Part 1D
Sept 11: Unanswered Questions
by MalcontentX
for Main Page:http://www.communitycurrency.or/MainIndexMX.html

"The Investigation"
FBI, CIA, and other agencies.

Index

First recall that the CIA/FBI initially claimed they had no real warning of the Sept 11th attacks.

"we didn’t see this one coming": Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counter-terrorism operations.

"there were no warning signs that I’m aware of": FBI Director Robert Mueller

"something we had never even thought of": U.S. Air Force General

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html


In the first few months after the attacks, (when the first edition of this report was being gathered) such claims were dubious in the extreme.

The CIA alone has an "official" budget of $30 billion/yr.

It was only after the revelations of May, 2002, that the FBI director would admit that his agency has "to do a better job.... that "red flags... dots should have been connected."

http://www.stp.uh.edu/vol67/143/opinion/oped1.html


The substance of those revelations were stunning in the extreme.

First there was the leaked memo of a top-level August 6, 2001, intelligence briefing between the CIA director, George Tenet, President Bush and his cabinet, which "carried the headline, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,' and "suggested that bin Laden followers might aim to hijack U.S. airliners."

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/news/0502/18memo.html


A few days after this story appeared, it was revealed that "When FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote a memo last July warning that Osama bin Laden's foot soldiers might be training in American flight schools, no one listened."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,238574,00.html


Then FBI agent Colleen Rowley's 13-page letter to Director Mueller, (in which she outlined investigative "obstruction," "roadblocks," and "altering of reports" by her superiors) became front-page news.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,249997,00.html


Soon after that came FBI agent Robert Wright's similar charges of interference,

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/FBI_agent_I_was_stymied_in_terror_probe.htm


For those of us following this story closely from the beginning, such reports of upper level "obstruction" and "interference" were nothing new.

Greg Palast of the BBC had reported interviews with FBI agents making similar claims back in Nov. of 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram

http://propagandamatrix.com/newsnight_greg_palast_report.html


These, of course, are only the reports that received the most attention. There are others,

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledge.html


and a great deal of information showing the variety of ways in which foreknowledge would have been in ample supply,

http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/AAadvanceinfo.html

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html

http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/AAadvanceinfo.html

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/051602_liewontstand.html

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j052002.html


Indeed, it may be that, (from what we have since discovered about the collusion of the mainstream press in not asking the obvious questions) such revelations only came out eight months after the attacks... because the press could not sit on them any longer. There's no question but that the above FBI agents only went public after it became clear that they would not get a hearing otherwise; and even then, such mainstream revelations were often "old news" for those of us investigating online.

Yet true to form, despite some rather passionate criticisms from even establishment voices,

http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=5897

http://www.detnews.com/2002/editorial/0205/22/a11-494538.htm


the status quo managed to turn such revelations into a call for increased funding to the various security agencies,

http://www.counterpunch.org/sperry0613.html

citing the causes of the intelligence failures as due to, "resource constraints," "[inabilities] for sharing information," and that, "internal CIA guidelines that limited the agency's cooperation with people suspected of human rights violations had a 'chilling effect on operations.'" (What a chilling statement).

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020718-788789.htm


So while we can clearly see that the CIA/FBI leadership is utterly insincere in its earlier claim of having had NO advance warning, the fact remains that it took them only a few days to discover the identities of all sixteen hijackers, their backgrounds, where they traveled, trained to fly, etc.

Within the first week after the attack, German intelligence officials are shocked, (and a little angry) to find that U.S. intelligence forces had been monitoring the suspected terrorist cells in Germany for four years, and had massive files of information on them -yet hadn’t told the Germans a thing. (Analyst John Cooley, "Democracy Now" archive, Sept 26, www.webactive.com)


Let's look at "the terrorists" more-closely.


The FBI says that a number of the terrorist/pilots were trained at certain small-engine flight schools in Florida.

The instructors at those schools freely admit that such training would have been of no significant help to someone wanting to fly commercial airliners. They are "completely different systems." (www.tenc.net Interview with Huffman Aviation).

Remember that the hijacker-pilots were near-universally recognized to have "extraordinary skill," (Washington Post, Sept. 12). It would seem to take significant amount of discipline and training to be able to fly a jet airliner, travelling at 480 miles an hour, (apparently, twice the legal speed) into a target not much wider than an airplane. (Not to mention the above-noted acrobatics over the Pentagon, Part 1A).

Here’s how the various instructors described these "pilots,"

Mohammed Atta, and Marwanal-Al-Shehhi, (Flight 11)

"neither man was able to pass a Stage I rating test to track and intercept."
The Washington Post (September 19, 2001)

Nawaq Alhazmi, Khaid Al-Midhar, (Flight 175)

"Their English was horrible, and their mechanical skills were even worse... like they had hardly even ever driven a car ... in the plane, they were dumb and dumber."
The Washington Post (September 24, 2001)

And how about Hani Hanjour? -the alleged pilot of Flight 77 who was supposed to do the Pentagon air-show?

