Bush and Cheney should be suspected of complicity in 9-11.

[Octafish]

As the nation's chief executives, they were in a position to stop the attacks.
Yet, they did more than fail. They didn't lift a finger and even worked to keep others from doing so.

FBI Witness in Moussaoui Trial Faults Superiors

By Richard Serrano
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
4:43 PM PST, March 20, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks described with great regret today how his superiors in Washington repeatedly blocked his attempts to find out whether Moussaoui was part of a widespread terrorist cell intent on attacking the United States.

Special Agent Harry Samit also said his superiors did not share other critical counterterrorism intelligence with him, such as a memo from the FBI's Phoenix office about suspected terrorists taking flight lessons and a briefing for President Bush citing intelligence that planes might be hijacked.

Samit said his superiors told him right after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that it was "just a coincidence" unrelated to the case he was trying to make against Moussaoui.

Testifying during cross-examination by defense lawyers in Moussaoui's death penalty trial, Samit said he now believed his FBI superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" and that they thwarted his efforts in the interest of protecting their own careers. He called their actions a "calculated" management decision "that cost us the opportunity to stop the attacks."

CONTINUED…

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/21/nation/na-moussa21

My reasoning also is based, in part, on the following:

They have never been questioned by independent investigators, under oath, and separately in regards to 9-11.

They both have lied repeatedly about what they knew and did before, during and after 9-11.

Bush even allowed associates and families of the the crime's alleged architect to fly out of the country.

Neither one has been held accountable for their lies, actions and inaction -- let alone their gross criminal dereliction of duty.

I want to know WHY?

It is my right as a citizen of the United States to know the truth about the attacks of September 11 and the roles played by Bush and Cheney in relation to those attacks.

[PufPuf23]

1. I agree, As always, great post.

Anyone that does not have questions is an apologist or fool.

There were not adequate forensic investigations of any of the sites.

[Octafish]

2. The ''All Right, You've Covered Your Ass'' Meeting

Mebbe this is what led to Froomkin getting fired:

CIA went to Crawford and briefed Smirko in August. Wouldn't doubt if Bush was tapping his foot as he listened.

The Covered-Up Meeting

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 2, 2006; 1:12 PM

The "State of Denial" in the title of Bob Woodward's new book describes President Bush's ongoing refusal to see the true consequences of the war he launched in Iraq.

But one of the book's most notable revelations suggests that the Bush White House was in another state of denial more than five years ago, this one about the threat of terrorism before September 11, 2001.

If the omniscient narrator of Woodward's book is to be believed, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice waved off warnings that should by any reasonable standard have put the government on high alert for an al-Qaeda attack.

And in what looks like a potential administration cover-up, Rice and the other participants in that meeting apparently never mentioned it to anyone, including investigators for the 9/11 Commission.

SNIP…

And a month later, as Ron Suskind reported in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine," an unnamed CIA briefer flew to Bush's Texas ranch to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' According to Suskind, Bush heard the briefer out and replied: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

CONTINUED…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/02/BL2006100200537.html

PS: Thank you for the kind words, PufPuf23! Really appreciate that you give a damn about what's going on.

[Bolo Boffin]

5. You think this 2006 story led to Froomkin getting fired in 2009? n/t

[Octafish]

8. I don't know. Why don't you think it would hurt the career of a major WaPo blogger?

Froomkin was pretty good at asking questions, especially ones difficult for Bush and Cheney to answer.
One thing he never did, was defend the indefensible by ignoring what is seems to be either treason or gross criminal negligence. For instance:

Bush Ignored 9/11 Warnings

[Bolo Boffin]

12. What I'm thinking is if this hurt his career, he would have been fired closer to 2006. n/t

[Octafish]

16. It isn't old news. Froomkin brought up Bush pre-knowledge of 9-11 in March, 2009

There are no statutes of limitation for genocide, treason and mass murder. No one should forget that and those responsible.

Froomkin referenced Ben-Veniste's new book and referenced his Bush article from 2006. The Worst President Ever.

Anyway, as you know, the facts are Bush has never answered in public and under oath what he knew about Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the United States before September 11.

It's difficult to see how, when Bush lied about everything else, from torture to the run up to war in Iraq, anyone would believe what he's telling us regarding September 11.

He sure as heck should tell us, We the People, what he knew about September 11. Out loud. In public. Under oath.

[Bolo Boffin]

22. But why would Froomkin not be fired then and be fired now for saying the same thing?

I think you're making too much of this.

[noise]

24. If the warnings were simply ignored by the White House

the attacks still would likely have been prevented. But it appears the White House was involved in obstructing pre-9/11 investigations.

Alec Station withholding of information about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar's link to suspected Cole plotters and the fact that they were in the US.

FBI. Moussaoui investigation obstruction. UBLU obstruction of the search for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. This search should have been conducted by the stateside Cole investigators instead the UBLU falsely claimed the case file was strictly intel and as a result only one agent was assigned to the search.

NSA. Hayden claimed he was worried about civil liberty violations and this is why the NSA didn't use FISA. This makes absolutely no sense. Furthermore if he was really this concerned he should have informed the FBI and let them worry about the civil liberty issues. Instead he evidently did nothing.

It's a stretch to believe all this took place without White House awareness.

[wildbilln864]

3. thank you! nt

[Octafish]

6. Remember when Ashcroft was WARNED NOT TO FLY COMMERCIAL?

Remember Attorney General Ashcroft getting warned off commercial flights in July 2001?
The guy had been cutting out of work early in order to fly home to go fishin'.



He obviously thought something was gonna happen,
as he took the added precaution of staying out of first class.
My main beef is: "Why didn't he warn anybody else?".

Ashcroft Flying High

Cabinet Members Normally Fly Commercial Airlines

(CBS) Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.

"I don't do threat assessments myself and I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes," Ashcroft said.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml

PS: You are most welcome, wildbilln864! I very much appreciate all that you do regarding these treasonous-NAZI-gangster times we find ourselves living in.

[KDLarsen]

20. Is it back to 2004 already?!

BEN-VENISTE: I agree with you, sir.

The problem was in the communication of information which did not reach those who might have made a difference.

Let me ask you, as my time is expiring, one question, which has been frequently put to members of this commission; probably all of us have heard this one way or another.

And we are mindful that part of the problem with the Warren commission's work on the Kennedy assassination was the failure to address certain theories that were extant and questions and much of the work was done behind closed doors. So I would like to provide you with the opportunity to answer one question that has come up repeatedly.

At some point in the spring or summer of 2001, around the time of this heightened threat alert, you apparently began to use a private chartered jet plane, changing from your use of commercial aircraft on grounds, our staff is informed, of an FBI threat assessment. And, indeed, as you told us, on September 11th itself you were on a chartered jet at the time of the attack.

Can you supply the details, sir, regarding the threat which caused you to change from commercial to private leased jet?

ASHCROFT: I am very please pleased to address this issue.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

ASHCROFT: Let me indicate to you that I never ceased to use commercial aircraft for my personal travel.

ASHCROFT: My wife traveled to Germany and back in August. My wife and I traveled to Washington, D.C., on the 3rd of September before the 17th -- before the 11th attack on commercial aircraft.

I have exclusively traveled on commercial aircraft for my personal travel; continued through the year 2000, through the entirety of the threat period to the nation.

The assessment made by the security team and the Department of Justice was made early in the year. It was not related to a terrorism threat as a threat to the nation. It was related to an assessment of the security for the attorney general, given his responsibilities and the job that he undertakes. And it related to the maintenance of arms and other things by individuals who travel with the attorney general. And it was their assessment that we would be best served to use government aircraft.

