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THE CIA KNEW ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11th 2001 BEFORE IT HAPPENED:
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A TIMELINE SURROUNDING SEPTEMBER 11TH - IF CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN'T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS WHAT WERE THEY DOING?
Bin Laden Met with the CIA in July and Walked Away
by
Michael C. Ruppert
[© COPYRIGHT 2001, All Rights Reserved, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. May be copied and distributed for non-profit purposes only.]
[Expanded and Revised April 18, 2002]
[Editor's Note: I don't think we've ever been happier to make a correction when we have made an error. Until recently - relying on an Oct. 31, 2001 article in Britain's The Guardian -- which stated, "Carlyle's other holdings span an improbable range, taking in the French newspaper Le Figaro and the company which bottles Dr Pepper," we had believed that Carlyle actually owned Le Figaro. The Guardian story had been written in the context of Carlyle's overall role as a buyer and seller of companies. We were recently forwarded information from the Guerilla News Network (www.guerrillanews.com) citing the French publication Liberation as having reported that Carlyle's ownership of Le Figaro is actually only 4.9%. The term "holdings" can be interpreted in two ways and this new information makes the Figaro story - which has not been retracted - even stronger.]
FTW, November 2, 2001 - 1200 PST -- On October 31, the French daily Le Figaro dropped a bombshell. While in a Dubai hospital receiving treatment for a chronic kidney infection last July, Osama bin Laden met with a top CIA official - presumably the Chief of Station. The meeting, held in bin Laden's private suite, took place at the American hospital in Dubai at a time when he was a wanted fugitive for the bombings of two U.S. embassies and this year's attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Bin Laden was eligible for execution according to a 2000 intelligence finding issued by President Bill Clinton before leaving office in January. Yet on July 14th he was allowed to leave Dubai on a private jet and there were no Navy fighters waiting to force him down.
In 1985 Oliver North - the only member of the Reagan-Bush years who doesn't appear to have a hand in the current war - sent the Navy and commandos after terrorists on the cruise ship Achille Lauro. In his 1991 autobiography "Under Fire," while describing terrorist Abu Abbas, North wrote, "I used to wonder: how many dead Americans will it take before we do something?" One could look at the number of Americans Osama bin Laden is alleged to have killed before September 11 and ask the same question.
It gets worse, much worse. A more complete timeline listing crucial events both before and after the September 11th suicide attacks, which have been blamed on bin Laden, establishes CIA foreknowledge of them and strongly suggests that there was criminal complicity on the part of the U.S. government in their execution. It also makes clear that the events which have taken place since September 11th are based upon an agenda that has little to do with the attacks.
One wonders how these events could have been ignored by the major media or treated as isolated incidents. Failing that, how could skilled news agencies avoid being outraged, or at least even just a little suspicious?
1. 1991-1997 - Major U.S. oil companies including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron directly invest billions in cash bribing heads of state in Kazakhstan to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies further commit to future direct investments in Kazakhstan of billion. Not being willing to pay exorbitant prices to Russia to use Russian pipelines the major oil companies have no way to recoup their investments. ["The Price of Oil," by Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, July 9, 2001 - The Asia Times, "The Roving Eye Part I Jan. 26, 2002.]
2. December 4, 1997 - Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Subsequent reports will indicate that the negotiations failed, allegedly because the Taliban wanted too much money. [Source: The BBC, Dec. 4, 1997]
3. February 12, 1998 - Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca - later to become a Special Ambassador to Afghanistan - testifies before the House that until a single, unified, friendly government is in place in Afghanistan the trans-Afghani pipeline needed to monetize the oil will not be built. [Source: Testimony before the House International Relations Committee.]
4. 1998 - The CIA ignores warnings from Case Officer Robert Baer that Saudi Arabia was harboring an al-Q'aeda cell led by two known terrorists. A more detailed list of known terrorists is offered to Saudi intelligence in August 2001 and refused. [Source: Financial Times 1/12/01; See No Evil by a book by Robert Baer (release date Feb. 2002).
5. April, 1999 - Enron with a billion investment to build an electrical generating plant at Dabhol India loses access to plentiful LNG supplies from Qatar to fuel the plant. Its only remaining option to make the investment profitable is a trans-Afghani gas pipeline to be built by Unocal from Turkmenistan that would terminate near the Indian border at the city of Multan. [Source: The Albion Monitor, Feb. 28, 2002.]
6. 1998 and 2000 - Former President George H.W. Bush travels to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the privately owned Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the U.S. While there he meets privately with the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family. [Source: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2001. See also FTW, Vol. IV, No 7 - "The Best Enemies Money Can Buy," - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/
members/carlyle.html. ]
7. January, 2001 - The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, VA - right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996, frustrating efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [Source: BBC Newsnight, Correspondent Gregg Palast - Nov 7, 2001].
8. Feb 13, 2001 - UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale - while covering a trial of bin Laden's Al Q'aeda followers - reports that the National Security Agency has broken bin Laden's encrypted communications. Even if this indicates that bin Laden changed systems in February it does not mesh with the fact that the government insists that the attacks had been planned for years.