"... Hanjour went into the air in a Cessna 172 with instructors.... three times... [hoping] to rent a plane from the airport.... after three times in the air, they still felt he was unable to fly solo.... [he] had 600 hours listed in his log book... and instructors were surprised he was not able to fly better with the amount of experience." (pg. 1.) The Prince George's Journal (Maryland), September 18.

http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wot/valentine.htm#hani_hanjour


Second, while even the most seasoned military strategists were shocked at the sophistication and precision of the Sept 11th operation, the clumsiness of the terrorists -in leaving evidence behind, in hotel rooms, suitcases, and loud public behavior, etc.- was impressive in turn.

There’s the crop dusting manuals, maps, diagrams -that we’ve all heard about.

"In one case, we’re told that two of these super devout Moslems spent the night before their suicidal act drinking in strip bars -a double blasphemy." (whatreallyhappened.com)

"Three men spewed anti-American sentiments in a bar and talked of impending bloodshed the night before the terrorist attacks."

"the men in [the] bar spent $200 to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks, paying with credit cards.... They were talking about what a bad place America is. They said 'Wait 'til tomorrow. America is going to see bloodshed,'" the owner of the strip bar was quoted as saying."

"Furthermore, [the bar owner] said that he gave the FBI their credit card receipts, photocopied driver's licenses, a business card left by one of the suspects and most amazingly, a copy of a Koran that one of the men had left at the bar."

Associated Press, September 13

Early in the morning of Sept 11th, there was reported to be a "road rage" incident at Boston’s Logan Airport -involving four Arabic-looking people. A witness to this later led police to the vehicle, in the airport parking lot.

They found there: Arabic flight training manuals, and a Koran packed away in a suitcase, (something not done by devout Moslems).

(investigator John Judge, www.astridmm.com/radio/archive.htm)

Then we find out that the FBI doesn’t really have a firm handle on who most of the hijackers were. Of the sixteen originally identified, two are now known to be still alive, (and living in the middle east); at least one has been dead for two years, and the possibility of forged documents has not been ruled out in all but a few cases.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/who.html

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-warid1021.story?coll=ny%2Dtop%2Dheadlines

This may partly explain why, when we check the list of passengers on the planes which went down,

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.victims.html

we find that the passenger-count for each plane is short four or five of the listed total; and none of the names listed are Arabic-sounding. We may assume from this that because the identities used by the hijackers may not have been their real ones, the FBI may have asked the airlines to keep those names secret; but it remains a mystery.

Yet the pictures of these various "hijackers" are plastered across every major newspaper in the country -as if it’s a fact- for months after most of their identities are proven to be uncertain.

An outstanding report on this subject has recently been produced, (Aug. 2002) by researcher Paul Thompson. Providing actual photographs, and a fully referenced, coherent text, he shows:

how, on numerous occassions a certain pilot was reported in different parts of the world at the same time, and identified by two passport photos on the FBI website that were not from the same person;
that five of "the hijackers" identified, in fact, are still alive, (one dead for two years);
that another five of "the hijackers" also appear in FBI and Mainstream press reports... as being at least two different people each.

http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/AAjarrah.html


There were apparently seven phone calls made from the various hijacked planes; only one of them, (Flight 93) mentions the hijackers being of middle-eastern origin. This may be particularly significant because one of the callers was Barbara Olsen, the wife of the U.S. Solicitor General, (who argued before the Supreme Court in Bush vs. Gore). She was, herself, a noted author, journalist. Are we to believe she simply neglected to mention an important identifying characteristic?

Then we find that five of the suspects appeared to have lived at and/or "got some training at American military bases." (Newsweek, Sept 15) Does this mean that the terrorists had inside help? Or that the identities had been stolen?

We are not likely to hear.

There's the "chilling" final letter of instruction to the terrorists which conveniently connects the three different flights: one in the baggage that "accidentally" got left behind, one in an airport parking-lot garbage-can; and one, intact, at the Pennsylvania crash site where "everything [was] all but obliterated."

A veteran Middle East reporter, Robert Fisk, described the authors of the letter as being "surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion" -due to numerous expressions in the letter, foreign to practicing Moslems, (The Independent, Sept 29, 2001)

"The document begins with the words, 'In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate... In the name of God, of myself, and of my family.... The time of fun and waste is gone.'

"The problem is that no Molsem -however ill-taught- would include his family in such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet Mohamed immediately after he mentioned God in the first line. Lebanese and Palestinian suicide bombers have never been known to refer to 'the time of fun and waste' -because a true Muslim would not have 'wasted' his time and would regard pleasure as a reward of the after-life."

"The full Arabic text has not been released by the FBI. The translation, as it stands, suggest an almost Christian view of what the hijackers might have felt -asking to be forgiven for sins, explaining that the fear of death is natural, that 'a believer is always plagued with problems.'"