These were not private chartered jet aircraft. These were aircraft of the United States government. And it was on such an aircraft that I was on my way to an event in Milwaukee on the morning of September the 11th.

http://www.nj.com/war/ledger/index.ssf?/news/ledger/stories/20040414_ashcroft.html

[Octafish]

46. Ben Veniste comes across as a profile in butter...

Just after Ashcroft closes his "I never stopped flying commercial except when I was flying government charter on September 11 and those other times you shouldn't bother with" explanation, Richard Ben Veniste says:

BEN-VENISTE: I'm pleased to have been able to give you the opportunity to clarify that issue for all who have written to this commission and communicated in other ways about their questions about that, sir.

Let me also give you the opportunity to respond to Mr. Pickard's testimony just a little while ago about a statement which he claims that you made with respect to priorities.

And in that regard, it is correct, is it not -- because we have looked at the May 10th, 2001, guidance for preparing fiscal year 2003 budgets in which you indicate your priorities -- there are five goals, strategic goals laid out there?

BEN-VENISTE: It does not appear that terrorism was one of them. Is that correct?

ASHCROFT: Let me make an explanation here, because I welcome, as well, this opportunity. The date preceding, on May the 9th, I met with the Senate Appropriations Committee and was asked about my priorities. I said my number one priority was to protect the people of the United States against terrorism.

The Department of Justice, required by the Congress to have a strategic plan, followed that plan. The plan was developed in the year 2000 by my predecessor and had a set of strategic goals. They're listed here early in the book and they are similar to the goals -- they are, as a matter of fact, the goals which were used in large measure for the May 10th memorandum. And they cite some additional goals to terrorism. There's no question about that.

Let me just go -- because our time is limited...

SOURCE: http://www.nj.com/war/ledger/index.ssf?/news/ledger/stories/20040414_ashcroft.html

Real follow-up from a power players, yup. The guy should be in a courtroom, or something.

Thanks for giving a damn, KDLarsen. Much obliged!

[rschop]

48. What was Ashcroft so afraid of in the summer of 2001?

On July 26, 2001, cbsnews.com reported that John Ashcroft had stopped flying on commercial airlines.

Ashcroft used to fly commercial, just as Janet Reno did. So why, two months before Sept. 11, did he start taking chartered government planes?

CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart asked the Justice Department.

Because of a "threat assessment" by the FBI, he was told. But "neither the FBI nor the Justice Department ... would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it," CBS News reported.

The FBI did advise Ashcroft to stay off commercial aircraft. The rest of us just had to take our chances

From the 9/11 Commission public hearing on April 14, 2004:

BEN-VENISTE: ...At some point in the spring or summer of 2001, around the time of this heightened threat alert, you apparently began to use a private chartered jet plane, changing from your use of commercial aircraft on grounds, our staff is informed, of an FBI threat assessment. And, indeed, as you told us, on September 11th itself you were on a chartered jet at the time of the attack.

Can you supply the details, sir, regarding the threat which caused you to change from commercial to private leased jet?

ASHCROFT: ...Let me indicate to you that I never ceased to use commercial aircraft for my personal travel.

But he clearly put out a press statement that said he would fly only on private aircraft for the remained of his term, after the main stream news media found he was no longer flying commercial aircraft due to an "unspecified threat assessment by the FBI".

But what the American people and the two rows of families that had lost their relatives on 9/11 that sat right behind Ashcroft at this hearing wanted to hear was, what was the unspecified FBI threat that Ashcroft had received and had been reported by CBS news and that had made Ashcroft so terrified of an aircraft hijacking that he immediately stopped in the latter part of July 2001 from flying on commercial aircraft inside of the US.

They didn’t want to hear some weasel worded excuse that he really was not afraid to fly on US aircraft. And why hadn't he warned the American people of this threat so they could stay safe also?

We now know that on July 10, 2001 George Tenet and Cofer Black briefed Rice and Clarke in the White House and told them a massive al Qaeda attacks was about to take place inside of the US, that would kill thousands of Americans. This was reported by Bob Woodward in his book, “State of Denial”. Rice not only brushed off this news but then asked Tenet and Black to brief AG Ashcroft and Secretary of the Defense, Rumsfeld, apparently unable or more likely unwilling to do anything about this huge al Qaeda threat herself, which they did a week later. This would have been on or about July 17, 2001.

So now we know that Ashcroft quits flying on US commercial aircraft right after getting this horrific briefing from the top managers at the CIA on this massive al Qaeda terrorist threat. But even more telling is that in over 7 ½ years no one has ever come forward to tell the American people exactly what was this “unspecified threat from the FBI" that the press release from Ashcroft’s office had described. The dots are starting to come together.

But this cover up gets worst!

The question was asked by no other then Richard Ben Venista.

And he clearly knew that Ashcroft had not answered the question that all American wanted an answer for: What was this unspecified threat from the FBI when just 6 weeks later al Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 aircraft and killed almost 3000 Americans?

Could these two events be linked somehow?

But we now know that it was Ben Venista that was at the an official 9/11 Commission meeting with Tenet, and Zelikow where Tenet described the July 10, 2001 meeting with Rice and Clarke and the meetings with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld a week later. And it was Ben Venista who also knew this information had been deliberately “left out” of the 9/11 Commission report when this report was published in June of 2004.

So it is now also clear Ben Venista knew why Ashcroft had quit flying on US commercial aircraft when he asked this question at the April 14, 2004, public 9/11 Commission hearings, and even knew that Ashcroft was misleading and evasive in his answer.

Even when he knew Ashcroft had not answered the real question, he never followed up and said, "John we, the 9/11 Commissioners and the Americans people want to know; "what was that unspecified threat from the FBI that was so horrific that you started taking only private aircraft on AG business in late July?"

It wasn’t that Ashcroft was actually lying, it was he was misdirecting his answer to a question that had not even been asked; Did you only fly on private aircraft in the summer of 2001?

But that is not the question the American people wanted an answer to. They wanted to know what the unspecified threat that his press release alluded to.

And it is now also clear that the flights Ashcroft took on commercial aircraft were for vacations with his wife, personal flights that he could never have been allowed to have taken on private aircraft at taxpayers’ expense, and on flights that were in large part outside of the US.

But then it gets even worse, yes indeed, far worse!.

John Ashcroft was the Attorney General of the United States, in charge of the Justice Department that also was over the FBI. If he knew that a huge al Qaeda attack was about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans why did he not order the FBI to find these terrorists before they carried out any terrorist attack?

It even turns that that at the time Ashcroft was told of this massive al Qaeda attack inside of the US, even his own FBI people were already aware that very dangerous al Qaeda terrorists were already inside of the US. One of his key employees, Tom Wilshire, had been moved over from Deputy Chief of the CIA Bin Laden unit to be liaison to Michael Rolince, the head of the FBI ITOS unit. This is the unit it turns out we now know controlled all FBI criminal investigations in the world.

Tom Wilshire already knew on July 17, 2001 when Ashcroft was told about the al Qaeda attack on the US, that a very dangerous long time al Qaeda terrorist, Nawaf al-Hazmi, had already entered the US, and knew his travel companion , Khalid al-Mihdhar, had a multi-entry visa for the US that specified New York City as his destination.