9. May 2001 - Secretary of State Colin Powell gives million in aid to the Taliban regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who are starving since the destruction of their opium crop in January on orders of the Taliban regime. [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001].
10. May, 2001 - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a career covert operative and former Navy Seal, travels to India on a publicized tour while CIA Director George Tenet makes a quiet visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf. Armitage has long and deep Pakistani intelligence connections and he is the recipient of the highest civil decoration awarded by Pakistan. It would be reasonable to assume that while in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as "an unusually long meeting," also met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad, head of the ISI. [Source The Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22, 2001.]
11. June 2001 - German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001.]
12. July, 2001 - Three American officials: Tom Simmons (former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia), meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in Berlin and tell them that the U.S. is planning military strikes against Afghanistan in October. A French book released in November, "Bin Laden - La Veriteì Interdite," discloses that Taliban representatives often sat in on the meetings. British papers confirm that the Pakistani ISI relayed the threats to the Taliban. [Source: The Guardian, September 22, 2001; the BBC, September 18, 2001.The Inter Press Service, Nov 16, 2001]
13. Summer, 2001 - The National Security Council convenes a Dabhol working group as revealed in a series of government e-mails obtained by The Washington Post and the New York Daily News. [Source: The Albion Monitor, Feb. 28, 2002]
14. Summer 2001 - According to a Sept. 26 story in Britain's The Guardian, correspondent David Leigh reported that, "U.S. department of defense official, Dr. Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January. The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence established that US Rangers were also training special troops in Kyrgyzstan. There were unconfirmed reports that Tajik and Uzbek special troops were training in Alaska and Montana."
15. Summer 2001 (est.) - Pakistani ISI Chief General Ahmad (see above) orders an aide to wire transfer ,000 to Mohammed Atta, who was according to the FBI, the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings. Ahmad recently resigned after the transfer was disclosed in India and confirmed by the FBI. [Source: The Times of India, October 11, 2001.]
16. Summer 2001 - An Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9th. German police confirm the calls but state that the U.S. Secret Service would not reveal any further information. [Source: German news agency "online.de", September 14, 2001, translation retrieved from online.ie in Ireland.]
17. June 26, 2001 - The magazine indiareacts.com states that "India and Iran will 'facilitate' US and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban." The story indicates that the fighting will be done by US and Russian troops with the help of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. [Source: indiareacts.com, June 26, 2001.]
18. August 2001 - The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of bin Laden's network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters, September 13.]
19. August 11 or 12 - US Navy Lt. Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, jailed in Toronto on U.S. fraud charges and claiming to be an officer in U.S. Naval intelligence, writes details of the pending WTC attacks and seals them in an envelope which he gives to Canadian authorities. [Source: The Toronto Star, Oct. 23, 2001; Toronto Superior Court Records]
20. Summer 2001 - Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training for suicide missions. This is reported in the Russian press and news stories are translated for FTW by a retired CIA officer.
21. July 4-14, 2001 - Osama bin Laden receives treatments for kidney disease at the American hospital in Dubai and meets with a CIA official who returns to CIA headquarters on July 15th. [Source: Le Figaro, October 31st, 2001.]
22. August 2001 - Russian President Vladimir Putin orders Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. [Source: MS-NBC interview with Putin, September 15.]
23. August/September, 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops nearly 900 points in the three weeks prior to the attack. A major stock market crash is imminent.
24. Sept. 3-10, 2001 - MS-NBC reports on September 16 that a caller to a Cayman Islands radio talk show gave several warnings of an imminent attack on the U.S. by bin Laden in the week prior to 9/11.
25. September 1-10, 2001 - In an exercise, Operation "Swift Sword" planned for four years, 23, 000 British troops are steaming toward Oman. Although the 9/11 attacks caused a hiccup in the deployment the massive operation was implemented as planned. At the same time two U.S. carrier battle groups arrive on station in the Gulf of Arabia just off the Pakistani coast. Also at the same time, some 17,000 U.S. troops join more than 23,000 NATO troops in Egypt for Operation "Bright Star." All of these forces are in place before the first plane hits the World Trade Center. [Sources: The Guardian, CNN, FOX, The Observer, International Law Professor Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois.]
26. September 7, 2001 - Florida Governor Jeb Bush signs a two-year emergency executive order (01-261) making new provisions for the Florida National Guard to assist law enforcement and emergency-management personnel in the event of large civil disturbances, disaster or acts of terrorism. [Source: State of Florida web site listing of Governor's Executive Orders.]
27. September 6-7, 2001 - 4,744 put options (a speculation that the stock will go down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. [Source: The Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, http://www.ict.org.il/, September 21; The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal.]
28. September 10, 2001 - 4,516 put options are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. [Source: ICT - above]
29. September 6-11, 2001 - No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by UAL and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters (September 10) issues a business report stating, "Airline stocks may be poised to take off."
