"The EVIDENCE linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to ..9/11 is clear" OK, Where is IT? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 05-16-2008, 02:58 AM

Within hours of the September 11. 2001 attacks, the world was informed by the US government that "Usama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda" were respondible for the attacks on the WTC, the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 on Shanksville, PA. Twleve days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the following in two televised interviews:

Quote:

....DONALDSON: All right. Let me show you something you said the other day, and just see whether you've changed your view on it, concerning proof. You said, "We are assembling the evidence that will tell us, in a way that the world will fully confer with us--concur with us, who is responsible for this."

Are we going to present before the world evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt?

POWELL: Yes, and I think his guilt is going to be very obvious to the world. I mean, he has been indicted previously for terror activity against the United States, and so this is a continuing pattern of terrorism, and we are putting all of the information that we have together, the intelligence information, the information being generated by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

And I think we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible for this terrible tragic (inaudible).

DONALDSON: So you're talking about something beyond simple assertions by U.S. leaders. You're talking about assertions backed up by the evidence.

POWELL: Yes.

DONALDSON: OK....

AND:

..... RUSSERT: Are you absolutely convinced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for this attack?...

....RUSSERT: Will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?

POWELL: We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack. But also, remember, he has been linked to earlier attacks against U.S. interests, and he's already indicted for earlier attacks against United ...

It's nearly seven years later. I would like to read posts with opinions on why we are still waiting for a presentation of "the evidence", as Colin Powell described, above. I think, after after all of this time, waiting for the promised presentation of the evidence that Usama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, it is more than past the time, if you believe these official assertions, to post your best arguments to support the accusations.

<h3>If you doubt the official accusations, I've already laid out support for your argument.</h3> Please frame your responses around your difficulty accepting the assessment of blame by the government without presenting the evidence it so strongly proclaimed that it possesses....

<h3>I believe that, after seven years with no methodical presentation of the evidence to back the accusations, that it is reasonable to be skeptical, and UNREASONABLE to simply accept the official version of who done it. Can anyone name a similar, high profile crime of immense and violent proportion, where "because we say so", would still suffice as an official record?</h3>

The harm, in relations with the rest of the world, in not laying out the evidence, was detailed in the questions to Colin Powell, and to Ari Fleischer, by the press, in that now long ago, time frame. Surely if the official version could be backed with an evidentiary presentation, sooner, rather than later, it would have happened, if for no other reason, than because it was good for foreign relations, especially with middle and far eastern nations.

Quote:

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/watson020602.htm
Testimony of Dale L. Watson, Executive Assistant Director, Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Division, FBI
Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
February 6, 2002
"The Terrorist Threat Confronting the United States"

<h3>...The evidence linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. .....</h3>

Quote:

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm
Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, FBI
Commonwealth Club of California
San Francisco, CA
April 19, 2002

....Since none were known terrorists, law enforcement had no reason to question or detain them.

<h3>The hijackers also left no paper trail. In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind. They used hundreds of different pay phones and cell phones, often with prepaid calling cards that are extremely difficult to trace. And they made sure that all the money sent to them to fund their attacks was wired in small amounts to avoid detection.</h3>

In short, the terrorists had managed to exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities in our systems, to stay out of sight, and to not let anyone know what they were up to beyond a very closed circle.....

Quote:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/execsummary.pdf

The 9/11 Commission Report
Page 22

....To date, we have not been able to determine the origin of the money
used for the 9/11 attacks.Al Qaeda had many sources of funding and a pre-
9/11 annual budget estimated at $30 million. If a particular source of funds
had dried up, al Qaeda could easily have found enough money elsewhere to
fund the attack. .....

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch5.htm

......To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. <b>Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.</b> Al Qaeda had many avenues of funding. If a particular funding source had dried up, al Qaeda could have easily tapped a different source or diverted funds from another project to fund an operation that cost $400,000-$500,000 over nearly two years.

Quote:

http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id267.html

FBI says, “No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11”

June 6, 2006 – This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.<A HREF="http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id267.html#_ftn1">[1]</A> (See bottom of this web page for Most Wanted page) In the e-mail, the question is asked, “Why doesn’t Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?” The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people. The FBI concludes its reason for “wanting” Bin Laden by saying, “In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world.”

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” I asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.”

It shouldn’t take long before the full meaning of these FBI statements start to prick your brain and raise your blood pressure. If you think the way I think, in quick order you will be wrestling with a barrage of very powerful questions that must be answered. First and foremost, if the U.S. government does not have enough hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11, how is it possible that it had enough evidence to invade Afghanistan to “smoke him out of his cave?” The federal government claims to have invaded Afghanistan to “root out” Bin Laden and the Taliban. Through the talking heads in the mainstream media, the Bush Administration told the American people that Usama Bin Laden was Public Enemy Number One and responsible for the deaths of nearly 3000 people on September 11, 2001. Yet nearly five years later, the FBI says that it has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.

http://muckrakerreport.com/id593.html

Judge to rule whether NIST should be enjoined

April 27, 2008 – After filing a Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief<A HREF="http://muckrakerreport.com/id593.html#_ftn1">[1]</A>, and responding to the motion to dismiss with a rebuttal, the plaintiff and defendants in Haas v. NIST await the ruling of Federal Judge George B. Daniels, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

Judge Daniels will rule whether NIST should be enjoined<A HREF="http://muckrakerreport.com/id593.html#_ftn2">[2]</A>, granting relief to the plaintiff. The summary of the complaint is that NIST and its subcontractors working on the technical investigation of how World Trade Center Building Seven collapsed on September 11, 2001 failed to call for a criminal investigation when confronted by evidence that under common circumstances, would normally prompt criminal investigation. Absent an independent, public, unfettered criminal investigation, the plaintiff alleges that the integrity of any technical investigation is compromised and should therefore be halted until such time when a criminal investigation is complete.

The seventh anniversary of the collapse of WTC7 is fast approaching. Even so, the government has failed to yet produce a final report describing in conclusive detail, the initiating events and cause of collapse of this particular building.

Judge Daniels is a native of Allendale, South Carolina. President Bill Clinton nominated him to the bench on August 5, 1999. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 24, 2000 and received commission on March 9, 2000.

Quote:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200.../020603fa_FACT
Seymour M. Hersh, Annals of National Security, "Missed Messages," The New Yorker, June 3, 2002, p. 40
June 3, 2002 Issue

ANNALS OF NATIONAL SECURITY about intelligence-community harbingers of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by Al Qaeda... Mentions that the Bush Administration stated it would release information implicating bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization, but never did so... <h3>It is now clear that the White House, for its own reasons, chose to keep secret the extent of the intelligence that was available before and immediately after September 11th..</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ext092301.html
Text: ABC's 'This Week'

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001

Following is the transcript of ABC's "This Week," hosted by Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts with correspondents George Will and George Stephanopoulos, and guests Secretary of State Colin Powell; King Abdullah II of Jordan; and General Richard Hawley, former commander of the Air Combat Command.

....POWELL: He is under indict--One way or the other. I think the way that we had suggested to the Taliban was that they turn him over to justice, to authorities who could administer justice.

DONALDSON: All right. Let me show you something you said the other day, and just see whether you've changed your view on it, concerning proof. You said, "We are assembling the evidence that will tell us, in a way that the world will fully confer with us--concur with us, who is responsible for this."

Are we going to present before the world evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt?

POWELL: Yes, and I think his guilt is going to be very obvious to the world. I mean, he has been indicted previously for terror activity against the United States, and so this is a continuing pattern of terrorism, and we are putting all of the information that we have together, the intelligence information, the information being generated by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

And I think we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible for this terrible tragic (inaudible).

DONALDSON: So you're talking about something beyond simple assertions by U.S. leaders. You're talking about assertions backed up by the evidence.

POWELL: Yes.

DONALDSON: OK....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ext092301.html
Text: NBC's 'Meet the Press' With Tim Russert

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001

Following is the transcript of NBC's "Meet the Press," hosted by Tim Russert, with guests Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sens. Thomas Daschle and Trent Lott, and Reps. J. Dennis Hastert and Richard Gephardt.

..... RUSSERT: Are you absolutely convinced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for this attack?

POWELL: I am absolutely convinced that the al Qaeda network, which he heads, was responsible for this attack.

You know, it's sort of al Qaeda--the Arab name is for "the base." It's something like a holding company of terrorist organizations that are located in dozens of countries around the world, sometimes tightly controlled, sometimes loosely controlled. And that the head of that organization is Osama bin Laden.

So what we have to do in the first phase of this campaign is to go after al Qaeda and to go after Osama bin Laden. But it is not just a problem in Afghanistan. It is a problem throughout the world. That's why we are attacking it with a worldwide coalition.

RUSSERT: Will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?

POWELL: We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack. But also, remember, he has been linked to earlier attacks against U.S. interests, and he's already indicted for earlier attacks against United ...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...p=2&sq=&st=cse
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PROOF; U.S. to Publish Terror Evidence On bin Laden

By JANE PERLEZ AND TIM WEINER
Published: September 24, 2001

The Bush administration plans to make public evidence linking Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda network to the terror attacks on the United States in an effort to persuade the world, and particularly Muslim nations, that a military response is justified.

The evidence will embrace new information gathered by law enforcement and intelligence agents on the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as material used in indictments against Mr. bin Laden in the bombing of American Embassies in East Africa in 1998, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today.