Wilshire even knew as did much of the CIA that Mihdhar and Hazmi had attended a al Qaeda planning meeting in January 200 with Walid Bin Attash, actually planning the Cole bombing. In fact this information was known by FBI HQ Agent Diana Corsi, and CIA officer Clark Shannon when they attended a meeting Wilshire set in New York City with the FBI Cole bombing investigators, on June 11, 2001. It now appears they all had been instructed, most likely by Wilshire, to keep this information secret from the FBI Cole bombing criminal investigators at this meeting.

Wilshire and Corsi, now famous in contemporary literature, knew that their actions in shutting down the only investigation, the investigation on Mihdhar and Hazmi by FBI Agent Steve Bongardt, that could have found both Mihdhar and Hazmi in time to prevent the al Qaeda attack the FBI HQ and CIA knew they were going to take part in, would result in the deaths of thousands of Americans. Since Wilshire had been denied many times from providing this information to the FBI, the very information that could have prevented these attacks, and many people at the FBI HQ also knew that FBI Agent Corsi had been criminally blocking the investigation of Mihdhar by Bongardt, it is clear that the conspiracy that had allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take placed went well beyond either Corsi and Wilshire and included almost all of the top management at the CIA, many of the middle managers at the FBI, and even directors of the FBI.

Proof of this is that fact that in November 2000, FBI Agent Ali Soufan, asked FBI Director Louis Freeh if he would make an official request to the CIA to find out if the CIA had any information on any al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 on or Walid Bin Attash, who was thought by the FBI to be one of the masterminds of the Cole bombing.

Soufan was told that the CIA had none of this information. But we now know from, page 181 of the 9/11 Commission report and pages 238-239 of the DOJ IG report that Freeh had been given this information in December 1999 by the NSA and again in January 2000 by the CIA and then this information with Khalid al-Mihdhar’s full name and passport number and fact that Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa for the US that specified the Marriott in New York City as his destination was in his Janaury 4, 2000 daily briefing paper. It is now clear that FBI Director Freeh had criminally obstructed his own investigation of the Cole bombing, and in the process by hiding the information on the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting had allowed 3000 people to be murdered by the al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11.

Much of this very information has been carefully concealed by the Joint Inquiry investigation on 9/11, the 9/11 Commission and even the DOJ IG investigation of the FBI after the attacks on 9/11. But by combining all of these accounts with the account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan, and the information in Bob Woodward's book State of Denial to fill in all of the missing pieces of this account, it was ultimately possible to put all of this information back together again and actually see what had occurred prior to the attacks on 9/11 and why our intelligence agencies had not prevented these attacks when they had much more information than was required to stop these attacks.

It was not so much that these reports actually lied about what had happened, it was the fact that each report had carefully left out many of the more significant details so it was not possible for the American people to see the complete picture. See my Journal for more details on all of this.

[Imagevision]

53. Condi Rice warns SF. Mayor Willie Brown to stay off planes the week of 9-11 attack

[BuddyBoy]

55. Condi's psychic powers are just another example of

the extraordinary number of "coincidences" surrounding 9/11. Insiders have always called her "AMAZING Condi".

[SDuderstadt]

56. Even Willie Brown debunks this one:

http://www.911myths.com/html/willie_brown.html

[BuddyBoy]

57. Willie Brown WAS warned. So were others.

Even the author of the article you linked to doesn't deny it.

[SDuderstadt]

58. You left out this part, dude...

The warning, however, dealt primarily with U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea -- clearly the wrong targets.

http://www.911myths.com/html/willie_brown.html

More of your blatant dishonesty, dude?

[BuddyBoy]

59. Here's one of the money quotes from the article

"The mayor, who was booked to fly to New York yesterday morning from San Francisco International Airport, said the call "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement."

In fact, at the time, he didn't pay it much mind.

"It was not an abnormal call. I'm always concerned if my flight is going to be on time, and they always alert me when I ought to be careful."

Exactly where the call came from is a bit of a mystery. The mayor would say only that it came from "my security people at the airport."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/12/MN229389.DTL

Okay, maybe we can still grab onto that last part, or maybe ask why anyone should warn Brown at all. Could that indicate some kind of foreknowledge? Well, there is an alternative explanation.

"Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said yesterday that he was "startled" by a little-noticed State Department memo that was issued a week ago and warned that Americans "may be the target of a terrorist threat."


Thanks for providing a link to the article which proves Mayor Brown was warned.

[SDuderstadt]

60. And you're misrepresenting what he was warned about...

just more of your blatant dishonesty, dude.

[BuddyBoy]

61. The quote was from the article that YOU cited.

You seem to be saying that your own source is in error.

[SDuderstadt]

62. No, dude...

I'm pointing out that what he was "warned" about isn't nearly anything like what you're claiming. Even Brown himself says so. Maybe you should talk to him.

[BuddyBoy]

63. We disagree on this and I'd urge anyone who's interested

to read the article that you cited and decide for themselves what to believe about that particular warning to Mayor Brown.

[greyl]

77. You disagree with yourself, let alone with the truth.

You're a no-planer one minute, and a "there were warnings about planes and terrorists" the next.
The truth is much more consistent than the baseless speculation and debunked misinfo salad you serve. Check it out.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. 2006. n/t

[Octafish]

9. So what? It was true then and it's true now. The FBI man was under OATH.

Which is more than what Bush and Cheney have ever said on the matter.

Who blocked FBI Agent Harry Samit's investigation of Moussaoui and why?

[Bolo Boffin]

13. Old News Octafish.

Maybe next name amnesty, you could change to that.

[noise]

19. Old news yet there are current efforts

to keep the records classified. AFAIK, the MFR's for Maltbie and Frasca are still "pending classification review" almost 8 years after the attacks. There are current efforts to prevent FBI testimony at civil trials against the airlines/airline security companies.

The government argued that it would be impossible to interview the employees without disclosing classified or privileged material that could cause serious damage to national security and interfere with pending law enforcement proceedings.

Judge: Airlines can't question FBI in 9/11 suits

Serious damage to national security? I thought the serious damage to national security already took place on 9/11/01.

The FBI testimony would interfere with pending law enforcement proceedings? How so? I think a lot of people would like to know what the DOJ means by this weird comment.

[rschop]

40. Serious damage to national security? I thought the serious damage to national security already took

Noise, you hit the nail right on the head.

What in Christ sake would be the information that would cause serious damage to national security almost 8 years after the biggest attack on the US in our history. Maltbie and Frasca have never explained why they shut down Harry Samit's investigation of Moussaoui.

It looks to the casual observer that the only thing that would cause serious damage to national security was if the American people found out that the CIA working with FBI HQ agents intentionally allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11 by shutting down all FBI criminal investigations of al Qaeda terrorists found to be inside of the US.

But we know now that Maltbie and Frasca shut down Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui, and Corsi and Wilshire shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. Is anyone aware that both the RFU with Maltbie and Frasca and the Bin Laden unit with Corsi, directed by Wilshire were part of the same FBI ITOS unit. At first you might think, what a coincidence, but in intelligence it turns out that there is no such thing as a coincidence.

[rschop]

42. Old News? I don't think so!

This is not old news since the reasons why Maltbie and Frasca blocked FBI Agent Harry Samit's investigation of Moussaoui with criminal obstruction have never been revealed and are still kept as a deep dark secret at the FBI HQ.

This will never be old news until the American people are finally told in full why the al Qaeda terrorists were allowed to murder 3000 people on 9/11.

[MrMickeysMom]

7. It is my wish, as well...

It is my right as a citizen of the United States to know the truth about the attacks of September 11 and the roles played by Bush and Cheney in relation to those attacks.

