911 Inquiry Must Investigate US Military Command, Intelligence Services and Cheney

Forget Saddam - This Is The 'Dossier' The Public Needs To Read
Was The US's Failure To Prevent 911 Gross Negligence
or Something Worse?

Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Myers - Will They Be Brought To Account By 911 Commission?
911 Inquiry Must Investigate US Military Command, Intelligence Services, and Cheney

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, and US Air Force General Myers
The men who failed to defend America on 911

"The [911 Commission] panel is preparing to hold private meetings in the coming weeks with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney.... [Bush] said it was unnecessary for him to testify publicly and he would not.... Relatives of Sept. 11 victims have demanded that the top government leaders testify publicly, under oath."
9/11 panel calls Tenet and Rumsfeld
Associated Press, 18 February 2004

"Well to tell you the truth I have some mixed feelings because I'm both an American and entrepreneur. So I'm pro-business and very pro-American, but at the same time I have some questions. And one of them is - just recently the 911 Commission was called a whitewash by the victims widows. I want to know what George Bush is hiding."
(US citizen calling in by phone)
Fox TV, January 2004

"Things are starting to come out [from the 911 Commission] that are quite disturbing..."
Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security, University of Maryland
Battle Over 9/11 Panel's Deadline Intensifies
Washington Post, 29 January 2004

"....at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States. US pilots were forced to take to the skies without any weapons......."
Clear the Skies
BBC Online, 29 Aug 2002

"For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented.... Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.... To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs."
9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
CBS News, 17 December 2003

Press Reports Overview

The Day After 911 Two Significant Pieces
Appeared On The Web Sites Of The Russian Newspapers, 'Izvestia' and 'Pravda'.
How Did The Russians Know So Much About The 911 Attacks Before They Took Place
And What Had They Told The US About Them In Advance?

"... According to our intelligence agents among terrorists there were at least two Uzbeks, natives of Fergana who arrived in the USA on forged documents about ten months ago.... The organization of the International Terrorist, according to Russian Intelligence Service agents had been planning an operation against the USA more than a year and a half."
RUSSIA WARNED US OF IMPENDING 9-11 ATTACKS
Izvestia, 12 September 2001

"Generally it is impossible to carry out an act of terror on the scenario which was used in the USA yesterday. We had such facts too. As soon as something like that happens here, I am reported about that right away and in a minute we are all up [in our fighter aircraft].”
Commander-in-Chief of Russian Airforce, Anatoli Kornukov
Pravda online: 18:50 hrs 12 September 2001

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the United States last summer that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets."
Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks
Fox News, 17 May 2002

"'We had clearly warned them,' said Mr. Patrushev, who is head of the FSB, the successor organization to the KGB. He added that their U.S. counterparts 'did not pay the necessary attention' to their warnings, the Interfax news agency reported."
Russia Gave 'Clear Warning'
Agence France-Presse, 16 September 2001

"On July 5 of last year, a month and a day before President Bush first heard that al Qaeda might plan a hijacking, the White House summoned officials of a dozen federal agencies to the Situation Room. 'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon,' the government's top counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, told the assembled group, according to two of those present. The group included the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Clarke directed every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer nonvital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. For six weeks last summer, at home and overseas, the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness -- and anxiety -- against imminent terrorist attack. That intensity -- defensive in nature -- did not last. By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert.... As late as July 31, the FAA urged U.S. airlines to maintain a 'high degree of alertness.' All those alert levels dropped by the time hijackers armed with box cutters took control of four jetliners on the morning of Sept. 11."
Before Sept. 11, Unshared Clues and Unshaped Policy
Washington Post, 17 May 2002

"One intelligence document that Woodward described in a May, 2002 Washington Post story, although not in his book, is the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB given to Bush while on vacation at his ranch in Crawford. This is the day that intelligence officials briefed Bush on the prospect of an upcoming Al Qaeda attack and the prospect that terrorists might seek to hijack commercial airliners — a warning that critics have long charged should have triggered a more vigorous response from the White House. The title of the PDB, according to Woodward's story, was more prophetic than the White House has ever acknowledged: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'"
Extraordinary Measures - A recalcitrant Bush administration forces the 9/11 Commission to poke into Bob Woodward's notebook
Newsweek, 18 February 2004

"On Sept. 10.... a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."
Bush: ‘We’re At War’
Newsweek, 24 September 2001

"..... incredibly there were just four fighters planes on stand-by in the North Eastern United States [on 911].... in the bunker underneath [the White House] ... in charge there was the Vice President Dick Cheney... during those crucial hours ... The local airforce commander had so few resources available he began diverting [unarmed] jets on training missions.... Until September 11 Americans had felt secure at home. Afterwards they realised there was no such thing as immunity from the world's conflicts. That continues to inform much of the administration's thinking about Iraq..."
Gavin Hewitt, BBC News - Video report
BBC Online, (Real Video) 29 August 2002

"'We want to know why the jets at Pomona were decommissioned,' said John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general now on the [911] commission's Manhattan staff. An even larger concern is why fighters at other Air Force bases were not scrambled fast enough to protect New York City after the Federal Aviation Administration learned about the hijackings. 'That's a big question,' Kean said in a recent interview.... NORAD confirmed it had only eight fighters on the East Coast for emergency scrambles on Sept. 11. Throughout Canada and the United States, including Alaska, NORAD had 20 fighters on alert - armed, fueled up, and ready to fly in minutes. Four years earlier, NORAD could count on having 175 jets ready to scramble, including two on the tarmac at Atlantic City's airport. With the New Jersey Air National Guard's 17 F-16s out of the picture on Sept. 11, the commission is trying to assess why the Pentagon left what seems to be a yawning gap in the midsection of its air defenses on the East Coast - a gap with New York City at the center...."
Atlantic City F-16 Fighters Were Eight Minutes Away From 9/11 Hijacked Planes
North Jersey Media Group, 5 December 2003

"[Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob] Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the World Trade Center."
Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass
The Palm Beach Post, 17 October 2002

"U.S. Rep. Ben Gilman has called for an investigation. 'The government knows about those involved in my case who were never charged, never deported, who actively took part in bringing terrorists into our country to meet with me and undercover agents,' Glass said."
Con Man Turned Patriot Tells All
Cox News Service, 2 August 2002

"Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the government of George W. Bush initially blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism .... In the book 'Bin Laden, la verite interdite ('Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July [2001] in protest over the obstruction."
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
Inter Press Service, 15 November 2001

"Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop investigations into a suspected
terror cell linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the Sept. 11 attacks.... even after the [1998 African embassy] bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests."
Called Off the Trail?
ABCNews 19 Dec 2002

"[911 hijackers] Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar had numerous contacts with a long-time FBI counterterrorism informant while they were living in San Diego, California... In its November 18, 2002 written response to the [911 Congressional] Joint Inquiry, the FBI has acknowledged that there are 'significant inconsistencies' in the informant’s statements about these [counterterrorism] contacts [with the 911 hijackers before the attacks]. The FBI investigation regarding this issue is continuing.... The [Bush] Administration has to date objected to the Inquiry’s efforts to interview the informant in order to attempt to resolve those inconsistencies. The Administration also would not agree to allow the FBI to serve a Committee subpoena and deposition notice on the informant. Instead, written interrogatories from the Joint Inquiry were, at the suggestion of the FBI, provided to the informant. Through an attorney, the informant has declined to respond to those interrogatories and has indicated that, if subpoenaed, the informant would request a grant of immunity prior to testifying."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001 indicating that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the United States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States..... As noted earlier, the Joint Inquiry has established that the Intelligence Community acquired and disseminated from 1998 through the summer of 2001 intelligence reports indicating in broad terms that Usama Bin Ladin’s network intended to carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States. This information encompassed, for example, indications of plots for attacks within the United States that would include...*attacks on civil aviation .... * attacks on Washington, D.C., [and] New York City .... * crashing aircraft into buildings as weapons..."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"It is a document that fundamentally questions the motives behind the Bush administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war with Iraq. Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes how America is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history. It targets Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi oilfields and recommends the use of 'military intervention' as a means to fix the US energy crisis. The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice-President Dick Cheney in April 2001 -- a full five months before September 11. Yet it advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields. One of the most telling passages in the document reads: 'Iraq remains a destabilising influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.'..... At the heart of the decision to target Iraq over oil lies dire mismanagement of the US energy policy over decades by consecutive administrations. The report refers to the huge power cuts that have affected California in recent years and warns of 'more Californias' ahead. It says the 'central dilemma' for the US administration is that 'the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience'. With the 'energy sector in critical condition, a crisis could erupt at any time [which] could have potentially enormous impact on the US ... and would affect US national security and foreign policy in dramatic ways.'''
The West's Battle For Oil
Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

"That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,' says O'Neill in the book.... "
Saddam Ouster Planned Early '01?
CBS News, 10 January 2003

"In a remarkably frank interview with the London 'Daily Telegraph', [head of the Iraqi Congress Ahmed] Chalabi said he was willing to take full responsibility for the INC's role in providing misleading intelligence and defectors to President George W. Bush, Congress and the U.S. public to persuade them that Hussein posed a serious threat to the United States that had to be dealt with urgently.... Within the administration, Chalabi worked most closely with those who had championed his cause for a decade, particularly neo-conservatives around Cheney and Rumsfeld -- Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defence Douglas Feith and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby. Feith's office was home to the office of special plans (OSP) whose two staff members and dozens of consultants were tasked with reviewing raw intelligence to develop the strongest possible case that Hussein represented a compelling threat to the United States. OSP also worked with the defence policy board (DPB), a hand-picked group of mostly neo-conservative hawks chaired until just before the war by Richard Perle, a long-time Chalabi friend. DPB members, particularly Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, played prominent roles in publicising through the media reports by INC defectors and other alleged evidence developed by OSP that made Hussein appear as scary as possible. Chalabi even participated in a secret DPB meeting just a few days after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon in which the main topic of discussion, according to the 'Wall Street Journal', was how 9/11 could be used as a pretext for attacking Iraq."
Chalabi, Garner Provide New Clues to War
Inter Press Service, 21 February 2004

'Operation Mass Appeal' - How Britain's MI6 participated in this plot - click here

"The case was made [on 15 Sept 2001] for an attack against Iraq by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary and one of the more hawkish members of the Administration. He argued that September 11 provided a perfect pretext to hit Baghdad."
Decision to deal with bin Laden first, then Saddam
London Times, 29 August 2002

" The public unravelling of the grand scheme that the neo-conservatives have been privately hatching behind closed doors for years began when the Sunday Herald started to investigate the activities of an almost unknown think-tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) just over a year ago.... PNAC is a veritable who’s who of the leading lights in George 'Dubya' Bush’s administration. It was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff and Bush’s brother, Jeb, governor of the hanging-chad state of Florida. .... One of the most cynical comments in the [PNAC] document regarding the expansion of US military power is as follows: 'The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.' The document was written, remember, before September 11."
Rise of the Neo Cons
Sunday Herald, 23 December 2003

"Deceit at Pearl Harbor highlights the fact that Roosevelt allegedly knew about the attack weeks before it occurred, yet kept this information from the public as a means of swaying public opinion in favor of joining the war after the attack had taken place. As the last surviving member of Admiral Husband Kimmel's (then Commander of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor) staff, LTC Landis also serves to disprove that the lack of readiness for the attack was the fault of Admiral Kimmel."
Deceit at Pearl Harbor: From Pearl Harbor to Midway
New Book - July 2001 - Amazon.com - click here

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do [at Pearl Harbor] was known to the United States..."
ARMY BOARD, 1944

AS A RESULT OF THE US GOVERNMENT'S FAILURE TO PREVENT 911
INTERNATIONAL STABILITY HAS BEEN SHATTERED

WHETHER THROUGH INCOMPETENCE OR WILLFUL NEGLECT, THE PRICE OF INACTION BY A FEW IS BEING PAID BY THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY

"'What should I write about 9/11?' I asked a former New York City official....'Write that the government let us down.'... The tendency now is to play the sad bagpipes and fly the glorious flag and rally around those whose job it was to ensure that nothing like 9/11 ever happened. Yet it did. An accounting has yet to be made."
Why It Happened
Washington Post, 5 Sept 2002

SOME BIG QUESTIONS AND SOME DISTURBING EVIDENCE
(click on the link to view evidence in relation to each question)

Some Key Outstanding Questions
The 911 Commission Needs to Investigate and Answer

Why did the Bush Administration ignore the large number of advance warnings of 911, including the use of aircraft as the potential means of attack? - click here

Why were America's air defences unprepared for 911, and what opportunity did their failure create for the Bush Administration? - click here

Does the Bush Administration really think that no one knows how it used the ashes of 911 to implement a pre-meditated attack on Iraq? - click here

Seated in the White House Vice President Cheney was in command of America's defence response to the hijacking attacks on 911. Once the World Trade Centre was hit why did Cheney, a former Defense Secretary himself under the previous Bush administration, contact Richard Armitage the most senior State Department official in the country at the time, but not Air Force General Richard Myers, the most senior military officer in the country at the time? - click here

Why did the Bush Administration reduce the level of alert during August 2001 just as the warnings from overseas intelligence agencies were intensifying, particularly from the Israelis and the Russians? Will the head of the Russian Airforce give evidence to the 911 Commission? And will the head of the CIA be cross-examined on this? - click here

The BBC documentary 'Clear the Skies' has put the spotlight on the Bush Administration's failure to prepare its defences for 911. Why were US fighters pilots only available on 911 from remote locations, and after unexplained delays? Why were the pilots not informed of the serious situation both on the ground and in the air? And why were they not instructed to fly at supersonic speeds? - click here

After the World Trade Centre was attacked why were Rumsfeld and Myers, the two most senior men in the Department of Defense on the day, allowed to continue with meetings with Congressmen rather than attend to the crisis which was being watched live around the world on television? - click here

What do press reports tell us about US government foreknowledge of the attacks? - click here

Given the exceptionally high risk of attacks at the time, and given the longstanding knowledge that al Qaeda had been contemplating air attacks (at least 12 US intelligence reports over 7 years, including targets in Washington and New York), why wasn't the US airforce tooled up on 911and ready to go? Why did America allow the creation of impotent air defences before 911? - click here

Why did Bush not order the necessary full airforce response on 911 until 9.55 am, and what was Cheney telling him from the White House in the meantime? - click here

Why is US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice unwilling to give unrestricted public testimony under oath to the 911 Commission? - click here

Why is Vice President Cheney at the centre of both suspicions about 911, and suspicions about US energy policy? Why is he fighting through the courts to stop the public release of papers relating to his energy task force? - click here

What part did the US secret service and Cheney play in the slow response of America's defences to the hijackings on 911, and the failure to prepare for those attacks in the weeks before despite the warnings? - click here

What does the Bush Administration have to say about the case of Damart Vreeland relating to US government foreknowledge of the attacks? - click here

Are claims that the US intelligence services were involved in a 'Let one happen. Stop the rest' exercise (in order to create a new Pearl Harbor type pretext for the seizing of Iraq and the associated control of the Persian Gulf) inconsistent with the established facts? What is the evidence that key elements of the intelligence services deliberately stalled on apprehending the plotting 911 terrorists? - click here

What does the Bush Administration have say about the case of Randy Glass and Rajaa Gulum Abbas? - click here

Why isn't the American public getting answers to some important questions? And will the 911 Commission address the specific questions raised in February 2004 by the families of 911 victims? - click here