It may also cite leads developed in the investigation of the bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen last October.

The administration sees the evidence as crucial to the support of friendly Muslim countries -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan -- whose governments fear that punishing military action by the United States against the terrorists will spur widespread popular unrest.

In the Saudi port city of Jidda, the foreign ministers of six Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, pledged ''total support and co-operation for international efforts to find the authors of the terrorist acts and bring them to justice.'' But the statement offered no specific military or other assistance. [Page B2.]

King Abdullah of Jordan -- which failed to side with the United States in the gulf war -- sounded less equivocal in his support of whatever Washington might do.

''We realize that the start is always going to be difficult, the first step is always going to be a burden,'' the king said on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''But I believe that the steps undertaken by the American armed forces will have the full support of the international community.''

Two reports are expected within days, officials said: a public one from the State Department, and a secret one prepared by United States intelligence agencies and including details from trusted foreign sources. Officials say they are still arguing over how much information to release -- and to which countries.

The list of nations trusted with all the secret information would be short, and some countries might receive fewer details than others, they said.

The evident intention is to produce evidence before any American military strike. ''If you release it after the action, you're lost,'' one official said, since Muslim governments would have no chance to make the case for the American acts.

The evidence, American officials say, reaches from the southern tip of Manhattan to the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. It traces a group that started out running material aid to the rebels fighting the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan in the 1980's and wound up declaring war on the United States.

The strongest is Mr. bin Laden's declaration of war on Feb. 23, 1998. He proclaimed from his Afghan redoubt: ''To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able.''

The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said today that the government had ''very good evidence of links'' between bin Laden operatives ''and what happened on Sept. 11.'' She added: ''We are drawing in investigative services, law enforcement, intelligence from a lot of countries. And so we need to be careful with how we use this information.''

The public report will omit intercepts by the National Security Agency, including conversations among people on the fringes of Mr. bin Laden's network right after the attacks, officials said.

The secret report will include that type of intelligence information, which will be shared only with some trusted governments....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...010924-13.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 24, 2001

Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer
The James S. Brady Briefing Room

.....Q Ari, yesterday Secretary Powell was very precise that he was going to put out a report on what we had on bin Laden that could be reported, and not classified. Today, the President shot him down -- and he's been shot down many, many times by the administration -- you seem to be operating -- he also retreated a question of putting out a report. No, I'm wrong?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, I think that there was just a misinterpretation of the exact words the Secretary used on the Sunday shows. And the Secretary talked about that in a period of time -- I think his word was "soon" -- there would be some type of document that could be made available. As you heard the Secretary say today, he said "as we are able," as it unclassifies.

Q -- much more emphatic yesterday, I thought.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think he said the word "soon," as I was reminded today by a very knowledgeable official at the State Department, that's called "State Department soon." And so it's fully consistent with what the President has been saying and the Secretary said. You know, I mean, look, it shouldn't surprise anybody. As soon as --

Q The American people thought "soon" meant "soon." (Laughter.)

Q Is this a sign, Ari, that --

MR. FLEISCHER: Kelly, let me -- I was getting there, I was answering Helen. Helen, what I was saying is, it shouldn't surprise anybody that as soon as the attack on our country took place, the immediate reaction is the investigations begin. They begin with the intelligence agencies, they begin with domestic agencies, they begin with a regular law enforcement authorities. And they start to collect a whole series of information.

Some of that information is going to end up in the form of grand jury information, which of course is subject to secrecy laws. Others coming from intelligence services is by definition going to be classified, and will be treated as such.

Over the course of time, will there be changes to that, that can lead to some type of declassified document over whatever period of time? That has historically been the pattern, and I think that's what the Secretary was referring to.

Q That's 50 years from now, if you're talking about a State Department white paper.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, again, I'm not aware of anybody who said, white paper, and the Secretary didn't say anything about a white paper yesterday.

Q Is this a sign, though, that allies, particularly Arab and Muslim allies, really want to see the evidence because they're concerned about any potential action in Afghanistan could lead to instability in the region, so they want to be certain that you have the evidence?

MR. FLEISCHER: Actually, in the course of the conversations that the President and the Secretary have been having with foreign leaders, their support has been very strong. And they also have information, they also have knowledge. And I remind you, it's not just the United States that collects information and knows that all roads lead to the al Qaeda organization. Other nations have similar means of collecting information.

Q Ari, it does seem that across the board, on proving that these charitable organizations, non-governmental organizations, banks have links to terror; on proving that bin Laden is behind these acts; on what plans the administration has post whatever movement we make in Afghanistan; the answer is always, that's classified, trust us. Does that really serve the democracy well if all this information on which the government is basing its actions is classified?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think the American people get it. I think they understand that as the nation moves from a peacetime footing to a wartime footing, the government's need to hold certain pieces of information closer is an important need. And I think the American people are accepting and understanding of that. And I think you all will be the judge if you believe the government has gone too far.

But I don't think there's any indications among the public, certainly, that that is the case. And I think it's perfectly understandable, as people hide in Afghanistan today, who know that if they were to start moving, the United States would take action.

The one thing they want more than anything else is, what information do we have that lets us know who they are and where they are and how quick do we get that information. And we are not going to provide that information.......

.....Q Ari, I just want to make sure I understand the White House position in terms of evidence in general. And I realize you're saying that a lot of governments understand and share information privately. But is there any plan to present public evidence so that the average citizen, not just Americans, but people all over the world can understand the case against bin Laden?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think as Secretary Powell said, there is hope to do that, and to do so in a timely fashion, over some course of time. That's always important in a democracy. In a democracy it's always important to provide the maximum amount of information possible. But I think the American people also understand that there are going to be times when that information cannot immediately be forthcoming. And the American people seem to be accepting of that.

Q But I really am talking even bigger. You're talking about actions in other parts of the world. And certainly you want the support of as many people around the world as possible. I guess it seems as though you're asking everyone to trust you, but without supplying information to show why you should trust -- I mean, to go to a point and then stop.

MR. FLEISCHER: Two points. One, again, many of these nations know what we know. And they are working with us, because they know a lot of the things that we know. There are many conversations that take place between the United States at the state level, at the presidential level, with foreign leaders, that if there were to be a transcript of that conversation, for example, it would be classified, because they discuss secrets. There is a sharing of information. You're presuming that there's no such sharing of information in private. There can be, and there is.

That's not the type of information that can always be publicly shared. And I think the country has an appreciation for that. But you just have to gauge the reaction of nations around the world for themselves. They are working with us, because they believe us. They're working with us because of things they know, and because of the trust they hold in the United States government.....

....Q Let me try one more. Once more, if I could, on the proof issue, I think the picture that we all have in our minds is of Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations, passing around previously classified photographs of missiles with the understanding that America could, within days, if not hours, be the target of those missiles. What's the difference between then and now, in terms of publicizing information that would point the court of public opinion directly toward those who we think are responsible?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, first of all, you can't compare what's happened in the past with what's happening today with the instant communication age. Don't forget, anything that is said here in this White House today can be broadcast and be watched by terrorists around the world, as it's said. There is a huge difference in terms of the instant transmission of information and the ability, therefore, of people to take advantage of it for wrongful purposes.

But as I indicated, in the democracy, there still remains an always important goal of sharing as much information as possible with the public. And the President, Secretary Powell, Secretary Rumsfeld, all remain committed to that. And I think you will just be the judges over time about whether that balance is struck. And I submit to you it has been struck, and struck well.

Q The differences is, like, the 24-hour news cycle and the availability of communications?

MR. FLEISCHER: And it's also just the means of how information is collected. And every administration makes a different determination about how to protect that means of collection of information.

But, you know, again I remind you, I understand the frustration that journalists feel in this regard. And we're going to continue to do the best as an administration in providing information. But I also remind you that nations of the world are not passing this message on to the United States; the message has been one of cooperation and trust. And the administration will continue to work hard to keep it that way. And every sign points that it's going that way.

Q I think some of the confusion over this was caused by a couple of reports that there was a white paper and some other reports that there was going to be evidence in a couple of days and that it would be put out before you moved militarily and that sort of thing.

I just want to see if I can be clear in my mind. Are you saying there is some specific effort underway now to provide a -- to work up a nonclassified document that can be shared with the public, here and abroad, and other governments, or is it just a general intention to do so?

And on another track, is there some other effort to come up with a classified document just for use by government officials so that everyone knows you're on the same page?

MR. FLEISCHER: Okay. On your first question, I cite Secretary Powell's words today. As the Secretary said in the Rose Garden, as we are able and as it unclassifies, which clearly implies it is a classified document that is not unclassified.

Q Say that again. (Laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: It's a classified document that is not unclassified. The Secretary said, as we are able and as it unclassifies -- those are his words and he's right, and that's accurate. So he's indicating then there will be, over time, different issues will be looked at with an eye toward whatever can possibly be publicly shared. But as we speak today, and as the Secretary said, as we are able and as it unclassifies.

Now, of course, right from the beginning, as I indicated in the top of the briefing, as soon as the attack was launched, the investigation began. That investigation, of course, compiles documents, assembles information, and does so in a manner that will reveal how do we know these things, by what sources, by what methods do we know and have received that information. Of course, that's a classified document.

