Ok, sorry for the hiatus.
Let’s move on, onto the foreknowledge section.
It should be stated, that were a new PH deemed propitious to policy, this would give us a very interesting framework within which to proceed re: 911.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on defense, intel and diplomacy every year, in significant part to prevent the occurrence of a new PH, or some such event. This is why the chances of such an event occurring, absent government connivance, are so slim- it is indeed a once in a lifetime event. Thus, the chances of all the enormous systematic hindrances and hurdles to such an occurrence being overcome merely by external agents, when the government itself feels that such an occurrence is propitious, get reduced significantly, given that a government can fairly easily connive to allow such an event to occur. Moreover, the chances that such an occurrence should happen in the most timely manner possible for said government, just before the QDR, the importance of which timing had been implied strongly in the same policy document, and leaving the administration 3 or 7 years to pursue the implementation and entrenchment of such policies, given also that , to repeat, they had deemed such an event propitious… the chances of the event having occurred without government connivance are very very small indeed. This then gives us a framework for proceed, and weighing up evidence, and should colour all our future judgements on the matter.
It may be instructive to ask oneself, what one would expect to happen, in an instance where a new PH had been deemed propitious to policy, in the run up to the occurrence of such an event, were such to be allowed to happen.
A very plausible sequence would be as follows:
1. Non partisan members of government who would stand in the way of a new PH happening get demoted/silenced/sidelined. This is not given, subsequently, adequate explanation.
2. There is an unprecedented litany of warnings in the intel community, none of which get acted upon. This leaves certain agents furious, threatening to quit, stating that something huge will happen unless people start taking things seriously. Important organisation heads will have back channels to the GOP, and have been brought into line, thus facilitating the neglect. No one will be fired, or even demoted. This is, subsequently, explained away by the fact that there were communication problems between agencies, fluff about how everything looks 20-20 in hindsight, and how they get lots of warnings.
3. It will, inevitably, surface that important and revelatory information was passed all the way up to the Principals, the VP, and even POTUS, but zero action was taken, nothing , nowhere. This will be left uncomfortably silent
4. And finally, there will maybe be the odd slip that cannot be accounted for, such as an early, smaller attack from Al Qaeda, the people most likely to be the bogeymen for the new PH, which should warrant a response, but nothing gets done; and, if you are really unlikely, an offer from the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden to the US’s clients in Saudi Arabia, to be handed to the US; this just gets hushed up, and everyone pretends it didn’t happen.
I think this is a pretty plausible sequence of events for what might happen in the event of government connivance in 9/11. And of course, it is precisely what did happen.
1.As anyone who has read Richard Clarke’s book, “Against All Enemies” will be aware, the efforts taken by the Clinton administration to stop terrorism, and in particular Al Qaeda terrorism, were considerable. One of the main reflections of this occurs in Clinton’s creation of the post of National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, the “Counter Terrorism Czar” that was given to Clarke. Clarke was very aware of the threat of AQ, and within 5 days of taking office, he had sent a document to Condi Rice, entitled, “Strategy for eliminating AQ”. Very clear in its import- these guys are mean, and they want to kill us. Take them very seriously The response? Very simple- demotion. The next day he was told that he would no longer be dealing with Principals, but rather with Deputies. This was a pretty easy method of turning the volume down/off from any non partisan members of government who might try and alert senior members too doggedly of the threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20349-2004Mar24.html
In his own words, this slowed things down “by months.” Actions on this document for combating this threat were not even discussed by Principals until September 4th; 9 months later.
It should also be noted that Bush and his team had been made aware of the urgency of getting AQ as early as November. Fighting terror was, indeed, something which Bush had campaigned on in 2000. The war on Islamic terrorism had been stated explicitly, in light of the USS Cole attack, by Sandy Berger on January 17th 2001. So the threat of Islamic terror was something Bush et al had been well briefed on before taking office, it was an “urgent” issue, a “deadly threat”. So when Clarke hands a document to the same people, outlining strategies for countering this deadly thread, and gets demoted for his efforts, this should bring the probable motivations of the administration quite sharply into relief.
Do note that if a new PH was going to occur, AQ/OBL are clearly the obvious bogeymen.
2. Regarding forewarnings, these were considerable. Many of these details can be founded, with links to articles/date and edition of articles, here:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/...11_timeline&before_9/11=warnings&startpos=100
Here are some brief excerpts:
- May- July 2001: Over a two-month period, the NSA reports that “at least 33 communications indicating a possible, imminent terrorist attack.”