:hi:

[Octafish]

10. It is our RIGHT.

At least one 9-11 Commission member seems to understand:

9/11 commissioner slams Bush

A former member of the 9/11 Commission criticizes former President George W. Bush in a new book for not responding to pre-attack intelligence on Osama bin Laden's intentions.

In "The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11," Richard Ben-Veniste writes that CIA analysts told Bush that bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States, "yet the president had done absolutely nothing to follow up."

CONTINUED to original AP story FROM 2009...

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/911-commissioner-slams-bush/

Thanks for giving a damn about what's what and who's who, as well as opposing them, MrMickeysMom.

[MrMickeysMom]

15. Back at ya, Octafish...

:fistbump:

[Octafish]

11. Former 9/11 commissioner criticizes Bush for not following up on pre-Sept. 11 intelligence

More on Richard Ben-Veniste's book:

Bush criticized by former 9/11 commission member

Former 9/11 commissioner criticizes Bush for not following up on pre-Sept. 11 intelligence

PETE YOST
AP News

EXCERPT...

In "The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11," Richard Ben-Veniste writes that CIA analysts told Bush that bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States, "yet the president had done absolutely nothing to follow up."

A Democrat and a longtime Washington attorney, Ben-Veniste provides an inside account of the commission's three-hour interview with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on April 29, 2004.

Bush told the panel that the Aug. 6, 2001 intelligence summary — known as a presidential daily brief — was the only one he ever received on the domestic threat, Ben-Veniste writes.

In the interview with Bush, Ben-Veniste asked the president why he hadn't met with the FBI director after getting the PDB.

Bush replied that there were concerns predating his administration about politicizing the FBI and interfering in pending cases.

But "this was no pending case subject to claims of political interference," Ben-Veniste writes in his book.

The president said he couldn't recall whether he asked National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to get in touch with the FBI regarding the PDB, according to the book.

CONTINUED...

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/911-commissioner-slams-bush/

Ronald Reagan "couldn't remember" a lot, too, like selling Hawk missiles to Iran, the very same Ayatollahs who blew up the USMC Beirut barracks.

[MrMickeysMom]

14. "The president said he couldn't recall...."

but, in RR's case, he was later diagnosed with an advanced form of dementia.

We'd better hope due process overcomes the inertia soon!

[Octafish]

30. The more time passes...

...the fewer memories, let alone witnesses, remain.

By playing it out as long as they could, and by creating a deadline and limiting the scope of inquiry of the 9-11 Commission, Bush and Cheney and their cronies in treason are hoping to escape Justice. Their actions amount to obstruction of justice.

An example of where delay has paid:

Bush-Cheney Linked to CIA Leak Case

By Jason Leopold
July 3, 2009

In early fall 2003, as the scandal over leaking a covert CIA officer’s identity was exploding, President George W. Bush claimed not to know anything about the leak and called on anyone in his administration who had knowledge to come “forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true.”

How disingenuous the President’s appeal was has been underscored again by a new Justice Department court filing sketching out the contents of the 2004 interview between special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Though the Obama administration continues to balk at releasing the full contents of the Cheney interview, it did reveal that Bush and Cheney were in contact about the scandal, including what is described as “a confidential conversation” and “an apparent communication between the Vice President and the President.”

The filing in a federal court case also makes clear that Cheney was at the center of White House machinations rebutting criticism from former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who charged in summer 2003 that the Bush administration had “twisted” intelligence to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. While seeking to discredit Wilson, administration officials disclosed to reporters that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/070309b.html

All that treason and only one guy got convicted. And Cheney lobbied to have him pardoned till they carried him and his man-sized safe out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

These sick minds wanted war. I think they're sick enough to have also engineered 9-11.

[Subdivisions]

18. He doesn't recall...

WTF?

The president said he couldn't recall whether he asked National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to get in touch with the FBI regarding the PDB, according to the book.

HE DOESN'T RECALL??? How many people died again?


Octafish...Thank you!

[Octafish]

31. While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard.

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

On Aug. 6, Bust was briefed on "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." Bush played golf on Aug. 7.

Regarding Smirko's PDB recall:

The Out-of-Towner

While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard.

By Fred Kaplan
Slate.com
Posted Wednesday, April 14, 2004, at 7:54 PM ET

In an otherwise dry day of hearings before the 9/11 commission, one brief bit of dialogue set off a sudden flash of clarity on the basic question of how our government let disaster happen.

The revelation came this morning, when CIA Director George Tenet was on the stand. Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the FBI's Minnesota field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001.

Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave."

And there you have it. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made a big point of the fact that Tenet briefed the president nearly every day. Yet at the peak moment of threat, the two didn't talk at all. At a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed.

Throughout that summer, we now well know, Tenet, Richard Clarke, and several other officials were running around with their "hair on fire," warning that al-Qaida was about to unleash a monumental attack. On Aug. 6, Bush was given the now-famous President's Daily Brief (by one of Tenet's underlings), warning that this attack might take place "inside the United States." For the previous few years—as Philip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, revealed this morning—the CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities.

And now, we learn today, at this peak moment, Tenet hears about Moussaoui. Someone might have added 2 + 2 + 2 and possibly busted up the conspiracy. But the president was down on the ranch, taking it easy. Tenet wasn't with him. Tenet never talked with him. Rice—as she has testified—wasn't with Bush, either. He was on his own and, willfully, out of touch.

CONTINUED...

http://www.slate.com/id/2098861/

Smirko's playing dumb because if he snitches,
even accidentally, in public,
Unka Dick will get mighty mad.
And we all know what happens when Unka Dick gets mad.



Millions died so a few could control billions and take trillions.

If we had a truly free press, its members would be asking, "Why?"

[defendandprotect]

34. United Nations Security Council sent reps to WARN White House in August . . .

they also did what other nations did . . . they also sent reps to our

various intelligence agencies to warn them.

Russia had gone to the United Nations with their info because they were

being ignored --

[Usrename]

25. Aren't the 9/11 commissioners all war criminals?

I mean they did violate the UN Convention Against Torture, didn't they?

Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

It is now a well known fact that the official report includes statements taken from the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, among others, who was subjected to repeated waterboarding. As a matter of fact, if you strip away the evidence in their report that was obtained through torture the whole narrative basically disolves. There is no official report on what happened without the torture confessions.

None of the commissioners who fabricated the report has yet come forward to denounce it. Even if they were unaware at the time that detainees were being tortured (I believe they were aware of it), they should have certainly heard about it by now. It's common knowlege. By their continuing participation in this crime (the blatant violation of article 15) shouldn't they now be viewed as war criminals under the definitions put forth in the Nuremburg Principles?

Or have we abandoned all that in this post-9/11 world?

[Bolo Boffin]

26. Not to mention the infant they sacrificed at each of the commission meetings.

:eyes:

[Usrename]

27. What are you saying?

You don't think the Convention Against Torture is a real law?

You don't think it was violated when they produced the report?

You think torture is cool?

Spell it out for me.

[Bolo Boffin]

28. I'm saying your need for exaggeration of positions not your own is amply displayed

every time you post.

Get real.

[Usrename]

35. Positions not my own? What the hell are you talking about?

Have you EVER heard of this position from any other source?

Not my own position?

WTF?

[Octafish]

29. America's gone War Criminal in order to ''establish'' link between 9-11 and Saddam.

Thank you for putting that together and making it clear, Usrename.
To me, Keane, being some kind of UNOCAL official alone, is a war criminal.
Who knows what NSA found on Hamilton and the rest of them.