Q The point is, what I'm trying to figure out is, is a group of people somewhere being tasked with coming up with a document that can be scrubbed of classified material so that you can lay out the case? Is that an effort that's now underway? Is that just an intention somewhere down the road?

MR. FLEISCHER: It remains a classified document; a series of classified documents, to be more precise.

Q Ari, do you know if classified documents are being supplied to the grand jury that's looking into this in New York?

MR. FLEISCHER: You need to talk to the Justice Department about anything dealing with grand juries......

Quote:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../01/se.29.html
America's New War: President to Make Second Trip to New York Since Attacks
Aired October 1, 2001 - 16:03 ET

....WOODRUFF: You and I were just talking, as we're listening to this reporting just now from Andrea Koppel at the State Department, that why are the -- communications are now going out with U.S. allies telling them now what the links are between Osama bin Laden and what happened on September the 11th. We heard Andrea saying hard evidence, that there's a connection.

Does that mean a lot of progress had been made here, in the investigation since?

HERSH: There's no question we're getting a lot of leads. What I write in "The New Yorker" is that the intelligence communities are pretty much unsure today who these guys were -- whether they were a bunch of guys that came together as a pick-up basketball team, one guy said to me, or whether they were planted here for years and there's many more behind. We really don't know a lot of information about how they operated in America, who everyone is.

There's certainly a lot of evidence some of them are connected to bin Laden, been to the camps. Everyone? I don't think so. I don't think they have -- well, I shouldn't say, because I don't know what they have. A lot of stuff does come from highly-classified stuff, but I can tell you the government is very divided on whether these guys are going to strike against immediately or whether it was a one-time shot. We really don't know that.

WOODRUFF: Last question, Sey Hersh. Will heads roll over this? The president keeps saying he has a lot of confidence in CIA director George Tenet.

HERSH: A lot of people I know say Tenet must go. It's going a matter of time, three, four, five, six months, as soon as we get traction, somebody said. I don't think there's any question that somebody has to pay for this failure, and George Tenet, who is a very nice, personable guy, I think is the first one on the chopping block.

WOODRUFF: All right. Seymour Hersh, writing for "The New Yorker." Thanks very much.

HERSH: Thank you....

http://newsmine.org/archive/9-11/sus...ly-for-fbi.txt

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?011008fa_FACT

WHAT WENT WRONG
The C.I.A. and the failure of American intelligence.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2001-10-08
Posted 2001-10-01

After more than two weeks of around-the-clock investigation into the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the American intelligence community remains confused, divided, and unsure about how the terrorists operated, how many there were, and what they might do next. It was that lack of solid information, government officials told me, that was the key factor behind the Bush Administration's decision last week not to issue a promised white paper listing the evidence linking Osama bin Laden's organization to the attacks.

There is consensus within the government on two issues: the terrorist attacks were brilliantly planned and executed, and the intelligence community was in no way prepared to stop them. One bureaucratic victim, the officials said, may be George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose resignation is considered a necessity by many in the Administration. "The system is after Tenet," one senior officer told me. "It wants to get rid of him."

The investigators are now split into at least two factions. One, centered in the F.B.I., believes that the terrorists may not have been "a cohesive group," as one involved official put it, before they started training and working together on this operation. "These guys look like a pickup basketball team," he said. "A bunch of guys who got together." The F.B.I. is still trying to sort out the identities and backgrounds of the hijackers. The fact is, the official acknowledged, "we don't know much about them."

These investigators suspect that the suicide teams were simply lucky. "In your wildest dreams, do you think they thought they'd be able to pull off four hijackings?" the official asked. "Just taking out one jet and getting it into the ground would have been a success. These are not supermen." He explained that the most important advantage the hijackers had, aside from the element of surprise, was history: in the past, most hijackings had ended up safely on the ground at a Third World airport, so pilots had been trained to coöperate.

Another view, centered in the Pentagon and the C.I.A., credits the hijackers with years of advance planning and practice, and a deliberate after-the-fact disinformation campaign. "These guys were below everybody's radar—they're professionals," an official said. "There's no more than five or six in a cell. Three men will know the plan; three won't know. They've been 'sleeping' out there for years and years." One military planner told me that many of his colleagues believe that the terrorists "went to ground and pulled phone lines" well before September 11th—that is, concealed traces of their activities. It is widely believed that the terrorists had a support team, and the fact that the F.B.I. has been unable to track down fellow-conspirators who were left behind in the United States is seen as further evidence of careful planning. "Look," one person familiar with the investigation said. "If it were as simple and straightforward as a lucky one-off oddball operation, then the seeds of confusion would not have been sown as they were."

Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the F.B.I. to chase."

In interviews over the past two weeks, a number of intelligence officials have raised questions about Osama bin Laden's capabilities. "This guy sits in a cave in Afghanistan and he's running this operation?" one C.I.A. official asked. "It's so huge. He couldn't have done it alone." A senior military officer told me that because of the visas and other documentation needed to infiltrate team members into the United States a major foreign intelligence service might also have been involved. "To get somebody to fly an airplane—to kill himself," the official added, further suggests that "somebody paid his family a hell of a lot of money."

<h3>"These people are not necessarily all from bin Laden," a Justice Department official told me. "We're still running a lot of stuff out," he said, adding that the F.B.I. has been inundated with leads. On September 23rd, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a television interviewer that "we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case" showing that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. But the widely anticipated white paper could not be published, the Justice Department official said, for lack of hard facts. "There was not enough to make a sale."

The Administration justified the delay by telling the press that most of the information was classified and could not yet be released.</h3> Last week, however, a senior C.I.A. official confirmed that the intelligence community had not yet developed a significant amount of solid information about the terrorists' operations, financing, and planning. "One day, we'll know, but at the moment we don't know," the official said.......

Quote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1579043.stm

Thursday, 4 October, 2001, 12:25 GMT 13:25 UK
The UK's Bin Laden dossier in full
This is the full text of the document, entitled Responsibility for the terrorist atrocities in the United States, released by Downing Street on Thursday about the evidence against Osama Bin Laden.

This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law.

Intelligence often cannot be used evidentially, due both to the strict rules of admissibility and to the need to protect the safety of sources.

But on the basis of all the information available HMG is confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document.

Introduction

1. The clear conclusions reached by the government are:....

Quote:

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/09/47109
Politics : Law
How Osama Cracked FBI's Top 10
Robin Clewley Email 09.27.01 | 2:00 AM

When the terrorists who commandeered the four airplanes in the Sept. 11 attacks were identified, their faces appeared in news publications all over the world.

President Bush has said he has evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, so it would seem obvious that the FBI would include him and other suspects on its 10 most wanted fugitives Web page.

Think again.

Bin Laden is listed, but only for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. There is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000, both of which he is widely believed to have orchestrated. And forget about Sept. 11.

The reason? Fugitives on the list must be formally charged with a crime, and bin Laden is still only a suspect in the recent attacks in New York City and Washington.

"There's going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged," said Rex Tomb, who is head of the FBI's chief fugitive publicity unit and helps decide which fugitives appear on the list. "To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court."

Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993, said in a Sept. 12 interview conducted by Frontline that there is no concrete proof that bin Laden is responsible for the USS Cole and the 1993 WTC attacks, but bin Laden celebrates those attacks and associates himself with people who are responsible for it.

President Bush promises to reveal evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden has applauded the attacks but denies direct involvement.

Because the list is used to attract the public's attention to a fugitive, careful consideration must take place before a decision is made, Tomb said. The FBI evaluates if publicity will help or hinder the search for a suspect.....

Quote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle410125.ece

From The Sunday Times
January 9, 2005
Let Bin Laden stay free, says CIA man
Tony Allen-Mills
THE world may be better off if Osama Bin Laden remains at large, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s recently departed executive director.

If the world’s most wanted terrorist is captured or killed, a power struggle among his Al-Qaeda subordinates may trigger a wave of terror attacks, said AB “Buzzy” Krongard, who stepped down six weeks ago as the CIA’s third most senior executive.

“You can make the argument that we’re better off with him (at large),” Krongard said. “Because if something happens to Bin Laden, you might find a lot of people vying for his position and demonstrating how macho they are by unleashing a stream of terror.”

Krongard, a former investment banker who joined the CIA in 1998, said Bin Laden’s role among Islamic militants was changing.

“He’s turning into more of a charismatic leader than a terrorist mastermind,” he said. “Some of his lieutenants are the ones to worry about.”

Krongard, 68, said he viewed Bin Laden “not as a chief executive but more like a venture capitalist”.

He added: “Let’s say you and I want to blow up Trafalgar Square. So we go to Bin Laden. And he’ll say, ‘Well, here’s some money and some passports and if you need weapons, see this guy’.

“I don’t see him keeping his fingers on everything because the lines of communications are just too difficult.”

Several US officials have privately admitted that it may be better to keep Bin Laden pinned down on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than make him a martyr or put him on trial. But Krongard is the most senior figure to acknowledge publicly that his capture might prove counter-productive.

Krongard also acknowledged that the CIA was still having trouble planting spies in Islamic militant ranks. “There are hundreds and hundreds of (Al-Qaeda) cells — it’s like a living, moving bit of protoplasm,” he said.

“In order to penetrate you not only have to be language-proficient, you also have to commit acts that exceed criminality. It’s very hard.”