- May 16-17, 2001: US Warned Bin Laden Supporters inside US and Planning an Attack
- May 29, 2001: Clarke (ex US Head of Counter Terrorism) Asks for More to Be Done to Stop Expected Al-Qaeda Attacks
- May 30, 2001: FBI Is Warned of Major Al-Qaeda Operation in the US Involving Hijackings, Explosives, and/or New York City
- June 2001: Germans Warn of Plan to Use Aircraft as Missiles on US and Israeli Symbols
- June 2001: US Intelligence Warns of Spectacular Attacks by al-Qaeda Associates
- June-July 2001: Terrorist Threat Reports Surge, Frustration with White House Grows
- Summer 2001: Threat Alerts Increase to Record High
- Summer 2001: Israel Warns US of ‘Big Attack’
- Summer 2001: Al-Qaeda Plot Described as Upcoming ‘Hiroshima’ on US Soil
- June 21, 2001: Senior Al-Qaeda Officials Say Important Surprises Coming Soon
- June 22, 2001: CIA Warns of Imminent Al-Qaeda Suicide Attack
- June 23, 2001: White House Warned ‘Bin Laden Attacks May Be Imminent’
- June 25, 2001: Clarke Tells Rice That Pattern of Warnings Indicates an Upcoming Attack
- June 28, 2001: Tenet (ex CIA Director) Warns of Imminent Al-Qaeda Attack
- June 28, 2001: Clarke Warns Rice That Threat Level Has Reached a Peak
- Late Summer 2001: Jordan Warns US That Aircraft Will Be Used in Major Attack Inside the US
- July 2001: India Warns US of Possible Terror Attacks
- July 1, 2001: Senators Warn of Al-Qaeda Attack Within Three Months
- July 5, 2001: Ashcroft (ex US Attorney General) Is Warned of Imminent, Multiple Attacks from Al-Qaeda
- July 6, 2001: CIA Warns Upcoming Al-Qaeda Attack Will Be ‘Spectacular’ and Different
- July 6, 2001: Clarke Tells Rice to Warn Agencies to Prepare for 3 to 5 Simultaneous Attacks; No Apparent Response
- July 10, 2001: FBI Agent Sends Memo Warning That Inordinate Number of Muslim Extremists Are Learning to Fly in Arizona
- July 10, 2001: CIA Director Gives Urgent Warning to White House of Imminent, Multiple, Simultaneous Al-Qaeda Attacks, Possibly Within US
- July 16, 2001: British Spy Agencies Warn Al-Qaeda Is in The Final Stages of Attack in the West
- Late July 2001: Taliban Foreign Minister Tries to Warn US and UN of Huge Attack Inside the US
- Late July 2001: Argentina Relays Warning to the US
- Late July 2001: Egypt Warns CIA of 20 Al-Qaeda Operatives in US; Four Training to Fly; CIA Is Not Interested
- Late July 2001: CIA Director Believes Warnings Could Not ‘Get Any Worse’
- August 2001: Russia Warns US of Suicide Pilots
- Early August 2001: Government Informant Warns Congressmen of Plan to Attack the WTC
- Early August 2001: Britain Warns US Again; Specifies Multiple Airplane Hijackings
- August 6, 2001: Bush Briefing Titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US’
- August 8-15, 2001: Israel Reportedly Warns of Major Assault on the US
- August 15, 2001: CIA Counterterrorism Head: We Are Going to Be Struck Soon
- August 23-27, 2001: Minnesota FBI Agents ‘Absolutely Convinced’ Moussaoui Plans to Hijack Plane; They Are Undermined by FBI Headquarters
- August 23, 2001: Mossad Reportedly Gives CIA List of Terrorist Living in US; at Least Four 9/11 Hijackers Named
- August 30, 2001-September 4, 2001: Egypt Warns al-Qaeda Is in Advanced Stages of Planning Significant Attack on US
- September 4, 2001: Mossad Gives Another Warning of Major, Imminent Attack
- September 10, 2001: NSA Intercepts: ‘The Match Begins Tomorrow’ and ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’
- September 10, 2001: US Intercepts: ‘Watch the News’ and ‘Tomorrow Will Be a Great Day for Us’
- September 10, 2001: US Generals Warned Not to Fly on Morning of 9/11
Now, the counter here will predictably be, well, there were problems, intel agencies get loads of warnings every day, this probably represents a minute fragment. This is only true with an ignorance of the facts. These state that George Tenet, the DCI, had described the intel warnings, regarding an upcoming AQ attack on the US/US interests, as “unprecedented”. This is the same man who was in charge over the millennium, when the terror threat (foiled, incidentally) was possibly as high as it had ever been up to that point. According to Dick Armitage, his “hair was on fire”. Another FBI source claimed “The warnings could not have been any worse”. So clearly, any arguments that this level of warning was something ordinary could not be further from the truth. (For all sources, see link above)
The second rebuttal is that the warnings were not specific enough. Well, although this will be debated, what is telling, is that nothing was done. Not one thing. No increased protection of vulnerabilities, border security etc, not even one effort toward that. As outlined above, such unprecedented neglect, fudged by incomplete explanations, is precisely what would be expected in such a scenario.
