Mohammed Atta
Article by Erik Larson
A 9/11/2008 Resolution: Start Your Own 9/11 Blog! By Arabesque
Inspirational article by George Washington: Fascism Is Over … If We Want It
Click here for all the articles in the: 9/11 Truth Overview Series
This article reviews some of US administration’s and defense, intelligence & law enforcement agencies actions in the years and months before 9/11. The public record of government reports and statements so far makes clear that there were many, many warning signs that Al Qaeda was plotting attacks, and that policy makers in these administrations and agencies were aware of this; why didn’t they stop the attacks?
The Bush Administration & Pentagon Policy in 2001: Ignore Terrorist Threats & Plan for War in Iraq & Afghanistan:
Even before taking office, key Bush Administration members were focused on agitating and planning for wars in Iraq (and Afghanistan); when they took office, this was the main priority and they made investigating and fighting terrorism a low priority. In January 2001, the Hart-Rudman bi-partisan report concluded terrorism was a serious threat and made 50 recommendations for combating it, which were ignored. Counterterrorism Tsar Richard Clarke had a comprehensive plan to neutralize, limit and destroy Al Qaeda and actively lobbied for immediate action on some or all of it, but nothing was done until after 9/11. Clarke was kept on from the Clinton administration, but Condoleeza Rice and Philip Zelikow restricted his access and influence in the Bush Administration. In February, Bush changed procedures for the National Security Council, limiting the number of people with access to information and meetings, and abolishing the Inter-agency working groups. Rice was put in charge of coordinating meetings between agencies as well as setting meeting agendas. In May, Cheney was made head of the Counterterrorism Strategy Group, but took no action before 9/11. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Aschroft and others were warned repeatedly in 2001 by Clarke, CIA Director George Tenet and others that Al Qaeda was planning major attacks in the US possibly using planes as missiles, but according to what the Bush Administration said after 9/11, the attacks were a surprise. Warnings of attacks by Bin Laden in the US, including hijacking multiple planes and using them as missiles, were received from more than ten different countries in the years before 9/11, and increased warnings were received in 2001.
Counterterrorism Politics & Policy Before 9/11 Timeline
Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11 Timeline
‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US’ PDB Timeline
Presidential Level Warnings Timeline
Foreign Intelligence Warnings Timeline
Inquiry into the Decision to Invade Iraq Timeline
Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies Timeline
Warnings, Investigations & Intelligence Before (& After) 9/11:
The CIA, FBI, NSA and allied intelligence services had been listening to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden’s phone calls for years before 9/11; they were aware of hijackers identities and at least some key details of the 9/11 plot. FBI HQ and field offices in Minnesota, Arizona, Oklahoma and Florida were aware men with ties to Bin Laden were training at flight schools. The CIA was aware that hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar were Al Qaeda operatives at least since January of 2000, but repeatedly failed to watch list them or share their info with the FBI, in violation of standard protocol, and despite numerous additional warning signs and evidence of terror planning being received over nearly two years- and despite CIA officers being told that info had been shared with the FBI. In San Diego Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived with “tested” FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh; after 9/11 the FBI prevented Congress from interviewing him. After the Bush Administration took office, the FBI was ordered to “back off” from investigating members of the Bin Laden family with ties to terrorist financing. FBI Agents Coleen Rowley, Robert Wright, John O’Neill and Harry Samit were convinced that an attack was imminent and actively attempted to prevent the 9/11 attacks but were obstructed by supervisors in the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit. According to Samit, David Frasca ordered him not to open a criminal investigation, and their request for a FISA warrant to search Moussaoui’s laptop had critical information removed by Michael Maltbie, making it one of the few FISA requests ever denied. FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds, hired after 9/11, soon discovered the US had been in possession of intelligence and information that could have prevented the attacks, but supervisors and policy makers had prevented it from being shared and used. Edmonds also testified that one of her co-workers, Melek Can Dickerson, was mistranslating documents, and removing others from the building, with the help of their supervisor, Mike Feghali. After 9/11, an FBI special agent requested retranslation of a document that had been translated before 9/11, thinking that important information may have been missed in the first translation. Retranslation revealed that information had been omitted that referred to building blueprints and pictures being sent overseas, as well as information regarding criminal actions in connection with obtaining VISAs through certain mideast embassies. Feghali decided not to send the new translation to the agent; instead he sent a note saying the original translation had been correct. Edmonds was fired after she faxed information to Congress and the Department of Justicie Inspector General regarding her allegations of corruption and espionage in the FBI’s Translation Unit.