30. September 6-10, 2001 - Highly abnormal levels of put options are purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re(insurance) which owns 25% of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are directly impacted by the September 11 attacks. [Source: ICT, above; FTW, Vol. IV, No.7, October 18, 2001, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/
members/oct152001.html. ]
31. It has been documented that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs reported to be descended from Promis software. This is to alert national intelligence services of just such kinds of attacks. Promis was reported, as recently as June, 2001 to be in Osama bin Laden's possession and, as a result of recent stories by FOX, both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed its use for U.S. intelligence gathering through at least this summer. This would confirm that CIA had additional advance warning of imminent attacks. [Sources: The Washington Times, June 15, 2001; FOX News, October 16, 2001; FTW, October 26, 2001, - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/
members/magic_carpet.html; FTW, Vol. IV, No.6, Sept. 18, 2001 - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/
members/sept1801.html; FTW, Vol. 3, No 7, 9/30/00 - www.fromthewilderness.com/
free/pandora/052401_promis.html.
32. September 11, 2001 - Gen Mahmud of the ISI (see above), friend of Mohammed Atta, is visiting Washington on behalf of the Taliban. He is meeting with the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Porter Goss (R), FL and Bob Graham (D), Fl [Sources: MS-NBC, Oct. 7, The New York Times, Feb. 17, 2002.]
33. September 11, 2001 - Employees of Odigo, Inc. in Israel, one of the world's largest instant messaging companies, with offices in New York, receive threat warnings of an imminent attack on the WTC less than two hours before the first plane hits the WTC. Law enforcement authorities have gone silent about any investigation of this. The Odigo Research and Development offices in Israel are located in the city of Herzliyya, a ritzy suburb of Tel Aviv which is the same location as the Institute for Counter Terrorism which breaks early details of insider trading on 9-11. [Source: CNN's Daniel Sieberg, 9/28/01; Newsbytes, Brian McWilliams, 9/27/01; Ha'aretz, 9/26/01.].
34. September 11, 2001, For 50 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, with it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the President of the United States. It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means that the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred - an event that has never happened in history. [Sources: CNN, ABC, MS-NBC, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times.]
35. September 13, 2001 - China is admitted to the World Trade Organization quickly, after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts. [Source: The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2001.]
36. September 14, 2001 - Canadian jailers open the sealed envelope from Mike Vreeland in Toronto and see that is describes attacks against the WTC and Pentagon. The U.S. Navy subsequently states that Vreeland was discharged as a seaman in 1986 for unsatisfactory performance and has never worked in intelligence. [Source: The Toronto Star, Oct. 23, 2001; Toronto Superior Court records]
37. September 15, 2001 - The New York Times reports that Mayo Shattuck III has resigned, effective immediately, as head of the Alex (A.B) Brown unit of Deutschebank.
38. September 29, 2001 - The San Francisco Chronicle reports that .5 million in put options on American Airlines and United Airlines are unclaimed. This is likely the result of the suspension in trading on the NYSE after the attacks which gave the Securities and Exchange Commission time to be waiting when the owners showed up to redeem their put options.
39. October 10, 2001 - The Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post reports that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. A previously abandoned Unocal pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to the Pakistani coast, for the purpose of selling oil and gas to China, is now back on the table "in view of recent geopolitical developments."
40. October 11, 2001 - The Ashcroft Justice Department takes over all terrorist prosecutions from the U.S. Attorneys office in New York which has had a highly successful track record in prosecuting terrorist cases connected to Osama bin Laden. [Source: The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2002.]
41. Mid October, 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after having suffered a precipitous drop has recovered most of its pre-attack losses. Although still weak, and vulnerable to negative earnings reports, a crash has been averted by a massive infusion of government spending on defense programs, subsidies for "affected" industries and planned tax cuts for corporations.
42. November 21, 2001 - The British paper The Independent runs a story headlined, "Opium Farmers Rejoice at the Defeat of the Taliban." The story reports that massive opium planting is underway all over the country.
43. November 25, 2001 - The Observer runs a story headlined "Victorious Warlords Set To Open the Opium Floodgates." It states that farmers are being encouraged by warlords allied with the victorious Americans are "being encouraged to plant "as much opium as possible."
44. December 4, 2001 - Convicted drug lord and opium kingpin Ayub Afridi is recruited by the US government to help establish control in Afghanistan by unifying various Pashtun warlords. The former opium smuggler who was one of the CIA's leading assets in the war against the Russians is released from prison in order to do this. [Source: The Asia Times Online, 12/4/01].
45. December 25, 2001 - Newly appointed afghani Prime Minister Hamid Karzai is revealed as being a former paid consultant for Unocal. [Source: Le Monde.]
46. January 3, 2002 - President Bush appoints Zalamy Khalilzad as a special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad, a former employee of Unocal, also wrote op-eds in the Washington Post in 1997 supporting the Taliban regime. [Source: Pravda, 1/9/02]
47. January 4, 2002 - Florida drug trafficking explodes after 9-11. In a surge of trafficking reminiscent of the 1980s the diversion of resources away from drug enforcement has opened the floodgates for a new surge of cocaine and heroin from South America. [The Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 2002.
48. January 10, 2002 - In a call from a speaker phone in open court, attorneys for "Mike" Vreeland call the Pentagon's switchboard operator who confirms that Vreeland is indeed a Naval Lieutenant on active duty. She provides an office number and a direct dial phone extension to his office in the Pentagon. [Source: Attorney Rocco Galati; court records Toronto Superior Court.]
