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Banned
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Originally Posted by edwhit
.....I find it easier to believe that Bush and others WANTED to believe what they were fed and that even if facts became clear later, he's a very stubborn man that was trying to do what he thought was the right thing to do.
Did we go in without a solid plan of entry and withdrawal? I don't think anyone denies that.
Is the CIA going to clear up this whole mystery for you? I don't see it happening. Is anyone reading this going to have anything other than an opinion without solid facts? Nope.
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I've reached the point where I believe it is reasonable to consider the beliefs of those who take the government "findings" on the 9/11 attacks, as being "on the fringe..... fringe beliefs". I recognize saying so and backing up my conclusion, are two different things, but it's not like it's a "small" matter. The official account is promoted as justification for the way these officials have attempted to do things, since.
I'll share some of the things persuading me:
The executive branch....white house, state department, etc., opted not to share the evidence of who were behind the 9/11 attacks, formally, with the American people. Congressional committees chaired and dominated by the president's political party, "stepped" in:
Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200210062...20/witness.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/200209250...20920/hill.pdf
page 13
The Intelligence Community's Knowledge of the September 11 Hijackers Prior to September 11, 2001
Eleanor Hill, Staff Director, Joint Inquiry Staff
Congressional Intelligence Committee
September 20, 2002
http://intelligence.senate.gov/0209h...20/witness.htm
Introduction
Mr. Chairmen, members of this Joint Committee, good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before the Committees, and the American public, once again.
Previously, we have reported on what our review has, to date, confirmed about the evolution of the
terrorist threat, as known to the Intelligence Community, prior to the September 11; 2001 attacks on
the United States. To summarize:
By at least 1998, Usama Bin Ladin had declared war on the United States and had carried out attacks
against U.S. interests overseas;
· Beginning in mid-1998, the Intelligence Community had acquired information indicating in broad terms
that Usama Bin Ladin's network intended to carry out attacks inside the United States. For example, in
December 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an individual later determined to have links to Bin Ladin's terrorist
network, had been arrested attempting to enter the United States from Canada to carry out an attack in
the domestic United States;
.......The September 11 Hijackers
Of particular interest to the Joint Inquiry Staff is the extent to which the Intelligence Community
had any intelligence or law enforcement information linking any of the suspected September 11
hijackers to terrorism or a terrorist group, prior to September 11, 2001. This would exclude civil or
administrative information such as visa applications, driver's licenses, or other types of
identification that may have been available to various agencies. That type of information would not
have normally triggered any suspicions absent information linking the hijackers to terrorism or a
terrorist group.
In pursuing this question of prior knowledge, the Joint Inquiry Staff employed several means of
seeking relevant information:.....
...The Joint Inquiry Staff requested that the agencies conduct searches for documents in their electronic
document databases. The Joint Inquiry Staff provided the search terms and other parameters for these
searches. At CIA, the DCI's CTC maintains a massive database of terrorist related information going
back at least two decades. Within this database are analytic papers, messages between CIA headquarters
and CIA stations and bases around the world, signals intelligence reports from the National Security
Agency (NSA), and various briefings, memoranda, and working notes. Our goal was to look for any
information that might have been missed in the agencies' initial search for documents and to find any
additional information that might be of relevance to the Inquiry. The Joint Inquiry Staff was not
given direct access to the agencies' databases, so our searches were serviced by the agencies' own
personnel. In some cases, Joint Inquiry Staff personnel observed the queries being entered and run; in
others the queries were run based on a formal request without Joint Inquiry Staff present. In all
cases, the search terms used and results generated were provided to the Joint Inquiry Staff. We also
requested supplemental manual searches of documents and files that are not maintained electronically;
The Joint Inquiry Staff interviewed CIA analysts and operations officers, FBI analysts and special
agents, and other Intelligence Community personnel who would have had firsthand knowledge of
information held by the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, 2001 or who had reviewed
information of this type after September 11, 2001; and
The Joint Inquiry Staff reviewed the DCI's and FBI Director's written statements to these two
Committees on June 18, 2002. Those statements describe what the Intelligence Community now knows about
the September 11 plot. We requested that these statements be declassified to the extent possible and
those declassified statements will be entered into this morning's hearing record as they become
available.
As of this date, the Joint Inquiry Staff has determined from the fruits of these efforts that, prior
to September 11, 2001, the Intelligence Community possessed no intelligence or law enforcement
information linking 16 of the 19 hijackers to terrorism or terrorist groups. Indeed, the Joint Inquiry
has heard testimony and reviewed documents indicating that the hijackers may have been selected for
the September 11 operation at least partly because they did not have previously established ties to
terrorist organizations.