Surveillance of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda Timeline
U.S. and Allied Intelligence Services Had Penetrated The Very Highest Levels of Al Qaeda Prior to 9/11 by George Washington
Was the US government alerted to September 11 attack? by Patrick Martin
Did Bush Know? Warning Signs of 9-11 and Intelligence Failures by Nafeez Ahmed
PRIOR WARNINGS OF PLANES CRASHING INTO BUILDINGS – 911Proof.com
OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATIONS PRIOR TO 9/11 And Reasons to Doubt the Official Legend of Osama Bin Ladin: The consistent high-level obstruction of U.S. counterterror field investigations prior to September 11, which might have uncovered the plot before its execution – JusticeFor911.org
Official Investigations: The Various (Non)Investigations – 911Research.WTC7.net
Warning Signs Timeline (Historical: 1983 to Present)
Al Qaeda Malaysia Summit Timeline
Able Danger and Mohammed Atta Timeline
Alhazmi and Almihdhar: Specific Cases Timeline
The Pentagon’s Able Danger Program:
Able Danger was a datamining program that had identified warning signs about the October 2000 USS Cole attack months before it happened, and it also identified alleged hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in early 2000 and continually turned up new information as the operation moved forward. Separately, German intelligence had given the CIA the name and phone number of Marwan [al Sheri]- he was Mohammed Atta’s roommate- in 1999, and it was reported by German media after 9/11 that the CIA had the “Hamburg cell” under surveillance from January to June 2000 click here. Even though Able Danger did not focus on “US” persons and was based on publicly-available data or US government data legal for such purposes, such as VISA applications, Maj. Erik Kleinsmith said he was threatened with jail by superiors and a DOD attorney if he did not destroy the data it had collected. This was after it was discovered that the program had connected US VIP’s such as Condoleeza Rice and former Defense Secretary William Perry to illegal sales of technology to China. The data was destroyed in 2000, and since then Able Danger was reformulated and shut down a few more times; each time it was started up, it identified Atta and others connected to Al Qaeda. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Cpt. Scott Philpott, James D. Smith (civilian contractor for Orion Scientific Systems) who assisted with the Able Danger program, all said it had identified Mohammed Atta. March 2004, Shaffer’s security clearance was revoked and the Pentagon conducted a smear campaign in the media. However, in 2005 the Pentagon admitted it had found three others who were part of the Able Danger program who asserted that Able Danger had linked Atta with Al Qaeda more than a year before 9/11, and that all five were considered “credible people”. At the first Senate hearings September 21, 2005 the Pentagon blocked Shaffer, Philpott, Smith and Dr. Eileen Presser from testifying. November 18, 2005, Rep. Curt Weldon delivered a letter to Rumsfeld signed by 246 members of Congress demanding that Able Danger team members and civilian contractors be allowed to testify. February 15, 2006, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer publicly testified, under oath to the US House of Representatives that he had given his information to 9/11 Commission staff in 2003 in Afghanistan, and he was never called to actually testify. Cpt. Scott Philpott says he gave information on Able Danger to the 9/11 Commission July 12, 2004. Able Danger is not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report; at first the Commission denied having knowledge of the program, but was later forced to change their story, claiming that at the time they didn’t believe the officers information was credible.
The Able Danger Program Timeline
Able Danger and the 9/11 Whitewash by Reprehensor
Inside Able Danger – The Secret Birth, Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death of a U.S. Military Intelligence Program (incl. interview with Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer) By Jacob Goodwin in Government Security News
Able Danger Twenty Questions by Rory O’Connor
Able Danger Round-up – 911Truth.org
“Able Danger and the 9/11 Attacks” Hearing: Prepared testimony of Anthony Shaffer, submitted under Oath to the US House of Representatives, February 15, 2006.