How much faith can be placed in the official 911 Commission originally intended by the Bush administration to be run by arch geo-political schemer, Henry Kissinger? Will it ask and vigorously pursue the most telling questions? - click here

What kind of acute circumstances would motivate a US government to execute extreme measures of deception against the American public? - click here or on graph immediately below

"The [911 Victims] Family Steering Committee believes that President Bush should provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . Collectively, the Commissioners are responsible for fulfilling the Congressional mandate. Therefore, each Commissioner must have full access to the testimony of all individuals and the critical information that will enable informed decisions and recommendations. Before an audience of the American people, the Commission must ask President Bush in sworn testimony, the following questions ...... "
The [911 Victims] Family Steering Committee Statement and Questions
Regarding the 9/11 Commission Interview with President Bush
Monday 16 February 2004

"A lawyer for a widow suing the Bush administration for negligence in the 9-11 terrorist attacks asked a New Hampshire audience Wednesday to press presidential candidates on whether they will investigate the attacks.... Mariani's husband, Neil Mariani, was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, the second of two planes to crash into the World Trade Center..... [she] filed a racketeering lawsuit last year in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, accusing President Bush and top members of his administration of knowing such hijackings were imminent, but failing to prevent them for personal and political gain...."
9/11 widow in N.H. talks about her lawsuit against the government
Associated Press, 22 January 2004

"A majority of Americans believe Mr Bush lied or deliberately exaggerated evidence to make the case for war in Iraq."
Kerry says claims of affair with intern are just rumour
London Times, 14 February 2004

"The ex-police chief told [CIA veteran and terrorism expert Bob] Baer that [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed 'is going to hijack some planes.' The ex-police chief said his basis for this was evidence developed by police and Qatari intelligence... Baer sent this information [before 911] to a friend in the CIA Counter-terrorist Center who forwarded the information to his superiors. Baer heard nothing. 'There was no interest,' he said...."
UPI Exclusive: Pearl tracked al Qaida
United Press International, 30 September 2002

"Beginning in 1998 and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community received a modest, but relatively steady, stream of intelligence reporting that indicated the possibility of terrorist attacks within the United States..... the Intelligence Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons. This information did not stimulate any specific Intelligence Community assessment of, or collective U.S. Government reaction to, this form of threat.... Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community had information linking Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM), now recognized by the Intelligence Community as the mastermind of the attacks, to Bin Ladin, to terrorist plans to use aircraft as weapons, and to terrorist activity in the United States.... the Inquiry confirmed that the Intelligence Community did receive intelligence reporting concerning the potential use of aircraft as weapons.... Some, but apparently not all, of these reports were disseminated within the Intelligence Community and to other agencies... KSM came to the attention of the Intelligence Community as a terrorist in early 1995 when he was linked to Ramzi Yousef’s 'Bojinka Plot' in the Philippines. One portion of that plot involved the idea of crashing an airplane into CIA Headquarters. Through additional intelligence and investigative efforts in 1995, KSM was also connected to the first World Trade Center bombing. He was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in January 1996. The indictment was kept under seal until 1998 while the FBI and CIA attempted to locate him and arrange to take him into custody. Subsequently, indications were received that he might have been involved in the East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"In June 2001, [***** ] disseminated a report to all Intelligence Community agencies, [**** ], military commanders, and components in the Treasury and Justice Departments emphasizing KSM’s ties to Bin Ladin as well as his continuing travel to the United States. The report explained that KSM appears to be one of Bin Ladin’s most trusted lieutenants and was active in recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan, including to the United States, on behalf of Bin Ladin. According to the report, he traveled frequently to the United States, including as recently as May 2001, and routinely told others that he could arrange their entry into the United States as well. Reportedly, these individuals were expected to establish contact with colleagues already there. The clear implication of his comments, according to the report, was that they would be engaged in planning terrorist-related activities. Although this particular report was sent from the CIA to the FBI, neither agency apparently recognized the significance of a Bin Ladin lieutenant sending terrorists to the United States and asking them to establish contacts with colleagues already there... CTC [Counterterrorist Center] questioned this report at the time and commented: 'We doubt the real [KSM] would do this…because if it is [KSM], we have both a significant threat and an opportunity to pick him up.'"
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"[There was] a climax of concern during the summer of 2001 about imminent attacks by Al-Qa’ida upon U.S. targets....the FBI knew about terrorist interest in U.S. flight schools and in the potential use of aircraft as weapons... The CIA was made aware of the Phoenix special agent’s concerns about flight schools, but it offered no feedback despite the information the CIA possessed about terrorists’ interest in using aircraft as weapons.... The full contents of the 'Phoenix Memo' have yet to be made public, but it is astonishing that so little was made of it, especially since it drew readers’ attention to certain information already in the FBI’s possession suggesting a very specific reason to be alarmed about one particular foreign student at an aviation university in the United States... The FBI...[also] knew that convicted terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad had been involved in an extremist Islamic plot toblow up 12 U.S.-owned airliners over the Pacific Ocean and crash an aircraft in to CIA Headquarters.... being aware of ... disparate and potentially connected bits of information is at the core of all-source intelligence analysis 'fusion.' Such fusion, apparently, was quite beyond the capabilities of the FBI. Despite all the FBI knew about terrorist interest in U.S. flight schools and in the potential use of aircraft as weapons, for example, it had declared in December 2000 in a joint report with the FAA that its 'investigations' did not suggest any 'evidence' of terrorist plans to target U.S.domestic civil aviation.... By the summer of 2001, the FBI knew from the Phoenix EC about UBL-associated individuals training at U.S. flight schools, that UBL’s organization also used the Norman flight school Moussaoui attended, about past Libyan efforts to send terrorists through aviation training in the U.S., and that Murad had planned to attack the CIA with an aircraft. As a result, the FBI was the U.S. Government agency probably best positioned in the late summer of 2001 to 'connect the dots' with an analytical assessment warning of terrorist interest in using U.S.-trained pilots to crash aircraft into symbolic American buildings."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"Loftus recently received an FBI translation of a highly classified and encrypted Al Qaida document, circa 1997-1998, which was retrieved and decrypted from a computer laptop following the Embassy bombing in Africa. The document was written by Osama Bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed Atef, under his nom de guerre, Abu Haf, and reveals extensive knowledge of the supposedly secret pipeline negotiations [in Afghanistan], and their potential economic worth to the Taliban, Pakistan and the U.S.... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa. O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse".
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
Press Release, former federal prosecutor, John Loftus, 31 May 2002

"FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11....the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year".
FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
London Guardian, 7 Nov 2001

"In March 2001, an intelligence source reported that a group of bin Laden operatives was planning to conduct an unspecified attack in the United States. In April, the intelligence community obtained information that terrorist operatives in California and New York State were planning terrorist attacks..... the report said: 'From at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the intelligence community received information indicating, among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons.....'"
9/11 report describes test runs
Boston Globe, 25 July 2003

"Eleanor Hill, staff director for the joint House-Senate inquiry into alleged intelligence failures ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks, released a 30-page statement Wednesday that found information on possible terrorist strikes continued to filter through the nation's intelligence system in the months directly before the attacks... Hill's report details a July 2001 briefing for senior government officials that said a review of five months of intelligence information indicated 'that [Bin Laden] will launch a significant attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks... The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made.... Attack will occur with little or no warning.'... Such intelligence information dated back as far as 1998, Hill's report said, citing intelligence information in the fall of 1998 saying bin Laden's 'next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it' and a separate dispatch warned of a bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York City and Washington, D.C. areas."
U.S. HAD 'STEADY STREAM' OF PRE-9/11 WARNINGS
PBS News, 18 September 2002

"Investigators working for the Senate and House intelligence committees found numerous reports in the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy organizations suggesting that the bin Laden network was eager to mount attacks within the United States. There were also warnings that terrorists were considering using airplanes.... one August 1998 report [indicated] that terrorists might fly a plane into the World Trade Center".
While America slept
New York Times, 19 Sept 2002

"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters....Yousef was planning simultaneous bombings of 11 U.S. airliners prior to his capture. Whatever form an attack may take, bin Laden will most likely retaliate in a spectacular way for the cruise missile attack against his Afghan camp in August 1998."
'Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism'
US National Intelligence Council Report, Sept 1999

"Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon."
Richard Clarke, White House Terrorist Adviser, Informing Multiple Security Agencies, 5 July 2001
Washington Post, 17 May 2002

"On July 5 of last year, a month and a day before President Bush first heard that al Qaeda might plan a hijacking, the White House summoned officials of a dozen federal agencies to the Situation Room. 'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon,' the government's top counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, told the assembled group, according to two of those present. The group included the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Clarke directed every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer nonvital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. For six weeks last summer, at home and overseas, the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness -- and anxiety -- against imminent terrorist attack. That intensity -- defensive in nature -- did not last. By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert...."
Before Sept. 11, Unshared Clues and Unshaped Policy
Washington Post, 17 May 2002

"The documents we’ve provided show some 12 reports spread over seven years which pertain to possible use of aircraft as terrorist weapons. We disseminated those reports to the appropriate agencies, such as the FAA, the Department of Transportation and the FBI as they came in."
Evidence given by the Director of the CIA, George Tenet
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"In 1993, a $150,000 study was commissioned by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to bomb national landmarks. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."
Nine hundred and Eleven Missing Pieces
New York Press, Volume 16, Issue 53, 2004

"The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard. Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas. Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the 'plane crash' was a simulated one. The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 [2000] in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room. On Oct. 24 [2000], there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident to name just some of the scenarios that were practiced to better prepare local agencies for real incidents....'We go over scenarios that are germane to the Pentagon,' Jake Burrell of the Pentagon Emergency Management Team said.... In this particular crash there would have been 341 victims. "
Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies
Military District of Washington News Service, 3 Nov 2000

"Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001 indicating that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the United States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States. ..... As noted earlier, the Joint Inquiry has established that the Intelligence Community acquired and disseminated from 1998 through the summer of 2001 intelligence reports indicating in broad terms that Usama Bin Ladin’s network intended to carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States. This information encompassed, for example, indications of plots for attacks within the United States that would include...attacks on civil aviation....attacks on Washington, D.C., [and] New York City, ....crashing aircraft into buildings as weapons..."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"American intelligence services had been warned that Osama Bin Laden was considering attacking US targets with aircraft three years before the 11 September attacks, a congressional investigator said.... Ms Hill's report says that despite all of this information, the US 'intelligence community did not produce any specific assessments of the likelihood that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons'. The US Government has always said it could never have predicted the 11 September attacks. But the BBC's Rob Watson in Washington says the [latest] report casts serious and dramatic doubts on those claims."
US had 'many terror warnings'
BBC Online, 18 September 2002

"...numerous classified intelligence reports were produced and disseminated by the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, based upon information obtained from a variety of sources, about possible terrorist attacks being planned by Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network. Some of this information was summarized and released, in declassified form, in the Joint Inquiry’s September 18, 2002 hearing, including:

"U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations, officials said Wednesday.... Italian officials took the reports seriously enough to prompt extraordinary precautions during the July summit of the Group of 8 nations, including closing the airspace over Genoa and stationing antiaircraft guns at the city's airport..... the reports suggest that Western governments were aware that terrorists might one day use a hijacked airplane as a suicide weapon--as they did Sept. 11 in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.......The Genoa warning was disclosed last week by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini..... In any case, the possibility of suicide hijackings has been known to U.S. counter-terrorism officials for several years...... In 1996, a terrorist captured in Manila told Philippine police that Al Qaeda planned to hijack 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and to fly a plane into CIA headquarters near Washington."
Los Angeles Times, 27 September 2001

"But by the summer, policy reviews were hardly what was needed. Intelligence services were picking up enough chatter about a terrorist attack to scare the pants off top officials..... In mid-July, Tenet sat down for a special meeting with [Condoleeza] Rice and aides. 'George briefed Condi that there was going to be a major attack,' says an official ..... Tenet couldn't rule out a domestic attack..... One date already worrying the Secret Service was July 20, when Bush would arrive in Genoa for the G-8 summit; Tenet had intelligence that al-Qaeda was planning to attack Bush there. The Italians ..... closed airspace around the town and ringed it with antiaircraft guns. "
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine Online, 4 Aug 2002

".... it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation. The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested... All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft. It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.... The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11.... Given this background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance.... the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into 'tomorrow's dominant force' is likely to be a long one in the absence of 'some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor'. The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies."
Michael Meacher, former Blair government Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
Guardian, 6 September 2003

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do [at Pearl Harbor] was known to the United States..."
ARMY BOARD, 1944

"On September 11 America was wholly unprepared for an attack on its own soil. These two pilots - with call signs 'Duff and Nasty' - were the first to be scrambled on news planes were being hijacked. Yet incredibly there were just four fighter planes on standby in the north eastern United States."
Gavin Hewitt, BBC News - Video report
BBC Online, (Real Video) 29 August 2002

"The [911] commission has rescheduled a hearing to delve into air defense questions, from mid-January to early March, so investigators can have more time to go through records and other information recently received from NORAD and the Federal Aviation Administration in special subpoenas."
Atlantic City F-16 Fighters Were Eight Minutes Away From 9/11 Hijacked Planes
North Jersey Media Group, 5 December 2003

"About 8:50, however, Burlingame and Charlebois [the pilots of Flight 77 which hit the Pentagon] stopped responding to radio calls..."
Probe reconstructs horror, calculated attacks on planes
Boston Globe, 23 Nov 2001

"There's a huge Air Force Base 10 miles from the Pentagon, Andrews Air Force Base, that has two combat-ready fighter wings. The Air National Guard Fighter Wing describes itself as being maintained in the highest possible state of combat readiness. None of those planes went in the air [in time on Sept 11]. But then, a few minutes after the Pentagon was hit, they did go in the air, because we have news reports about that. Why would that happen?.... At 9:06 the FAA, according to their account, closed the air corridor between Cleveland [Ohio] and Washington, DC. If they closed this air corridor, which is one of the most extreme actions the FAA has ever taken, why wouldn't they put planes in the air over Washington? .... How could it be possible for Flight 77 to go to Ohio and turn around under those circumstances and fly 50 minutes back to the Pentagon and nothing be done? How could no planes be put in the air over Washington, DC during the entire period that that plane was coming from Ohio back to Washington, DC, given all that they knew and given that they knew enough to close the air corridor?.... There were articles in the New York Times of September 13th and September 15th which stated that the Pentagon knew that that plane was coming from Ohio. The Pentagon was in touch with the FAA immediately about it. Now, under those circumstances why wouldn't they scramble planes into the air from Andrews Air Force Base? Just think about it. The President's plane flies into and departs from Andrews Air Force Base. You mean to tell me they have no fighter escorts there? If the President is in trouble they have to call from Langley Air Force Base [126 miles away] to please come help? They have 10,000 people working there and they can't put a plane in the air? Please. .. Before 9-11, the D.C. Air National Guard Website had a statement that they maintained planes in the highest possible state of combat readiness. Now if that doesn't mean they're ready to fly what does it mean? What's the highest possible state of combat readiness? ... We're not talking about ordinary incompetence. Two planes had hit buildings in New York. They knew those planes had been highjacked. They knew a hijacked plane was coming towards Washington, D.C. They didn't know it for just five minutes. They knew it for almost an hour."
Jared Israel Interviewed by Mark Haim
WKOPN 89.5 FM (Missouri) Evening Edition 2 April 2002

"Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, summoned by the White House to the bunker, was on an open line to the Federal Aviation Administration operations center, monitoring Flight 77 as it hurtled toward Washington, with radar tracks coming every seven seconds."
America's Chaotic Road to War
Washington Post, 27 January 2002

".....in no case was there apparently enough time after the FAA's warning for fighter planes to reach the hijacked airliners. More puzzling, there were 45 minutes between air traffic controllers losing contact with the third airliner, which took off from Dulles airport just outside Washington, and its crash on to the Pentagon."
Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks
London, Daily Telegraph, 16 September 2001

"The two F-16s that deployed to intercept American Airlines Flight 77 did not get off the ground until just 2 minutes before the plane crashed into the Pentagon. They were about 130 miles from their target. The District of Columbia National Guard maintained fighter planes at Andrews Air Force Base, only about 15 miles from the Pentagon, but those planes were not on alert and not deployed."
Shoot-down order issued on morning of chaos
USA Today, 16 September 2001

"McKinley and retired NORAD commander Larry Arnold, who was at the helm on 9/11, said it would have been possible to scramble fighter jets over the capital before hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon if the Federal Aviation Administration had notified NORAD earlier of that particular hijacking. FAA officials say they were in early informal contact with NORAD, even though the official notification came later."
On 9/11, U.S. radar was facing wrong way 'Cold War vestige' guided air defenses
Star-Ledger, 23 May 2003

"Air defense around Washington is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland near the District of Columbia border. The D.C. Air National Guard is also based there and equipped with F-16 fighter planes, a National Guard spokesman said. But the fighters took to the skies over Washington only after the devastating attack on the Pentagon, which is alongside a flight path to Ronald Reagan National Airport."
SECURITY CRACKS EXPOSED
The San Diego Union - Tribune, Sep 12, 2001

"There remains one question to ask about Sept. 11. What happened? We know the story. Terrorists hijacked four passenger jets. At 8:45 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston smashes into the World Trade Center’s north tower. At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston smashes into the south tower. At 9:40 a.m., AA Flight 77 from Dulles hits the Pentagon. At 10:10 a.m., United Flight 93 from Newark crashes in Shanksville, PA. Yet the most amazing feature of the U.S. government’s response to these events was the almost complete absence of it. Jared Israel on his website www.tenc.net has blazed a trail with fascinating and meticulous research. Initial reports suggested that no aircraft were scrambled to intercept or shoot down the hijacked jets. Two days later Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee: 'When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACs, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked... That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck.' Marine Corps Maj. Mike Snyder, a spokesman for NORAD, echoed Myers in a Sept. 15 Boston Globe story, which stated: '[T]he command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted to a hijacking 10 minutes before the first plane…slammed into the first World Trade Center tower... The spokesman said the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit...' U.S. inaction was all the more astonishing because the same story had Snyder admitting that 'fighters routinely intercept aircraft.' So why were no fighters dispatched to intercept planes on an extraordinary day like Sept. 11? Within days the story changed and it turned out that two F-15 fighters had in fact been scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, MA. Whether this took place before or after the first tower was struck is not clear. In any case it was too late to make a difference. When the second tower was hit the fighters were still 70 miles from Manhattan. We also learned that two F-16 fighters had been scrambled from Langley Air Force Base to try to intercept Flight 77, but they also arrived too late. In fact, they only took off from Langley two minutes before the Boeing 757 smashed into the Pentagon. There are a number of problems with this story. In the first place, 45 minutes had elapsed from the time the air traffic controllers lost contact with Flight 77 and its crash into the Pentagon. On Sept. 15 The New York Times reported: 'Flight 77…would have been visible on the F.A.A.’s radar system as it reversed course in the Midwest…to fly back to Washington. The radars would have observed it even though its tracking beacon had been turned off.' There is an even more troubling question. Why were the fighters dispatched from Langley, more than 130 miles from the Pentagon, rather than Andrews Air Force Base–a mere 10 miles away? Early media reports suggested that there were no available aircraft at Andrews that day. This is bizarre to say the least. First, if there were no fighter aircraft available that day at Andrews, how did they miraculously make their appearance over the DC sky after the Pentagon was struck? Yet this is what NBC reported on Sept. 11, as did other news outlets. Moreover, Andrews AFB is responsible for air defense around Washington. The DC Air National Guard is based there, which is equipped with F-16s. The 113th Wing is based there. According to the Andrews website: 'Training for air combat and operational airlift for national defense is the 113th’s primary mission. However, as part of its dual mission, the 113th provides capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency.' You can’t get more emergency than Sept. 11! "
Scrambled Messages
New York Press, 12 Dec 2001

"The Bush Administration began making plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 -- not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks, as has been previously reported. That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to CBS News Correspondent Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.... Suskind says O'Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall -- including post-war contingencies such as peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil. 'There are memos,' Suskind tells Stahl, 'One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.' A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled 'Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,' outlines areas of oil exploration. 'It talks about contractors around the world from... 30, 40 countries, and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq,' Suskind says.... In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. 'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,' says O'Neill in the book.... "
Saddam Ouster Planned Early '01?
CBS News, 10 January 2003

"Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has revealed he saw no evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed a chemical and biological arsenal. George Bush was planning the invasion of Iraq from the moment he became US President, Mr O’Neill said. His claims have been dismissed as the bitter attack of a sacked man by President Bush’s supporters. But they were backed today by Greg Thielmann, director of the Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US State Department until his retirement last year."
New Blow to Blair over Iraq
Press Association, 13 January 2004

" Mr O'Neill said invading Iraq was 'topic A' at the very first meeting of President George Bush's National Security Council, 10 days after his inauguration on 20 January 2001, and continued to be an abiding theme in follow-up meetings....The disclosure will provide further ammunition for to Bush critics who believe the administration cynically exploited the 11 September terror attacks to launch an aggressive policy of global military interventionism that neo-conservative hawks such as Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had been advocating for years. It makes clear that hints of a link between Saddam and the 11 September attacks, repeatedly made by administration officials in the run-up to the war but never substantiated, were a political convenience, not the driving motivation behind the invasion. And it also poses a considerable challenge to the official version of history, which has sought to portray Mr Bush as undergoing a near-religious conversion after 11 September from a meek peacetime leader to a man with a global mission to stamp out evil...."
Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, says ex-treasury secretary
The Independent, 12 January 2004

"The American who led the hunt for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) for the past eight months resigned last night, saying he did not believe Saddam Hussein had possessed such an arsenal for a decade. 'I don’t think they existed,' said David Kay 'What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last 1991 Gulf War and I don’t think there was a large-scale production programme in the Nineties.... Just two days ago Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, repeated his conviction that the weapons existed..."
Saddam's large WMD stockpiles did not exist, admits American who led hunt
London Times, 24 January 2004

"A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001. ..... "
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
Sunday Herald, 15 Sept 2002

"This has been the year that the neo-cons grabbed the world by the nose and kicked it in the balls. At least that’s how one cynical wag in the intelligence community put it recently, paraphrasing General Patton’s infamous military dictum on how to deal with the enemy, when I asked him what the last 365 days had meant to the men now controlling the White House. This has been the year during which their plans – long-harboured and truly revolutionary – finally crept out into the light and came to fruition. The public unravelling of the grand scheme that the neo-conservatives have been privately hatching behind closed doors for years began when the Sunday Herald started to investigate the activities of an almost unknown think-tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) just over a year ago.... PNAC is a veritable who’s who of the leading lights in George 'Dubya' Bush’s administration. It was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff and Bush’s brother, Jeb, governor of the hanging-chad state of Florida. At first sight it may seem nothing more than a gentlemen’s club and talking shop for a lot of very rich and very powerful right-wingers. But that’s until you read what is, in effect, the PNAC’s mission statement – titled Rebuilding America’s Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century. It is no exaggeration to refer to this as a chilling piece of work. It was – very importantly – written months before Bush took power. The document shows that the Bush neo-cons were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq and the 'regime change' of Saddam Hussein even before they took office. The plan shows that Bush’s Cabinet wanted to take military control of the Gulf whether or not Saddam was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.' One of the most cynical comments in the document regarding the expansion of US military power is as follows: 'The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.' The document was written, remember, before September 11."
Rise of the Neo Cons
Sunday Herald, 23 December 2003

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do [at Pearl Harbor] was known to the United States..."
ARMY BOARD, 1944

Get copy of document by Rumsfeld et al here - 93 page pdf document - CLICK HERE

"CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.... Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld."
Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11
CBSNews, 4 Sept 2002

"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11".
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld claiming that the invasion of Iraq was due to 911
Rumsfeld brushes aside WMD fears
BBC Online, 9 July 2003

'Operation Mass Appeal' - How Britain's MI6 participated in this plot - click here

"But now his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has given a round of interviews in which she acknowledges possible flaws in pre-war intelligence. The central argument used by the United States for invading Iraq was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. But more than nine months after Baghdad fell to US forces, no such weapons have been found. Ms Rice's comments follow calls from the former senior US weapons inspector, David Kay, for an independent inquiry. Mr Kay - who resigned last week - has said that in his view there were no significant stockpiles in Iraq before the war."
US admits Iraq intelligence flaws
BBC Online, 30 January 2004

'Operation Mass Appeal' - How Britain's MI6 participated in this plot - click here

"At a NATO conference in Prague last November, [former CIA Director James] Woolsey declared 'Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war,' in rhetoric that he has practiced and honed virtually since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. 'After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe,' he said, 'the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East.' ....."
Woolsey's Role Crucial to Impact of Occupation
'Foreign Policy in Focus', 8 April 2003

"I was seated in this very room, and my executive assistant came in and said one of the towers in New York had been hit by an aircraft. I ran in there, immediately picked up the phone and called to the assistant secretary forcounter-terrorism. Even before the second airplane went in, I thought it was impossible to have this happen actually on a clear day and said, 'We've got a problem.' About that moment, the second aircraft went into the tower, which I watched on television. Immediately after that, I was told to go to the operations center here to get on call to the vice-president, and I spent the rest of the day in the ops center with the vice-president."
Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State
'With Us or Against US', Programme 1, BBC Radio 4, 20 August 2002
(pdf file transcript - click here)

"Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power... The group was never secret about its aims. In its 1998 open letter to Clinton, the group openly advocated unilateral U.S. action against Iraq.... Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage ... "
Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
ABC News, 10 March 2003

"On March 23, after being recommended in a unanimous 18-0 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Vietnam-era covert operative and Contra-era figure Richard Armitage was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State in a voice vote on the Senate Floor.... The total lack of opposition to Armitage's appointment indicates an apparent inability of the US Congress to muster any critical examination of appointments... Armitage, who was denied a 1989 appointment as Assistant Secretary of State because of links to Iran-Contra and other scandals, served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years. U.S. Government stipulations in the Oliver North trial specifically named Armitage as one of the DoD officials responsible for illegal transfers of weapons to Iran and the Contras.... A Vietnam veteran and graduate of Annapolis, Armitage's roots have been thoroughly intertwined with the likes of CIA veteran Ted Shackley, Richard Secord, Heine Aderholt, Elliot Abrams, Dewey Clarridge, Edwin Wilson and Tom Clines. All of these men have been directly linked to CIA covert operations.... "
Richard Armitage Quietly Confirmed As Deputy Secretary of State
'From The Wilderness', March 2001

"A proposal drafted by Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Security Council(NSC), arguing for the United States to assert de facto control of Iraqi oil fields has stunned State Department officials. It doesn't help that Abrams (right) was convicted of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, only to receive a presidential pardon from the current president's father.... Pentagon sources say Abrams has the backing of Paul Wolfowitz, the conservative deputy defense secretary, and the support of the office of conservative Vice President Dick Cheney. "
Iraqi oil strategy divides state, White House
Insight Magazine, 24 December 2002

"[Head of the US] Air Force Gen. Richard Myers .....said he was on Capitol Hill that morning [Sept 11] in the offices of Georgia Sen. Max Cleland .... While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. 'They thought it was a small plane or something like that,' Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call. Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center tower was hit by another jet. 'Nobody informed us of that,' Myers said. 'But when we came out [i.e nearly an hour later], that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.' [The country's most senior military officer] Army Gen. Henry Shelton, was 'somewhere over the Atlantic' en route to Europe when the attacks occurred, so it was critical for Myers to get back to the Pentagon."
Myers and Sept. 11: 'We Hadn't Thought About This'
American Forces Press Service, 23 October 2001

"SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?
GENERAL MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question.... "
US Air Force General Myers, the most senior military officer in the US on 911,
and former Commander in Chief North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD),
answering questions in the Senate, 13 September 2001

"....'The goal has never been to get bin Laden,' Myers said Friday in an interview with CNN's 'Novak, Hunt & Shields' program to be aired Saturday."
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff
No large anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan looming, Gen. Franks says
Associated Press, 5 April 2002

"By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert"
Before Sept. 11, Unshared Clues and Unshaped Policy
Washington Post, 17 May 2002

"President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday....These revelations are not the subject of the congressional report's narratives or findings, but are among the nuggets embedded in a story focused largely on the mid-level workings of the CIA, FBI and U.S. military. ...... the congressional panel indicated that it tried to determine 'to what extent the President received threat-specific warnings during this period' - but obtained only limited information. Among the only clues cited in the report about Bush's knowledge of al Qaeda's intentions against the United States is an Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing (PDB) - described in the report only as a 'closely-held intelligence report' - that included information 'acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of [Osama] Bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives.' The PDB also said 'that Bin Laden had wanted to conduct attacks in the United States for years and that the group apparently maintained a support base here.' It cited 'FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks,' according to the report... The CIA declined to declassify the PDB, and the White House, which had the authority to release it, declined to do so, citing 'executive privilege.' "
White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified
Washington Post, 25 July 2003

"Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent. The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation...."
Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks
Daily Telegraph, 19 September 2001

"Mossad chiefs insist the Israeli spy agency was tracking Osama Bin-Laden's terrorists in America before September 11 and that that the information was passed on to the CIA on Five separate occasions before the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. As late as August 24, less than two weeks before the attacks, a Mossad warning, confirmed by German intelligence, BND, said that 'terrorists plan to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture.' The warning alert was passed to the CIA. The warning was also passed to MI6. The agency made its own checks and also informed the CIA. Frustrated by its inability to alert the CIA to an impending attack, Mossad arranged on September 1, according to Tel Aviv sources last week, for Russian intelligence to warn Washington 'in the strongest possible terms of imminent assaults on airports and government buildings.'... According to similar documents shown to the Sunday Express, Mossad was running a round-the-clock surveillance operation on some of the September 11 hijackers. The details, contained in classified papers, reveal that a senior Mossad agent tipped off his counterpart in America's Central Intelligence Agency that a massive terrorist hit was being planned in the US. A handful of the spies had infiltrated the Al-Qaeda organisation while a staggering 120 others, posing as overseas art students, launched massive undercover operations throughout America... The spying operations first came to the attention of the DEA in January 2001 according to a classified 90-page dossier which has been seen by the Sunday Express."
BUSH: THE IGNORED WARNING THAT WILL COME TO HAUNT HIM
GLOBE-INTEL - NUMBER :- 104 DATE :- 21/05/02

The Day After 911 The Following Two Pieces
Appeared On The Web Sites Of The Russian Newspapers, 'Izvestia' and 'Pravda'.
How Did The Russians Know So Much About The 911 Attacks Before They Took Place
And What Had They Told The US About Them In Advance?