49. January 10, 2002 - Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from the Enron investigation because Enron had been a major campaign donor in his 2000 Senate race. He fails to recuse himself from involvement in two sitting Federal grand juries investigating bribery and corruption charges against ExxonMobil and BP-Amoco who have massive oil interests in Central Asia. Both were major Ashcroft donors in 2000. [Source: CNN, Jan. 10, 2002 - FTW original investigation, The Elephant in the Living Room, Part I, Apr 4, 2002.]
50. February 9, 2002 - Pakistani leader General Musharraf and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai announce their agreement to "cooperate in all spheres of activity" including the proposed Central Asian pipeline. Pakistan will give million to Afghanistan to help pay Afghani government workers. [Source: The Irish Times, 2/9/02]
51. Feb 18, 2002 - The Financial Times reports that the estimated opium harvest in Afghanistan in the late Spring of 2002 will reach a world record 4500 metric tons.
Now, let's go back to the October 31 story by Le Figaro - the one that has Osama bin Laden meeting with a CIA officer in Dubai this June.
The story says that, "Throughout his stay in the hospital, Osama Bin Laden received visits from many family members [There goes the story that he's a black sheep!] and Saudi Arabian Emirate personalities of status. During this time the local representative of the CIA was seen by many people taking the elevator and going to bin Laden's room.
"Several days later the CIA officer bragged to his friends about having visited the Saudi millionaire. From authoritative sources, this CIA agent visited CIA headquarters on July 15th, the day after bin Laden's departure for Quetta÷
"According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including its own territory."÷
"Extremely bothered, they [American intelligence officers in a meeting with French intelligence officers] requested from their French peers exact details about the Algerian activists [connected to bin Laden through Dubai banking institutions], without explaining the exact nature of their inquiry. When asked the question, "What do you fear in the coming days?' the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence."÷
"On further investigation, the FBI discovered certain plans that had been put together between the CIA and its "Islamic friends" over the years. The meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with 'a certain American policy.'"
Even though Le Figaro reported that it had confirmed with hospital staff that bin Laden had been there as reported, stories printed on November 1 contained quotes from hospital staff that these reports were untrue. On November 1, as reported by the Ananova press agency, the CIA flatly denied that any meeting between any CIA personnel and Osama bin Laden at any time.
Who do you believe?
CIA Admits Foreknowledge of 9-11
by Larry Chin
(Reprinted with permission. Larry Chin, an outstanding investigator/analyst is a Contributing Editor to the Online Journal at www.onlinejournal.com)
On April 11, 2002 CIA Deputy Director James Pavitt delivered an address to the Duke University Law School Conference. This speech was covered by AgenceFrance-Presse (AFP) on Sunday April 28, 10:59 AM in an article titled “Top CIA official warns next terror attack unavoidable” http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020428/1/2onzj.html. The CIA has released the transcript of Pavitt’s speech, which is posted at the CIA web site. http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/pavitt_04262002.html
The following are excerpts taken directly from Pavitt’s address.
In this speech, Pavitt states clearly that the CIA had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. My emphasis and notes are underlined and in bold, followed by the initials “LC.”
Jim Pavitt, CIA Deputy Director for Operations
Excerpts from Address to Duke University Law School Conference
April 11, 2002
“We had very, very good intelligence of the general structure and strategies of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. We knew and we warned that Al Qaeda was planning a major strike. There need be no question about that.” [my emphasis--LC]
[After seven months of CIA, the Bush administration and the mainstream corporate media aggressively pushing the idea of an “intelligence failure” and that the CIA was “caught unaware” by the Sept. 11 attacks, the deputy director of the CIA is clearly admitting foreknowledge.--LC]
“What didn't we know? We never found the tactical intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those tragic strikes that we all remember so well.”
[This is flatly contradicted by what Pavitt states in another part of this address, which is detailed below. It is also contradicted by credible and extensive reports of successful pre-9-11 penetration of the bin Laden operation by the U.S. intelligence community, including CIA and National Security Agency, and the significant technical expertise possessed by the US government, including Echelon and Promis software. It is also contradicted by the fact that intelligence agencies throughout the world had specific information on the attacks, and that these agencies issued specific warnings. Certain segments of Wall Street and US financial community knew of the pending attacks. An extensive accounting of these reports can be accessed at From The Wilderness publications (www.copvcia.com) and at: www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042202_bushknows.html --LC]
“And as a reality of that difficult and often frustrating fight against terror, the terror cells that we're going up against are typically small and all terrorist personnel in those cells, participating in those cells, perpetrating the acts of terror, all those personnel were carefully screened. The number of personnel who know vital information, targets, timing, the exact methods to be used had to be smaller still.
“Against that degree of control, that kind of compartmentation, that depth of discipline and fanaticism, I personally doubt, and I draw again upon my 30 years of experience in this business, that anything short of one of the knowledgeable inner circle personnel or hijackers turning himself in to us would have given us sufficient foreknowledge to have prevented the horrendous slaughter that took place on the 11th.”