His comments came as it emerged that new laws to combat the Al-Qaeda threat in Britain and keep the Belmarsh terror suspects in jail will be unveiled next month.

The draft terrorism bill will propose that “acts preparatory to terrorism” become a criminal offence to catch those who provide accommodation, finance, identity papers and other support. The bill will prove controversial because it could be applied restrospectively against many of the 11 foreign terror suspects being detained in Belmarsh, south London, and Broadmoor secure hospital.

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, is also planning to announce a civil punishment for those suspected of “associating” with terrorist suspects, but where there is insufficient proof to press charges.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/wa...bb9d22&ei=5088

July 4, 2006
C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus."

The decision to close the unit was first reported Monday by National Public Radio.

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials. For instance, much of the military's counterterrorism units, like the Army's Delta Force, had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.

An intelligence official who was granted anonymity to discuss classified information said the closing of the bin Laden unit reflected a greater grasp of the organization. "Our understanding of Al Qaeda has greatly evolved from where it was in the late 1990's," the official said, but added, "There are still people who wake up every day with the job of trying to find bin Laden."

Established in 1996, when Mr. bin Laden's calls for global jihad were a source of increasing concern for officials in Washington, Alec Station operated in a similar fashion to that of other agency stations around the globe.

The two dozen staff members who worked at the station, which was named after Mr. Scheuer's son and was housed in leased offices near agency headquarters in northern Virginia, issued regular cables to the agency about Mr. bin Laden's growing abilities and his desire to strike American targets throughout the world.....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...700687_pf.html
Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 28, 2006; A13

....But another more infamous date -- Sept. 11, 2001 -- is nowhere to be found on the same FBI notice.

The curious omission underscores the Justice Department's decision, so far, to not seek formal criminal charges against bin Laden for approving al-Qaeda's most notorious and successful terrorist attack. The notice says bin Laden is "a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world" but does not provide details.....

"There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it."

David N. Kelley, the former U.S. attorney in New York who oversaw terrorism cases when bin Laden was indicted for the embassy bombings there in 1998, said he is not at all surprised by the lack of a reference to Sept. 11 on the official wanted poster. Kelley said the issue is a matter of legal restrictions and the need to be fair to any defendant.

"It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view," said Kelley, now in private practice. "If I were in government, I'd be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was."

aceventura3 · 05-16-2008, 06:20 AM

I am not sure what your point is, but Osama stated that he ordered the attack on 9/11.

Quote:

Admitting for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden said he did so because of injustices against the Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel and the United States.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137095,00.html

It is possible that there is no hard evidence, other than circumstantial evidence, linking him to that order. I know there has been a singular focus by some to find Osama Bin Laden, but the war on terror as conducted by the Bush administration has always had a broader focus.

Willravel · 05-16-2008, 07:15 AM

Ace, how many people do you suppose claimed responsibility for 9/11? BTW, I know how many.

aceventura3 · 05-16-2008, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Ace, how many people do you suppose claimed responsibility for 9/11? BTW, I know how many.

I don't know.

I still don't understand where you and Host want to take this. I think we are at war and have been at war even before we entered Iraq. I think this war is different than past wars, although the enemy does not fly a national flag, I think they are organized and have the goal of destroying American influence and interests in the world and expanding their influence through the use of terrorism until they have other means.

roachboy · 05-16-2008, 07:55 AM

and i think that we are at war with ghosts, that al-qaeda was an expedient, that bin laden took credit for the attack as a public relations move, that there was no connection between iraq and anything else and that the entire misbegotten "war on terror" was driven by the desire to have A response rather than by anything coherent.

i have looked at the evidence that has been presented concerning financial linkages and found for myself that it is an indirect but not at all compelling case--and the claims bin laden made of responsibility are self-evidently problematic. but folk believe what they want about this sort of thing and, as host points out in the op, evidence is obviously secondary to that at best.

hell, who needs evidence when you can use the discourse of religious crusade? "clash of civilizations" anyone?

but you could see by 9/13/2001 how this was going to go.
the situation since has been nothing but idiocy piled atop idiocy, empty action and empty claim piled atop empty action and empty claim.

the primary functionality this "war on terror" seems to serve is that it enables continuation of the grotesque levels of resource expenditure to the benefit of military contractors. the "war on terror" is the substitute cold war--a rationale for resource allocation--but useless in every other way. the beauty of the cold war was, as paul virillio pointed out somewhere, that it was "pure war", war without battles, war as logisitics, war as generational turnover in weapons systems, a perfect expression of the centrality and internal logic of the war economy, enshrined by the national-security state in the period immediately after world war 2. the "war on terror" has events but no enemy, and so is equally endless, and the national security state is built around the assumption of endless war---but preferable endless war as parameter, as boundary condition that can be mobilized to maintain patterns of resource allocation.

the "war on terror" helped the neocons imagine a world that was symmterical with the cold war world, which made their ideology coherent, was its condition of possibility. for them, it was a useful fiction. it doesn't matter whether individual neocons were able to convince themselves that it was not a fiction---in some sense, that could be the height of fiction, the point at which it collapses into its opposite. it's utility is obvious---we are in the seventh year of the bush administration. no further argument is required.

that there have been no more "terrorist attacks" since 9/11 is not proof of coherence--i could just as easily argue that the fact i wear glasses has prevented a comet from hitting the earth and could point to the fact that no comet has hit the earth as proof of its efficacy. it's that empty.

Tully Mars · 05-16-2008, 08:00 AM

I want OBL... yesterday. My President promised to find him, smoke him out, dead or alive etc... Then several months later said he really didn't spend much time thinking about OBL, WTF! I want the guy who promised to never stop looking for OBL to be thinking about where he is and how to find him.

I don't buy this global war on terror BS either. It's like the war on drugs. Fighting it militarily will never see any sustainable gains. We may win battles. We may make progress. But any progress we make will be equaled out with set backs. In short winning isn't achievable via military action. This war, again like the war on drugs, is a defense contractor's wet dream. A wet dream in which the American tax payers are supplying the hookers.

Ustwo · 05-16-2008, 09:56 AM

I think it was ELF, can't trust those bastards.

I must say I am really enjoying the new tone in politics, its refreshing.

Willravel · 05-16-2008, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I still don't understand where you and Host want to take this.

It's simple: we'd like to see the "clear and irrefutable" verified evidence linking Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Ustwo · 05-16-2008, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

It's simple: we'd like to see the "clear and irrefutable" verified evidence linking Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Lie.

You don't believe the science on even how the wtc fell or what hit the pentagon. You would never believe any evidence presented as ligitamate.

You have made up your mind and like a creationist you look far anything that supports it.

Willravel · 05-16-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You don't believe the science on even how the wtc fell or what hit the pentagon. You would never believe any evidence presented as ligitamate.

I'm sorry the stuff in the 9/11 thread is above your head, but you really should be careful throwing around words like "science" and "evidence" when you take into consideration that your only contribution to those threads was flaming and fallacies.

/threadjack

RetroGunslinger · 05-16-2008, 10:30 AM

I've read over the OP, and while I understand where the evidence against the involvement of Osama bin Laden comes from, I'm really too skeptical on both sides of the fence....

Out of curiosity Will, just how many groups claimed responsibility for 9/11? With a source, if you don't mind.

host · 05-16-2008, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I think it was ELF, can't trust those bastards.

I must say I am really enjoying the new tone in politics, its refreshing.

Here's "the deal".... there was once a time where any red blooded American would be regarded as "on the fringe" if he espoused an opinion that there were not massive stockpiles of WMD hidden in Iraq or mature WMD development and manufacturing, complete with impressive infrastructure....all yet to be located by UN inspectors led around by Saddam's "minders".

It was considered "on the fringe" to scoff at the accusations that al Zarqawi was al Qaeda, in Baghdad, "before we got there", initially treated for Afghan war wounds in a Baghdad hospital, then operating a terrorist training and "poison camp" in Khermal in Iraq, under the auspices of Saddam and his government.....

Now....I am proposing that it may very well be "on the fringe", given that the "robust evidence", Colin Powell spoke of on Sept. 23, 2001, has never yet been presented, to be of the opinion that Usama bin Laden and al-Qaeda planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks.

It's seven years later...it should be a "slam dunk" to lay out the key things that support your acceptance of the account of official accusations of who the "perps" were.

At least ace made an attempt....he linked to an alleged admission attributed to bin Laden, and he followed up with:

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

It is possible that there is no hard evidence, other than circumstantial evidence, linking him to that order. I know there has been a singular focus by some to find Osama Bin Laden, but the war on terror as conducted by the Bush administration has always had a broader focus.

But, before the bin Laden statement that ace linked to, there was "the stuff" I included in the OP. Shouldn't it operate at a level independent of the statements later made and attributed to bin Laden and from the confessions of prisoners obtained via torture?

Sept. 23, 2001:

Quote:

....DONALDSON: All right. Let me show you something you said the other day, and just see whether you've changed your view on it, concerning proof. You said, "We are assembling the evidence that will tell us, in a way that the world will fully confer with us--concur with us, who is responsible for this."

Are we going to present before the world evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt?

POWELL: Yes, and I think his guilt is going to be very obvious to the world. I mean, he has been indicted previously for terror activity against the United States, and so this is a continuing pattern of terrorism, and we are putting all of the information that we have together, the intelligence information, the information being generated by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

And I think we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible for this terrible tragic (inaudible).