Cheney and the Iraq-Torture Link

Defending their record in office these past eight years, figures from the last administration seem especially touchy on the subject of torture. Led by the former vice president, Dick Cheney, they have argued that there was no torture, preferring more vague and delicate terms such as "enhanced interrogation" or simply "the program." They have insisted that any harsh tactics were used only to extract "actionable intelligence" from recalcitrant terrorists in order to save "thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" of innocent lives.

But now we are learning that those methods, long banned as torture in our own laws and treaties, may well have been employed for a very different and deeply nefarious purpose: to justify the dubious invasion of Iraq by falsely connecting Saddam Hussein's regime to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks.

Even as Republicans in Congress and conservative commentators seek to distract public attention by demanding to know when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first learned about waterboarding, the disturbing evidence of serious criminality continues to emerge.

A former top aide to Colin Powell recently revealed that a Libyan prisoner was brutalized by Egyptian intelligence agents, at the behest of the Bush White House, until he talked about a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. (That man, who later recanted those statements, which he said had been made under torture, has supposedly killed himself in a prison cell in his homeland, so he is no longer around to offer any inconvenient testimony.)

A pair of retired senior intelligence officials told former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem that in April 2003 the vice president's office itself suggested the waterboarding of a former Iraqi intelligence official captured in Baghdad, in order to make him talk about the mythical ties between his government and Al Qaeda. A series of reports have indicated that torture was used to elicit the same false testimony from Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative subjected to waterboarding literally dozens of times — even though he had begun to cooperate with FBI interrogators.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/joe-conason/cheney-and-the-iraq-torture-link.html

Most of all, I'd like to see charges filed against Bush, Cheney and all their cronies in warmongering, war crimes, genocide, and treason.

[Usrename]

36. Right, they fabricated a narrative. Supported by torture confessions.

They were trying to make a link to Saddam. That's true. The question still remains; if it wasn't Saddam who helped with the attack, who was it?

My personal theory is that they were covering their own asses and using torture to do it.

[Usrename]

37. Don't forget the other capital crime, obstruction of justice.

Witnesses were tortured to death.

No statute of limitations on conspiring to murder witnesses.

[hack89]

47. Besides Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

what specific torture produced evidence can you identify as significantly influencing the final report? Can you actually name names?

[rschop]

49. More on Richard Ben-Veniste

See post #48 for additional information on Richard Ben-Veniste.

I think this guy is just trying to cover his ass.

Richard Ben-Veniste was the only person outside of Zelicow and Ashcroft himself that already knew the reasons for Ashcroft flying on private aircraft after July 26, 2001, and when Ashcroft misdirected his answer to a different question in reply to Ben-Veniste questions at the April 14, 2004 9/11 Commission public hearings, Ben-Veniste said absolutely nothing even though he clearly knew that Ashcroft was misleading the 9/11 Commission!

[sofa king]

17. As I have said, and will continue to say...

When the authorities that provide you with the information are also obviously delaying, covering up, and prevaricating, you must use a different standard of evidence, one which can account for disinformation, document destruction, and so on. That sort of game play forces us to make guesses, rely in part on absence of evidence, and so on. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached for that all by itself.

One of the big, big absence of evidence gaps is what the Bush Administration did after being warned. All indications suggest they did more than nothing. They went out of their way to silence or reassign those who were giving the warnings, like Richard Clarke, before the attacks. Why?

One way to look at it is by the "train goes in the tunnel" analogy. In this case, all we know is that the tunnel is dark because Bush and Cheney very intentionally turned out all the lights. But the train went in being warned, and the train came out of the tunnel getting every damned thing it ever wanted. Who benefited most from the crime? Not Osama bin Laden.

I've also said, and will continue to say, that none of this will be nearly as much of a mystery once the historians have a chance to start pulling things apart, watching how those Americans complicit in the crime disappeared from the scene and reemerged years later fabulously wealthy and politically bulletproof, or dead under suspicious circumstances. The Israelis aren't going to wait so long to tell what they know--they'll start leaking the first time the next Republican regime crosses them. And someday soon, either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan is going to collapse, and what they know will get loose.

The one thing you can count on is that sooner or later, people are going to start squealing. The Bush Administration carefully staffed itself with the best narcissists and sociopaths they could find, all of them winners of a competition to see how much money they could raise. Some of them will need money again, and when they do, they'll either blackmail the GOP, or they'll talk.

[Octafish]

32. They couldn't have invented a better pretext for war than September 11.

It was like a new Pearl Harbor.

An Interview with James Bamford

Inventing a Pretext for War

By KEVIN B. ZEESE
CounterPunch May 23, 2005

For more than two decades James Bamford has been a noted investigative journalist focusing on intelligence gathering in the United States. He exposed the ultra secret National Security Agency two decades ago in The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, both award winning best sellers. He has testified as an expert witness on intelligence issues before committees of both the Senate and House of Representatives as well as the European Parliament in Brussels and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. His most recent book is A Pretext for War : 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies? examines intelligence gathering related to the Iraq War and 9/11. In addition to writing, he spent most of the decade of the 1990s as the Washington Investigative Producer for the ABC News program World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

SNIP...

(BAMFORD) ...Next, Pretext describes how the claims involving Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and Hussein's involvement with 9/11, were simply used as pretexts for a war long planned by a small group of neoconservatives supportive of the Israeli government's policies' and the expansion of U.S. military power throughout the Middle East. It examines how top Bush administration officials Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser first drafted a war plan outlining an attack on Iraq, and removal of Saddam Hussein, in 1996. But the document, titled "A Clean Break," was drafted for Israel, not the United States. At the time, the three were acting as advisors to newly elected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "Israel can shape its strategic environment," they wrote. "This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq ­ an important Israeli strategic objective." Not satisfied with regime change in Iraq, they went on to recommend that Israel continue to "shape its strategic environment" by "rolling back Syria."

Wurmser then authored a paper in January 2001 arguing that the U.S. and Israel jointly launch a pre-emptive war throughout the Middle East and North Africa to establish U.S.-Israeli dominance. The U.S. and Israel should "strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region ­ the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza," he wrote. He then added that, "crisises are opportunities."

About the same time, on January 30, 2001, President Bush held his first National Security Council meeting and, according to former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, discussed only two topics: becoming closer to Israel's Ariel Sharon and locating targets to attack in Iraq.

As Wurmser had suggested, following the 9/11 attacks the Bush administration immediately began using the crisis as an opportunity to launch their long planned war against Iraq. At 2:40 p.m. on September 11, as the Pentagon was still burning, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dictated notes indicating his intention to blame Saddam Hussein, even though there was no evidence of any such link and all the intelligence pointed exclusively to bin Laden and al Qaeda. "Hit S.H. at same time," he wrote. "Sweep" him up, whether "related" to 9/11 or "not."

Next, Wurmser was put in charge of a secret unit in Feith's office with the cover name Policy Counter-terrorism Evaluation Group. Its function was to gather and feed less-than-credible intelligence -- intelligence discounted by the CIA, such as the supposed Niger uranium deal -- to the White House and Vice President Cheney's office. Wurmser is now Cheney's top Middle East advisor.

Finally, Pretext closely examines the numerous lies and deceptions presented to the Congress, the American public and the world in order to justify the war in Iraq.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese05232005.html

Thank you for reminding us, sofa king. These treasonous turds think they've the time to get away with it. They're in for a rude awakening. As with you and all who give a damn, I hope it's very, very rude.

[sofa king]

44. Yes, and the differences between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are important, too.

* Pearl Harbor was investigated no less than nine times, by Congress, the Army, the Navy, and by other independent organizations. The Bush Administration did everything in its power to prevent Congress from officially investigating 9/11, instead steering the investigation to a picked obfuscatory committee staffed with inside men, like Dr. Zelikow.

