9/11: Able Danger

This week:

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared ... The account is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks.

See also this article in the St. Petersburg Times.

Naturally, the Commission's first thought was to deny and try to cover-up the story:

Al Felzenberg, who had been the commission's chief spokesman, said Tuesday the panel was unaware of intelligence specifically naming Atta. But subsequent information provided Wednesday confirmed that the commission had been aware of the intelligence, he said.

Oops.

However, the Times shows its ignorance (or worse) in stating that this is "the first assertion" that Atta "was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat."

According to 911truth.org:

In fact, such assertions date back to German press reports of September 2001 and October 2002, when several German newspapers reported that the CIA had Atta under observation during the first six months of 2000, while he was still living in Germany.

According to the German reports of Sept. 2001, the CIA in 2000 watched as Atta "bought chemicals" in Frankfurt and later tracked him to Berlin, where he received an entry visa from the US consulate in May 2000.

(According to official US timelines of his activities, Atta entered the United States for the first time in June 2000, although witness accounts reported in local papers after 9/11 place him in Florida months earlier.)

The more you read, it becomes increasingly apparent that Atta and many of the 19 hijackers were under surveillance by both US and foreign government agencies, both in the US and abroad. ... And the differences in timelines is also quite common. There is clear evidence, such as signed leases, of some of the hijackers living in the US months before the FBI say they arrived.

Daniel Hopsicker -- whose investigative work in Florida on the hijackers is unmatched -- writes:

The importance of this week's revelation that an Army intelligence unit was tracking Mohamed Atta's movements in the US during 1999 and 2000 is so mind-boggling that it seems nobody quite gets it yet ...

9/11 Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg on Thursday excused the Commission's decision to withhold from their Report any mention of the Army Able Danger intelligence unit in Tampa [because] information provided to them by military officers in the unit did not agree with the FBI's timeline concerning Atta's arrival in the US ...

Here's the big question nobody seems to be ready to ask: Upon what basis did the 9/11 Commission conclude that the FBI's timeline was correct and that an elite Army Intel unit was mistaken in saying they were tracking Mohamed Atta roaming freely across America during 1999 and 2000?

Don't miss Justin Raimondo.

New Airline Regulations Proposed

I would finally be able to bring my icepick with me when I fly.

CIA Commander In Tora Bora Admits US Allowed Osama Bin Laden To Escape Capture In November 2001

Newsweek:

[I]n a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora -- intelligence operatives had tracked him -- and could have been caught. ...

[His account] backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."

Bernsten's admission confirms several stories that were published back in 2002. Here are snips from three entries from the Complete 9/11 Timeline (with links to the actual articles):

November 16, 2001: Al-Qaeda, Taliban Leaders Reportedly Escape Afghanistan

According to Newsweek, approximately 600 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including many senior leaders, escape Afghanistan on this day. There are two main routes out of the Tora Bora cave complex to Pakistan. The US bombed only one route, so the 600 escaped without being attacked using the other route. Hundreds continue to use the escape route for weeks, generally unbothered by US bombing or Pakistani border guards. US officials later privately admit they lost an excellent opportunity to close a trap. [Newsweek, 8/11/02 (B)] On the same day, the media reports that the US is studying routes bin Laden might use to escape Tora Bora [Los Angeles Times, 11/16/01], but the one escape route is not closed, and apparently bin Laden and others escape into Pakistan using this route several weeks later ...

November 28, 2001: Bin Laden Reportedly Escapes Tora Bora by Helicopter

A US Special Forces soldier stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina, later (anonymously) claims that the US has bin Laden pinned in a certain Tora Bora cave on this day, but fails to act. Special Forces soldiers allegedly sit by waiting for orders and watch two helicopters fly into the area where bin Laden is believed to be, load up passengers, and fly toward Pakistan. No other soldiers have come forward to corroborate the story, but bin Laden is widely believed to have been in the Tora Bora area at the time. [Fayetteville Observer, 8/2/02] ... Newsweek separately reports that many locals "claim that mysterious black helicopters swept in, flying low over the mountains at night, and scooped up al-Qaeda's top leaders." [Newsweek, 8/11/02 (B)]