DONALDSON: So you're talking about something beyond simple assertions by U.S. leaders. You're talking about assertions backed up by the evidence.

POWELL: Yes.

DONALDSON: OK....

AND:

..... RUSSERT: Are you absolutely convinced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for this attack?...

....RUSSERT: Will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?

POWELL: We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack. But also, remember, he has been linked to earlier attacks against U.S. interests, and he's already indicted for earlier attacks against United ...

Sept. 24, 2001:

Quote:

.....Q The point is, what I'm trying to figure out is, is a group of people somewhere being tasked with coming up with a document that can be scrubbed of classified material so that you can lay out the case? Is that an effort that's now underway? Is that just an intention somewhere down the road?

MR. FLEISCHER: It remains a classified document; a series of classified documents, to be more precise.

Q Ari, do you know if classified documents are being supplied to the grand jury that's looking into this in New York?

MR. FLEISCHER: You need to talk to the Justice Department about anything dealing with grand juries......

So, it's simple.... 12 days after 9/11,

Quote:

...POWELL:....And I think we will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible for this terrible tragic (inaudible).

DONALDSON: So you're talking about something beyond simple assertions by U.S. leaders. You're talking about assertions backed up by the evidence.

POWELL: Yes.

DONALDSON: OK....

....RUSSERT: Will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?

POWELL: We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack.....

....'kay.... it's nearly seven years later, where is it? Where's the evidence that Powell spoke of, independent of later pronouncements attributed to bin Laden and interrogation of prisoners captured after Powell's assertions?

Another legitimate question. Why aren't you curious about the lack of follow up? Isn't believing an undocumented version of events, the definition of "fringe" beliefs?

Willravel · 05-16-2008, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetroGunslinger

I've read over the OP, and while I understand where the evidence against the involvement of Osama bin Laden comes from, I'm really too skeptical on both sides of the fence....

Out of curiosity Will, just how many groups claimed responsibility for 9/11? With a source, if you don't mind.

Hundreds. General Mahmood Ahmed is one of them who actually had the capability and motive.

Cynthetiq · 05-16-2008, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

....'kay.... it's nearly seven years later, where is it? Where's the evidence that Powell spoke of, independent of later pronouncements attributed to bin Laden and interrogation of prisoners captured after Powell's assertions?

Another legitimate question. Why aren't you curious about the lack of follow up? Isn't believing an undocumented version of events, the definition of "fringe" beliefs?

seven years later, I don't care so much who did it anymore. there is still a giant hole in Lower Manhattan near where I live. Maybe Colin took that information with him when he left office, or maybe it's just not something anyone is bothering to persue since even if it DOES NOT EXIST, it still doesn't change the fact that there is a huge fucking hole in Lower Manhattan.

They talk about building up Hudson and Atlantic Railyards, and congestion pricing, yet, still there is a huge fucking hole still sitting in Lower Manhattan.

Thank goodness for Sheldon Silver since he decided that he wasn't going to vote for approving the Hudson Railyards because he said, "Remember what happened at Ground Zero. Go back and read all of the defiant rhetoric about how we were going to rebuild Lower Manhattan bigger and better as a message to the terrorists."

I don't really give two craps about who did it anymore. I care that my city still hasn't healed. I care that the rest of the country is 9/11-weary and doesn't want to hear about 9/11 anymore yet there is still a huge fucking hole in the ground in Lower Manhattan.

So while you continue to post thread after thread about consipiracies and inequalities, there's still a huge fucking hole in Lower Manhattan.

RetroGunslinger · 05-16-2008, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Hundreds. General Mahmood Ahmed is one of them who actually had the capability and motive.

I'll take your word on the hundreds. However, I didn't see where it said he claimed responsibility.

One tidbit that bothered me in the OP was this bit:

Quote:

You know, it's sort of al Qaeda--the Arab name is for "the base." It's something like a holding company of terrorist organizations that are located in dozens of countries around the world, sometimes tightly controlled, sometimes loosely controlled. And that the head of that organization is Osama bin Laden.

I don't quite understand how he can say that Bin Laden was automatically responsible just because he heads a "holding company of terrorist organizations." That may make him a bad man, but it's not a direct link by any means.

Also, to host or Will, doesn't matter really, do you think that the Bin Laden tape was taken and emphasized by the U.S. government, as sort of a selection of the "hundreds" of different claims of responsibility.

host · 05-16-2008, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetroGunslinger

....Also, to host or Will, doesn't matter really, do you think that the Bin Laden tape was taken and emphasized by the U.S. government, as sort of a selection of the "hundreds" of different claims of responsibility.

I don't think that is relevant in this discussion, because government officials claimed to have enough evidence to convince us of the culpability of bin Laden and al Qaeda, in an imminent white paper presentaion, according to Powell and government sources speaking to the NY Times, as early as on 9/23.2001.

I think it is reasonable to be asking now....after they've had plenty of time to separate classified items and methods, for them to disclose the evidence....

Cynthetiq, I moved to an apartment on Chambers St., across the street from Rockefeller riverfront park, 2 months after 9/11. I've posted pictures of "the hole" that I took from the roof of that building. I understand your emotion, like no one who hasn't lived in that neighborhood. While living there, I went to Georgia for a week, and when I came back, coming out of the Chambers St. subway station and walking home in the dark, past the cop on station 24/7 who monitored the loads of debris leaving "the hole", headed for the pier half a block away, I was struck by a feeling that I lived in a different country than the people in Georgia, and in the rest of the country. I lived in a war zone, and they didn't.....

I don't think the thread is about that. It's about where we are now....our national effort....and why. The press, as can be seen in pieces that I posted in the OP, clamored to know....but time has erased that initiative.

Should time erase all initiative, even without a promised presentation of the evidence of culpability? Isn't it important, if nothing else, because of the vast sums our government has and is still spending, in response to accusing bin Laden and al Qaeda of attacking us on 9/11?

hiredgun · 05-16-2008, 11:31 AM

I'm going to think through this out loud, so forgive me if I seem to be contradicting myself.

Much of the evidence is circumstantial. The attack bears the signature of attacks known to have been carried out by the bin Laden network before 9/11 or since - suicide, multiple targets, simultaneous attacks, and targets with political and economic significance. It's thin, but it is something. It can be falsified, of course, so I suppose it does little by itself as evidence.

There is a decent amount of information about what the 19 hijackers were doing in the weeks before 9/11, especially as some of them were already under surveillance. We know about the flight schools they attended, for example, and the apartments they were in.

There is the fact of the video testaments of many of the 9/11 attackers, in which they lay out the reasons for the attack and make their final statements as martyrs. I'm sure you are familiar with the style of video I mean. This is pretty convincing. I don't really see why any government would fake it - or that they could do it convincingly, or why they would do it without parading it around as the evidence everyone has been asking for, which they have decidedly not done. Instead these videos are passed around quietly within communities of wannabe militants, sympathizers, and cheerleaders of 'the jihad' as constructed by bin Laden and his ilk. I've seen most of them, and if you go looking you may be able to find them as well, but your odds are better if you have some Arabic. The videos pretty unmistakably portray the same individuals we saw headshots of on CNN and whom we now recognize as the 19 hijackers, although of course you could argue that video can be manipulated, so there we are again.

On that note I should mention that within the communities I'm referring to - diffuse communities directly acknowledged and nurtured by people at least as high up as Zawahiri, who gave them an exclusive (not real-time) interview - it is no longer controversial at all that AQ was behind 9/11. Roach, I see your point that bin Laden's acknowledgment of 9/11 might well have been a tactical move; after all, his protestations of innocence were not going to win any real sympathy, and on the contrary he has gotten an amount of popularity and lionization out of admitting to the attack. But while plausible, I just find it not all that likely. 9/11 is now the centerpiece of the community and the movement. It is what holds it together, what gives it its sense of self. It is difficult for me to imagine that the very core of that sense is a tactical lie created in response to the US. But my merely finding it instinctively difficult to conceive does not necessarily make it false.

There is a meta-issue here as well about what constitutes truth. Presumably the question of whether bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 is meant to have some relevance for our present and future decision-making. But if we have acted since 9/11 as if AQ was responsible, AND if the community itself - the supporters, adherents, fighters, sympathizers, and propagandists of Qaeda-style jihad - themselves believe him responsible, AND if we will never publicly discover any other truth than this one... then what does it even mean to talk about another truth? Would it even make sense to behave in any other way than to presume that 9/11 happened as we currently imagine it to have happened?

I'm not sure the preceding paragraph really makes any sense. Oh well.

In short I am, personally, reasonably confident that bin Laden's network was behind the attack. The evidence is not bulletproof by any means, and it is curious that we haven't seen more come out of the intel community, which must surely have the ability to produce something more than we have seen. At the same time I haven't seen any viable alternative explanations that don't raise exponentially more problems than they solve, unless you believe - as I have seen RB suggest before - that the whole organization behind the attack was wiped out on the planes themselves.

So I believe it, even if not with a tremendously high degree of confidence. But at the same time, the question seems almost irrelevant. The challenges we face today have little to do with 9/11 - never mind that they have much to do with our response to it, as well as other factors - so why worry so much about it? Why worry, that is, except perhaps because it has been such an important rallying cry for citizens and soldiers alike over the last six years? It is emotionally important to a lot of people who have believed in it very strongly. Geopolitically it doesn't mean very much in itself, not anymore. 9/11 was not important in itself, only for what followed.