"On this gigantic military base in Texas, something is boiling under the surface. Soldiers are refusing their vaccines. They are not being jailed or forcibly inoculated. Some soldiers who did take their vaccines are sick. Two weeks before 9/11, all 60 gates at the facility were blocked with concrete barriers and barbed wire. Guard patrols were stepped up. At least a few soldiers there believe that 9/11 was a military OP carried out by the US government.... the fact that soldiers at Ft. Hood (and other bases?) are volunteering these opinions shows that monolithic and unthinking loyalty is not engraved in stone."
FORT HOOD REPORT
STRATIAwire, 21 January 2003

"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro... The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military. Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job... Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963. One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.... Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy. As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination. The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents. Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained. 'The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after,' says Bamford."
U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba
ABCNews 1 May 2001

"The initial findings of a Congressional committee that has been reviewing the performance of America's intelligence agencies before Sept. 11 are profoundly disturbing. .... it has discovered reports that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to hit sites in the United States and that they might employ commercial airliners as weapons. .....One of the great unanswered questions has been whether the government had enough intelligence in the months before Sept. 11 to fear an imminent blow within the United States and to take aggressive steps to heighten security, especially at airports. The answer now appears to be affirmative. Investigators working for the Senate and House intelligence committees found numerous reports in the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy organizations suggesting that the bin Laden network was eager to mount attacks within the United States. There were also warnings that terrorists were considering using airplanes."
While America Slept
New York Times, 19 September 2002

"..... the number of air bases where fighter planes are kept on alert has dwindled sharply in recent years, one of the generals who runs the system told Newsday. And on Sept. 11, they no longer included any bases close to two obvious terrorist targets - Washington, D.C., and New York City."
Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses
Newsday, 23 September 2001

"We took off, started climbing..... basically towards New York City.... I was trying to go fast and get there quickly - not supersonic...."
F-15 Fighter Pilot, 'Duff', Attending the WTC incident from Otis airforce base
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"The two F-15 pilots are 153 miles from New York. As they they take off they are unaware that one plane has already hit the world trade centre..."
Gavin Hewitt, Programme Reporter
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

".... [later] they said the second aircraft has just hit the World Trade Centre which was obviously a shock to both 'Nasty' and I because we thought there was only one aircraft out there..."
Fighter Pilot, 'Duff', attending the WTC incident from Otis airforce base
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"For a long time I wondered what would have happened if we'd been scrambled in time."
US Air Force 911 fighter pilot, 'Nasty', who arrived too late to intercept
the second attack on the World Trade Centre
'Clear the Skies'
BBC Online, 29 Aug, 2002

"The commission is also looking into why it took about 20 minutes for civilian air traffic controllers to notify NORAD of the hijackings. 'We are in the process of interviewing pilots,' a commission staffer said.... Even after learning of the hijackings, it took six minutes for NORAD to order F-15 fighters into the sky from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod - the 'alert' base nearest to New York. After that, it took another six minutes for the jets to roar down the runway. Then it took the jets 19 minutes to reach New York, raising this question: Did they fly at full throttle? At a top speed of almost 1,200 mph, an F-15 can reach Manhattan from Cape Cod in less than 12 minutes, NORAD says. Why did it take 19 minutes? By then, it was too late."
Atlantic City F-16 Fighters Were Eight Minutes Away From 9/11 Hijacked Planes
North Jersey Media Group, 5 December 2003

"By 8:56 a.m., it was evident that Flight 77 [which hit the Pentagon] was lost. The Federal Aviation Administration, already in contact with the Pentagon about the hijackings out of Boston, notified the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, of American 77 at 9:24, 28 minutes later."
'We Have Some Planes,' Hijacker Told Controller
New York Times, 16 October 2001

"On the radar screens an air traffic controller spots an unidentified blip. It's a plane with its transponder turned off and its heading straight for Washington D.C. It's flying low at 500 miles per hour."
Gavin Hewitt, Programme Reporter
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"Dean Eckman and Craig Borgstrom are the two remaining pilots on alert in the north east. .... These pilots are told to fly [from Langley Air Force Base] to Washington to protect the capital ...."
Gavin Hewitt, Programme Reporter
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"American Flight 77 hits the Pentagon with 64 people on board. The [F-16] fighter jets from Langley Air Force base had been 105 miles away at the moment of impact. That's 12 minutes flying time."
[i.e. 525 mph, a mere 25 mph faster than the speed of the hijacked airliner travelling towards the Pentagon ]
Gavin Hewitt, Programme Reporter
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"The scramble horn wailed, and the green launch light flashed on. Capt. Craig Borgstrom, operations officer for a detachment of the North Dakota Air National Guard at Langley, raced to the hangar with two on-duty pilots. It was 9:24, Sept. 11.... They were 12 minutes away when the hijacked American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.... Yet while Borgstrom was at the tip of the spear, he knew nothing about the crisis unfolding. One of a handful of pilots who might have been ordered to bring down a fourth hijacked jetliner – he 'had no idea' the Pentagon or World Trade Center had been struck by suicide terrorists piloting airplanes."
A new diligence in the American blue yonder
Christian Science Monitor, 16 April 2002

[Note: Borgstrom, although mentioned by name, is the only one of the pilots the BBC says were on 'alert' that day in the north eastern United States who is not interviewed in the 'Clear The Skies' programme.]

"On Sept. 11, the normal scramble-approval procedure was for an FAA official to contact the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and request Pentagon air support."
Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks
Aviation Week & Space Technology: June 3, 2002

"Tony Blair has no plans to change the chain of command system under which he has to give personal authorisation to the RAF to shoot down a hijacked commercial airliner threatening London or other British cities, a government source said yesterday. After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Government reviewed its own special emergency alert system, which provides a 'fast and robust' link between the military and the Prime Minister, and concluded that no changes were needed....The chain of command in Britain for a decision requiring prime ministerial authorisation in the event of a hijacked airliner would involve a four-stage process, but officials emphasised that Mr Blair would be in a position to make a judgement in a matter of minutes. Using the emergency communications systems — 'not a telephone call' — [Air Chief Marshal Sir John Day] would then go up the chain of command to Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence, and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff. Tornado air crews on highest readiness for defending British airspace from 'enemy' aircraft can take off within five to ten minutes of being scrambled and would already be in the air, heading for the hijacked plane, by the time Mr Hoon was in touch with the Prime Minister. The government source said the Prime Minister was always instantly contactable under the special communications system wherever he was, at home or overseas. An RAF source said that even if an airliner was hijacked at Heathrow and then turned east towards London, there would still be time to act.... In the event of a hijacked airliner approaching Britain from the Channel or the North Sea, ground-based and airborne air defence radars would plot the flight path and give an indication of any sudden divergence towards an unexpected destination."
Blair Controls Response to Hijack
London Times, 29 Sept 2001

"An official at the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center in Oberlin, Ohio, which tracked Flight 93 as it turned in the sky and tracked eastward from the Cleveland area, said 'no comment' when asked if there was any record of a second plane over the crash site. 'That's something that the FBI is working on and I cannot talk about,' said Richard Kettel, head of tower operations at the Cleveland center."
In rual hamlet, the mystery mounts; 5 report second plane at PA crash site; the investigation
The Record (Bergen County, NJ), 14 September 2001

".... According to our sources within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the FBI told all air traffic controllers that 'you are not permitted to discuss with anyone, including family, friends, and co-workers, anything related to or even remotely connected to the events of September 11, or you will be fired and then arrested.'... "
9-11 Damage Control Team Testifies Friday on Air Defense Failure
Tom Flocco.com, 20 May 2003

"...as Mr Bush, his entourage and the accompanying press corps were boarding Air Force One, American Flight 77 swooped low over the suburbs of northern Virginia and slammed into the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, was in his office on the eastern side of the building, in a meeting with Christopher Cox, the defence policy committee chairman of the House of Representatives..."
Revealed: what really went on during Bush's 'missing hours'
Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2001

"[Head of the US] Air Force Gen. Richard Myers ..... said he was on Capitol Hill that morning [Sept 11] in the offices of Georgia Sen. Max Cleland .... While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. 'They thought it was a small plane or something like that,' Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call. Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center tower was hit by another jet. 'Nobody informed us of that,' Myers said. 'But when we came out [nearly an hour later], that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.' "
American Forces Press Service, 23 October 2001

"Why weren't Pentagon leaders alerted and employees evacuated? Although the military's air defense command got word from the FAA about 13 minutes before Flight 77's crash that a hijacked airliner was streaking toward Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his top aides remained unaware of any danger up to the moment of impact, officials said. After learning of the World Trade Center attacks, Rumsfeld remained in his office, and Pentagon security officials took no steps to alert or evacuate the building's 20,000 employees."
Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses
Newsday, 23 September 2001

"... And how, after [the President] had been specifically told by his chief of staff that 'We are under attack,' could the Commander in Chief continue sitting with second graders and make a joke [during his visit to a school in Florida on 9/11]? Lorie ran the video over and over. 'I couldn’t stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second graders, while my husband was burning in a building,' she said. Mindy pieced together the actions of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He had been in his Washington office engaged in his 'usual intelligence briefing.' After being informed of the two attacks on the World Trade Center, he proceeded with his briefing until the third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon. Mindy relayed the information to Kristen: 'Can you believe this? Two planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld’s leaving his office and going to the war room to check out just what the hell went wrong.' Mindy sounded scared. 'This is my President. This is my Secretary of Defense. You mean to tell me Rumsfeld had to get up from his desk and look out his window at the burning Pentagon before he knew anything was wrong? How can that be?' 'It can’t be,' said Kristen ominously."
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
New York Observer, 21 August 2003

"And someone walked in and handed [me] a note that said that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. And we adjourned the meeting, and I went in to get my CIA briefing.... and the whole [Pentagon] building shook within 15 minutes."
Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld claiming that he wasn't informed of the WTC attacks until around 9.25 am on 911
Interview with Larry King Live, CNN, 5 December 2001

"Whatever the explanation for the huge [911 defence] failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the 'Incompetence Theory.' Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask - and other media need to ask - if there were [air force] 'stand down' orders."
'What really happened on Sept. 11th?'
Barrie Zwicker, Straight Goods, 27 January 2002

"Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has declared a day of national mourning for the victims of the Lviv air show disaster.... President Kuchma dismissed the country's air force chief and the commander of the air force division which took part in the show.... "
Ukraine mourns plane crash victims
BBC Online, 28 July 2002

"Air force general Richard Myers today [1 Oct 2001] takes on the role of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the president's main military adviser and the post held by Colin Powell during the Gulf war, at the most critical military period for the country since the Vietnam war."
Former fighter pilot takes over US military controls
Guardian, 1 October 2001

"No one has been fired. No one has been demoted. The same people who are guarding us today on an elevated security alert are the same people who were working that day [on 911]."
Monica Gabrielle, a 911 widow who is suing the US government
9/11 Families Reject 'Bribe,' Sue U.S.
Toronto Star, 22 December 2003

"Could the bombers have been stopped? NEWSWEEK has learned that while U.S. intelligence received no specific warning, the state of alert had been high during the past two weeks, and a particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill. In testimony to the Intelligence Committee earlier this year, CIA Director George Tenet said bin Laden posed the most immediate terrorist threat to Americans around the world and was capable of 'multiple attacks with little or no warning.' 'There is a giant accountability issue starting today,' says former Afghanistan CIA station chief Milt Bearden, 'and in the midst of legitimate accountability there will be a lot of scapegoating. They’re going to start looking for the modern-day equivalent of General Short and Admiral Kimmel [the armed-forces commanders at Pearl Harbor], and they’re going to find them.”
We've hit the targets
NewsWeek, 13 September 2001

"For Mayor Willie Brown, the first signs that something was amiss came late Monday [September 10, 2001] when he got a call from what he described as his airport security - - a full eight hours before yesterday's string of terrorist attacks -- advising him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel."
Mayor got 8-hour warning Before 9-11 Attacks
San Francisco Chronicle, 12 September 2001

"The author Salman Rushdie believes that US authorities knew of an imminent terrorist strike when they banned him from taking internal flights in Canada and the US only a week before the attacks...The FAA confirmed that it stepped up security measures concerning Mr Rushdie but refused to give a reason.”
Rusdie's Air Ban
London Times, 27 September 2001

"The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate."
Michael Meacher, former Blair government Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
Guardian, 6 September 2003

"No Air National Guard or other military planes were scrambled to chase the fourth hijacked airliner, United Airlines Flight 93, which took off at 8:10 a.m. [and crashed two hours later ] from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, [Director of the Air National Guard, General] Weaver said."
FAA gave 12-minute warning
Seattle Times, 16 Sept 2002

What Happened To The Plane That Came Down in Pennsylvania - Flight 93? - Click here

[Unlike the other pilots featured on the programme from Langely and Texas, the real names of these two pilots from Otis are not given. However, they are understood to be Maj. Dan Nash and Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy]

"At 8:40 a.m. EDT, Tech. Sgt. Jeremy W. Powell of North American Aerospace Defense Command's (Norad) Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, N.Y., took the first call from Boston Center. He notified NEADS commander Col. Robert K. Marr, Jr., of a possible hijacked airliner, American Airlines Flight 11.... Several days into a semiannual exercise known as Vigilant Guardian, NEADS was fully staffed, its key officers and enlisted supervisors already manning the operations center 'battle cab.' In retrospect, the exercise would prove to be a serendipitous enabler of a rapid military response to terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Senior officers involved in Vigilant Guardian were manning Norad command centers throughout the U.S. and Canada, available to make immediate decisions."
Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks
Aviation Week & Space Technology, 3 June 2002

"....at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States. US pilots were forced to take to the skies without any weapons......."
Clear the Skies
BBC Online, 29 Aug 2002

"[During the attacks] I've determined, of course, that with only four aircraft we cannot defend the whole north eastern United States".
Colonel Robert Marr, Commander of the North East Defence Sector, 911
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"That was the sensation of frustration, of I don't have the forces available to do anything about this, we've got everything up that we can get up and I still can't do anything about that one.... and some of them [fighters] would have just gotten in the air possibly without any armament onboard...."
Colonel Robert Marr, Commander of the North East Defence Sector, 911
BBC Online News Report, (Real Video) 29 August 2002

"The President finally returns to Washington .... An escort of six helicopters was waiting for him. Three hundred fighters were defending the skies."
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"[In Florida on 9/11] Mr Bush arrived at the school, just before 9am, expecting to be met by its motherly principal, Gwen Rigell. Instead he was pulled sharply aside by the familiar, bulky figure of 51-year-old Karl Rove... [who] told the President that a large commercial airliner (American Flight 11) had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre... At 9.05 the White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, 53, another long-time Bush friend and confidante, leaned in close to the President and whispered: 'A second plane has hit the World Trade Centre. America is under attack.' ... At 9.12 Mr Bush left the classroom..... Before making his first statement, Mr Bush had spoken to Dick Cheney... By the time Mr Bush had finished his TV address, it was 9.35.... ."
Revealed: what really went on during Bush's 'missing hours'
Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2001

"I want to get though to the White House to reiterate that we need air cover."
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to Police Commissioner Bernard Kerick
at the World Trade Centre just after the second attack on the World Trade Centre
Time Magazine, 7 January 2002

"... And how, after [the President] had been specifically told by his chief of staff that 'We are under attack,' could the Commander in Chief continue sitting with second graders and make a joke? Lorie ran the video over and over. 'I couldn’t stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second graders, while my husband was burning in a building,' she said."
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
New York Observer, 21 August 2003

