The way in which things are misquoted here is also interesting. Yes, Looming Tower won a Pulitzer Prize. But does Looming Tower tell us that the US government let 9/11 happen? No it does not.
Yes it does, this is exactly what this books says, that the US government let 9/11 happen.
Obviously you have never read this book, if you had you did not comprehend what it actually said. Small wonder!
Looming Tower clearly said that the CIA had [criminally] obstructed the FBI criminal investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole. It was this criminal obstruction of the FBI criminal investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole that had allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place.
The CIA and later even the FBI HQ were hiding the information that Walid Bin Attash had been at the al Qaeda planning meeting on January 6-8, 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, with Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, actually planning the Cole bombing. The CIA in fact had photos of all three of these al Qaeda terrorists, connected at that time to the east African bombings, taken at this meeting, and even knew that Khalid al-Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa for the US and that his traveling companion, Nawaf al-Hazmi had entered the US one week after this meeting ended, on January 15, 2000.
According to Lawrence Wright, Ali Soufan, lead FBI Cole bombing investigator sent a request in November 2000 to the CIA Yemen Station for any information the CIA had on Walid bin Attash, or any information the CIA had on any al Qaeda planning meeting in southeast Asia in January 2000. After being told that the CIA had none of this information, when in fact they had this exact information, Soufan sent this same request to Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, to be forwarded to CIA head quarters in the US. Freeh came back with the answer that the CIA had none of this information. But according to page 238-239 of the DOJ IG report and page 181 of the 9/11 Commission report, Freeh had been given this information, that Khalid and Nawaf, two al Qaeda terrorists were going to a al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January 2000 both by the NSA, in December 1999 and by the CIA in January 2000. Louis Freeh had sabotaged his own criminal investigation into the murder of 17 US sailors on the USS Cole when he said that the CIA had none of this information. While Wright was the first to report this request by Soufan to FBI Director Louis Freeh, he inexplicably left out the fact that Freeh himself had been given this information by both the CIA an NSA.
This book described the meeting in New York City at the New York FBI filed office on June 11, 2001 between the CIA, FBI HQ and the Cole bombing investigators in New York City, where FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi gave FBI Agent and Cole bombing investigator Steve Bongardt and members of his team, three photos of Khalid al-Mihdhar taken at Kuala Lumpur. One photo had only Mihdhar and Hazmi in it. At that point, CIA officer Clarke Shannon asked Bongardt and his other FBI Cole bombing investigators if they recognized anyone in these photos.
Since one photo only had Mihdhar and Hazmi in it, and the CIA knew exactly what these two al Qaeda terrorists looked like, it is clear that the CIA only wanted to know if Bongardt and Ali Soufan, in their search for Walid bin Attash, mastermind of the Cole bombing, had uncovered the information that the CIA had been trying to keep secret since bin Attash had been identified in the Kuala Lumpur photo on January 4, 2001. The CIA wanted to know if Bongardt and his team had uncovered the information that Mihdhar and Hazmi had also been at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting with bin Attash planning the Cole bombing. As Lawrence Wright reported, in Looming Tower, Bongardt said he nor anyone on his team knew who these people in the photos were. Bongardt then asked who were the people in these photos taken at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting? Were there more photos of other al Qaeda terrorists at this meeting? And what did these people have to do with the bombing of the USS Cole, since Bongardt and his team were investigating this bombing and the CIA was clearly asking them about the people in these photos.
Shannon refused to answer Bongardt’s question, even when he knew that both Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at this meeting with Walid bin Attash actually planning the Cole bombing. But Shannon also knew, as did his former CIA boss, Tom Wilshire, that Hazmi was already inside of the US in order to take part in an al Qaeda terrorist attack, and knew that Mihdhar had a US visa so he could join Hazmi in this attack. Since the three photos of Mihdhar taken at Kuala Lumpur had been obtained from the CIA by Tom Wilshire, just after he had been moved over from the job of Deputy Chief of the CIA bin Laden unit to be Deputy Chief of the FBI ITOS unit, it is clear that it was Wilshire that had asked Corsi set up this meeting in order to find out for the CIA, what information the FBI Cole bombing investigators had uncovered on Mihdhar and Hazmi.
It is also clear from information in the DOJ IG report that Wilshire and Shannon both had the official FBI April 2001 request from FBI Agent Ali Soufan, who was leading the group of investigators that Bongardt was part of. Soufan had sent to the CIA in April 2001, a request for any information that the CIA had on Walid bin Attash and any information on any al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that had taken place in January 2000. Instead of giving Soufan the information the CIA actually had at that time, Wilshire had requested that FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi set up this meeting with Soufan’s own people to find out if they knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting actually planning the Cole bombing with bin Attash, the information that the CIA had been trying to keep secret from the FBI criminal investigators since his identification from the Kuala Lumpur photo on January 4, 2001
When Wilshire found the CIA cable on July 13, 2001, that had identified bin Attash from his photo taken at Kuala Lumpur, he requested via email , email that is in the DOJ IG report, that his CIA managers, Richard Blee, Cofer Black, and George Tenet give him permission to send this Kuala Lumpur information over to the FBI Cole bombing investigators. He was denied permission to do this. On July 23, 2001 Wilshire again made the same request via email, email that inexplicably was left out of the DOJ IG report, to his CIA managers, to pass this Kuala Lumpur information to the FBI and was denied permission again to do this. In this July 23, 2001 email Wilshire stated that Khalid al-Mihdhar will be found at the location of the next big al Qaeda terrorists attack, as documented in DE #939 entered into the Moussaoui trial.