PS- Regarding “back channels”, this was stated in Clarke’s book, that Louis Freeh, the then director of the FBI had back channels to certain parts of the GOP.
3. What is less easy to explain away is the inaction of POTUS and those around him. As has been made clear in the 911 Comm report, Bush was warned 40 times in the ~30 weeks running up to 9/11, just at PDB’s by Tenet (the man with his hair on fire at the unprecedented threat), of the impending threat of an AQ attack. What was done? Nothing. And there were very specific pieces of information given to Bush. To quote 911 Commissioner Bob Kerrey:
Bob Kerrey said:
“y the way, there’s a credible case that the president’s own negligence prior to 9/11 at least in part contributed to the disaster in the first place.… n the summer of 2001, the government ignored repeated warnings by the CIA, ignored, and didn’t do anything to harden our border security, didn’t do anything to harden airport country, didn’t do anything to engage local law enforcement, didn’t do anything to round up INS and consular offices and say we have to shut this down, and didn’t warn the American people. The famous presidential daily briefing on August 6, we say in the report that the briefing officers believed that there was a considerable sense of urgency and it was current. So there was a case to be made that wasn’t made.… The president says, if I had only known that 19 Islamic men would come into the United States of America and on the morning of 11 September hijack four American aircraft, fly two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one into an unknown Pennsylvania that crashed in Shanksville, I would have moved heaven and earth. That’s what he said. Mr. President, you don’t need to know that. This is an Islamic Jihadist movement that has been organized since the early 1990s, declared war on the United States twice, in ‘96 and ‘98. You knew they were in the United States. You were warned by the CIA. You knew in July they were inside the United States. You were told again by briefing officers in August that it was a dire threat. And what did you do? Nothing, so far as we could see on the 9/11 Commission.”
This sums up matters quite well.
In addition, we have the statement from George Tenet, who told the CNN that he had told Rice that AQ were planning multiple, simultaneous attacks on the US.
KING: Did you warn her or threat -- did you warn her that a threat was imminent?
TENET: You're talking in the run-up to 9...
KING: Yes.
TENET: ... to 9/11?
Well, you know, we provided, I think...
KING: You knew there was a threat imminent.
TENET: Well, sure. There was -- we had a meeting on July 10th and we -- we, you know, I jumped in the car and went down to see the national security adviser. We believed that there were -- the threat was imminent, there would be multiple spectacular...
KING: What did she do?
TENET: Well, she got it. She understand the nature of the threat. She turned around, she had the deputies convene. Other things happened around that time. We had asked for -- we had asked for specific authorities to help us get into Afghanistan. We had asked for those in the spring. This all came a little bit slowly.
But, Larry, everybody now wants to look at was one person responsible?
Look, look, policymakers and law enforcement intelligence, all of us in this owed the families of 9/11 better than they got. Human beings make mistakes. There's no silver bullet in any of this.
So having the game of who did what and what happened, look, this was the most painful day of our lives.
So did we provide strategic warning?
Yes.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...30/lkl.01.html
Of course, in the light of the fact that the CT movement presses for an investigation of possible US complicity in 9/11, the above, as well as the 40 ignored, direct warnings gives a strong case for such.
4. Of course there was the attack on the Cole, which was not acted upon at all; no War on Terror from that; just a promise from Bush to “strengthen missile defenses” to protect US troops. What is very interesting, incriminating, important, and unknown to most on either side of the fence, is the fact that OBL was offered to Bush, by the Taliban, in return for dropping of sanctions in February 2001. This was not only in the midst of all these warnings, but also after the guilt for the Cole bombing had been pinned on AQ. Not to mention the bombings of the embassies and the WTC in 1993. So, one of the biggest terrorists in the world who has killed many of your countrymen, and declared holy war against your country, declaring every man, woman and children legitmate targets, is offered to you on a plate, what do you do? Nothing of course. Criminal.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zK-te3Y0m5A
The need for investigating US government complicity, in the light of all this, is clearly a dire one.