ASU2003 · 05-16-2008, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I think it was ELF, can't trust those bastards.

I must say I am really enjoying the new tone in politics, its refreshing.

I don't understand why the ELF is the number one domestic terrorist group watched by the FBI. I guess we don't have a problem at all if they are the problem...

As for why I question this is because it seemed like the White House knew who was behind this almost immediately and they never considered any alternatives. Maybe they have intel that they didn't release, but so far what I've seem is semi-convincing, but also exactly what they wanted to occur.

Clinton was reducing our military size, there was debate about if we could fight a two front war even. Well, now we can use our military-industrial system and keep money flowing into the pockets of a select group of people.

I don't know, I guess I would have liked to have seen the media do it's own investigation into what happened, kind of like a 9/11 Report written by people who want the truth. And not the current media which takes something someone says and replays it over and over until it becomes the truth.

thespian86 · 05-17-2008, 05:51 AM

I have no real opinion in the matter, I don't really know anything about it. I'm young though, so I tend to jump to conclusions. It seems to me that over the past seven years of bullshit, that the link doesn't exist. Otherwise someone would of come forward, yes? If not, then it is certainly irresponsible government. Millions of people were hurt worldwide by this, am I right? And to withhold that information is wrong.

I like the discussion though, I'm learning lots.

edwhit · 05-18-2008, 05:01 PM

Good luck with your search for the truth! There are lots of theories and none of them will be proven, I'm afraid.

Did Bush mastermind the whole war? I don't think so. Based on the numerous and frequent mention of his IQ I'm surprised so many seem to think so.

Was there a grand conspiracy involving the CIA and other intel gathering agencies or at least members of those agencies able to persuade congress that there was a threat that we needed to act on at once? Seems like it's possible at the least.

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.

host · 05-18-2008, 07:17 PM

Quote:

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.

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.....

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:

Quote:

http://jamartell.blogspot.com/2008/0...olars-for.html

http://www.911blogger.com/node/15480
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Dana Perino Meets the Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth

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>

<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........

Ustwo · 05-18-2008, 07:46 PM

dc_dux · 05-18-2008, 07:56 PM

I dont know of any evidence that Bush et al were behind 9/11.

I do believe they demonstrated malfeasance in office..being so driven by an ideological pursuit of a different foreign policy priority.... expansion of Reagan's missile defense program.

They were presented with a memo in Jan 01, days after taking office, with an assessment of the seriousness of the al Queda threat and very broad suggestions for a course of action.

"We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network."

Read the full memo (pdf)

more: The National Security Archive

That memo sat idle for nine months, while the Bush administration single-mindedly focused on their top foreign policy initiative of missile defense.

Ustwo · 05-18-2008, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

I dont know of any evidence that Bush et al were behind 9/11.

I do believe they demonstrated malfeasance in office..being so driven by an ideological pursuit of a different foreign policy priority.... expansion of Reagan's missile defense program.

They were presented with a memo in Jan 01, days after taking office, with an assessment of the seriousness of the al Queda threat and very broad suggestions for a course of action.

"We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network."

Read the full memo (pdf)

more: The National Security Archive

That memo sat idle for nine months, while the Bush administration single-mindedly focused on their top foreign policy initiative of missile defense.

Spin spin spin, I'm sorry Bush couldn't fix all the Clinton intelligence mistakes his first 9 months in office before 9/11.

Could you give it a rest or are you still on the clock?

Quote:

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
* Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.

By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.

The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.

But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.

Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.

Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists.

The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.

Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.

But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.

Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.

And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

http://www.infowars.com/saved%20page..._bin_laden.htm

We can play this all day if you like.

dc_dux · 05-18-2008, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Spin spin spin, I'm sorry Bush couldn't fix all the Clinton intelligence mistakes his first 9 months in office before 9/11.

Could you give it a rest or are you still on the clock?

The failures of responding to terrorist threats go back to Carter and Reagan.

The issue here is that Bush/Rice completely ignored the seriousness of an al Queda threat for nine months.

Why is that spin...or so hard to accept?

Ustwo · 05-18-2008, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

The failures of responding to terrorist threats go back to Carter and Reagan.

The issue here is that Bush/Rice completely ignored the seriousness of an al Queda threat for nine months.

Why is that spin...or so hard to accept?

See my edit.

You want to blame Bush because its your job and politics is all you do at tfp which makes me wonder if that really IS your job. You didn't mention those, you just blamed Bush for not reacting to a MEMO in the first 1/2 year he was in office.

Now suddenly its a thing that goes back to Carter.

Well I'm glad I jogged your memory.

dc_dux · 05-18-2008, 08:12 PM

I acknowledge that Clinton tried, but failed....in part because of objections from the Republican Congress at the time to take a more aggressive response.(that part was left out of your inforwars analysis)

Carter failed to respond to terrorism with his Iran policy, Reagan failed by not responding to the Hezballah attack on the US marine barracks. GHW Bush failed by arming both Iran and Iraq.

...and Bush failed his first test by ignoring for nine months the urgent recommendations of the previous administration regarding a serious threat to national security.

I'm glad I jogged your memory as well.

Willravel · 05-18-2008, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

See my edit.

You want to blame Bush because its your job and politics is all you do at tfp which makes me wonder if that really IS your job. You didn't mention those, you just blamed Bush for not reacting to a MEMO in the first 1/2 year he was in office.

How dare we interrupt his vacation with national security issues! I think we all owe Bush an apology for expecting him to be a president.

host · 05-18-2008, 08:15 PM

dx_dux....Zelikow co-authored a "Pearl Harbor" event, position paper....

Ten of the authors/signatories who wrote the same crap two years later, end up running the Bush administration, a year after their "catalyzing event", lament:

Quote:

http://web.archive.org/web/200303151...ac_030310.html
The Plan
Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?

March 10 [2003]— 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, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.

And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at the Pentagon.

The next morning — before it was even clear who was behind the attacks — Rumsfeld insisted at a Cabinet meeting that Saddam's Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round of terrorism," according to Bob Woodward's book Bush At War.

What started as a theory in 1997 was now on its way to becoming official U.S. foreign policy.

Links to Bush Administration

Some critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially in Europe, have portrayed PNAC as, in the words of Scotland's Sunday Herald, "a secret blueprint for U.S. global domination."

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 because "we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition" to enforce the inspections regime.

"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power," they wrote, foreshadowing the debate currently under way in the United Nations.

<h3>Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. </h3>As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; John Bolton, who is undersecretary of state for disarmament; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. Other signatories include William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, and Richard Perle, chairman of the advisory Defense Science Board.

According to Kristol, the group's thinking stemmed from the principles of Ronald Reagan: "A strong America. A morally grounded foreign policy ... that defended American security and American interests. And understanding that American leadership was key to not only world stability, but any hope for spreading democracy and freedom around the world."

Pushing for a More Assertive Foreign Policy.....

I am much more concerned about my self esteem......a consequence of believing in the veracity all these coincidental, ideological "lottery winners", than I am if I conclude that not buying their shit makes me a "dead ender"

Great story, though.....

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5224099/
9/11 commission staff statement
No. 16
Text as submitted to Natl. Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon United States

Bin Laden, al-Qaida history
June 16: Phillip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 commission, lays out the history of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
NBC News

updated 5:01 p.m. ET, Wed., June. 16, 2004
Outline of the 9/11 Plot

Staff Statement No. 16

The muscle hijackers

While the pilots trained in the United States, Bin Ladin and al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan started selecting the muscle hijackers—those operatives who would storm the cockpit and control the passengers on the four hijacked planes. (The term “muscle” hijacker appears in the interrogation reports of 9/11 conspirators KSM and Binalshibh, and has been widely used to refer to the non-pilot hijackers.) <h3>The so-called muscle hijackers actually were not physically imposing, as the majority of them were between 5’5” and 5’7” in height and slender in build.</h3> In addition to Hazmi and Mihdhar, the first pair to enter the United States, there were 13 other muscle hijackers, all but one from Saudi Arabia. They were Satam al Suqami, Wail and Waleed al Shehri (two brothers), Abdul Aziz al Omari, Fayez Banihammad (from the UAE), Ahmed al Ghamdi, Hamza al Ghamdi, Mohand al Shehri, Saeed al Ghamdi, Ahmad al Haznawi, Ahmed al Nami, Majed Moqed, and Salem al Hazmi (the brother of Nawaf al Hazmi)....

Yeah....gimme the tall one for my flight.....the 5 ft 7 inch, slightly built one....give him two box cutters.....

dc_dux · 05-18-2008, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You want to blame Bush because its your job and politics is all you do at tfp which makes me wonder if that really IS your job....

I think I hit a nerve! Your obsessive interest in where and how I contribute to tfp is touching.

Need more Novocaine, doc?

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

dx_dux....Zelikow co-authored a "Pearl Harbor" event, position paper....

host...I can agree that the Bush administration unduly influenced (effectively censoring) the 9/11 commission report to protect their political interests and negligence.

Beyond that, I havent seen compelling evidence of anything more.

host · 05-18-2008, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

See my edit.

You want to blame Bush because its your job and politics is all you do at tfp which makes me wonder if that really IS your job. You didn't mention those, you just blamed Bush for not reacting to a MEMO in the first 1/2 year he was in office.