PTECH, the software company with terrorist ties and sensitive US government contracts:
Ptech, now known as GoAgile, is an “enterprise architecture” software firm; the software enables surveillance and “risk management” across multiple IT networks. The company was founded in 1994 by people with connections to terrorist financing, such as Saudi millionaire Yassin al-Qadi, who put up $5 million for its startup and was officially declared a terrorist financier by the US government in October 2001, and Soliman Biheiri, who US prosecutors referred to as a “banker for the Muslim Brotherhood”, a banned Egyptian militant group. In 1996 it began to get contracts with “DARPA…, the White House, Congress, Army, Navy, Air Force, NATO, FAA, FBI, US Postal Service, Secret Service, the Naval Air Systems Command, IRS, and the nuclear-weapons program of the Department of Energy. For instance, Ptech will help build ‘the Military Information Architecture Framework, a software tool used by the Department of Defense to link data networks from various military computer systems and databases.’ Ptech will be raided by US investigators in December 2002, but not shut down.” “John Zachman, considered the father of enterprise architecture, later will say that Ptech could collect crucial information from the organizations and agencies with which it works. ‘You would know where the access points are, you’d know how to get in, you would know where the weaknesses are, you’d know how to destroy it.’ Another computer expert will say, ‘The software they put on your system could be collecting every key stroke that you type while you are on the computer. It could be establishing a connection to the outside terrorist organization through all of your security measures.’” Click here for quote sources
PTech Timeline: The terrorist-financed software company with extensive and sensitive US government contracts
PTECH, 9/11, and USA-SAUDI TERROR – Part I: PROMIS Connections to Cheney Control of 9/11 Attacks Confirmed by Jamey Hecht with research assistance by Michael Kane and editorial comment by Michael C. Ruppert
PTECH, 9/11, and USA-SAUDI TERROR – PART II by Michael Kane
PTECH RAID/INVESTIGATION: Compiled by Indira Singh
Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation by Jeff Wells
National Security & Terrorism Policy before 9/11:
The CIA and USAID spent millions of dollars sending textbooks with militant teachings and violent images to madrassas in Afghanistan in the 80’s and early 90’s, in order to radicalize Muslims to fight the Soviets. The CIA has paid, funded, trained, armed and otherwise assisted Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and other terrorists around the world for decades, insofar as they are considered useful for destabilizing regimes unfriendly to US corporate exploitation- or for sowing terror so that a populace becomes terrorized and embraces an authoritarian regime for the sake of cracking down on “terrorists”.
US Intel Links to Islamic Militancy Timeline
Geopolitics & Islamic Militancy Timeline
Terrorism Financing: Specific Cases Timeline
1976 to 1991: CIA and Other Intelligence Agencies Use BCCI to Control and Manipulate Criminals and Terrorists Worldwide
CONTEXT: HISTORY OF U.S. POLICY AND COVERT NETWORKS – JusticeFor911.org
Nafeez Ahmed – “Ties With Terror: The Continuity of Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period“
(This essay was originally submitted as part of the record for Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s congressional briefing; “The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later, A Citizens’ Response: Did the Commission Get it Right?”, re-published with permission of the author. Download the complete transcript and submitted written material from McKinney’s briefing here; 2.5 MB PDF)
Chapter 8: Al Qaeda and the U.S. Establishment by Peter Dale Scott
Foreign State Connections to 9/11:
The Role of Pakistan & the ISI Timeline
Pakistan/ISI: Specific Cases Timeline
Previous Alleged “Al Qaeda” Linked Attacks or Plots:
1993 Bombing of the World Trade Center Timeline
1995 Bojinka Plot Timeline (foreshadows 9/11)
1998 Embassy Bombings Timeline
2000 USS Cole Bombing Timeline
Specific Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks or Plots Timeline
Inspirational article by George Washington: Fascism Is Over … If We Want It
A 9/11/2008 Resolution: Start Your Own 9/11 Blog! By Arabesque
Click here for all the articles in the: 9/11 Truth Overview Series
9/11 Reports 