Yet the effect of this "chilling" disclosure, (mouthed by Attorney General John Ashcroft on national TV) is instrumental in helping to pull the strings of assumed guilt closed around the "terrorists" -in the minds of many.

Then we have the question of the so-called "black boxes": the flight data recorder, and the cockpit voice recorder, designed to withstand a crash of great intensity. Each plane had both, an FDR and CVR.

Only the boxes from the crash in Pennsylvania have been recovered: one unusable, the other blank. All of these occurrences are exceptionally rare.

Yet while none of the eight flight recorders have been found intact, it seems investigators were fortunate enough to find one of the terrorists’ passports in good shape, a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center had been.

Apparently, the passport must have fallen into the air just as the crash occurred, survived the almost 1,000 degree heat of the fire, then come across a strong wind to blow it several blocks away -according to New York Police Commissione Bernard Kerik, and Deputy Chief Barry Mawn.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.america.under.attack/

Can you believe this?

The shoddy, convenient, and questionable nature of such "evidence" is so brazen, that it must be obvious to any thinking person that investigators, (at least to some degree) put a "case" together, to re-assure the public -when, in fact, they had no clear idea who was actually involved, responsible, how they did it, etc. (and/or didn’t want to admit what it was they knew).

Obviously, there's a lot more involved to an investigation of this nature, than what we have covered here; but,

pilots who can’t fly the planes?
Hijackers whose actual identities seem irrelevant?
Behavior absolutely inconsistent with devout Muslims?
Eight missing black boxes?
Indestructible passports?

How stupid do they think we are?

The fact that much of the information on "the perpetrators" came out within a week of the attacks, and has been soundly forgotten by the mainstream press, suggests that it was designed to quickly close the books on the case, and move on to other, less-contentious matters.

That few cries of protest have arisen amongst the general public is no vindication that we are stupid -or that there is nothing to protest against: it's simply a reflection of the fact that most citizens are so pre-occupied with trying to earn a living, raise a family, and maintain some sense of normalcy in the wake of a traumatic attack, that the thought of powerful forces in government fabricating evidence was too much to bear.

Nor have we all swallowed the story.

Both President Bush, (at the U.N. General Assembly)

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wackyconspiracy.html

and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, (ABC News, AP, Dec.9)

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/t12092001_t1209abc.html

have been compelled to publicly speak about "outrageous conspiracy theories."

This is of no small significance; for men of power know that the best way to discredit something is to ignore it; they only speak of things which threaten to temporarily take the freshed-buffed sheen off their face when they feel they can no longer afford to ignore them.

For many observers, it was the ridiculous nature of the FBI investigation which told them that their initial doubts about American civil air defense on Sept 11th were justified.

This poor excuse for a case clearly implicates the FBI in the cover-up of the criminal negligence which occurred within the ranks of civilian air defence on Sept 11th.

Whether Attorney-General John Ashcroft himself, (nominal head of the FBI) was directly involved in this cover-up, (or whether he was just "fed" -and then blindly delivered- information convenient to closing the case) remains to be seen.

The N.Y. Police commissioner's participation in the passport charade, (noted above) is an indictaion of how the various local police and investigative forces were likely subordinated to the FBI's authority; and, as in the case of civilian air defense, the network of influence within the police services is a complex one: it may take us some time to discover exactly who did what, when, and by what authority.

The significance of this FBI fabrication, for us, is clear: it strongly affirms the probability that the criminal negligence in civilian air-defence must have occurred at a very high level: higher than the FBI; that is, in the Department of Defense/Pentagon, and/or the Executive Branch.

The Executive has already been implicated in the negligence, by the President's refusal to act during a critical thirty minutes of the attack; and if the military was directly involved in an act of intentional treason, it's possible that that this was done under the direction of the White House.

In terms of immediate, concrete fact, however, the decision or inability of the Air Force to put fighter-intercepts into the air must have come through the military.

In comparison to the absence of fighter-intercepts, the documented negligence of George W. Bush pales. His inaction would only have been recognized by citizens as serious if the fighter-intercepts had been scrambled, (as they were supposed to have been); then Bush's refusal to leave the children's classroom, (to authorize the shoot-downs) would have clearly been the deciding factor in why the hijacked-planes "got through."

The military controls daily operations. In terms of a "spontaneous" event, where unintended criminal negligence prevails, the lead agency would have to be the military. The Executive could only be considered as a possible lead agency if a planned, treasonous negligence had been undertaken.

Other areas relevant to airspace/national security still remain to be explored, (airports, the CIA); yet sufficient evidence now lies before us, that we may be justified in attempting to zero in on elements within the Defense Dept. and the Pentagon -as prime suspects in the negligence and/or treason surrounding 9/11.

For such a secretive, tightly-controlled organization as the military, practically the only source of information we have on it's Sept. 11th behavior is through its' "official" explanations of how the tragedy occurred -as revealed in the mainstream media.

So it is there to which we now turn.


Unanswered Questions, Part 1E:
"Official" (military) Explanations

Index
"Official" Explanation: explained

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