Now suddenly its a thing that goes back to Carter.

Well I'm glad I jogged your memory.

Again....with the refusal or inability to participate in a discussion without going down the "host's job road"..... I'm still waiting for <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2205831&postcount=86">an apology</a> from the last time you used this <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2104690&postcount=42">tactic</a>.

...and dc_dux, if every Bush appointee authored or signed a position paper, shortly before 9/11. pointing out the need for a "catalyzing event", a Pearl Harbor level, attack, inside the US to "get er done"....would that be a relevant consideration? How 'bout if only half of three thousand political employees signed or authored such a paper.....how many would have to do that, and then move to prevent. obstruct, or interfere with an investigation, after the catalyzing event happened, for you to alter your position, at all?

They just got lucky....got their wish, huh?

dc_dux · 05-18-2008, 08:42 PM

host....I'm not saying it didnt happen as you effectively laid out in your posts. Unlike many here, I read your articles and often learn from them.

My problem is that is there is no provable direct link from position papers, etc. to an action authorized by Bush....(in a belief that they might have a receptive audience, many sr staff in every admin offer radical off-the-wall position papers on a variety of subjects to further their personal and the admin's ideological interests...not to mention their position within the admin).

You make a compelling circumstantial case...but there is still no hard evidence...no smoking gun. If there was such a documented link, you know it has long since been shredded or otherwise destroyed.

host · 05-18-2008, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

host....I'm not saying it didnt happen as you effectively laid out in your posts. Unlike many here, I read your articles and often learn from them.

My problem is that is there is no provable direct link from position papers, etc. to an action authorized by Bush....(in a belief that they might have a receptive audience, many sr staff in every admin offer radical off-the-wall position papers on a variety of subjects to further their personal and the admin's ideological interests...not to mention their position within the admin).

You make a compelling circumstantial case...but there is still no hard evidence...no smoking gun. If there was such a documented link, you know it has long since been shredded or otherwise destroyed.

Thank you, _dux... there isn't going to be....short of a last minute impeachement or a war crimes trial at some future, undetermined date, at the Hague, any material more persuasive, IMO...than stuff like the following that speaks of their credibility. They deliberately misled us into a completely avoidable invasion and occupation:

Cheney and Bush limited their misleading comments to

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheney

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9974651/

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLORIA BORGER, TV SHOW HOST: You have said in the past that it was, quote, “pretty well confirmed.”

CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK.

CHENEY: I never said that.

BORGER: I think that is...

CHENEY: Absolutely not.

What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that, nor have we been able to knock it down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: It‘s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011209.html
(END VIDEO CLIP)

Quote:

Press Conference by the President August 21, 2006. Press Conference by the President ...... who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. ...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060821.html

Press Conference by the President September 15, 2006
....Martha.

Q Mr. President, you have said throughout the war in Iraq and building up to the war in Iraq that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi and al Qaeda. A Senate Intelligence Committee report a few weeks ago said there was no link, no relationship, and that the CIA knew this and issued a report last fall. And, yet, a month ago you were still saying there was a relationship. Why did you keep saying that? Why do you continue to say that? And do you still believe that?

THE PRESIDENT: The point I was making to Ken Herman's question was that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terror, and that Mr. Zarqawi was in Iraq. He had been wounded in Afghanistan, had come to Iraq for treatment. He had ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen in Jordan. I never said there was an operational relationship. .....
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060915-2.html

They lied about why they invaded Iraq....but they were altar boys concerning what happened on 9/11?

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060912-2.html

.....Q Well, one more, Tony, just one more. Do you believe -- does the President still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to Zarqawi or al Qaeda before the invasion?

MR. SNOW: The President has never said that there was a direct, operational relationship between the two, and this is important. Zarqawi was in Iraq.

Q There was a link --

MR. SNOW: Well, and there was a relationship -- there was a relationship in this sense: Zarqawi was in Iraq; al Qaeda members were in Iraq; they were operating, and in some cases, operating freely from Iraq. Zarqawi, for instance, directed the assassination of an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan. But they did they have a corner office at the Mukhabarat? No. Were they getting a line item in Saddam's budget? No. There was no direct operational relationship, but there was a relationship. They were in the country, and I think you understand that the Iraqis knew they were there. That's the relationship.

Q Saddam Hussein knew they were there; that's it for the relationship?

MR. SNOW: That's pretty much it. ....

Here's Dick Cheney, just weeks later, contradicting Bush and Tony Snow:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...061019-10.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
October 19, 2006

Satellite Interview of the Vice President by WSBT-TV, South Bend, Indiana
2nd Congressional District -
Representative Chris Chocola

........Q Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq. The sectarian violence that we see now, in part, has been stimulated by the fact of al Qaeda attacks intended to try to create conflict between Shia and Sunni......

But.....here's Dick Cheney, seven months later....same lie...:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0070405-3.html

So those are very real problems and to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point seems to me simply would play right into the hands of al Qaeda.

Q It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08 is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes. But they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill -- and, thus, official government language -- of that term. Does that give you any indication of their motivation or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure -- well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of Defense. He's Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about -- just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. ..

It's kind of difficult to overlook or overemphais the background and history of their al Zarqawi lie and their attempts to link Saddam to al Zarqawi:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040617-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 17, 2004

President Discusses Economy, Iraq in Cabinet Meeting
Remarks by the President After Meeting with His Cabinet
The Cabinet Room

.... I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Deb, why don't you lead it off?

Q Mr. President, why does the administration continue to insist that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda, when even you have

denied any connection between Saddam and September 11th. And now the September 11th Commission says that there was no

collaborative relationship at all.

THE PRESIDENT: The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there

was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between

Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence

officers met with bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two. ...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040618-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 18, 2004

President Bush Salutes Soldiers in Fort Lewis, Washington
Remarks by the President to the Military Personnel
Fort Lewis, Washington

.....And we're beginning to see results of people stepping up to defend themselves. Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps have

captured several wanted terrorists, including Umar Boziani. He was a key lieutenant of this killer named Zarqawi who's ordering

the suiciders inside of Iraq. By the way,
''he was the fellow who was in Baghdad at times prior to our arrival. He was operating out of Iraq. He was an Al Qaeda associate.

See, he was there before we came. He's there after we came. And we'll find him.''.....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060320-7.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 20, 2006

THE PRESIDENT:..We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq. .....but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America....

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=130169
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130169&page=1

Bush Calls Off Attack on Poison Gas Lab
Calls Off Operation to Take Out Al Qaeda-Sponsored Poison Gas Lab

By John McWethy

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 20 (2002)

President Bush called off a planned covert raid into northern Iraq late last week that was aimed at a small group of al Qaeda

operatives who U.S. intelligence officials believed were experimenting with poison gas and deadly toxins, according to

administration officials....

http://web.archive.org/web/200304012...?bid=3&pid=371

Capital Games By David Corn
Powell's One Good Reason To Bomb Iraq--UPDATED
02/06/2003 @ 12:12am

.....But here's the first question that struck me after Powell's presentation:
why hasn't the United States bombed the so-called Zarqawi camp shown in the slide? The administration obviously knows where it is, and Powell spoke of it in the present tense.

http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=8&gl=us
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The, Feb 7, 2003 by GREG MILLER

SHOWDOWN ON IRAQ

Why not hit terrorist camp?

Lawmakers question lack of military action

By GREG MILLER Los Angeles Times

Friday, February 7, 2003

Washington -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week

describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al-Qaida affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with

explosives and poisons.

"Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why

have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"

Powell declined to answer, saying he could not discuss the matter in open session.

"I can assure you that it is a place that has been very much in our minds. And we have been tracing individuals who have gone in

there and come out of there," Powell said.

Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested the administration had refrained from striking the compound

in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq.

"This is it, this is their compelling evidence for use of force," said one intelligence official, who asked not to be identified.

But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?....

They still occupy official office and wield authority and command our military because too many people settle for what I won't abide QUIETLY !

05-16-2008, 07:55 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	and i think that we are at war with ghosts, that al-qaeda was an expedient, that bin laden took credit for the attack as a public relations move, that there was no connection between iraq and anything else and that the entire misbegotten "war on terror" was driven by the desire to have A response rather than by anything coherent. i have looked at the evidence that has been presented concerning financial linkages and found for myself that it is an indirect but not at all compelling case--and the claims bin laden made of responsibility are self-evidently problematic. but folk believe what they want about this sort of thing and, as host points out in the op, evidence is obviously secondary to that at best. hell, who needs evidence when you can use the discourse of religious crusade? "clash of civilizations" anyone? but you could see by 9/13/2001 how this was going to go. the situation since has been nothing but idiocy piled atop idiocy, empty action and empty claim piled atop empty action and empty claim. the primary functionality this "war on terror" seems to serve is that it enables continuation of the grotesque levels of resource expenditure to the benefit of military contractors. the "war on terror" is the substitute cold war--a rationale for resource allocation--but useless in every other way. the beauty of the cold war was, as paul virillio pointed out somewhere, that it was "pure war", war without battles, war as logisitics, war as generational turnover in weapons systems, a perfect expression of the centrality and internal logic of the war economy, enshrined by the national-security state in the period immediately after world war 2. the "war on terror" has events but no enemy, and so is equally endless, and the national security state is built around the assumption of endless war---but preferable endless war as parameter, as boundary condition that can be mobilized to maintain patterns of resource allocation. the "war on terror" helped the neocons imagine a world that was symmterical with the cold war world, which made their ideology coherent, was its condition of possibility. for them, it was a useful fiction. it doesn't matter whether individual neocons were able to convince themselves that it was not a fiction---in some sense, that could be the height of fiction, the point at which it collapses into its opposite. it's utility is obvious---we are in the seventh year of the bush administration. no further argument is required. that there have been no more "terrorist attacks" since 9/11 is not proof of coherence--i could just as easily argue that the fact i wear glasses has prevented a comet from hitting the earth and could point to the fact that no comet has hit the earth as proof of its efficacy. it's that empty. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 05-16-2008 at 08:03 AM..