On August 22, 2001, Margaret Gillespie a FBI Agent at the CIA bin Laden unit was told by the INS that both al Qaeda terrorists Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US, and took this information to Tom Wilshire and Dina Corsi. Wilshire directed Corsi to write up an EC to start an “intelligence investigation” for Midhar and Hazmi. Starting an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi would prevent Bongardt from being able to start any criminal investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi since the FBI OIPR almost never allowed a criminal investigation and a intelligence investigation to take place against the same target at the same time.
On August 28, 2001 Bongardt accidentally got the EC that Corsi had written up to start this intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, and called Corsi to ask her to allow him to start a criminal investigation instead for these al Qaeda terrorists. He even told Corsi that these al Qaeda terrorists were in the US in order to carry out some new al Qaeda terrorist attack.
But Corsi told Bongardt that he could not start any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, and that he had to destroy her EC because it had a NSA cable in it, describing the travels of Mihdhar and Hazmi to the Kuala Lumpur meeting in January 2000. She said that this NSA cable was restricted from being sent to FBI criminal investigators, without prior approval from the NSA General Council. But according to the DOJ IG report, Corsi’s request to pass the NSA Kuala Lumpur information to the FBI criminal Cole bombing investigators had already been approved by the NSA General Council on August 27, 2001. So she had no legal right to block his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. Hiding the fact that this approval had already been granted from Bongardt and shutting down his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi was in fact a major Federal felony. It was these actions in fact that allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11, since it is clear that if Bongardt and his team had been allowed to carry out a criminal investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi they likely could have prevented the attacks on 9/11.
When Bongardt protested and said that he could see no connection between the NSA information and any FISA warrant, he asked Corsi to get a legal ruling from the FBI NSLU attorneys to see if he could start an investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. It was a connection to a FISA warrant that normally prevented NSA information from going to FBI criminal investigators without written permission from the NSA to prevent the contamination in a criminal trial with in admissible evidence obtained with a FISA warrant instead of a criminal search warrant.
According to the DOJ IG report, Corsi told Bongardt on August 29, 2001 that the NSLU attorney she had contacted, Sherry Sabol, had ruled he could have no part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But according to page 538, footnote 81 in the 9/11 Commission report, it says that Sherry Sabol told DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002 that she told Corsi that since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, Bongardt could take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.
On August 29, 2001 Corsi in email to Bongardt said “if at such time as information is developed of a substantial Federal crime (by Mihdhar and Hazmi) this information will be passed over the wall”, meaning Bongardt could then start a criminal investigation and search for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But according to the DOJ IG report, page 301, Corsi told DOJ IG investigators that she was aware by August 22, 2001 that the CIA had the photo of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, and knew that the CIA had been hiding this photo from Bongardt and his team. She even knew that this photo directly connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing at this meeting. So she already had evidence of a substantial Federal crime by both Mihdhar and Hazmi, and clearly knew this meant the investigation of these al Qaeda terrorists should have gone to Bongardt and his team and that she was committing a major Federal felony by shutting down his investigation for these two al Qaeda terrorists.
These lies and the deliberate withholding of this information from FBI Agents Ali Soufan, and Steve Bongardt and their team cost almost 3000 people their lives in 9/11, and has never been explained by any government investigation.
But Lawrence Wright’s book filled in many of the holes that were in the 9/11 Commission report and DOJ IG report, missing information that for some unexplained reason was simply left out of these reports. It is clear that Wright had documented the three times that FBI Agent Ali Soufan had made official FBI requests to the CIA about any al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur and any information that CIA had on Walid bin Attash, and the criminal behavior at the CIA and FBI HQ that had allowed this Kuala Lumpur information to be hidden from the FBI investigators on the Cole bombing, information that would have allowed Bongardt and his team a chance to stop the attacks on 9/11.
On September 12, 2001 the Yemen CIA Station chief gave Soufan a package of the three photos of Mihdhar taken at Kuala Lumpur. Soufan went into the bathroom and threw up. In his book Soufan stated that he told another FBI agent in Yemen, that “they knew, they knew”. The CIA knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing with Walid bin Attash at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a horrific al Qaeda terrorist attack and then deliberately did not give this information to him or his team, information that he and his team could have used to prevent the attacks on 9/11.
Wright in later interviews stated that he could never understand why no one at the CIA had ever been held accountable for criminally withholding this information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators, information that could have prevented the al Qaeda attacks on 9/11 from taking place.
Again, obviously you have never read this book, or if you had, you did not comprehend what it actually said.