[Pavitt is inflating the operational capabilities and fanaticism of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, which to a large degree are creations of CIA, while deflecting focus on the extensive penetration and capabilities of CIA and its terrorist surrogates (Pakistani ISI, etc.).--LC]
“Some of you out there may have heard bin Laden himself speak about this on that shocking videotape that we recovered in Afghanistan. On that tape when he was speaking to friends as he sat around in a little room, he talks about the fact that some of the hijackers, indeed, some of the most senior members of his inner circle had been kept in the dark about the full extent of that destruction operation that took place in New York and in Washington on the 11th of September.”
[The authenticity and relevance of the “notorious smoking bin Laden video” has not been confirmed. In fact, questions abound.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/12-18-01_Chin-printable.pdf--LC]
“While we did not stop the awful carnage that day our years of preparation and our experience allowed us to respond to the challenges of war quickly and effectively. From the moment the second tower was hit in New York, CIA began to shift resources to both collection and analysis. We knew from the start that our key contribution would come not in now numbers but in expertise.
“Teams of my paramilitary operations officers trained not just to observe conditions but if need be to change them, were among the first on the ground in Afghanistan. With a small logistical footprint they came with lightning speed. We were on the ground within days of that terrible attack.
“They came with knowledge of local languages, whatever you heard to the contrary notwithstanding, terrain, and politics.
“None of this came easy. You cannot learn Pashtun overnight, and you can't truly understand the complexities of tribalism, regionalism, and personalism in Afghanistan by reading the newspaper or a learned book. My people learned about this by years of study and years of practice often in difficult, hostile places and yes indeed, on the ground in Afghanistan itself.
“If you hear somebody say, and I have, the CIA abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left and that we never paid any attention to that place until September 11th, I would implore you to ask those people how we were able to accomplish all we did since the Soviets departed. How we knew who to approach on the ground, which operations, which warlord to support, what information to collect. Quite simply, we were there well before the 11th of September.” [my emphasis--LC]
[Pavitt is stating clearly that that, contrary to arguments by some current and former CIA operatives such as Reuel Marc Gerecht and Robert Baer (who have published articles and books about the CIA’s lack of human intelligence in the Middle East and Central Asia), that CIA had never left Afghanistan in the wake in the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from the country.
Pavitt is in fact lauding CIA capability, penetration and presence. He also confirms here that existing CIA penetration in the region was vital to the speed and success of Operation Enduring Freedom, an operation of a magnitude that requires months -- not weeks -- of planning. Contrary to Pavitt’s assertion that CIA “responded within days” to the 9-11 attacks with “lighting speed”, it is impossible to build an intelligence network of such scope in a short period of time. Bottom line: CIA was already there, and has been for decades.--LC]
“In a run-up to the millennium celebrations the CIA warned the president of the United States of serious terrorism conspiracies around the world. We predicted, we told the president, that there would be between five and 15 serious attacks against on U.S. soil. But we did much much more than warn. With our allies and our partners around the world we launched immense efforts to counter those threats. Hundreds of terrorists were arrested, multiple cells of terrorism were destroyed. One terrorist cell planned to blow up a hotel, buses and holy cites in both Israel and Jordan. It had also planned to use chemical weapons.
We knew then just as we know now that Al Qaeda and those who would continue its mission of murder were nothing if they're not resilient. Remember, the World Trade Center was attacked once before.”
[Particularly in light of the years of information gathered in the investigations of the prior World Trade Center bombings by FBI and CIA, claims of a dearth of sufficient intelligence are implausible.--LC]
“Because the networks of terror are fluid and dynamic, because they learn from their past and from ours -- from our past, from our action -- I'm not at liberty tonight to describe to you every thing we've done against them. You would not want me to do that.
“Today, the year 2002, I have more spies stealing more secrets than at any time in the history of the CIA.” [my emphasis--LC]
[Which means what was already powerful is now super powerful, and nightmarishly so. In with all due respect, Mr. Pavitt, we do want you to come clean with the citizens you work for.--LC]
“Now for the hard truth. Despite the best efforts of so much of the world, the next terrorist attack—it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. With so many possible targets and an enemy more than willing to die, the perfect defense isn't possible.” [my emphasis--LC]
[Without providing any specifics, Pavitt is announcing that new “terrorist attacks” are "unavoidable" and even “impossible” even before they have occurred----as in "CIA can't and/or won't do anything about whatever happens". Why is he issuing this vague and very public warning?--LC.]