05-16-2008, 08:00 AM	#6 (permalink)
Tully Mars Living in a Warmer Insanity Super Moderator Location: Yucatan, Mexico	I want OBL... yesterday. My President promised to find him, smoke him out, dead or alive etc... Then several months later said he really didn't spend much time thinking about OBL, WTF! I want the guy who promised to never stop looking for OBL to be thinking about where he is and how to find him. I don't buy this global war on terror BS either. It's like the war on drugs. Fighting it militarily will never see any sustainable gains. We may win battles. We may make progress. But any progress we make will be equaled out with set backs. In short winning isn't achievable via military action. This war, again like the war on drugs, is a defense contractor's wet dream. A wet dream in which the American tax payers are supplying the hookers. __________________ I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

05-16-2008, 09:56 AM	#7 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	I think it was ELF, can't trust those bastards. I must say I am really enjoying the new tone in politics, its refreshing. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

05-16-2008, 10:30 AM	#11 (permalink)
RetroGunslinger eats puppies and shits rainbows Location: An Area of Space Occupied by a Population, SC, USA	I've read over the OP, and while I understand where the evidence against the involvement of Osama bin Laden comes from, I'm really too skeptical on both sides of the fence.... Out of curiosity Will, just how many groups claimed responsibility for 9/11? With a source, if you don't mind. __________________ It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay. M.B. Keene

05-17-2008, 05:51 AM	#19 (permalink)
thespian86 change is hard. Location: the green room.	I have no real opinion in the matter, I don't really know anything about it. I'm young though, so I tend to jump to conclusions. It seems to me that over the past seven years of bullshit, that the link doesn't exist. Otherwise someone would of come forward, yes? If not, then it is certainly irresponsible government. Millions of people were hurt worldwide by this, am I right? And to withhold that information is wrong. I like the discussion though, I'm learning lots. __________________ EX: Whats new? ME: I officially love coffee more then you now. EX: uh... ME: So, not much.

05-16-2008, 07:15 AM	#3 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Ace, how many people do you suppose claimed responsibility for 9/11? BTW, I know how many.

05-16-2008, 11:31 AM	#17 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	I'm going to think through this out loud, so forgive me if I seem to be contradicting myself. Much of the evidence is circumstantial. The attack bears the signature of attacks known to have been carried out by the bin Laden network before 9/11 or since - suicide, multiple targets, simultaneous attacks, and targets with political and economic significance. It's thin, but it is something. It can be falsified, of course, so I suppose it does little by itself as evidence. There is a decent amount of information about what the 19 hijackers were doing in the weeks before 9/11, especially as some of them were already under surveillance. We know about the flight schools they attended, for example, and the apartments they were in. There is the fact of the video testaments of many of the 9/11 attackers, in which they lay out the reasons for the attack and make their final statements as martyrs. I'm sure you are familiar with the style of video I mean. This is pretty convincing. I don't really see why any government would fake it - or that they could do it convincingly, or why they would do it without parading it around as the evidence everyone has been asking for, which they have decidedly not done. Instead these videos are passed around quietly within communities of wannabe militants, sympathizers, and cheerleaders of 'the jihad' as constructed by bin Laden and his ilk. I've seen most of them, and if you go looking you may be able to find them as well, but your odds are better if you have some Arabic. The videos pretty unmistakably portray the same individuals we saw headshots of on CNN and whom we now recognize as the 19 hijackers, although of course you could argue that video can be manipulated, so there we are again. On that note I should mention that within the communities I'm referring to - diffuse communities directly acknowledged and nurtured by people at least as high up as Zawahiri, who gave them an exclusive (not real-time) interview - it is no longer controversial at all that AQ was behind 9/11. Roach, I see your point that bin Laden's acknowledgment of 9/11 might well have been a tactical move; after all, his protestations of innocence were not going to win any real sympathy, and on the contrary he has gotten an amount of popularity and lionization out of admitting to the attack. But while plausible, I just find it not all that likely. 9/11 is now the centerpiece of the community and the movement. It is what holds it together, what gives it its sense of self. It is difficult for me to imagine that the very core of that sense is a tactical lie created in response to the US. But my merely finding it instinctively difficult to conceive does not necessarily make it false. There is a meta-issue here as well about what constitutes truth. Presumably the question of whether bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 is meant to have some relevance for our present and future decision-making. But if we have acted since 9/11 as if AQ was responsible, AND if the community itself - the supporters, adherents, fighters, sympathizers, and propagandists of Qaeda-style jihad - themselves believe him responsible, AND if we will never publicly discover any other truth than this one... then what does it even mean to talk about another truth? Would it even make sense to behave in any other way than to presume that 9/11 happened as we currently imagine it to have happened? I'm not sure the preceding paragraph really makes any sense. Oh well. In short I am, personally, reasonably confident that bin Laden's network was behind the attack. The evidence is not bulletproof by any means, and it is curious that we haven't seen more come out of the intel community, which must surely have the ability to produce something more than we have seen. At the same time I haven't seen any viable alternative explanations that don't raise exponentially more problems than they solve, unless you believe - as I have seen RB suggest before - that the whole organization behind the attack was wiped out on the planes themselves. So I believe it, even if not with a tremendously high degree of confidence. But at the same time, the question seems almost irrelevant. The challenges we face today have little to do with 9/11 - never mind that they have much to do with our response to it, as well as other factors - so why worry so much about it? Why worry, that is, except perhaps because it has been such an important rallying cry for citizens and soldiers alike over the last six years? It is emotionally important to a lot of people who have believed in it very strongly. Geopolitically it doesn't mean very much in itself, not anymore. 9/11 was not important in itself, only for what followed.

05-18-2008, 05:01 PM	#20 (permalink)
edwhit Tilted	Good luck with your search for the truth! There are lots of theories and none of them will be proven, I'm afraid. Did Bush mastermind the whole war? I don't think so. Based on the numerous and frequent mention of his IQ I'm surprised so many seem to think so. Was there a grand conspiracy involving the CIA and other intel gathering agencies or at least members of those agencies able to persuade congress that there was a threat that we needed to act on at once? Seems like it's possible at the least. 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.

05-18-2008, 07:46 PM	#22 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3ROwxGR85YY&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3ROwxGR85YY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> BILL CLINTON IS PART OF IT PEOPLE! Obviously part of the Great Conspiracy. If Bill Clinton is part of, it, president for 8 years, obviously the DEMOCRAT PARTY IS PART OF IT PEOPLE! If Bush did it, and Bill Clinton is part of it, then by default BOTH THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE PART OF THE NWO CONSPIRACY WITH THE ILLUNINATI IN ORDER TO ENSLAVE US TO THE CORPORATE CULTURE BY INVADING IRAQ! Is there a fault in my logic? I don't think so. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

05-18-2008, 07:56 PM	#23 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	I dont know of any evidence that Bush et al were behind 9/11. I do believe they demonstrated malfeasance in office..being so driven by an ideological pursuit of a different foreign policy priority.... expansion of Reagan's missile defense program. They were presented with a memo in Jan 01, days after taking office, with an assessment of the seriousness of the al Queda threat and very broad suggestions for a course of action. "We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network." Read the full memo (pdf) more: The National Security Archive That memo sat idle for nine months, while the Bush administration single-mindedly focused on their top foreign policy initiative of missile defense. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 05-18-2008 at 08:00 PM..

05-18-2008, 08:12 PM	#27 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	I acknowledge that Clinton tried, but failed....in part because of objections from the Republican Congress at the time to take a more aggressive response.(that part was left out of your inforwars analysis) Carter failed to respond to terrorism with his Iran policy, Reagan failed by not responding to the Hezballah attack on the US marine barracks. GHW Bush failed by arming both Iran and Iraq. ...and Bush failed his first test by ignoring for nine months the urgent recommendations of the previous administration regarding a serious threat to national security. I'm glad I jogged your memory as well. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 05-18-2008 at 08:15 PM..

05-18-2008, 08:42 PM	#32 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	host....I'm not saying it didnt happen as you effectively laid out in your posts. Unlike many here, I read your articles and often learn from them. My problem is that is there is no provable direct link from position papers, etc. to an action authorized by Bush....(in a belief that they might have a receptive audience, many sr staff in every admin offer radical off-the-wall position papers on a variety of subjects to further their personal and the admin's ideological interests...not to mention their position within the admin). You make a compelling circumstantial case...but there is still no hard evidence...no smoking gun. If there was such a documented link, you know it has long since been shredded or otherwise destroyed. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 05-18-2008 at 08:52 PM..