The three remaining hijackers - all of whom were aboard American Flight 77, which crashed into the
Pentagon - did come to the attention of the Intelligence Community prior to September 11; 2001. The
three hijackers in question are: Khalid alomgMihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Nawaf's brother, Salim
al-Hazmi. All three were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Before September 11, 2001, the Intelligence
Community had acquired significant information regarding al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. The
Intelligence Community initially acquired some information about Salim al-Hazmi's identity and
association with the other two, but nothing further until after September 11, 2001......
....What follows is a description of how the Intelligence Community developed information on three of the
hijackers, and when the Intelligence Community 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. At this stage, we must also reiterate that this is only an
unclassified summary of these events. While the Joint Inquiry Staff has studied this intelligence
trail in great detail, some aspects involving intelligence sources and methods remain classified. A
separate and more detailed classified report is also being submitted to the two Committees.
As mentioned earlier, the Joint Inquiry Staff has also requested that the written statements of the
DCI and Director of the FBI be declassified. When they become available, they will further describe
what the Intelligence Community now knows about the September 11 plot......
.....Within two weeks after the September 11 attacks, the FBI prepared an analysis of Bin Ladin's
responsibility <h3>as part of the State Department's development of a "White Paper" that could be shared
with foreign governments. That analysis relied, at least in part, on the connection between the attack
on the USS Cole investigation and al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi:</h3>
"Even at this early stage of the investigation, the FBI has developed compelling evidence which points
to Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida as the perpetrators of this attack. By way of illustration, at least
two of the hijackers met with a senior al-Qa'ida terrorist, the same al-Qa'ida terrorist which
reliable information demonstrates orchestrated the attack on the USS Cole and who was involved in the
planning of the East Africa Embassy Bombings."
The two hijackers referred to were al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. The senior al Qa'ida terrorist was
Khallad. The place that they met was Malaysia. Thus, the facts linking these two individuals to
Khallad and therefore to Usama Bin Ladin formed the crux of the case made by the State Department to
governments around the world that Usama Bin Ladin should be held accountable for the September 11
attacks.
Data Flow to the TIPOFF Watchlist.....
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A few sentences above this one, we find that our government was intent on drafting and sharing a "white paper" with representatives with "foreign governments" concerning it's evidence that bin Laden and al-Qai'da were responsible for planning and carrying out the 9/11 attacks, but, as detailed in an earlier post, not a "white paper" to be shared with the American people.
Now, view white house press secretary Dana Perino's reaction to the description of the Bush administration's resistance to a formal investigation of the 9/11 attacks, then their reluctant acceptance, appointment of Kissinger by the president to head the 9/11 commission, and of the refusal by the president and his VP to testify under oath before commission members, to answer questions separately, or to allow any notes taken during the questioning by the commission members to leave the room at the end of the questioning, and then, about the conflict of appoiniting Philip Zelikow as executive director of the commission, offered as a prelude to questions asked by a student "9/11 truther".
It's only a 90 seconds long, clip, but I think it is a poster presentation of the ridiculousness of the administration's handling of 9/11 attack inquiries, for nearly seven years. Dana Perino begins by offering the excuse that she has only been in her job for a brief time, in response to points about the white house resistance to transparency concerning the events of 9/11, which every politcally savvy, high school aged American, certainly has a background memory of:
These are some of the conflicts reported about Philip Zelikow, in a new book authored by veteran NY TImes reporter, Philip Shenon:
Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/30/zelikow-interfered/
<div class="post ce_contain" id="post-19236">
<div class="ce"><h2><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/30/zelikow-interfered/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Key 9/11 Commission Staffer Held Secret Meetings With Rove, Scaled Back Criticisms of White House">Key 9/11 Commission Staffer Held Secret Meetings With Rove, Scaled Back Criticisms of White House</a></h2>
<div class="ce_filed">
<span class="post_info"> Filed Under: <a href="#"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org?tag=Terrorism" rel="tag" title="View all posts tagged Terrorism">Terrorism</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org?tag=Administration" rel="tag" title="View all posts tagged Administration">Administration</a><br /></a></span>
</div>
<div class="ce_filed2">
By <span class="authorname"><a href="/author/Faiz">Faiz</a></span> on Jan 30th, 2008 at 6:51 pm </div>
</div>
<div class="ce_body">
<p><img src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/zelikow.JPG" alt="zelikow" / class="imgright" />A forthcoming book by NYT reporter Philip Shenon — “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation” — asserts that former <a href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_zelikow.htm">9/11 Commission</a> executive director <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4218157&page=1">Philip Zelikow interfered</a> with the 9/11 report. </p>