* As a result of those open investigations, we know the names of virtually everyone who played a role in that affair, what they did, when they did it, and we have their explanations for why we did so. Radar spotting played a role in both events (see, e.g. here, pp. 185-187). The interested historian could, only five years after the event, find the names of the very lieutenants who told radar operators not to worry about the closing Japanese formation, and why. Almost eight years after 9/11, we don't even know who told NORAD to stand down, or why, or even if they did stand down.

* Pearl Harbor put the United States at an immediate strategic disadvantage, so much so that there is some question as to whether or not Roosevelt was going to ask Congress to declare war on Germany. (Hitler did us that favor by declaring war himself.) 9/11, on the other hand, gave the United States the strategic initiative to go and invade two countries only tangentally involved in the attacks--two countries which happened to be on the list of oil-important places that U.S. business wished to exploit but could not because of those nations' preference for other moneyed interests.

* Pearl Harbor consolidated nations, which unified under the American and British and even Soviet banners to defeat the Axis. The attack itself brought in Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba and El Salvador against the Japanese the following day, December 8, 1941, or shortly thereafter. After 9/11, on the other hand, the Bush Administration managed to squander all of the good will offered and to alienate most of the world from their Iraq debacle, creating a bullshit "Coalition of the Willing," which was really a list of nations bribed or coerced into lending minimal support.

Historians have long since dismissed the question of whether or not Pearl Harbor was known in advance by people and was allowed to happen anyway. The failures were examined in meticulous detail and the lessons learned were applied ruthlessly during the Cold War era.

On the other hand, we don't know a damned thing about 9/11. We don't know exactly how those guys got past their Israeli shadows, past the INS and customs, past Able Danger, the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI, past security, and past the passengers on the planes. We threw billions at the problem, inconvenienced and harassed millions, murdered tens of thousands, and tortured who knows how many to learn... what? What do we know, other than we were bent over and now our asses hurt?

[Echo In Light]

21. Thanks for that.

[Octafish]

38. Why wage an 'unnecessary war'? Bush Family War Profiteering.

"Money trumps peace." -- George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

Will Congress Finally Cut Them Off?

Bush Family War Profiteering

By EVELYN PRINGLE
CounterPunch
April 12, 2007

EXCERPT...

According to the January 14, 2007 LA Times, Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, says that, starting with the anti-terrorism appropriation a week after the 9/11 attacks, he estimates the US has spent $400 billion fighting terrorism through fiscal 2006, which ended on September 30, 2006.

In January 2007, Marine Corps spokeswoman, Lt Col Roseann Lynch, told Reuters that the war in Iraq is costing about $4.5 billion a month for military "operating costs," which did not include new weapons or equipment.

Since this war on terror was declared following 9/11, the pay levels for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors have doubled. The average compensation rose from $3.6 million during the period of 1998-2001, to $7.2 million during the period of 2002-2005, according to an August 2006, report entitled, "Executive Excess 2006," by the Washington-based, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Boston-based, United for a Fair Economy.

This study found that since 9/11, the 34 defense CEOs have pocketed a combined total of $984 million, or enough, the report says, to cover the wages for more than a million Iraqis for a year. In 2005, the average total compensation for the CEOs of large US corporations was only 6% above 2001 figures, while defense CEOs pay was 108% higher.

But the last name of one family, which is literally amassing a fortune over the backs of our dead heroes, matches that of the man holding the purse strings in the White House. On December 11, 2003, the Financial Times reported that three people had told the Times that they had seen letters written by Neil Bush that recommended business ventures in the Middle East, promoted by New Bridges Strategies, a firm set up by President Bush's former campaign manager, who quit his Bush appointed government job as the head of FEMA, three weeks before the war in Iraq began.

Neil Bush was paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times said.

But Neil Bush is by no means the only Bush profiting from the war on terror. The first President Bush is so entangled with entities that have profited greatly that it's difficult to even know where to begin. Bush joined the Carlyle Group in 1993, and became a member of the firm's Asian Advisory Board.

The Carlyle Group was best known for buying defense companies and doubling or tripling their value and was already heavily supported by defense contracts. But in 2002, the firm received $677 million in government contracts, and by 2003, its contracts were worth $2.1 billion.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/pringle04122007.html

Interesting times, wot?

[MagickMuffin]

23. Dick Cheney MIHOP + GW Bush LIHOP = September 11, 2001

It was a brought about by the two highest officials in office.

Why do you think Dick kept putting Richard Clarke on holding meetings concerning Al Qaeda?!? I believe it involved the plausible deniability factor.

"Why I didn't know about Al Qaeda and that were a threat" Cheney.

[Octafish]

66. Gross criminal negligence is their public excuse.

Creating the impression they didn't know what they were doing, gives them an "out" with the press corpse.

FBI Agent Harry Samit said the bosses in Washington were guilty of "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism." And he was putting it nicely.

FBI Agent Slams Bosses at Moussaoui Trial

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Mar. 21, 2006

(CBS, AP) The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks.

FBI agent Harry Samit of Minneapolis originally testified as a government witness, on March 9, but his daylong cross examination by defense attorney Edward MacMahon was the strongest moment so far for the court-appointed lawyers defending Moussaoui. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent is the only person charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

MacMahon displayed a communication addressed to Samit and FBI headquarters agent Mike Maltbie from a bureau agent in Paris relaying word from French intelligence that Moussaoui was "very dangerous," had been indoctrinated in radical Islamic Fundamentalism at London's Finnsbury Park mosque, was "completely devoted" to a variety of radical fundamentalism that Osama bin Laden espoused, and had been to Afghanistan.

SNIP…

But Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously. No one from Washington called Samit to say this intelligence altered the picture the agent had been painting since Aug. 18 in a running battle with Maltbie and Maltbie's boss, David Frasca, chief of the (R)adical (F)undamentalist (U)nit (RFU) at headquarters.

They fought over Samit's desire for a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer and belongings. Maltbie and Frasca said Samit had not established a link between Moussaoui and terrorists.

CONTINUED…

http://www.truthout.org/article/fbi-agent-says-he-warned-911-hijackings

"Criminal negligence" is their "excuse"?

Their alibi for obstruction of justice?

When do the trials begin?

[rschop]

67. FBI Agent Harry Samit said the bosses in Washington were guilty of "obstructionism, criminal neglige

FBI Agent Harry Samit said the bosses in Washington were guilty of "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism."

See post #39, on Harry Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui

Were you aware that on August 24, 2001 Tom Wilshire, the CIA officer that was working with FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi to shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar was in email contact with our very own and now famous Michael Maltbie, and was told by Maltbie that others at the FBI were shutting down Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui?

So on August 24, 2001 Wilshire knows Mihdhar and Hazmi are inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that will kill thousands of Americans, and then finds out that Moussaoui is an al Qaeda terrorist learning how to fly a B747 with no prior flight experience. He has it all, enough information to stop the attacks on 9/11, and somehow, and never explained by the 9/11 Commission or any other investigation, he keeps all of this information secret and does not alert anyone at the FBI or anywhere else to this immense danger.

Maybe the 9/11 Commission can explain why the deliberately hid all of this information from the American public and why their investigation of 9/11 should not be viewed at as a complete and total fraud!

[defendandprotect]

33. Agree . . . and evidently the Founders thought they provided for conspiracy between Pres & VP ...

if conspiracy was suspected between Pres & VP they should be "suspended" . . .

!!!