Early December 2001: Battle for Tora Bora Is Called Charade

The Daily Telegraph later reports on the battle for Tora Bora around this time: "In retrospect, and with the benefit of dozens of accounts from the participants, the battle for Tora Bora looks more like a grand charade." Eyewitnesses express shock that the US pinned in Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, thought to contain many high leaders, on three sides only, leaving the route to Pakistan open. An intelligence chief in Afghanistan's new government says, “The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to it. In addition, there were plenty of landing areas for helicopters had the Americans acted decisively. Al-Qaeda escaped right out from under their feet.” [Daily Telegraph, 2/23/02] ... An Afghan intelligence officer says he is astounded that Pentagon planners did not consider the most obvious exit routes and put down light US infantry to block them. It is later widely believed that bin Laden escapes along one of these routes on November 30 or December 1, walking out with about four loyal followers. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/02; Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/02 (B)] Al-Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also escapes the area. [Knight Ridder, 10/20/02]

See also: November 14, 2001: Al-Qaeda Convoy Flees to Tora Bora; US Fails to Attack and Mid-November 2001: Afghan Politician Says Mohammed Atef US Policy Prevented bin Laden Capture.

This is big news, but Newsweek makes no mention of it on its cover.

Sibel Edmonds Speaks

Go buy the current issue of Vanity Fair (Jennifer Aniston cover). There is a lengthy article about Sibel Edmonds, who I have written about before. (There is also what looks like a great article on the darker side of military recruitment.)

In June, Edmonds posted this to her website (emphasis mine):

Over four years ago, more than four months prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, in April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset who had been providing the bureau with information since 1990, provided two FBI agents and a translator with specific information regarding a terrorist attack being planned by Osama Bin Laden.

This asset/informant was previously a high-level intelligence officer in Iran in charge of intelligence from Afghanistan. Through his contacts in Afghanistan he received information that: 1) Osama Bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting 4-5 major cities, 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes, 3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States, 4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months.

The agents who received this information reported it to their superior, Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism, Thomas Frields, at the FBI Washington Field Office, by filing "302" forms, and the translator, Mr. Behrooz Sarshar, translated and documented this information. No action was taken by the Special Agent in Charge, Thomas Frields, and after 9/11 the agents and the translators were told to "keep quiet" regarding this issue.

The translator who was present during the session with the FBI informant, Mr. Behrooz Sarshar, reported this incident to Director Mueller in writing, and later to the Department of Justice Inspector General. The press reported this incident, and in fact the report in the Chicago Tribune on July 21, 2004 stated that FBI officials had confirmed that this information was received in April 2001, and further, the Chicago Tribune quoted an aide to Director Mueller that he [Mueller] was surprised that the Commission never raised this particular issue with him during the hearing.

Mr. Sarshar reported this issue to the 9/11 Commission on February 12, 2004, and provided them with specific dates, location, witness names, and the contact information for that particular Iranian asset and the two special agents who received the information. I provided the 9/11 Commission with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the names of other witnesses, and documents I had seen. Mr. Sarshar also provided the Department of Justice Inspector General with specific information regarding this case.

The 9/11 Commission ignored all of this information, and the people currently in power steadfastly refuse to admit that there were specific warnings of any kind before 9/11.

One day, we will be much closer to the truth of what happened on September 11, 2001 than we are right now -- and that will be because of patriots like Sibel Edmonds.

Happy Anniversary!

Think Progress notes that today

marks the four-year anniversary of the day President Bush received a President's Daily Brief (PDB) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." There are many eerie similarities between now and August 6, 2001. Chief among them is that the threat of terrorism remains high, President Bush is at his ranch in Crawford, and Osama bin Laden is on the loose looking to inflict greater terrorist damage.

Click the link for more.

The Cost Of War

Army: Soldier Just Back From Iraq Kills Wife, Self:

On Wednesday, nine days after [Stephen S.] Sherwood Sherwood returned from a tour in Iraq, he apparently shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself in their Fort Collins home ... The couple's 8-month-old child was in the care of a neighbor when the couple were killed ... She said Sherwood enlisted in January 2004 ... when his wife became pregnant because it was the only way he could get health insurance.

Two Iraq Veterans Commit Suicide Near Fort Hood:

Two young Fort Hood [Texas] soldiers who served in the Iraq war have killed themselves in separate incidents ... Sgt. Robert Decouteaux, 24, of Rosedale, N.Y., died Saturday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. ... And on Monday morning, Spc. Robert Hunt, 22, of Houston, was found dead in his apartment ... Hunt's cause of death was listed as asphyxiation.