<p>According to the book, Zelikow had failed to inform the commission at the time he was hired that he was instrumental in helping Condoleezza Rice set up Bush’s National Security Council in 2001. Some panel staffers believe Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice’s performance prior to 9/11 as “<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4218157&page=1">amount[ing] to incompetence</a>.”</p>
<p>Relying on the accounts of Max Holland, an author and blogger who has obtained a copy of the forthcoming book, ABC reports that Zelikow was holding <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4218157&page=1">private discussions</a> with White House political adviser Karl Rove during the course of the 9/11 investigation:</p>
<blockquote><p>In his book, Shenon also says that while working for the panel, <strong>Zelikow appears to have had private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, despite a ban on such communication, according to Holland. Shenon reports that Zelikow later ordered his assistant to stop keeping a log of his calls</strong>, although the commission’s general counsel overruled him, Holland wrote.</p></blockquote>
<p>Zelikow flatly denied discussing the commission’s work with Rove. “I never discussed the 9/11 Commission with him, not at all. Period.” </p>
<p>After completing his work with the 9/11 Commission, Zelikow was hired by Condoleezza Rice as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/world/28zelikow.html?hp&ex=1162008000&en=9afec21eee2efb45&ei=5094&partner=homepage">Counselor at the State Department</a>. He <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701175.html">resigned</a> from that position in late 2006. In 1995, Rice and Zelikow co-authored a book entitled, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Germany-Unified-Europe-Transformed-Statecraft/dp/0674353250">Germany Unified and Europe Transformed</a>.”</p>
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<h3>....and when they couldn't push through Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 Commission investigation....an independent investigation they didn't want to even take place or to cooperate with, when it's creation was inevitable, they at least made sure they chose a NEOCON....Zelikow, co-author of this PNAC-like BS "report" that I had not even known about.....Zelikow, a friend of Condi's and a member of the Bush transition team, to be the commission's executive director.</h3>
<h2>Can anyone make an argument that it is easy to believe that the Bush administration just happened to place assholes who authored and or signed off on policy papers, in effing stereo, that focused on "Pearl Harbor level", catalyzing events, fitting their policy concerns and visions....and independent to their taking power, a "Pearl Harbor" event just coincidentally happened, less than nine months into their term in office? </h2>
Quote:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/visions/p...orming%20Event
Catastrophic Terrorism:
Elements of a National Policy
<h2>By Ashton B. Carter, John M. Deutch
and Philip D. Zelikow</h2>
A Report of
Visions of Governance for the Twenty-First Century
A Project of the John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
�1998 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University and the Board of Trustees of Harvard University
CATASTROPHIC TERRORISM: ELEMENTS OF A NATIONAL POLICY
Imagining the Transforming Event
......If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or the distribution of a deadly pathogen, the chaos and devastation would have gone far beyond our meager ability to describe it.1
Experts combining experience in every quadrant of the national security and law enforcement community all consider this catastrophic threat perfectly plausible today. Technology is more accessible, society is more vulnerable, and much more elaborate international networks have developed among organized criminals, drug traffickers, arms dealers, and money launderers: the necessary infrastructure for catastrophic terrorism. Practically unchallengeable American military superiority on the conventional battlefield pushes this country’s enemies toward the unconventional alternatives.2
Readers should imagine the possibilities for themselves, because the most serious constraint on current policy is lack of imagination. An act of catastrophic terrorism that killed thousands or tens of thousands of people and/or disrupted the necessities of life for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, would be a watershed event in America’s history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented for peacetime and undermine Americans’ fundamental sense of security within their own borders in a manner akin to the 1949 Soviet atomic bomb test, or perhaps even worse. <h3>Constitutional liberties would be challenged as the United States sought to protect itself from further attacks by pressing against allowable limits in surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and the use of deadly force. More violence would follow, either as other terrorists seek to imitate this great "success" or as the United States strikes out at those considered responsible. Like Pearl Harbor, such an event would divide our past and future into a "before" and "after."</h3> The effort and resources we devote to averting or containing this threat now, in the "before" period, will seem woeful, even pathetic, when compared to what will happen "after." Our leaders will be judged negligent for not addressing catastrophic terrorism more urgently.
Using imagination, we hope now to find some of the political will that we know would be there later, "after," because this nation prefers prevention to funereal reconstruction. When this threat becomes clear the President must be in a position to activate extraordinary capabilities. The danger of the use of a weapon of mass destruction against the United States or one of its allies is greater at this moment than it was during the Cold War, or at least since 1962........
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Last edited by host; 05-18-2008 at 07:29 PM..
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