"[Air Force One] accelerated down the runway [in Florida] and then almost stood on its tail as it climbed rapidly out of the airport. It was 9:55 a.m. Once airborne, Bush spoke again to Cheney..... Cheney recommended that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any such civilian airliners .. 'I said, ‘You bet,’ ' Bush recalled. 'We had a little discussion, but not much.' Bush then talked to Rumsfeld..."
America's Chaotic Road to War
Washington Post, 27 January 2002

"Once we finally received that authority then to be able to kill, that was the first step to be able to do something about it"
Colonel Robert Marr, Commander of the North East Defence Sector, 911
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

Cheney instructs NORAD after Pentagon is hit and the only hijack left is Flight 93

"When the Vice President called he said that our primary responsibility at that time.... was to, we had to protect the civilian government infrastructure there in Washington D.C.... that was what he wanted us to do. At the same time we had to monitor, you know, Flight 93 and all the other potential hijackers that may be occurring at the same time."
Lt Colonel Bill Glover, Commander, Air Warning Centre
Cheyenne Operations Centre, North American Aerospace Defence Command, Colorado
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"Eventually we had the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defence of the United States on the line.... At that point we had jets in a position over both New York and Washington D.C. [i.e. not until after the Pentagon had been hit]."
Brig. General Jim Hunter, Vice Commander
Cheyenne Operations Centre, North American Aerospace Defence Command, Colorado
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"I was seated in this very room, and my executive assistant came in and said a tower had been hit by an aircraft. I ran in there, immediately picked up the phone, called to the Assistant Secretary for Counter-Terrorism. Even before the second aeroplane went in, I thought it was impossible to have this happen accidentally on a clear day, and said, 'We've got a problem.' And about that moment, the second aircraft went into the tower, which I watched on television. And immediately after that, I was told to go to the operations center here to get on call to the Vice President."
Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State
'With Us or Against US', Programme 1, BBC Radio 4, 20 August 2002

"[Maj. Gen. Craig] McKinley is in charge of the division of the North American Aerospace Defense Command -- known as NORAD -- responsible for protecting the continental United States. He was one of a number of federal officials who gave evidence on the second day of public hearings held by the commission to find out what went wrong and why on Sept. 11..... the man who had McKinley's job on Sept. 11, retired Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, told the panel that he could not have ordered the hijacked airliners shot down even if either set of F-16s had been able to make it to the capital in time. 'To my knowledge, I did not have the authority to shoot it down at that time,' he said..... He said that he only learned President Bush had made the decision to give him that authority five minutes after the last plane, Flight 93, crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania [at 10.06 am]...."
Military unprepared for 9/11 attacks
United Press International, 23 May 2003

"Poised to convene its first hard-hitting hearings in January, the federal commission investigating the 9/11 attacks continues to be at odds with the White House over access to key information and witnesses. Two government sources tell TIME that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground rules for her appearance in part because she does not want to testify under oath or, according to one source, in public....One Republican commissioner says a comment by Rice last year—that no one 'could have predicted that they would try to use a…hijacked airplane as a missile'—was 'an unfortunate comment . . . that was, of course, a wrong-footed statement on its face,' given that there was years of intelligence about Al Qaeda's interest in airplane attacks."
Condi and the 9/11 Commission
TIME, 20 December 2003

"The congressional report on pre-Sept. 11 intelligence calls into question answers that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice gave the public last year about the White House's knowledge of terrorism threats....The president's daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, contained 'information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives,' the [congressional] report stated....the congressional report [also] states that 'from at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons.' ''
9-11 Report Questions Rice's Statements
Associated Press, 28 July 2003

"The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'... New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.... Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said. The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass for Middle Eastern aviation students.... Under growing criticism for a failure to act on the Phoenix memo and other potential warning signs, Bush administration officials have said repeatedly that U.S. intelligence analysts never envisioned the possibility that terrorists would use jetliners as suicide missiles and slam them into such buildings as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon..... But a 1999 report prepared for the National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA headquarters. The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a 1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley."
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S.
Washington Post, 18 May 2002

"But by the summer [of 2001], policy reviews were hardly what was needed. Intelligence services were picking up enough chatter about a terrorist attack to scare the pants off top officials..... In mid-July, Tenet sat down for a special meeting with [Condoleeza] Rice and aides. 'George briefed Condi that there was going to be a major attack,' says an official .... "
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine Online, 4 Aug 2002

"Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco attorney and former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a $7 billion lawsuit in U.S. District Court on June 3rd. The class-action suit names ten defendants, among whom are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta. Hilton's suit charges Bush and his administration with allowing the September 11th attacks to take place so as to reap political benefits from the catastrophe.... Hilton's plaintiffs in this case are the families of 14 victims of 9/11, numbering 400 people nationwide. These are the same families that rallied in Washington recently to advocate for an independent investigation into the attacks. The current 9/11 hearings are being conducted by Congress behind closed doors, a situation these families find unacceptable...."
All Along the Watchtower
T r u t h o u t, 20 June, 2002

"President Bush and his top advisers were informed by the CIA early last August that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden had discussed the possibility of hijacking airplanes, according to reliable sources....White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Bush had been told about the possibility of hijackings but he declined to say what had been revealed during his intelligence briefings.... The intelligence briefing on al Qaeda hijackings, first reported last night by CBS News, marks the most detailed disclosure of what Bush was told about the possibility of terror attacks before Sept. 11. It also represents a shift in the official version of events surrounding the attacks on New York and Washington, which Bush and other administration officials have generally characterized as a sneak attack that could not have been foreseen by U.S. intelligence....The new information adds to the debate over whether more could have been done to halt the attacks.... The information provided to Bush was included as part of the president's daily briefing, a highly restricted classified document prepared by the CIA. The document is seen by only a handful of people, White House officials said: Bush, Vice President Cheney, CIA Director George J. Tenet, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and, less frequently, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said yesterday that he has been told of a CIA document that reached Bush in August, warning him of a more specific al Qaeda attack involving an airliner. Graham, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said he had not yet read the document, but that congressional staffers have."
Bush Was Told of Hijacking Dangers
Washington Post, 16 May 2002

"Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East. In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: 'He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours'. This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public. Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of 'containment' that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to 'build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction' for 'the last 10 years'. America, he said, had been successful in keeping him 'in a box'. Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. 'Saddam does not control the northern part of the country,' she said. 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.'"
The Big Lie
Mirror, 22 September 2003

"Rep. Waxman and Rep. Dingell wrote [pre-911] to Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of the White House's energy task force, asking for information on the task force's operations. President Bush established the task force in January under the Vice President's leadership, and entrusted it with the task of developing a national energy policy. Also on April 19 [2001], Reps. Waxman and Dingell wrote to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, asking it to investigate the conduct, operations, and funding of the task force. The congressional investigation of the task force was prompted by news reports that the task force had met privately with major campaign contributors, such as Kenneth Lay, the CEO of Enron, to discuss energy policy. According to these reports, major Republican contributors attended private sessions with Vice President Cheney and the task force met secretly with other contributors in formulating the President's National Energy Policy."
Special Investigations, Energy Cheney Energy Task Force, Chronology
United States House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Minority Office

"The US is playing out Mr Cheney's fantastical vision of national security - one in which a future struggle over scarce and vital petroleum resources must be won by force of arms. It should be replaced by a level-headed and internationally co-operative strategy of economising on petroleum demand and developing energy alternatives that are cost-effective and environmentally sound. Mr Cheney's view is technologically naive and politically disastrous. And yet it has become the strategy of the world's most powerful country."
Professor Jeffrey Sachs - Saudi Arabia Was Real Target in Iraq War
Financial Times, 12 August 2003

"In 1973-74, with the Arab oil embargo, the Ford presidency was brought down by the disruption of the US economy, a point not lost on two young senior officials at the time, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, respectively Gerald Ford's defence secretary and White House chief of staff. Pentagon and academic planners began making contingency plans for the military seizure of the Middle East oilfields.... The only quantitatively significant alternative to Saudi oil was Iraqi oil, but that option was barred as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. The long-standing contingency plans to seize Middle Eastern oil were probably rolled out within days of September 11..... But if the Iraq war was an opportunistic response to September 11, it is crucially important that we know it. Thousands of lives and perhaps $100bn have gone into this war, with little to show for it except an enraged Iraqi public and enormous costs of occupation extending into the future. The US media have so far shown little interest in connecting the dots".
Professor Jeffrey Sachs - Saudi Arabia Was Real Target in Iraq War
Financial Times, 12 August 2003

"President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that 'Iraq remains a destabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East' and because this is an unacceptable risk to the US 'military intervention' is necessary. Vice-president Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report [on which this policy was built] from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state under George Bush Snr....".
Official: US oil at the heart of Iraq crisis
Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

".... suspicions surround the advice solicited by Mr Cheney from energy companies and the subsequent formulation of energy policy. To this day, despite persistent appeals from Congress, Mr Cheney has refused to name the colleagues from the world of oil and gas who influenced him."
Leak inquiry is risky call for Bush
London Times, 5 January 2003

"....in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal.... the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence... If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse."
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
John Loftus, Former US Federal War Crimes Prosecutor, Press Release, 31 May 2002

"Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting at a private camp in southern Louisiana, three weeks after the Supreme Court had agreed to take up the vice president's appeal in lawsuits over his handling of the administration's energy task force. While Scalia and Cheney are avid hunters and longtime friends, several legal ethics specialists questioned the timing of their trip, and said it raised doubts about Scalia's ability to judge the case impartially.... For almost three years, Cheney has been fighting demands that he reveal whether he met with energy industry officials, including the chairman of Enron at the time, Kenneth L. Lay, when Cheney was formulating the president's energy policy. A lower court has ruled that Cheney must turn over documents detailing who met with his task force, but on Dec. 15, the Supreme Court announced it would hear an appeal. The justices are due to hear arguments in April 'in re Richard B. Cheney.'"
Scalia trip with Cheney raises eyebrows
Los Angeles Times, 18 January 2004

"Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil 'On the Table'" - click here

"..... incredibly there were just four fighters planes on stand-by in the North Eastern United States [on 911].... in the bunker underneath [the White House] ... in charge there was the Vice President Dick Cheney... during those crucial hours... Until September 11 Americans had felt secure at home. Afterwards they realised there was no such thing as immunity from the world's conflicts. That continues to inform much of the administration's thinking about Iraq..."
Gavin Hewitt, BBC News - Video report
BBC Online, (Real Video) 29 August 2002

"The F.A.A. and the Secret Service, which had an open phone connection, both knew at 8:20 a.m. that two planes had been hijacked in the New York area and had their transponders turned off. How could they have thought it was an accident when the first plane slammed into the first tower 26 minutes later?"
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
New York Observer, 21 August 2003

"On the radar screens an air traffic controller spots an unidentified blip. It's a plane with its transponder turned off and its heading straight for Washington D.C..... Air traffic control immediately warns the secret service..."
Gavin Hewitt, Programme Reporter
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"A man comes on [the fighter intercom], identifies himself as being with the Secret Service......."
Major Dean Eckman, F-16 Pilot, Langley Air Force Base
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"With Pentagon in flames and hijacked aircraft threatening Washington, White House scrambled fighters [at Andrews Airforce base] with little or no armament. Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Air National Guard F-16s took off from here in response to a plea from the White House to 'Get in the air now!'..... The Andrews-based F-16s were launched by the Secret Service and someone in the White House command center..."
F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93
Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9 September 2002

"When the Vice President called he said that our primary responsibility at that time.... was to, we had to protect the civilian government infrastructure there in Washington D.C...."
Lt Colonel Bill Glover, Commander, Air Warning Centre
Cheyenne Operations Centre, North American Aerospace Defence Command, Colorado
BBC documentary, 'Clear The Skies', 1 September 2002
(From Video Recording of Programme)

"We were given carte blanche to shoot anybody down who wasn't responding, based on the authority given to us by the Vice President Dick Cheney of the United States"
Major Roland Aguila, F-16 Escort Pilot Air Force One, Ellington Field Air Force Base, Texas
(From Video Recording of 'Clear The Skies' - other sources indicate that the shoot down order given to fighter pilots was not given until at least 9.55 am)

"A Minnesota FBI agent investigating Zacarias Moussaoui testified yesterday that he notified the Secret Service weeks before Sept. 11 that a terror team might hijack a plane and 'hit the nation's capital.' "
FBI WARNED D.C. IT WAS A TARGET
New York Post, 25 Sept 2002

"At the meeting of al-Qaeda’s leading strategists and financiers were two young Muslim men. The CIA, which was tipped off about the meeting, failed to issue prompt warnings to the FBI or the Immigration Service about the pair and they slipped unnoticed into America on a flight to Los Angeles, using Saudi passports.... On September 11 they seized the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon."
After the biggest manhunt in history, no one has been convicted and only two face charges
London Times, 6 September 2002

"The CIA had information about three of the Sept. 11 hijackers at least 20 months before the attacks occurred but failed to pass the information on to other agencies, a congressional investigator said on Friday.....By the time the suspected hijackers entered Malaysia, the CIA knew al-Mihdhar's name, passport number, and birth information, and that he had a U.S. multiple-entry visa issued in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia...."
CIA Knew About 3 Hijackers 20 Months Before 911 Attacks
Reuters, 20 Sept 2002

"In a further interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio Springmann revealed more of his claim of a CIA operation which has brought large numbers of people from the middle east to the US, issuing them visas and training them to be terrorists. According to Springmann some of the September 11 bombers were granted US entry visas via the US consulate in Jeddah [Saudi Arabia] facilitated through arrangements made by the CIA (additionally Newsweek reported 15 September [2001] FBI information suggesting that 'five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesday’s terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.' ). Springmann suggests that those who died on September 11 may have been sacrificed in order to further wider US geopolitical objectives. In this respect the French newspaper Le Figaro reported last year that the CIA had met with bin Laden in Dubai in July 2001 and made no attempt to arrest him."
Finishing the Jigsaw Puzzle - Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?
'Fight Smart' - 8 March 2002

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the 9/11 plot, obtained a visa to come to the US just weeks before the attacks despite being under a federal terrorism indictment, a report by the federal commission investigating the attacks revealed on Monday.... Mohammed had obtained a visa to visit the US on July 23, 2001 — about six weeks before the attacks. He applied for visa using a Saudi passport and alias — Abdulrahman al Ghamdi — even though he is Pakistani-born and was not believed to be in Saudi Arabia at the time the application was filed, according to a portion of the staff report read by Susan Ginsburg, senior counsel to the commission. She challenged CIA Director George Tenet’s description of 17 of the 19 hijackers as arriving in the US ‘clean’ of activities that would arouse suspicion."
Officials missed 9/11 clues by whisker, says panel
Indian Express, 28 January 2004

"In a dramatic interview with ABCNEWS, FBI special agents and partners Robert Wright and John Vincent say they were called off criminal investigations of suspected terrorists tied to the deadly bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. U.S. officials say al Qaeda was responsible for the embassy attacks and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.... The suspected terrorist cell in Chicago was the basis of the investigation, yet Wright, who remains with the FBI, says he soon discovered that all the FBI intelligence division wanted him to do was to follow suspected terrorists and file reports — but make no arrests.... 'The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me: 'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,' Wright said. Even though they were on a terrorism task force and said they had proof of criminal activity, Wright said he was told not to pursue the matter.... Yet, even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests. 'Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they wanted to shut down the criminal investigation,' said Wright. 'They wanted to kill it.' ... The move outraged Chicago federal prosecutor Mark Flessner, who was assigned to the case despite efforts Wright and Vincent say were made by superiors to block the probe....'There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and within the FBI that simply were not going to let it [the building of a criminal case] happen. And it didn't happen,' Flessner said. He said he still couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case... On Sept. 11, 2001, the two agents watched the terror attacks in horror, worried that men they could have stopped years earlier may have been involved.'"
Called Off the Trail?
ABCNews, 19 Dec 2002