[rschop]

39. Who blocked FBI Agent Harry Samit's investigation of Moussaoui and why?

Who blocked FBI Agent Harry Samit's and Coleen Rowley’s investigation of Moussaoui and why?

From a FBI document found on the US official web site for the Trail of Zacharias Moussaoui:

http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/

Defense Exhibit 792,

April 2001; The FBI HQ released a threat assessment which said:

"Bin Laden Khattab Threat Reporting

This note is to advise you of recent threat reporting deemed significant and urgent by the US Intelligence Community

The US government has received information indicating that serious operational planning had been underway since late 2000 with an intended culmination in late Spring 2001. These plans are being undertaken by Suni extremists with links to Ibn al Khattab, an extremist leader in Chechnya and to Usama bin Laden.

Multiple sources also suggest that UBL's organization is planning a terrorist attack against US interests.

The UBL unit, (with FBI Supervisor Rod Middleton and FBI IOS agent Dina Corsi), is preparing an EC for all field offices and Legats."

This threat reporting went to Michael Rolince, who was head of the ITOS over the RFU and UBL units, and to Rod Middleton of the UBL unit, among others.

Rolince was over the RFU's Maltbie and Frasca. So why did Frasca and Maltbie refuse to allow FBI Agent Harry Samit even the chance to request a FISA search warrant when Samit had clearly linked Moussaoui to Khattab and this FBI threat assessment had linked Khattab to Bin Laden?

The burden of proof for getting a FISA search warrant was to have probable cause that the target was part of a terrorist organization, which Samit had clearly done when he linked Moussaoui to Khattab.

It is clear Rolince knew Khattab was already a Suni terrorist linked to Bin Laden and had not only received a warning of this threat but had also had his own UBL unit issue an EC to report that threat throughout the FBI in April 2001. But Maltbie and Frasca claimed that Samit just did not have enough proof that Khattab’s organization was a “recognized” terrorist organization, in spite of the April 2001 FBI threat assessment, directly linking Khattab to Bin Laden, a threat assessment, which was kept secret from Samit and his team of investigators.

This threat assessment was released just before CIA deputy chief of the Bin Laden unit at the CIA, Tom Wilshire, had been moved over to the FBI to be liaison to Michael Rolince at the ITOS. It appears Wilshire was moved to the FBI ITOS unit, the FBI unit responsible for all criminal investigations in the world, to ensure that CIA information on the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting was kept secret from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing. This information is further detailed in the book, "Prior Knowledge of 9/11", at www.eventson911.com.

But since Wilshire ultimately worked with FBI IOS Agent Dina Corsi to shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, when both he and Corsi knew Mihdhar and Hazmi were found inside of the US, and knew they were inside of the US in order to take part in an al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans, it would appear that this had to be also part of his CIA assignment when he was moved to the FBI. Not only to hide the information on the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing, but also to shut down the investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi if the FBI criminal investigators developed enough information that would have allowed them to start a FBI criminal investigation of Mihdhar.

After August 22, 2001, when Wilshire and FBI IOS Agent Dina Corsi knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans and were taking part in a massive criminal conspiracy to hide this information from the FBI Cole investigators, Wilshire was in email contact with Maltbie. see "Substitution for the Testimony of John", aka Tom Wilshire, entered into the Moussaoui trial, on March 11, 2006.

Wilshire finds out from email communication with Maltbie, that others in the FBI were sabotaging Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui at the very same time he is sabotaging Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. So it would appear that part of his CIA assignment when he was moved over to the FBI, was not only to insure that the CIA information on the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting had been kept secret, but to closely monitor any and all FBI criminal investigations of any al Qaeda terrorists found inside of the US, to make insure that none of these investigations developed to the point that would disrupt the al Qaeda attacks that were about to take place on 9/11.

The email between Wilshire and Maltbie was on August 24, 2001, so at this point in time Wilshire not only knows that both Mihdhar and Hazmi are inside of the US in order to take part in a horrific al Qaeda attack, but also knows Moussaoui had been arrested after the FBI in Minneapolis thought he was an terrorist trying to learn how to fly a 747 in order to hijack a large airliner and fly it into the WTC Towers.

He has all of the information needed to stop the attacks on 9/11 on August 24, 2001, but for some unexplained reason just somehow fails to alert anyone at the FBI criminal investigating units or even in the US government to the threat of these horrific al Qaeda attacks. When FBI Agent Gillespie, who was working at the CIA Bin Laden unit, and is the agent that had found both Mihdhar and Hazmi inside of the US, has the Bin Laden unit issue a worldwide alert for Mihdhar and Hazmi of August 23, 2001, the entire CIA management is aware of the same information Wilshire is.

Could this explain CIA Director George Tenet's urgent trip to Crawford for a 6 hour meeting with the President on August 24, 2001, and explain why he clearly lied at the April 14, 2004 9/11 Public hearings when he said he had not talked to the President in August 2001?

And these actions by Wilshire just somehow have been never explained by either the FBI HQ, the CIA or even the 9/11 Commission.

Samit was not able to even get a search warrant request approved from Maltbie or Frasca until after the attack on the Pentagon. When he asked Frasca after the attack of the World Trade Center Towers, he was told the fact they had arrested Moussaoui and the attacks on the WTC towers were nothing more than just a simple coincidence, and this could not be used as evidence to get a search warrant for Moussaoui's possessions.

After the Pentagon was attacked and Samit got a search warrant he immediately found the receipt from Ramzi Bin al-Sheibh for $14,000 sent to Moussaoui, traced this back to Hamburg, Germany, and the fact Bin al Sheibh had been room-mates with Mohammed Atta, Mawin al-Shiehi, and Ziad Jarrah, three of the 9/11 pilots. He also quickly found the phone number for the al Qaeda pay-master in the UAE from al-Sheibh’s phone records and traced calls from this phone number in the UAE in a few days to almost all of the terrorists who took part in the attacks on 9/11.

Yet the DOJ IG report says the fact that Maltbie and Frasca did not allow Samit to even request a search warrant was really not all that significant because there was no information in Moussaoui's duffel bag that could have unraveled the plot, a fact disputed by Samit and Zebley at Moussaoui's trial.

At the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui Samit called Maltbie and Frasca out and out criminals, for allowing the al Qaeda terrorists to murder 3000 people on 9/11. But the FBI said Michael Maltbie and David Frasca would have no comment on this. The FBI even said that the FBI itself would have no comment on this.

Let’s see now, you are accused of criminal acts that had allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to murder 3000 people on 9/11, and your response to this horrific news is “NO COMMENT?

Just what are the American people expected to think about this?

But it is impossible to believe that when Maltbie and Frasca shut down Samit's investigation of Moussaoui, and both knew a huge al Qaeda attack was in the works, because of the FBI treat that was sent to Rolince in April 2001, that they did not also know that thousands of Americans were going to perish in these attacks as a direct result of their actions to block Samit's investigation of Zacharias Moussaoui?

[rschop]

41. SO WHAT DID GEORGE TENET TELL THE PRESIDENT PRIOR TO 9/11

WHAT DID GEORGE TENET TELL THE PRESIDENT PRIOR TO 9/11:

We now know that at the exact same time Tenet and Black on July 13, 2001, and July 23, 2001, had forbidden CIA Bin Laden Deputy Chief Tom Wilshire from giving the information on the Kuala Lumpur January 2000 al Qaeda planning meeting to the FBI Cole bombing criminal investigators, the very information that would have prevented the attacks on 9/11, they were having an urgent meetings in the White House with Rice and Clark, on July 10, 2001, and with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, on July 17, 2001, describing a huge al Qaeda attack just about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans.