Meanwhile, Chimpy McShithead enjoys his month-long vacation.

America Hates America

"As US troops endured a deadly week in Iraq, 61 percent of Americans polled say they disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq, according to a new Newsweek poll. Thirty four percent say they approve. This is Bush's lowest rating on Iraq and the first time it has dropped below 40 percent in the Newsweek poll. ... Meanwhile, Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 42 percent."

That 61% represents a 7% drop in the last month.

Putting Things Right

Bombs exploding all over Iraq, close to 1,800 American troops dead and thousands more maimed for life, and at least $200 billion of our tax money down the shitter.

So what is George W. Bush's latest bold plan of action (besides taking his usual August vacation -- his 50th trip to Crawford in five years)?

Renaming his War on Terror™!

That's right, it will now be known as "a global struggle against violent extremism".

Please make a note of it.

!

Powerline:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Click at your own risk.

The Execution Of Jean Charles de Menezes

Xymphora has five great posts on the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes by the British police and the ever-changing "facts" of the story.

Yesterday, in a New York Times Op-Ed, Haim Watzman defended the shooting, saying Mr. Menezes raised suspicions by "wearing a long coat out of place on a hot summer day jumping over a turnstile and running for a crowded subway train."

However, according to the Guardian (in a story published on the same day), the Metropolitan police have admitted that Mr. Menezes "was not wearing a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by armed plainclothes police."

War Based On Lies and Unwinnable, But Not A Mistake

According to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll.

For the first time, a majority of Americans (51%) say the Bush administration lied about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

A majority (58%-37%) say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

About one-third (32%) say the United States can't win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the US could win the war, but they don't think it will.

Yet, a majority (53%-46%) also believe the war was not a mistake.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center: "People are giving bleak assessments on the one hand, and on the other hand [they're] saying maybe it was still the right thing to do."

Of course, most supporters of the war aren't doing anything for the effort -- slapping a removable magnetic ribbon on your bumper doesn't count as a sacrifice -- so as long as the war doesn't actually hit home for them, why the hell not keep at it?

Rape, Necrophilia, Sodomy ...

Wanna know why the Bush administration is defying a court order to release additional pictures and videos shot at Abu Ghraib? The May 8, 2004 Boston Herald gives us a clue:

Signaling the worst revelations are yet to come, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the additional photos show "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman." [...]

The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is "going to get worse" and warned that the most "disturbing" revelations haven't yet been made public.

"The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here," he said. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."

Seymour Hersh added:

The women were passing messages saying "Please come and kill me, because of what's happened". ... The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking.

More at Kos.

I thought the Bush Regime is proud of how its spreading democracy. The non-US world has known about these pictures and videos for more than a year. Shouldn't we see what our tax dollars are paying for?

Torture R Us

Washington Post:

The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.

New York Times:

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. ...

The photographs were some of thousands turned over by Specialist Joseph M. Darby, the whistle-blower who exposed the abuse at Abu Ghraib by giving investigators computer disks containing photographs and videos of prisoners being abused, sexually humiliated and threatened with growling dogs. ...

In early June, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered the release of the additional photographs, part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to determine the extent of abuse at American military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba ...

Bush On The Defensive, Media Still Clueless

John King, CNN, July 20, 2005:

Well, White House officials say it's ridiculous to think the president would rush a decision to do that, because however the Karl Rove case turns out, whether it damages the president long term or not, this is something that will be very influential in this president's short-term political standing over the next few months, and then his political legacy over the next quarter century or more . . . the idea that they said, 'Oh my God, we're in trouble because of Karl Rover; we need to rush this' -- I think that's a bit of a stretch.

"Supreme Court Pick Shifts Attention From Rove, Agent Disclosure," Bloomberg News, July 20, 2005:

Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.

Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.

Thanks to Billmon.

That's When I Reached For My Tinfoil

London Underground bombing 'exercises' took place at same time as real attack

A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7.

On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company ... Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti-Terrorist Branch.

Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.

Well, this is certainly something that should be investigated.

I must note that there are factual errors in that story. The US military and NORAD were running up to half a dozen different mock hijacking drills on 9/11 at the same time the actual hijackings were taking place -- that is established fact (and one reason why the military fighter jet response was slow and/or non-existent) -- but flying planes into the WTC and Pentagon were not part of the drills.