"Less than two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI headquarters blocked an agent's request to aggressively pursue one of the future hijackers, a congressional investigator said in a report Friday. The agent warned, 'Someday, someone will die.' The unidentified New York-based FBI agent had asked headquarters Aug. 29, 2001, to allow his office to use its 'full criminal investigative resources' to find Khalid Midhar, one of two hijackers intelligence agents had identified as attending an Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in January 2000. In an e-mail, headquarters denied the request because Midhar was not under criminal investigation. It cited the 'wall' between intelligence and law enforcement. The agent replied: 'Someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems.' ' The exchange was included in a report prepared by Eleanor Hill, staff director for the House and Senate intelligence committees' inquiry into intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. Hill told lawmakers that the United States failed to pursue Midhar and another hijacker, Nawaf Alhazmi, who also attended the Malaysia meeting. Intelligence agencies 'had, but missed, opportunities both to deny them entry into the United States and subsequently to generate investigative and surveillance action regarding their activities within the United States,' she said. CIA interest in the Malaysia meeting faded after January 2000, gradually resurfacing after a participant was identified as being a principal planner in the October 2000 attack on the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen. CIA employees told congressional staff that the Malaysia meeting was seen 'as just one of many counterterrorist efforts' at the time. But intelligence documents show it was considered important enough to be discussed in briefings with the CIA director in January 2000. In March 2000, a cable from an overseas CIA station noted that Alhazmi had flown into Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000. The cable was marked 'Action required: None, FYI.' Midhar and Alhazmi lived openly in the United States."
FBI barred probe of future hijacker
Associated Press, 22 September 2002

"I, myself, still have two key questions today that I believe are important for this committee to answer. The detailed answers to them will deserve, and be afforded, the scrutiny of a nation, and must stand the test of time and exhaustive investigation. First, if the CIA passed information regarding Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi to the FBI prior to the June 11, 2001 meeting - in either January 2000 or January 2001 - then why was that information not passed, either by CIA or FBI Headquarters personnel, immediately to the New York case agents, criminal or 'Intel', investigating the murder of 17 sailors in Yemen when more information was requested? A simple answer of 'The Wall' is unacceptable. Second, how and when did we, the CIA and the FBI, learn that Al-Mihdhar came into the country on either or both occasions, in January 2000 and/or in July 2001 and what did we do with the information?"
Statement for the Record of Special Agent, New York Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation
on Joint Inquiry into the Events of September 11, 2001
Before the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives
20 September 2002

"Months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA knew two of the hijackers were in the United States and that they were connected to the al Qaeda organization, Newsweek reported on Sunday..... for a year and nine months after the CIA identified them as terrorists, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using their real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank accounts and enrolling in flight schools. "
CIA Knew Two Sept. 11 Hijackers Were in U.S.
Reuters, 2 June 2002

"Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation [as on Sept 11] with 4 hijacked planes without the support of a secret service."
Horst Ehmke, former coordinator of West German secret services
"Euro Intel Experts Dismiss 'War On Terrorism' As Deception"
American Free Press - 4 Dec 2001

"For 60 decisive minutes, the military and intelligence agencies let the fighter planes stay on the ground... With the help of the horrifying attacks, the Western mass democracies were subjected to brainwashing... Even investigative journalists are fed propaganda and disinformation... I know a lot of people, including very influential ones, who agree with me, but only in whispers, never publicly... Where this all comes together, the American intelligence services are not far away..."
Former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Buelow
Interview with German daily 'Tagesspiegel,' 13 Jan 2002

"Eventually, someone's going to have to tell the truth. Once those people are dealt with according to law, there will be no more false terror spread across the globe."
FTW interview: Delmart 'Mike' Vreeland - What the CIA doesn't want you to know
Online Journal, 4 April 2002

"The 35-year-old American claims to be a lieutenant in a U.S. Navy intelligence unit — a spy who says he knew in advance about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In his affidavit, he says he tried to warn Canadian intelligence about possible terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, along with targets in Ottawa and Toronto, but was written off as a petty criminal. So he wrote the warning on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to jail guards a month before the attacks. They opened the letter Sept. 14 and immediately forwarded the information to Ottawa. His lawyers, Rocco Galati and Paul Slansky, are fighting extradition, telling the court he could face treason charges and the death penalty in the U.S."
Did this man predict Sept. 11?
Strange story of a jailed spy unfolds in Toronto court
Toronto Star, 23 October, 2001

"[Rocco] Galati, to his great credit, chose to defend the difficult ones. And back in 2001, he and Slansky defended another unpopular man in another very murky case. The man was Delmart Edward Vreeland, an American locked up in the Don jail [Canada] who was wanted in his own country for credit card fraud. What was unusual about Vreeland was his claim that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Indeed, as the Star reported at the time, Vreeland handed over to his guards a sealed envelope in August, 2001, that predicted the attacks. Unfortunately, the guards didn't get around to opening it until Sept. 14. Vreeland also made other claims. He claimed he had been working for U.S. naval intelligence. He claimed that a Cuban immigrant named Nestor Fonseca, in jail in Toronto on drug charges, was plotting to kill Canadian and U.S. police officers. He claimed that a Canadian Embassy worker in Moscow named Marc Bastien had not died from natural causes in 2000 as the government said but had been poisoned. Vreeland's allegations against Fonseca were initially supported by Toronto police, who said they found a hit list in the Cuban's cell. But by November, 2001, two months after the terror attacks on New York and Washington, everything changed. Crown prosecutors dropped the attempted murder charges against Fonseca, saying they had been based on the testimony of an 'unsavoury witness.' Three months later, prosecutors dropped a bevy of other charges against Fonseca, including extortion, and instead extradited him to the U.S. The apparent collapse of the Fonseca case also had the effect of destroying any credibility Vreeland may have had with regard to his more intriguing allegations about Sept. 11 and the death of Bastien, the Moscow embassy worker. Until January, 2002. That's when Quebec coroner Line Duchesne concluded that Bastien, described as an information systems handler, had indeed been poisoned -- probably by someone who slipped a concentrated anti-schizophrenic drug into his drink in a Moscow bar. Vreeland's credibility suddenly shot up. But eight months later, while out on bail awaiting an extradition hearing, he just disappeared. At the time, Slansky told the court he had gone to Vreeland's apartment to pick him up but found it ransacked, with key evidence related to his client's 9/11 claims missing. Did Vreeland skip town? Slansky argued no. He said he believed his client had been 'killed, kidnapped or harmed' because he had evidence that the U.S. government knew ahead of time about the Sept. 11 attacks. Now Galati and Slansky are talking of similar threats. They say they recognize the voice of the man who said he wants to kill Galati."
Post-9/11, this doesn't seem all that weird
Toronto Star, 5 December 2003

"Vreeland’s warning note [of the impending attacks on America], sealed and placed in the sole custody of Canadian jailers on Aug. 11 or 12, also contained the ominous statement, 'Let one happen. Stop the rest.' That document was entered into evidence in Vreeland’s extradition hearing on Oct. 7, 2001. At that time Canadian authorities acknowledged that the letter had been written a month before the attacks."
Vreeland in Safe House, All Canadian Charges Dropped, Temporary Refugee Status Granted
From The Wilderness, 15 March 2002

"The admission that the death of a Canadian diplomat in Moscow was murder may lend credence to the fantastic story arising from an extradition case in Toronto, in which a man claiming to be a US Naval intelligence officer says he warned the RCMP and CSIS of the September 11 attacks months in advance......Among the Russian documents Vreeland says he retrieved was one describing impending terrorist attacks in the United States, naming Osama bin Laden as an agent and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as likely targets...... If his claim is true, then why is the US hounding this man, and why does he fear for his life if he is extradited? Perhaps because Russian foreknowledge of September 11th is a can of worms best left unopened."
Did 'Rogue' US Agent Vreeland Warn CSIS Of September 11?
'Frank' magazine, Canada, 16 October, 2001

Russian Foreknowledge of September 11 - The Vreeland Interview - The Most Controversial Document on the Web? - Click here

"Additional focus on intelligence lapses has been made more urgent by this week's congressional hearings on the attacks, with their disclosures about multiple warnings of attacks before Sept. 11."
Bush supports independent probe of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
Seattle Times, 20 September 2002

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do [at Pearl Harbor] was known to the United States..."
ARMY BOARD, 1944

"Working with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the FBI analyst determined that both [911 hijackers] al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi had entered the United States. As a result of that effort, on August 23, 2001, the CIA finally notified the FBI and requested of the State Department that the two individuals should be watchlisted. Even then, there was less than an all-out effort to locate what amounted to two Bin Ladin-associated terrorists in the United States during a period when the terrorist threat level had escalated to a peak level. For example, neither CIA, FBI, nor State Department informed the FAA. On August 21, 2001, coincidentally, FAA had issued a Security Directive, entitled 'Threat to U.S. Aircraft Operators.' That Directive alerted commercial airlines that nine named terrorism-associated individuals – none of whom were connected to the 19 hijackers -- were planning commercial air travel and should receive additional security scrutiny if they attempted to board an aircraft. The Directive was updated on August 24 and August 28, 2001. Had FAA been advised of the presence of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the United States, a similar directive could have been issued, subjecting the two, their luggage and any carry-on items to detailed, FAA-directed searches. Further, only the FBI’s New York field office received a request from FBI Headquarters to conduct a search for the two prior to September 11, 2001. The Headquarters written instruction to the New York field office only identified al-Mihdhar in its subject line. Nawaf al-Hazmi was mentioned in the text, and it is not clear whether it was intended that he be a subject of the search as well. It was not until September 11, 2001 that the Los Angeles FBI field office was asked to conduct a search... A New York FBI field office agent testified that he urged FBI Headquarters on August 28, 2001 to allow New York field office criminal agents to participate in the search with FBI intelligence agents, given the limited resources that are often applied to intelligence investigations. The request was refused by FBI Headquarters... [The agent told the inquiry] 'We’ve got to be able to get there before September 11, not September 12.' Joint Inquiry witnesses testified that other federal agencies with potentially valuable information databases were never asked to assist in FBI’s search."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"This Joint Inquiry confirmed that these same two future hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had numerous contacts with a long time FBI counterterrorism informant in California and that a third future hijacker, Hani Hanjour, apparently had more limited contact with the same informant. In mid- to late-2000, the CIA already had information indicating that al-Mihdhar had a multiple entry U.S. visa and that al-Hazmi had in fact traveled to Los Angeles, but the two had not been watchlisted and information suggesting that two suspected terrorists could well be in the United States had not yet been given to the FBI. The San Diego FBI field office, which handled the informant in question, did not receive that information or any of the other intelligence information pertaining to al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, prior to September 11, 2001. As a result, the FBI missed the opportunity to task a uniquely well-positioned informant -- who denies having any advance knowledge of the plot --- to collect information about the hijackers and their plans within the United States.... During one of their last contacts, al-Hazmi advised the informant that he was moving to Arizona to attend flight training, but the informant did not advise the FBI of this information until after the September 11 attacks.... When the FBI’s San Diego field office determined after the attacks that a long-time FBI counterterrorism informant had had numerous contacts in 2000 with two of the September 11 hijackers, personnel there were immediately suspicious about whether the informant was involved in the plot. Subsequently, however, all of the field office personnel, including senior managers and various case agents, concluded that the informant was unwitting of, and had no role in, the September 11 plot... Several questions remain, however, with regard to the informant’s credibility.... the informant told the FBI that the hijackers did nothing to arouse the informant’s suspicion, but the informant also acknowledged that al-Hazmi had contacts with at least four individuals the informant knew were of interest to the FBI and about whom the informant had previously reported to the FBI. Third, the informant has made numerous inconsistent statements to the FBI during the course of interviews after September 11, 2001... In its November 18, 2002 written response to the Joint Inquiry, the FBI has acknowledged that there are 'significant inconsistencies' in the informant’s statements about these contacts. The FBI investigation regarding this issue is continuing.... The Administration has to date objected to the Inquiry’s efforts to interview the informant in order to attempt to resolve those inconsistencies. The Administration also would not agree to allow the FBI to serve a Committee subpoena and deposition notice on the informant... What is clear, however, is that the informant’s contacts with the hijackers, had they been capitalized on, would have given the San Diego FBI field office perhaps the Intelligence Community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot. Given the CIA’s failure to disseminate, in a timely manner, intelligence information on the significance and location of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, that chance, unfortunately, never materialized."
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
24 July 2003

"The main [September 11] suspect [Zacarias Moussaoui] in US custody .... had been picked up by immigration authorities in August but the FBI refused to let its field agents search his laptop computer which contained clues as to the September 11 mission....."
'FBI arrogance and secrecy dismays US'
London Times, 3 Nov 2001

"[Moussaoui] had been arrested in August on immigration charges after a Minnesota flight instructor reported that he showed a suspicious interest inlearning how to steer large airliners. When agents learned, from French intelligence, that he had radical Islamic ties, they sought a national-security warrant to search his computer—and got turned down.... The agents were 'in a frenzy,' 'absolutely convinced he was planning to do something with a plane,' said a senior official. One agent wrote that 'one possibility' was that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers."
FBI agent’s notes pointed to possible World Trade Center attack
Newsweek, 20 May 2002

"Whatever Moussaoui's true tale may be, the Minnesota field office was convinced he was worth checking out. Agents spent much of the next two weeks in an increasingly frantic-and ultimately fruitless- effort to persuade FBI headquarters to authorize a national-security warrant to search Moussaoui's computer. From Washington, requests were sent to authorities in Paris for background details on the suspect. Like most things having to do with Moussaoui, the contents of the dossier sent over from Paris are in dispute. One senior French law-enforcement source told Time the Americans were given 'everything they needed' to understand that Moussaoui was associated with Islamic terrorist groups. 'Even a neophyte,' says this source, 'working in some remote corner of Florida, would have understood the threat based on what was sent.'...."
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine Online, 4 Aug 2002

"One FBI memo, written by a Phoenix agent in July 2001, warned about suspicious activities by Middle Eastern men at an Arizona flight school. Last week, in little-noticed testimony before a Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that may prove more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to 'fly something into the World Trade Center.'....The notes are especially eerie because Moussaoui faces charges that he was part of the 9-11 plot. Sources say the notes Mueller referred to were written in early September 2001—days before the attack. The author was part of a counterterrorism team desperately trying to figure out what Moussaoui was up to. He had been arrested in August on immigration charges after a Minnesota flight instructor reported that he showed a suspicious interest inlearning how to steer large airliners. When agents learned, from French intelligence, that he had radical Islamic ties, they sought a national-security warrant to search his computer—and got turned down.... The agents were 'in a frenzy,' 'absolutely convinced he was planning to do something with a plane,' said a senior official. One agent wrote that 'one possibility' was that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers."
FBI agent’s notes pointed to possible World Trade Center attack
Newsweek, 20 May 2002

"[Dubai] was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July.... According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence, very specific information was transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against American interests around the world, including on US soil. A DST report dated 7 September enumerates all the intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan."
The CIA met Bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai
Le Figaro, 11 October 2001