“If I knew any society that would mount such a perfect defense devoid as it would be of the liberties that makes us great, is not worth defending.” [my emphasis--LC]
[Pavitt is suggesting that mounting foolproof countermeasures against terrorism would require sacrificing civil liberties and, as a result, would produce a system that, in his view, "is not worth defending." This statement is disingenuous. It is an inarguable fact that civil liberties, and the Bill of Rights, have already been gutted post-9-11. America is already a virtual police state. Pavitt knows this. In order to get “foolproof” protection, Americans should and will relinquish what little is left of their civil liberties and accept a full dictatorship. In the wake of another major “terrorist atrocity”, Americans would be frightened enough to do so.--LC]
“After the deep, debilitating cuts of the 1990s [my emphasis--LC], when any thought that the end of the Cold War would bring us a safer, more predictable world, one in which intelligence was not important, a world in which intelligence officers were no longer as necessary, we now continue to rebuild, back to essential strength where we can continue to do what you and others ask me to do. In the Directorate of Operations alone, since just five or six years ago, we are training more than 10 times as many operations officers.” [my emphasis--LC]
[The CIA budget, which has been estimated at approximately billion, has been increased post 9-11. That is not counting untold amounts funneled through budgets of other government agencies.--LC]
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AmeriSnitch
by Bill Berkowitz
With the familiar strains of "Heeeeere's Johnny" resounding throughout the auditorium, professional sidekick Ed McMahon introduced Attorney General John Ashcroft to an enthusiastic audience of representatives from more than 300 Neighborhood Watch groups meeting in Washington, D.C., in early March. Ashcroft was unveiling a new and expanded mission for the Neighborhood Watch Program. He announced a grant of $1.9 million in federal funds to help the National Sheriffs' Association double the number of participant groups to 15,000 nationwide.
Up to now, Neighborhood Watch has been a fairly low-key crime-prevention tool focused on break-ins and burglaries. But all that is changing, as the Bush Administration has earmarked it for a broader role--surveillance in the service of the "war on terrorism."
"President Bush has announced that, with the help of the National Sheriffs' Association, the Neighborhood Watch Program will be taking on new significance," according to the government's web page at citizencorps.gov/watch.html. "Community residents will be provided with information which will enable them to recognize signs of potential terrorist activity, and to know how to report that activity, making these residents a critical element in the detection, prevention, and disruption of terrorism." The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will be supervising the program. "Terrorism prevention" is now part of the "routine mission" of the Neighborhood Watch Program, the web site says.
This "could fuel Cold War-style discrimination and censorship," says the American Civil Liberties Union, which sees the Neighborhood Watch initiative as part of an "ongoing pattern of erosion of basic civil liberties in America in the name of unproven security measures."
"By asking neighborhood groups to report on people who are 'unfamiliar' or who act in ways that are 'suspicious' or 'not normal,' our government is unconstructively fear-mongering, and fueling the already rampant ethnic and religious scapegoating," says ACLU President Nadine Strossen.
The new thrust of Neighborhood Watch is just part of the Bush Administration's plan to set up a whole network of citizen snitches. In August, for instance, it will unveil a new Justice Department initiative called Operation TIPS, which stands for Terrorist Information and Prevention System.
Operation TIPS "will be a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity," says the citizencorps.gov web site. Involving one million workers in ten cities during the pilot stage, Operation TIPS will be "a national reporting system. . . . Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free number is readily available."
A Justice Department spokeswoman says TIPS was developed by a working group made up of people from the Department of Justice and several other agencies. When asked about the identity of members of the working group, she says she is unable to disclose their names at this time, adding it is "too soon to speak to the people involved."
TIPS will involve workers who, in the course of their daily activities, are well situated to be "extra eyes and ears" in the struggle against terrorism, she says. The mission is to "report suspicious activity and not to report suspicious-looking people."
But that does not reassure Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio. When I ask him about Operation TIPS and its one million snitches, he takes a deep breath.
"It appears we are being transformed from an information society to an informant society," he says. "Do the math. One tip a day per person and within a year the whole country will be turned in, and we can put up a big fence around the country, and we'll all be safe."
As the ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee's National Security Oversight Subcommittee, Kucinich says he intends to look into the program as soon as possible.
At the moment, few people are even aware of Operation TIPS. The ACLU, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Teamsters, and the AFL-CIO had not yet heard about it when I approached them in March.
Given Operation TIPS's interest in having truckers double as informants, I asked the Justice Department spokesperson whether any unions were aware of, or involved in, developing the project. She said that to the best of her knowledge they weren't.
So why aren't unions up to date one this new job duty? "That's a good question," says Chuck Mack, the West Region Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "We should approach new projects like TIPS with caution and great care," Mack says. "Too often, the devil is in the details."
The ACLU echoes Mack's caution. "We have deep concerns," says Rachel King, legislative counsel for the ACLU, "about the way that particular groups are being encouraged to act as agents and spy on other groups."
Operation TIPS and the new mission for Neighborhood Watch flow out of Bush's State of the Union speech, where he urged every American to commit 4,000 hours, or at least two years of their lives, to national service. By executive order, he established the USA Freedom Corps as the umbrella organization for this effort.
"Through the USA Freedom Corps, he wants to help every American to answer the call to service by strengthening and expanding service opportunities for them to protect our homeland, to support our communities, and to extend American compassion around the world," says the usafreedomcorps.gov web site. The President is requesting more than million in new funds in Fiscal Year 2003 to support the new initiative.
Freedom Corps covers the Peace Corps, as well as AmeriCorps and SeniorCorps, but even these last two groups will now have a security role. Both will be involved in "fingerprinting" so as to relieve overworked police officers, and AmeriCorps will be "creating 'reserve service corps, in conjunction with states, to support homeland security throughout the country," according to the USA Freedom Corps Policy Book. (By the way, AmeriCorps will also support "faith-based organizations.")
