Creative Speculation
Related: About this forumThe New Yorker documentary by Alex Gibney on CIA protection of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdar.
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Why doesn't anyone at the CIA believe they owe the public an explanation for their conduct? How many people have to be murdered before secrecy simply isn't acceptable?
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(2,392 posts)In his new book Michael Hayden is continuing to claim US intelligence didn't have enough specific intelligence to stop 9/11. How does it get more specific than two al Qaeda guys linked to the Yemen hub NSA was monitoring due to links to the '98 embassy bombings and the Cole attack? Has a journalist asked him about this so far in his book tour? No.
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(2,392 posts)there is confusion about NSA conduct before 9/11. On the one hand there is the warrantless surveillance program which was implemented after 9/11. Some government officials have claimed 9/11 could have been prevented if this program had been in place before 9/11. What they leave out is the fact that NSA already had two al Qaeda suspects under surveillance. Meaning the NSA already had the targets. NSA apologists don't like to talk about this fact.
NSA author James Bamford on Hayden's conduct:
Anonymous
Bamford: In my view, the principal reason that the NSA failed to pass key information on to the CIA and FBI was Gen. Hayden's reluctance to involve NSA in anything domesticeven though he had an obligation to pass this information on and there was no legal prohibition against it. He could have easily obtained a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on al Mihdhar's and al Hazmi's international calls, and the FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant to tap into their domestic calls. Had that been done, the agencies would almost certainly have discovered that a terrorist plot was under way.
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Basically Hayden's conduct made no sense. What made even less sense was the claim that 9/11 was attributable to the lack of a domestic surveillance program.
Turning over the info to the FBI likely wouldn't have mattered because the info was turned over to the FBI by the CIA in late August. Instead of responding in an appropriate manner the FBI intelligence side Bin Laden unit proceeded to obstruct the investigation and instead have a single rookie intel side agent conduct a routine search for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
To this day the media has completely failed to find out why FBI, NSA and CIA officials found it appropriate to withhold info on al Qaeda operatives in the US who were linked to the embassy bombings, the Cole attack and the threat of another attack in the Summer of 2001.
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(2,169 posts)Philip Marshall was a professional pilot and rated on the 727,737,747,757 and 767. A few paragraphs are excerpted below from his blog - He took a personal interest in 911 not only because he was a pilot, but he knew some of the pilots and crew that died that day.
From this point in the research, the guilt needle began pointing steadily toward Saudi Arabia, in part because 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. With every new piece of evidence, that needle does not fluctuate. As the focus narrowed on San Diego, the footprints of a large Saudi contingent began to appear. Congressional investigators had found, within buried FBI files, evidence that United States Senators would later call undeniable that top Saudi officials had known that terrorists were entering the U.S. beginning in 2000 in preparation for some sort of attack. These same officials are among those who work with American oil companies and regulate the flow of crude oil to the United States, the same Saudi officials that regulate the price that has gone from $30 per barrel to over $140 post 911.
One Saudi official in particular, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005, was quickly traced to direct funding of the hijackers, through cashiers checks, not from him he would say, but from his wife. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, Maine Senator Susan Collins and Florida Senator Bob Graham learned that Saudi officials had directed agents in the United States to assist the future hijackers. These senators would quietly back out of the investigation after the White House threatened them with leaking classified information and a criminal probe. Senator Graham was told in no uncertain terms to back off and shut up in telephone calls from Vice President Cheney. This evidence alone on the Saudis provided more plausibility than two chapters of KSMs ramblings. Here was opportunity to provide airplanes and instructors for hijackers who were solidly linked to Saudi operatives working for Prince Bandar.
Phil's blog: http://thebigbamboozle.tumblr.com/ (skip to February 2013 and earlier for Phil's posts- someone has posted since his death.)
Phil had said in late 2012 that he was working on a new book with "blockbuster evidence". In February 2013, he was found with a bullet in his head. The Sheriffs report claimed suicide and was fairly convincing but they haven't (tmk) released any evidence publicly. Even if Phil committed suicide, his research is outstanding and very well worth reading.
If you want to see something very interesting put these co-ordinates into Google Earth and watch what happens. You'll end up at Pinal Airpark in Arizona -an airport that was used extensively by the CIA during the Vietnam War.
32°30?35?N 111°19?31?W
Phil says this is where the hijackers were trained. He claimed to have proof. Unfortunately he can't talk now, he's dead.
THE BIG BAMBOOZLE on Coast to Coast- 9/11 and the War on Terror by Philip Marshall
The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror on Amazon - 4.5 stars, 141 reviews
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Bamboozle-11-War-Terror-ebook/dp/B007NZRLO8/
There's this kind of thing too:
CIA Ordered FBI Warning Cable Withheld - 9/11 Attacks Could Have Been Thwarted in Jan. 2000
On January 15, 2000, Flt. 77 hijackers, al-Hazmi and al-Nidhar landed at LA Int'l Airport after attending an al-Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur. According to testimony given by CIA Director Tenet to the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry, the CIA and a dozen allied agencies had that meeting under intensive surveillance. Shortly thereafter, an FBI liaison officer in the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center drafted a warning cable about the arrival in the US of the pair, but never sent it.
Why? She was ordered to withhold it by the CIA-CTC Assistant Director...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/6/14/1216187/-Director-Mueller-9-11-Hijackers-were-in-Fact-Under-NSA-Surveillance