"One of the most startling developments during the investigation occurred on July 22, 1999, at the TriBeca Grill in New York where Glass, wearing a wire, met with a man referred to in court documents as Abbas, believed to be a Pakistani government agent brought in by Malik. Glass was informed that they wanted to buy a whole shipload of weapons and they said it was for bin Laden. 'At the meeting Abbas said Americans are the enemy and they will have no problem blowing up this entire restaurant because its full of Americans,' Glass said. 'As we leave the restaurant, Abbas turns and says, 'those towers (the World Trade Center) are coming down.' Despite that information, available to the government two years before the World Trade Center attack, the FBI's terrorism task force didn't appear to take the threat seriously, Glass said."
Con Man Turned Patriot Tells All
Cox News Service, 2 August 2002

"Three months before September 11th, he [Glass] reached out to Florida State Senator Ron Klein and told him about threats against national security.... Klein contacted the office of Florida Senator Bob Graham, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to Graham spokesperson Jill Greenberg, case worker Charlie Yonts spoke with Glass last summer, prior to September 11th, Glass claiming he had at least six conversations with the case worker. And while we've been unable to corroborate the nature of those conversations, Greenberg confirms some of that information was passed along to the Senate Intelligence Committee.... Glass says that until recently no one from any intelligence agency had contacted him."
Tip Questions
Newschannel 5, NBC TV, Florida, 7 October 2002

"... we in turn gave that information [from Mr Glass] to the appropriate intelligence agency..... The acutal operations of collection of information, interviewing possible sources, is the responsibility of the F.B.I. if it's a domestic matter or the C.I.A. if it's foreign..... I had a concern about that and a dozen other pieces of information, uh, which were emminating in the summer of 2001.... I cannot say what agency but the agency that we felt was the most appropriate for the nature of the information that he was providing."
Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Tip Questions
Newschannel 5, NBC TV, Florida, 7 October 2002

"I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing - although that was part of it - by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down, make the further case, or find the evidence that would indicate that that is not true and we can look for other reasons why the terrorists were able to function so effectively in the United States. It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now. And, we need to have this information now because it's relevant to the threat that the people of the United States are facing today...."
Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee
Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Dec 2002

"Federal investigators are reexamining a recent arms smuggling case in Florida to determine whether agents of the Pakistani government tried to buy missiles and nuclear weapons components in the United States last year for use by terrorists or Pakistan's military. The original criminal case - a sting operation in which intermediaries allegedly tried to buy the weapons from [Randy Glass] a diamond thief-turned-informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms - attracted little public notice when arrests were made in June 2001. It resulted in a single guilty plea and the sealing of court files for another defendant..... One reason, informed sources said, was that prosecutors, in an unusual step, removed references to Pakistan from public filings because of diplomatic concerns.... "
U.S. Reopens Arms Case In Probe for Taliban Role
Washington Post, 2 August 2002

"Sheikh himself appears to be one of two key figures who might be able to give first hand testimony of central relevance to these matters. The other is the former head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, who was suddenly 'retired' in October 2001 once the Indian government and the FBI had reported their claimed discovery of Sheikh's involvement in the 911 attacks (they say that it was ISI chief General Mahmoud who instructed Sheikh to make a large money transfer to lead hijacker Mohammed Atta before the attacks. It is also now known that it was Mahmoud who was meeting with the Bush administration in Washington immediately before and during the attacks)."
The 911 Omar Sheikh Files
'Fight Smart', 2 January 2003

"'The complaints were ordered sanitized by the highest levels of government,' Glass said. The complaints were sealed, but Glass pointed out that his sentencing document June 15 listed threats against the World Trade Center and Americans. The [WTC] towers came down three months later."
Informant: Terrorists Warned Of WTC Collapse
WPBF Channel 25, 5 August 2002

"Randy Glass, the former Boca Raton con man who rubbed elbows with terrorists as a federal informant, testified Wednesday before congressional investigators looking into the terrorist attacks last year. What Glass has to say centers on his role in the probe that resulted in the West Palm Beach arrests of two men as arms brokers trying to finalize a deal to sell stinger antiaircraft missiles, nuclear components and other high-tech weaponry to terrorists linked in court documents to Osama Bin Laden. The special joint inquiry committee created by the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the events of Sept. 11 also is looking into intelligence communication breakdowns. In August 2001, just before Glass started to serve a seven-month sentence for a $6 million jewelry scam, he said he reached out to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He said he told staffers for both lawmakers that a Pakistani operative working for the Taliban known as R.G. Abbas made three references to imminent plans to attack the World Trade Center during the probe, which ended in June 2001. At one meeting at New York's Tribeca Grill caught on tape, Abbas pointed to the World Trade Center and said, 'Those towers are coming down,' Glass said. Glass also now says the State Department, in an effort to maintain good diplomatic relations with Pakistan, pulled the plug on the South Florida terrorist probe... Glass spent 3 1/2 hours under oath Wednesday. .... 'I told them I have specific evidence, and I can document it,' Glass said. ..... A federal prosecutor told a judge that Glass had been in contact with agents of the Taliban, the Afghan regime that protected bin Laden. "
Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass
The Palm Beach Post, 17 October 17, 2002

"I felt incredibly uncomfortable. Because I knew that something was going to happen.... I did know there was a plan of attack against the United States and that the World Trade Centre was mentioned."
Undercover FBI informant, Randy Glass,
whose warnings he says were passed onto the intelligence community three months before 911 via State and Federal Senators
Newschannel 5, NBC TV, Florida, 7 October 2002

"[Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee] Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the World Trade Center."
Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass
The Palm Beach Post, 17 October 2002

"How could America's elaborate air defense system of satellites, radar, and supersonic fighters be caught so off-guard on Sept. 11? The mystery is now at the center of one of the most secret - and politically explosive - investigations being conducted by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. Led by former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is analyzing almost every corner of the Sept. 11 tragedy, from skyscraper escape procedures to what the White House knew about terrorist threats and how well the FBI and CIA cooperated. On Monday, the commission plans to hold another public hearing in Washington, this one focusing on homeland security and personal liberty. But one investigation that has not drawn much attention involves air defenses... A spokeswoman for the 177th confirmed that two of its F-16s were flying unarmed bombing runs that morning over a section of the Pine Barrens designated for military drills. But the F-16 pilots, she said, were unaware that America's air defense system needed them desperately. 'Isn't that something?' asked Lt. Luz Aponte, the 177th's public affairs officer, pointing out the irony of having jet fighters so near to the tragedy but with a mission so far afield. Soon after two hijacked commercial jetliners slammed into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan, Aponte said, the two F-16s landed and were refitted with air-to-air missiles, then sent aloft. But that happened more than an hour after the trade center attacks. Such irony - and tragedy - is not lost on the commission. 'We want to know why the jets at Pomona were decommissioned,' said John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general now on the [911] commission's Manhattan staff. An even larger concern is why fighters at other Air Force bases were not scrambled fast enough to protect New York City after the Federal Aviation Administration learned about the hijackings. 'That's a big question,' Kean said in a recent interview.... NORAD confirmed it had only eight fighters on the East Coast for emergency scrambles on Sept. 11. Throughout Canada and the United States, including Alaska, NORAD had 20 fighters on alert - armed, fueled up, and ready to fly in minutes. Four years earlier, NORAD could count on having 175 jets ready to scramble, including two on the tarmac at Atlantic City's airport. With the New Jersey Air National Guard's 17 F-16s out of the picture on Sept. 11, the commission is trying to assess why the Pentagon left what seems to be a yawning gap in the midsection of its air defenses on the East Coast - a gap with New York City at the center.... The commission is also looking into why it took about 20 minutes for civilian air traffic controllers to notify NORAD of the hijackings. 'We are in the process of interviewing pilots,' a commission staffer said.... Even after learning of the hijackings, it took six minutes for NORAD to order F-15 fighters into the sky from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod - the 'alert' base nearest to New York. After that, it took another six minutes for the jets to roar down the runway. Then it took the jets 19 minutes to reach New York, raising this question: Did they fly at full throttle? At a top speed of almost 1,200 mph, an F-15 can reach Manhattan from Cape Cod in less than 12 minutes, NORAD says. Why did it take 19 minutes? By then, it was too late."
Atlantic City F-16 Fighters Were Eight Minutes Away From 9/11 Hijacked Planes
North Jersey Media Group, 5 December 2003

"The 177th Fighter Wing [of the New Jersey Air National Guard], which dates back to 1917, is assigned 1,025 personnel and a budget this year of $39.6 million. The unit has 17 F-16Cs assigned to missions over New York and Washington, Patton says. The jets are capable of speeds over Mach 2 — about 1,500 miles per hour. About an hour after the Sept. 11 attacks, the 177th got orders to send up F-16s. 'It took about 90 minutes to get airplanes armed and in the air,' says Lt. Col. Roger Pharo, another unit spokesman."
OFFICE OF DEFENSE AFFAIRS
Quarterly Newsletter, Issue #1 Volume 2 – January - 2002

"So afraid is the Bush administration of what could be revealed by inquiries into its failures to protect Americans from terrorist attack, it is unabashedly using Kremlin tactics to muzzle members of Congress and thwart the current federal commission investigating the failures of Sept. 11. But there is at least one force that the administration cannot scare off or shut up. They call themselves 'Just Four Moms from New Jersey,' or simply 'the girls.' Kristen and the three other housewives who also lost their husbands in the attack on the World Trade Center started out knowing virtually nothing about how their government worked. For the last 20 months they have clipped and Googled, rallied and lobbied, charmed and intimidated top officials all the way to the White House. In the process, they have made themselves arguably the most effective force in dancing around the obstacle course by which the administration continues to block a transparent investigation of what went wrong with the country’s defenses on Sept. 11 and what we should be doing about it. They have no political clout, no money, no powerful husbands—no husbands at all since Sept. 11—and they are up against a White House, an Attorney General, a Defense Secretary, a National Security Advisor and an F.B.I. director who have worked out an ingenious bait-and-switch game to thwart their efforts and those of any investigative body. The four moms—Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie van Auken—use tactics more like those of a leaderless cell. Lorie checked the Web site of the Federal Aviation Authority. The F.A.A. and the Secret Service, which had an open phone connection, both knew at 8:20 a.m. that two planes had been hijacked in the New York area and had their transponders turned off. How could they have thought it was an accident when the first plane slammed into the first tower 26 minutes later? How could the President have dismissed this as merely an accident by a 'bad pilot'? And how, after he had been specifically told by his chief of staff that 'We are under attack,' could the Commander in Chief continue sitting with second graders and make a joke? Lorie ran the video over and over. 'I couldn’t stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second graders, while my husband was burning in a building,' she said. Mindy pieced together the actions of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He had been in his Washington office engaged in his 'usual intelligence briefing.' After being informed of the two attacks on the World Trade Center, he proceeded with his briefing until the third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon. Mindy relayed the information to Kristen: 'Can you believe this? Two planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld’s leaving his office and going to the war room to check out just what the hell went wrong.' Mindy sounded scared. 'This is my President. This is my Secretary of Defense. You mean to tell me Rumsfeld had to get up from his desk and look out his window at the burning Pentagon before he knew anything was wrong? How can that be?' 'It can’t be,' said Kristen ominously."
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
New York Observer, 21 August 2003

The [911 Victims] Family Steering Committee Statement and Questions
Regarding the 9/11 Commission Interview with President Bush
Monday 16 February 2004

The Family Steering Committee believes that President Bush should provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . Collectively, the Commissioners are responsible for fulfilling the Congressional mandate. Therefore, each Commissioner must have full access to the testimony of all individuals and the critical information that will enable informed decisions and recommendations.

Before an audience of the American people, the Commission must ask President Bush in sworn testimony, the following questions:

1. As Commander-in-Chief on the morning of 9/11, why didn’t you return immediately to Washington, D.C. or the National Military Command Center once you became aware that America was under attack? At specifically what time did you become aware that America was under attack? Who informed you of this fact?
2. On the morning of 9/11, who was in charge of our country while you were away from the National Military Command Center? Were you informed or consulted about all decisions made in your absence?
3. What defensive action did you personally order to protect our nation during the crisis on September 11th? What time were these orders given, and to whom? What orders were carried out? What was the result of such orders? Were any such orders not carried out?
4. In your opinion, why was our nation so utterly unprepared for an attack on our own soil?
5. U.S. Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the Director of the White House Situation Room, informed you of the first airliner hitting Tower One of the World Trade Center before you entered the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. Please explain the reason why you decided to continue with the scheduled classroom visit, fifteen minutes after learning the first hijacked airliner had hit the World Trade Center.
6. Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th.
7. What plan of action caused you to remain seated after Andrew Card informed you that a second airliner had hit the second tower of the World Trade Center and America was clearly under attack? Approximately how long did you remain in the classroom after Card’s message?
8. At what time were you made aware that other planes were hijacked in addition to Flight 11 and Flight 175? Who notified you? What was your course of action as Commander-in-Chief of the United States?
9. Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01, specifically what information (either verbal or written) about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you receive from any source? This would include briefings or communications from
• Out-going Clinton officials
• CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and other intelligence agencies
• Foreign intelligence, governments, dignitaries or envoys
• National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
• Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar
10. Specifically, what did you learn from the August 6, 2001, PDB about the terrorist threat that was facing our nation? Did you request any follow-up action to take place? Did you request any further report be developed and/or prepared?
11. As Commander-in-Chief, from May 1, 2001 until September 11, 2001, did you receive any information from any intelligence agency official or agent that UBL was planning to attack this nation on its own soil using airplanes as weapons, targeting New York City landmarks during the week of September 11, 2001 or on the actual day of September 11, 2001?
12. What defensive measures did you take in response to pre-9/11 warnings from eleven nations about a terrorist attack, many of which cited an attack in the continental United States? Did you prepare any directives in response to these actions? If so, with what results?
13. As Commander-in-Chief from May 1, 2001 until September 11, 2001, did you or any agent of the United States government carry out any negotiations or talks with UBL, an agent of UBL, or al-Qaeda? During that same period, did you or any agent of the United States government carry out any negotiations or talks with any foreign government, its agents, or officials regarding UBL? If so, what resulted?
14. Your schedule for September 11, 2001 was in the public domain since September 7, 2001. The Emma E. Booker School is only five miles from the Bradenton Airport, so you, and therefore the children in the classroom, might have been a target for the terrorists on 9/11. What was the intention of the Secret Service in allowing you to remain in the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, even though they were aware America was under attack?
15. Please explain why you remained at the Sarasota, Florida, Elementary School for a press conference after you had finished listening to the children read, when as a terrorist target, your presence potentially jeopardized the lives of the children?
16. What was the purpose of the several stops of Air Force One on September 11th? Was Air Force One at any time during the day of September 11th a target of the terrorists? Was Air Force One’s code ever breached on September 11th?
17. Was there a reason for Air Force One lifting off without a military escort, even after ample time had elapsed to allow military jets to arrive?
18. What prompted your refusal to release the information regarding foreign sponsorship of the terrorists, as illustrated in the inaccessible 28 redacted pages in the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry Report? What actions have you personally taken since 9/11 to thwart foreign sponsorship of terrorism?
19. Who approved the flight of the bin Laden family out of the United States when all commercial flights were grounded, when there was time for only minimal questioning by the FBI, and especially, when two of those same individuals had links to WAMY, a charity suspected of funding terrorism? Why were bin Laden family members granted that special privilege—a privilege not available to American families whose loved ones were killed on 9/11?
20. Please explain why no one in any level of our government has yet been held accountable for the countless failures leading up to and on 9/11?
21. Please comment on the fact that UBL’s profile on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives poster does not include the 9/11 attacks. To your knowledge, when was the last time any agent of our government had contact with UBL? If prior to 9/11, specifically what was the date of that contact and what was the context of said meeting.
22. Do you continue to maintain that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda? What proof do you have of any connection between al-Qaeda and the Hussein regime?
23. Which individuals, governments, agencies, institutions, or groups may have benefited from the attacks of 9/11? Please state specifically how you think they have benefited.