Operation TIPS and Neighborhood Watch are under a different section of Freedom Corps called Citizen Corps. The goal of Citizen Corps is "to engage citizens in homeland security," the handbook says. Citizen Corps Councils will be established in each community, and they will "include leaders from law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, businesses, community-based institutions, schools, places of worship, health care institutions, public works, and other key sectors."
In addition to a revamped Neighborhood Watch Program and Operation TIPS, the Citizen Corps consists of a Volunteers in Police Service Program, Medical Reserve Corps, and Community Emergency Response Teams. Citizen Corps "will be coordinated by FEMA," the web site says.
Bush's Freedom Corps has been a blessing for Neighborhood Watch Institute, based in Santa Fe Springs, California. Since 1982, the institute, a folksy operation, has been marketing the accouterments necessary for warning criminals that they are being watched. The organization boasts that its "complete line of crime prevention materials" is used by more than 1,500 police and sheriff agencies, local Neighborhood Watch groups, and homeowner associations. A basic kit includes handbooks for identifying suspicious criminal activity, stickers, signs, and decals. It costs about .
Shortly after September 11, the institute began offering "Homeland Security Street Signs," which notify the community and criminals that "all suspicious persons and activities are immediately reported" to local police officials. Bill Preciado, the manager of the institute, says that it came up with the idea for Homeland Security signs before the Office of Homeland Security was established. The institute is in the process of putting together a handbook advising people how to "identify terrorist activity in their neighborhoods," he says.
While "business went up immediately after September 11, it has been leveling off in the past few months," he says. Although he's heard about the new Justice Department Neighborhood Watch initiative and has sent an e-mail to the Department of Justice telling the agency about the company's services, his company "hasn't been contacted by any official government agency." Preciado is hopeful that the new interest and emphasis on Neighborhood Watch groups "will be good for business."
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Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering rightwing movements. He is a regular contributor to Working Assets's news site, workingforchange.com. Re-search assistance by Laura Ross.
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There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
– Herbert Spencer
The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account. – Walter Lippman
The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.– Carl Jung
The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. – Herbert Spencer
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.– Herbert Spencer
The biggest part of reporting the truth is the news agenda itself. What we choose to put on the air, what we think is a page one story, what our priorities are. I would not be fooled by the old myth that reporting is about objectivity. Deciding what is news is the most subjective of acts and it is probably the most important thing that we do. – Carl Bernstein
There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it… The business of the Journalist is to destroy truth; To lie outright; To pervert; To vilify; To fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and or lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
– John Swinton, former Chief of Staff, The New York Times, circa 1880
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable. – Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", circa 1792
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. – Julius Caesar
There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one. – Machiavelli – 1513
Now I understood for the first time that all these problems are caused by a race asleep and thrashing about in its panicked nightmares. There will be wars and holocausts and genocides as long as God is portrayed and thought of as a tight-minded legislator, a feudal lord, an offended King, a hypersensitive Artisan – even if church managers condescendingly tack onto that ridiculous list the not-very-convincing footnote that He is also loving. As long as people dream that they are insecure and needy in some sort of eternal jeopardy, there will be atrocities. But as the human race grows up spiritually, and as individuals gain a personal experience of the God they have been worshipping in fear, they will recognize that much of their theology and philosophy is built on nightmares. That will be the day of peace. I suddenly found myself unwilling to sit it out in the mountains of Utah. I wanted to play an active role in the process of the world’s awakening. – George Fowler, "Dance of a Fallen Monk"
AmeriSnitch
by Bill Berkowitz
With the familiar strains of "Heeeeere's Johnny" resounding throughout the auditorium, professional sidekick Ed McMahon introduced Attorney General John Ashcroft to an enthusiastic audience of representatives from more than 300 Neighborhood Watch groups meeting in Washington, D.C., in early March. Ashcroft was unveiling a new and expanded mission for the Neighborhood Watch Program. He announced a grant of $1.9 million in federal funds to help the National Sheriffs' Association double the number of participant groups to 15,000 nationwide.
Up to now, Neighborhood Watch has been a fairly low-key crime-prevention tool focused on break-ins and burglaries. But all that is changing, as the Bush Administration has earmarked it for a broader role--surveillance in the service of the "war on terrorism."
"President Bush has announced that, with the help of the National Sheriffs' Association, the Neighborhood Watch Program will be taking on new significance," according to the government's web page at citizencorps.gov/watch.html. "Community residents will be provided with information which will enable them to recognize signs of potential terrorist activity, and to know how to report that activity, making these residents a critical element in the detection, prevention, and disruption of terrorism." The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will be supervising the program. "Terrorism prevention" is now part of the "routine mission" of the Neighborhood Watch Program, the web site says.
This "could fuel Cold War-style discrimination and censorship," says the American Civil Liberties Union, which sees the Neighborhood Watch initiative as part of an "ongoing pattern of erosion of basic civil liberties in America in the name of unproven security measures."