Quite a few bloggers have been investigating Power and these claims, which I have to get caught up on.

Turd Blossom

Joseph Cannon writes:

It's impossible to follow -- or even to summarize -- all of the theories and informed speculations regarding Karl Rove, Plame-gate, and the apparent get-out-of-jail-free card handed to Bob Novak. Those following the controversy should take a look at [this].

And this and this and this. Go have fun.

Here's a scary quote from Judith Miller:

I won't testify. The risks are too great. The government is too powerful.

Fair And Balanced

Some people actually still believe that Fox is a news channel.

The Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel was under fire yesterday for comments by some of its leading journalists in response to the London bombs.

Speaking about the reaction of the financial markets, Brit Hume, the channel's Washington managing editor, said: "Just on a personal basis ... I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought 'hmm, time to buy'."

The host of a Fox News programme, Brian Kilmeade, said the attacks had the effect of putting terrorism back on the top of the G8's agenda, in place of global warming and African aid. "I think that works to our advantage, in the western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

Another Fox News host, John Gibson, said before the blasts that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" by not awarding the 2012 games to France. "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" ...

This likely won't get much traction in the US, because the media here is too liberal.

Bonus Idiot: Rush Limbaugh, July 7:

It's like I said -- 40 people dead, 150 seriously wounded, 1,000 wounded, out of over 1 million people in that transit tube. It's not a successful terrorist attack, folks. They didn't succeed in doing anything ...

Judith Miller, Treasonous Scum

Re New York Times reporter Judith Miller being jailed for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating the Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA operative's name:

To lump Miller with journalists who have been sent to prison while hellbent on exposing corruption is a gross perversion. Miller has been aiding and abetting war criminals for years.

Miller is the worst of the worst -- way worse than the suckups at Fox -- because her lies appeared at the top of the front page of the New York Times -- and were used by the Cheney administration as evidence to hoodwink the public into supporting their illegal invasion of Iraq. She has the blood of thousands of dead Americans and Iraqis on her hands and she belongs on trial at the Hague with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Myers, etc.

How did Miller and the Junta work together? Boiled way down, it went like this:

1. A Cheney flak (often Ahmad Chalabi) tells Miller the Lies O' The Day.

2. Miller writes up the lies and the Times publishes them above the fold.

3. Cheney goes on TV and says "Fact X" is true and points to the Times as evidence for that truth.

It worked the other way, too. Less than two weeks after Cheney delivered the first speech in which he fingered Iraq as Washington's next target, Miller wrote a front page story for the Times -- "Threats and Responses: The Iraqis; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts" -- mentioning the infamous "aluminum tubes."

The fact that the Times hasn't fired her for her obvious lies (the lies of Jayson Blair are about .00001% as severe) speaks volumes about how much political cover the "Paper of Record" is willing to provide for the Cheney administration.

This is a excellent source of information on Miller, with dozens of links to news coverage (pro and con) of her activities. Here are two good ones:

Slate, July 2003, "The Times Scoops That Melted: Cataloging The Wretched Reporting Of Judith Miller"

See The Forest, "Everything You Need To Know About Judith Miller, Including Nasty Gossip"

Also: In June 2003, the Washington Post reported that

Miller played a highly unusual role in an Army unit assigned to search for dangerous Iraqi weapons, according to U.S. military officials, prompting criticism that the unit was turned into what one official called a 'rogue operation.'

More than a half-dozen military officers said that Miller acted as a middleman between the Army unit with which she was embedded and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, on one occasion accompanying Army officers to Chalabi's headquarters, where they took custody of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law. She also sat in on the initial debriefing of the son-in-law, these sources say.

Since interrogating Iraqis was not the mission of the unit, these officials said, it became a 'Judith Miller team,' in the words of one officer close to the situation.

And when the woman referred to by many lefty bloggers as The Queen Of Iraq was asked about her erroneous WMD reports, she said:

You know what. I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right.

Frankly, America, I Don't Give A Damn!

Fiddle-dee-dee!

I'm An Angry, Semi-Employed, Catfood-Eating Crackpot Loser ...

... too untalented or too lazy to get a real job in journalism.

Or so Garry Trudeau seems to think.