"[The 'October Surprise' sabotage] was a covert operation by the Reagan-Bush campaign that secretly forged a deal with the Iranian radicals who, after overthrowing the US-backed Shah, were holding 52 Americans (including several CIA agents) as hostages. In exchange for holding the hostages until after the [1980 Presidential] election, the Reagan-Bush team offered the Iranians millions of dollars in arms, material, and other considerations. Sure enough, the hostages were held until minutes after Reagan's inauguration, then 'suddenly' released. Bush and Casey personally participated in the secret negotiations. James Baker, who would be Reagan's chief of staff and Bush's Sec. of State, was also involved. To this day, Bush et al. vehemently deny the plot, but their alibis don't hold up to scrutiny and just such secret arms shipments undeniably took place. Most damning is the fact that other participants, including senior Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives from several countries, have publicly confirmed they were involved in [the] secret deal.... Further confirmation came in 1993, in the form of a six-page Russian intelligence report that corroborated much of the story. The sensitive report was released by Russia's prime minister as a gesture of post-Cold War cooperation, in response to a request for information from a US Congressional task force [which reported in Jan 1993] investigating the charges. ¹⁵ But the report was suppressed, task force chairman Rep. Lee Hamilton (backed by Henry Hyde) sandbagged the rest of the inquiry, and the final verdict was that there was 'no credible evidence' of a secret deal. The 'investigation' was such a sham that Hamilton publicly exonerated Bush (by then the president) before it even started. ¹⁶ By engaging in renegade 'foreign policy,' the Reagan-Bush team undercut President Carter's own secret efforts to free the hostages and thereby stole the White House. It was, in fact, a coup d'etat ."
COUP 2K by JOHN DEE
Published in Lumpen, Jan. 2001

"Little did the Russians know that not only did the [October Surprise] House task force ignore the Stepashin report, but actually stuck it in a box that was piled unceremoniously on the floor of a former Ladies Room off a congressional parking garage."
Russia's Prime Minister and October Surprise
Online Journal, 1999

"The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was rocked Thursday by the bizarre revelation that two of its senior officials were so closely involved in the events they are investigating that they have had to be interviewed as part of the inquiry. Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new administration took power, advising his longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, on the structure of the incoming National Security Council..... Jamie S. Gorelick, one the 10 members of the commission and the other official who has answered investigators' questions, was a senior official under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton administration.... The news is a particularly sharp blow to the commission's credibility because Gorelick and Zelikow are the two officials to whom the White House has granted the greatest access to the most secret and sensitive national security documents of all, the presidential daily briefings. Last year, officials acknowledged that one such briefing in August 2001, more than a month prior to the attacks, warned that al-Qaida was determined to strike in the United States. Some reports suggested that hijacking -- and even the use of airplanes as missiles -- was mentioned as the mode of assault. The question of the transition is a significant one, because critics of President Bush say the incoming administration 'dropped the ball' on the fight against Osama bin Laden, which had been ramping up under President Clinton after a suicide attack by the al-Qaida network nearly destroyed the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000."
"Whitewash': 9/11 Director Gave Evidence to Own Inquiry
United Press International, 15 January 2004

"Is the Bush White House trying to put the brakes on the congressional panel created last fall to investigate 9-11 attacks? Sources tell TIME that the White House brushed off a request quietly made last week by the 9-11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean, the Republican former governor of New Jersey, to boost his budget by $11 million.... Roemer has gone so far as to draw comparisons with the $50 million provided to investigate the recent Columbia tragedy in which seven people died.... The slow start is particularly upsetting to some because the panel was given 18 months to complete its probe, and the clock has been ticking since November 27 but the commission has made scant progress in the four months since."
Questions arise concerning the administration's funding of the congressional investigation into the September 11th attacks
Time Magazine, 26 March 2003

"The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks backed away yesterday from a threatened legal showdown with the White House, agreeing to accept a 17-page summary of the presidential briefing documents it had sought. The deal will not allow the full 10-member commission to read the original documents or to have access to notes on the documents taken by some of the commission's own members. The summary -- provided to commission members during a closed-door meeting yesterday -- covered several dozen original intelligence documents and was first vetted by the White House, officials said. The limitations prompted at least three Democratic members of the bipartisan panel to vote in favor of issuing a subpoena to the White House for the documents, known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB). But the move was rebuffed by Republicans on the commission, and at least one Democrat abstained, according to several commission members. 'You either say you didn't have warning prior to 9/11 and you let us see the documents, or you shouldn't claim that,' said Democratic commission member Timothy J. Roemer, a former House member from Indiana. 'To say there's nothing in the PDBs that gave the president warning and then put together an agreement that only allows one or two commissioners to see the PDBs is not defensible.' The agreement also angered families of Sept. 11 victims, who have criticized the panel for not being more aggressive in its frequent battles with the Bush administration."
9/11 Panel to Accept Summary of Briefings
Washington Post, 11 February 2004

"The commission said Tuesday that it had not yet received a commitment from the administration for public testimony from prominent White House officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser. The panel said it was still in negotiations over the possibility of testimony from President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney..... An extension of the commission's deadline would need to be approved in Congress in the next few weeks."
9/11 Commission Says It Needs More Time
New York Times, 27 January 2004

"It was the Bush administration, remember, that resisted mightily the creation of this commission and then appointed the wildly inappropriate Henry Kissinger to be its chair. When Kissinger was forced to withdraw for a gazillion conflicts of interest, the well-respected Tom Kean, former governor of New Jersey and a Republican, took over. Then the Bush White House proceeded to stonewall, not turning over documents until subpoenaed. But why? Do they know something about the runup to Sept. 11 that we don't know?"
A 9/11 cover up? Why won't Bush cooperate with investigations?
Philadelphia Daily News, 29 January 2004

"Some two weeks ago or so much of the 'thinking' world was stunned to hear that President Bush had appointed Henry Kissinger as Chairman of the 'independent' commission of inquiry into the 911 attacks on the US. It is well known in political and academic circles that Kissinger is a past master of secrecy and deception, even if the impression of him held by a sometimes poorly informed general public is commonly an honourable one. The Bush administration had long delayed agreeing to legislation on the 911 inquiry until it could be sure of finding a chairman whom it could rely upon not to dig too deep. But now Kissinger has himself suddenly resigned, throwing the Bush 911 cover-up strategy into disarray - at least for the moment. Right from the minute he was appointed to lead the Commission, fierce public pressure built up on Kissinger to declare his conflicts of interest, and in particular to disclose the clients of his private consulting firm 'Kissinger Associates'. Rather than concede to this Kissinger has now decided to resign his post, despite the major embarrassment this causes to both himself and the White House. Such has been the brazen arrogance of the Bush administration since 911 that clearly neither Kissinger nor the White House had anticipated the intense public pressure that would arise for the disclosure of his business associations. Given the highly damaging nature of the resignation it is difficult not to conclude that such disclosure must have had the potential to lead to even worse, and therefore immense, embarrassment. And indeed this seems more than likely. In particular disclosure would almost certainly have placed further public attention on Kissinger's role as an adviser to US oil company Unocal and its relationship with the Taliban in Afghanistan (more details below). But this would not have simply been a personal embarrassment to Kissinger. The Unocal trail leads directly to Enron and then on towards Vice President Dick Cheney. ... So with a variety of time bombs apparently ticking away in the background, and with Kissinger no longer in a position to neutralise them on behalf of the White House, what is the Bush administration now going to do about the 911 Commission? It's too late to stop the inquiry because it's already on the statute books. The legislation was finally signed by Bush in November once Kissinger had been secured for the job. Now Kissinger is suddenly gone and so too is the Commission's vice chairman. Is Bush's luck in fact starting to run out, or will Cheney be able to retrieve the situation for him? The replacement that has already been secured for the Vice Chair of the Commission - Lee Hamilton - is a Democrat previously accused of participating in inquiry cover-ups of alleged wrongdoings by Bush's father during the Reagan era (ominously the official records of previous Presidents have now been subjected to an Executive Order by Bush junior restricting public access to them). The earlier Bush related inquiries in which Hamilton was involved concern the 'October Surprise' and 'Iran-Contra' scandals. And Cheney was in there too - according to the reporter who broke parts of the Iran-Contra story through Newsweek and Associated Press. In a more recent analysis entitled 'Covering Up Iran-Contra' (Consortium News, 5 November 2000 ) he comments on Hamilton's and Cheney's role in that investigation as follows...... "
911 Cover-Up Wobbles
'Fight Smart', 15 December 2002

"A new political battle is brewing over the federal panel investigating the September 11 terror attacks seeking an extension as the White House fears that release of the report in the midst of presidential elections might prove an embarrassment to President George W Bush. Facing a May deadline that many members no longer think they can meet, the panel, which has uncovered new evidence of bunglings by the federal agencies prior to the terror strikes, is weighing asking Congress for more time to prepare the report, the 'Newsweek' magazine reported. Some members want a few extra months-which would push back its release into the summer. But the prospect of unleashing the report in the middle of the election season is creating anxiety inside the White House, the magazine says. Some aides fear that the document will contain fresh ammunition for Democrats eager to prove Bush was inattentive to terrorism warnings prior to 9/11. However, in a pre-emptive move, Bush officials, who till recently were sticking to their policy of no give on May deadline, favoured an extension to the commission if the report were put off until December, thereby 'taking it out of the election,' the magazine quotes a commission source as saying."
White House, 9/11 probe panel at loggerheads
The Hindu, 12 January 2004

"For all the heroics of the region's first responders on 9/11, the security breaches that came to light that day left us thoroughly exposed. The real first responders on and before 9/11 should have been American intelligence agencies, airport security personnel, and - failing that - fighter jets in the airspace around Manhattan. In point of fact, the fighter jets showed up well after the Twin Towers had started to burn. How could this have happened? .... The Republicans would rather not discuss it.... For whatever reason, our institutions failed to protect us on 9/11. Our intelligence failed and our immigration policies failed and our networks for sharing information failed. New Yorkers - and other Americans, too - need to know why."
Don't Dump 9/11 Probe to Keep GOP Happy
Newsday, 4 February 2004

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do [at Pearl Harbor] was known to the United States..."
ARMY BOARD, 1944

"A majority of Americans believe Mr Bush lied or deliberately exaggerated evidence to make the case for war in Iraq."
Kerry says claims of affair with intern are just rumour
London Times, 14 February 2004

"Our industry can certainly be proud of its past achievements. Yet the challenges we will face in the coming years will be every bit as great as those encountered in the past, due in part to ever-increasing global energy use. For example, we estimate that world oil and gas production from existing fields is declining at an average rate of about 4 to 6 percent a year. To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million oil-equivalent barrels a day of new production. That's equal to about 80 percent of today's production level. In other words, by 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to eight out of every 10 barrels being produced today."
John Thompson, President of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company
The Lamp (published for ExxonMobil shareholders), 2003, Vol. 85 No.1

"But the country's [Saudi Arabia] oil fields now are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years. Energy forecasts call for Saudi Arabia to almost double its output in the next decade and after. Oil executives and government officials in the United States and Saudi Arabia, however, say capacity will probably stall near current levels, potentially creating a significant gap in the global energy supply.... An internal Saudi Aramco plan, the experts said, estimates total production capacity in 2011 at 10.15 million barrels a day, about the current capacity. But to meet expected world demand, the United States Department of Energy's research arm says Saudi Arabia will need to produce 13.6 million barrels a day by 2010 and 19.5 million barrels a day by 2020.... Edward O. Price Jr., a former top Saudi Aramco and Chevron executive and a leading United States government adviser, says he believes that Saudi Arabia can pump up to 12 million barrels a day 'for a few years.' But 'the world should not expect more from the Saudis,' he said. He expects global oil markets to be in short supply by 2015.'... oil field development requires years of planning and work.... Sadad al-Husseini, Saudi Aramco's second-ranking executive and its leading geologist, warned at an oil conference in Jakarta in 2002 that global 'natural declines in existing capacity are real and must be replaced'....The average decline rate in Saudi Aramco's mature fields — Ghawar and a few others — 'is in the range of 8 percent per year,' without additional remediation, according to the company's statement..... The I.E.A. warned in November that huge investments would be needed to offset the decline rates in mature Middle Eastern oil fields — it put the average at 5 percent — and the increasing costs of oil and gas production. The agency, based in Paris, forecasts that Saudi production will need to reach 20 million barrels a day by 2020. .... In his speech in Jakarta, Dr. al-Husseini noted the need for exploration, pointing out that colleagues at Exxon Mobil predict that more than 50 percent of oil and gas consumption in 2010 must come from new fields and reservoirs. Harry A. Longwell, the executive vice president of Exxon Mobil, says finding new sources of oil is crucial. Mr. Longwell, in an interview, said that increasing demand and declining production were not new problems, but they were 'much larger now because of the world's demand for energy and the magnitude of the numbers now are much larger.'"
Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields
New York Times, 24 February 2004

".... for the US alone, oil imports, or imports of other sources of oil, such as natural gas liquids, will have to rise from 11m bpd to 18.5m bpd by 2020. Securing that increment of imported oil - the equivalent of total current oil consumption by China and India combined - has driven an integrated US oil-military strategy ever since [the May 2001 National Energy Plan of Vice President Dick Cheney]. There is, however, a fundamental weakness in this policy. Most countries targeted as a source of increased oil supplies to the US are riven by deep internal conflicts, strong anti-Americanism, or both. Iraq is only the first example of the cost - both in cash and in soldiers' lives - of facing down resistance or fighting resource wars in key oil-producing regions, a cost that even the US may find unsustainable. The conclusion is clear: if we do not immediately plan to make the switch to renewable energy - faster, and backed by far greater investment than currently envisaged - then civilisation faces the sharpest and perhaps most violent dislocation in recent history."
Michael Meacher - Plan now for a world without oil
Financial Times, print edition, 5 January 2004

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says 'while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'... In late September and early October 2001, leaders of Pakistan's two Islamist parties negotiated Bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for 9/11. However, a US official said, significantly, that 'casting our objectives too narrowly' risked 'a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr Bin Laden was captured'.... The whistleblowing FBI agent Robert Wright told ABC News that FBI headquarters wanted no arrests.... The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that 'the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East'. Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, 'military intervention' was necessary. Similar evidence exists in regard to Afghanistan. The BBC reported that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that 'military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October'. Until July 2001 the US government saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, the US representatives told them 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs' .... The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies.... A report from the commission on America's national interests in July 2000 noted that the most promising new source of world supplies was the Caspian region, and this would relieve US dependence on Saudi Arabia. To diversify supply routes from the Caspian, one pipeline would run westward via Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Another would extend eastwards through Afghanistan and Pakistan and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast, in which Enron had sunk $3bn investment and whose economic survival was dependent on access to cheap gas... The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the 'global war on terrorism' has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."
Michael Meacher, former Blair government Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
The Guardian, 6 September 2003

Bogus War Against Terrorism - Why They Are Really Doing It
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
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