"By asking neighborhood groups to report on people who are 'unfamiliar' or who act in ways that are 'suspicious' or 'not normal,' our government is unconstructively fear-mongering, and fueling the already rampant ethnic and religious scapegoating," says ACLU President Nadine Strossen.
The new thrust of Neighborhood Watch is just part of the Bush Administration's plan to set up a whole network of citizen snitches. In August, for instance, it will unveil a new Justice Department initiative called Operation TIPS, which stands for Terrorist Information and Prevention System.
Operation TIPS "will be a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity," says the citizencorps.gov web site. Involving one million workers in ten cities during the pilot stage, Operation TIPS will be "a national reporting system. . . . Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free number is readily available."
A Justice Department spokeswoman says TIPS was developed by a working group made up of people from the Department of Justice and several other agencies. When asked about the identity of members of the working group, she says she is unable to disclose their names at this time, adding it is "too soon to speak to the people involved."
TIPS will involve workers who, in the course of their daily activities, are well situated to be "extra eyes and ears" in the struggle against terrorism, she says. The mission is to "report suspicious activity and not to report suspicious-looking people."
But that does not reassure Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio. When I ask him about Operation TIPS and its one million snitches, he takes a deep breath.
"It appears we are being transformed from an information society to an informant society," he says. "Do the math. One tip a day per person and within a year the whole country will be turned in, and we can put up a big fence around the country, and we'll all be safe."
As the ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee's National Security Oversight Subcommittee, Kucinich says he intends to look into the program as soon as possible.
At the moment, few people are even aware of Operation TIPS. The ACLU, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Teamsters, and the AFL-CIO had not yet heard about it when I approached them in March.
Given Operation TIPS's interest in having truckers double as informants, I asked the Justice Department spokesperson whether any unions were aware of, or involved in, developing the project. She said that to the best of her knowledge they weren't.
So why aren't unions up to date one this new job duty? "That's a good question," says Chuck Mack, the West Region Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "We should approach new projects like TIPS with caution and great care," Mack says. "Too often, the devil is in the details."
The ACLU echoes Mack's caution. "We have deep concerns," says Rachel King, legislative counsel for the ACLU, "about the way that particular groups are being encouraged to act as agents and spy on other groups."
Operation TIPS and the new mission for Neighborhood Watch flow out of Bush's State of the Union speech, where he urged every American to commit 4,000 hours, or at least two years of their lives, to national service. By executive order, he established the USA Freedom Corps as the umbrella organization for this effort.
"Through the USA Freedom Corps, he wants to help every American to answer the call to service by strengthening and expanding service opportunities for them to protect our homeland, to support our communities, and to extend American compassion around the world," says the usafreedomcorps.gov web site. The President is requesting more than million in new funds in Fiscal Year 2003 to support the new initiative.
Freedom Corps covers the Peace Corps, as well as AmeriCorps and SeniorCorps, but even these last two groups will now have a security role. Both will be involved in "fingerprinting" so as to relieve overworked police officers, and AmeriCorps will be "creating 'reserve service corps, in conjunction with states, to support homeland security throughout the country," according to the USA Freedom Corps Policy Book. (By the way, AmeriCorps will also support "faith-based organizations.")
Operation TIPS and Neighborhood Watch are under a different section of Freedom Corps called Citizen Corps. The goal of Citizen Corps is "to engage citizens in homeland security," the handbook says. Citizen Corps Councils will be established in each community, and they will "include leaders from law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, businesses, community-based institutions, schools, places of worship, health care institutions, public works, and other key sectors."
In addition to a revamped Neighborhood Watch Program and Operation TIPS, the Citizen Corps consists of a Volunteers in Police Service Program, Medical Reserve Corps, and Community Emergency Response Teams. Citizen Corps "will be coordinated by FEMA," the web site says.
Bush's Freedom Corps has been a blessing for Neighborhood Watch Institute, based in Santa Fe Springs, California. Since 1982, the institute, a folksy operation, has been marketing the accouterments necessary for warning criminals that they are being watched. The organization boasts that its "complete line of crime prevention materials" is used by more than 1,500 police and sheriff agencies, local Neighborhood Watch groups, and homeowner associations. A basic kit includes handbooks for identifying suspicious criminal activity, stickers, signs, and decals. It costs about .
Shortly after September 11, the institute began offering "Homeland Security Street Signs," which notify the community and criminals that "all suspicious persons and activities are immediately reported" to local police officials. Bill Preciado, the manager of the institute, says that it came up with the idea for Homeland Security signs before the Office of Homeland Security was established. The institute is in the process of putting together a handbook advising people how to "identify terrorist activity in their neighborhoods," he says.
While "business went up immediately after September 11, it has been leveling off in the past few months," he says. Although he's heard about the new Justice Department Neighborhood Watch initiative and has sent an e-mail to the Department of Justice telling the agency about the company's services, his company "hasn't been contacted by any official government agency." Preciado is hopeful that the new interest and emphasis on Neighborhood Watch groups "will be good for business."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering rightwing movements. He is a regular contributor to Working Assets's news site, workingforchange.com. Re-search assistance by Laura Ross.
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Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. – Julius Caesar
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