So why did Tenet and Black forbid Wilshire from giving this information to the FBI criminal investigators when this was the very information that could have prevented the al Qaeda attacks that they were warning people in the White House about?

We also know from Tenet's testimony to the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004 that Tenet was hiding his meetings in August 2001 with the President of the United States from the American public.

At this hearing Tim Roemer asked the question: "If you, (George Tenet), knew that the al Qaeda terrorists were about to mount a huge attack inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans why did he not tell the President about this in August?"

Tenet answered that he was in Washington DC and the President was in Crawford Texas, and that is why he had not told the President. NOW THAT'S A HELL OF AN ANSWER!

Then Roemer asked why did he not pick up the telephone and call the President and give him this horrific information. After all, if the Director of the CIA had information on an al Qaeda attack inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans, it would only seem logical that he would contact George Bush, the President of the United States at his earliest opportunity, and let him also know right away about this horrific terrorist attack, in order to save all of these people from being killed in these attacks.

This only seems logical!

And if there were ever a real ticking time bomb scenario, this had to be it.

But Tenet said he had not called the President in August to give him this information, and could not go beyond this as an explanation. George Tenet, Director of the CIA simply could offer up no possible explanation at all on why he had not called the President of the United States and given him this information.

And main stream media seemed unusually uncurious about any of this, none of this testimony on why 3000 were killed on 9/11 made it into the main stream newspapers for some unknown reason.

But Bill Harlow, the CIA spokesman came out after Tenet’s testimony and said Tenet had just misspoken numerous times. “Misspoken numerous times” is CIA speak for lied. He said that Tenet had flown down to Crawford on August 17, and has seen the President in Washington on August 31, and six more times in September before the attacks on 9/11. But Tenet in his own book said he had been in Crawford in a meeting with the President in late August.

And we now also know from the White House web site, that George Tenet had also flown down to Crawford and had a meeting with the President on August 24, 2001. This is after Tenet learned on August 23, that Moussaoui had been arrested after the FBI thought he was a terrorist learning to fly a 747, and also after he learned on August 23 that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

So what did George Tenet Director of the CIA, who had all of this horrific information tell the President of the United States of America at these meetings?

It seems that after 7 1/2 year that we still do not know. But we do know he was willing to lie to all of the American people and to the 9/11 Commission, committing a major crime of perjury, in order to hide these meetings with the President from the American people. We also know after his testimony, which was broadcast to the world, that the White House for some unknown reason, did not call up the 9/11 Commission or George Tenet to correct the record, when both the President and Condoleezza Rice would have been at the meeting with CIA Director George Tenet and would have known he had deliberately lied to the 9/11 Commission and the American people.

But isn’t all of this what psychologists call "consciousness of guilt", something one only does if they have committed a crime and are aware that they have committed a crime !

[rschop]

43. K&R

[JuniperLea]

45. K & wish I could R!!! eom

[rschop]

50. Who blocked FBI Agent Harry Samit's investigtaion of Moussaoui and why?

See post #39 in response to:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks described with great regret today how his superiors in Washington repeatedly blocked his attempts to find out whether Moussaoui was part of a widespread terrorist cell intent on attacking the United States.

How many people are aware that the very person who was part of the CIA/FBI HQ team that shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, one of only two investigations that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11, was in email contact with both Maltbie and Frasca in late August 2001? Wilshire knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a horrific al Qaeda attack, and he knows on August 24, 2001 that people at the FBI were blocking Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui. He has all of the information needed to stop the attacks on 9/11, but what does he do?

He and FBI Agent Dina Corsi not only keep all of this information secret from the FBI criminal investigations, but he works with Corsi to shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar, knowing that thousands of Americans are about to be killed in these al Qaeda attacks he is allowing to take place.

See my Journal for more details on all of this.

[BuddyBoy]

51. Complicity? Isn't that being naive?

After all, it was an inside (Bush Administration) job. Their baby, their conspiracy. Of COURSE they were complicit.

[Imagevision]

52. (-11 Report was nothing more then another - 'Warren Commission'...designed

to appease the 'Jersey Girls' who by the way are entirely responsible for any report at all and to shove it down the throats to all americans.

[BuddyBoy]

54. Exactly. Whenever a "commission" is set up, you can be sure

that the main reason is to cover up for misdeeds or crimes and to provide a fairy tale for the media and Official Government
Conspiracy Theorists to use in trying to fool the public. Commission Reports = Snake Oil for Suckers.

[lovecanada56035]

64. it's amazing how the American people can buy into their lies

Despite such evidence as those presented in the OP.

[SDuderstadt]

65. It's also amazing how someone can misinterpret calling a "truther" on utter bullshit...

as "buying into" Bush and Cheney "lies".

[BuddyBoy]

68. Why would they stop 9/11 if it was a well-planned INSIDE job?

Correct me if I've misinterpreted your post, but what is the point of your observation that they failed to stop the attacks?
9/11 was a Bushco INITIATIVE. Media compliance virtually guaranteed it would be a raging success ... both then, and now.
Add in on-going disinformation programs and it becomes clear that if you want to know more about what really happened, don't expect
to learn the truth from the perps.

[SDuderstadt]

69. "Truther Logic "

Bush and Cheney failed to stop the 9/11 attacks, so obviously they planned them.

[BuddyBoy]

70. It isn't clear who drew up the actual operational plans, but yes ...

it would have taken something unexpected and extraordinary in magnitude for Bush to have called it off. It was carefully planned
to take place on THAT particular date.

BTW - as some people have suspected, the planned date of 9/11 wasn't just randomly selected.
The date of September 11 has much symbolic value throughout the history of the U.S. empire.

[SDuderstadt]

71. Dude... look up the phenomenon known as " found significance"

You can take any date and, ex post facto, determine it to be significant in American history.

[BuddyBoy]

72. DUDE - You must not be aware of the symbolism of the date 9/11

It's important to know about these things whenever you're discussing covert operations.

[SDuderstadt]

73. By all means, "educate" us...

dude. Then when you're done, give me any date and I'll construct a similar narrative. Trying to reason with you is like trying to explain randomness to the guy who won the lottery by playing a combo of his sacred mother's birthday and the date he first got laid.

[BuddyBoy]

74. DUDE - That's one of the great things about us Liberals/Progressives

The desire to learn.

DUDE, tell us about September 13. Wouldn't you think that if Bush had to re-schedule the date for the attacks, the logical thing
would be to make it the next day?

Construct a "similar narrative" for September 13.

[SDuderstadt]

75. I asked you to explain the significance of the date 9/11 to "covert operations"...

first, dude.

[BuddyBoy]

78. When can we expect you to explain your goofy claim about dates?

You said:
"You can take any date and, ex post facto, determine it to be significant in American history."

I gave you the date of September 13th and we're still waiting for you to respond.

[SDuderstadt]

79. Dude...

You made the initial claim about 9/11. I asked you specifically why that date was significant. Once you explain why, I'll be glad to do the same for any other date. Please don't pretend like you didn't know the ball was in your court, dude. I'm not in the mood to play your stupid games.

[BuddyBoy]

80. Dude ...

If you can't back up that particular boast, it's no big deal. It's what you do! When you aren't insulting someone.

[greyl]

76. That's a mighty clear example of how the 9/11 Truth Industry

is a godsend to Karl Rove and the Bush Admin, if not a deliberate disinfo campaign.

Keep slathering bullshit onto legitimate issues, BuddyBoy.