked:

"It would be nice to further investigate the men named by Zubaydah, but that is not possible. All four identified by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes, the King's 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe, after having liposuction in Riyadh's top hospital; the second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one car accident, on his way to the funeral of Prince Ahmed; and one week later, the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, "of thirst." The head of Pakistan's Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, was the last to go. He died, together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides, when his plane blew up -- suspected as sabotage -- in February 2003. "

The 9/11 Commission was a farce designed to avoid telling the public the obvious truth.

other? Aged 25-43? I never realized Princes were so disposable.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Best wishes to you and your's for the Holidays, Sir!

to trace who those foreign officials were connected to in high positions in the US govt (personal, financial/business, strategic/political/diplomatic etc links).

would the fucking teevee gnews act THEN????

:sarcasm:

anyone else think our gov't oversight regarding treason is sorely lacking?

k&r

According to the Cooperative Research History Commons at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timelin... (an EXCELLENT resource -- check it out):

"According to one source, full transcripts are not made, although summaries are drafted and sent back to CIA headquarters. Another source says the opposite, “A detailed written transcript of the tapes’ contents—apparently including references to interrogation techniques—was subsequently made by the CIA.” . . . .

"In at least one case, it seem possible that the 9/11 Commission was not given all the information from CIA interrogations that it needed. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna will later independently view some interrogation transcripts, and from them he will claim that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) confessed to attending a pivotal al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia where the 9/11 plot was discussed (see January 5-8, 2000). The CIA was in charge of monitoring this meeting, so their failure to notice the presence of KSM, a photographed and well-known terrorist mastermind with a $2 million bounty on his head at the time, would have been nearly inexplicable (see July 9, 2003). The Commission subsequently requests direct access to the detainees, but this request is not granted (see November 5, 2003-January 2004)."

Among other things I'd like to know are, was the Commission given all transcripts or summaries in existence as of the time it requested "all documents"? And if so, did none of them mention any videotaping?

In any case, (1) we're seeing a CIA that functions as if Congress is their adversary rather than their ally and boss -- they should have been tripping over themselves to share anything that could possibly be relevant; (2) Congressional investigating committees apparently need better lawyers -- ones smart enough to ask for all info that's relevant or could possibly lead to other relevant info -- in whatever format.

like everyone else, I don't know what happened that day . . .

but I do know what did NOT happen . . .

what did NOT happen is what our government and the 9/11 Commission said DID happen . . .

and that's all I know . . .

Instead of focusing all on the CIA, Bush, Cheney, and other high-ups we can do nothing about, why don't we come back down to earth where we can look squarely into the face of people we can confront regarding fore-knowledge of 9-11.

I, for one, had a detailed knowledge of the attack plans beginning around September of 1997. Starting at that time, and continuing right through the night of September 10, 2001, I told about 130 persons the details. Among them are:

A. Larry W. Bowman, PH.D. international private investigator and government security officer whom I told in 1997.

B. Officer Danny Carey of the Martin County Sheriff Department in Florida to whom I detailed the plans in 1998.

C. The 911 emergency number in Stuart, Florida who I told there were terrorists in the area planning attacks and using airplanes, that in early 2001.

D. An officer of the state, a Mr. Osborne, who I told in early 2001.

E. An emergency number in Fort Pierce, Florida the night of 9-10-01 who I warned of an imminent terrorist attack.

In A,B,C, and D I gave details a to where, naming the WTC, how (commandeered, fuel-laden aircraft), and approximately when. Hardly anyone showed any interest at all, no follow-ups, no investigation.
As for E, I must admit they guy did ask quite a few questions and I refused to give. I only said the attack would happen "very soon." Besides, it was too late by then, and it was clear nobody was interested.

It is weird that none of this info found its way into the media after 9-11, despite my several efforts to get these facts before the American public.

do so