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US congressional hearings on September 11: more evidence
Thu Sep 26 18:39:28 2002
208.152.73.191

US congressional hearings on September 11: more evidence of provocation and cover-up

By Patrick Martin
26 September 2002
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/sept-s26.shtml

The first week of public hearings before the joint congressional
committee investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks has been a
clear demonstration of why the White House fought so bitterly to derail
any official investigation into the events of one year ago.

Despite the Bush administration’s stonewalling and the cowardice of the
congressional Democrats, the current hearings have produced significant
new information on US government foreknowledge of the terrorist
attacks and its failure—or refusal—to prevent them.

Among the new facts not previously made known to the American public:

* From 1998 on, the CIA and FBI received repeated warnings about Al
Qaeda using airplanes to strike targets inside the United States.

* In 2000 the FBI’s Newark, New Jersey office received details of plans
to hijack a Boeing 747 jumbo jet with a team of five or six men, and
either fly it to Afghanistan or blow it up.

* The volume of warnings about terrorist attacks within the US increased
sharply in the spring of 2001, and a CIA informant specifically warned of
“spectacular and traumatic” attacks on buildings like the World Trade
Center.

* Despite the frequency of such warnings, neither the CIA nor the FBI
took any serious action. The CIA had only three analysts working
full-time on Al Qaeda until 2000, when the number rose to five. The FBI
had only one person working full-time on Al Qaeda on September 11,
2001.

* The CIA had identified three of the future hijackers as associates of Al
Qaeda in 2000—Khalil Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem
Alhazmi—but waited 18 months before it alerted other government
agencies, although the CIA knew that Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi
were in the United States and that Almihdhar had a multiple reentry visa,
allowing him to come and go freely.

* Only two weeks before the September 11 attacks, an FBI agent in
New York City sent a memo to Washington pleading for authorization to
deploy resources to find Alhazmi and Almihdhar, warning that otherwise
“people will die.”

The US government and Al Qaeda

Many of these revelations were detailed at the first public hearing
September 18, where Eleanor Hill, staff director of the joint
congressional panel, gave a lengthy opening report on what the US
government knew about the activities of Al Qaeda and what it did with
the information. She explained that US intelligence agencies had received
information on the possible use of airplanes as terrorist weapons
beginning in 1994, with New York City and Washington among the
probable targets. “While this method of attack had clearly been
discussed in terrorist circles,” she said, “there was apparently little, if any
effort, by intelligence community analysts to produce any strategic
assessments of terrorists using aircraft as weapons.”

Beginning in June 1998, the warnings and information became more
specific. According to Hill, “In August 1998, the intelligence community
obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an
explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade
Center.... In September of 1998, the intelligence community obtained
information that bin Laden’s next operation would possibly involve flying
an aircraft loaded with explosives into a US airport and detonating it.
This information was provided to senior US government officials in late
1998.”

In October and November 1998, intelligence agencies received
information on Al Qaeda efforts to establish cells in the United States and
to stage terrorist attacks “involving aircraft in the New York and
Washington, DC areas.” Other reports concerned plans for assassination
of US intelligence officials, as well as the secretary of state and secretary
of defense. Similar reports continued in 1999 and 2000.

In April 2001, according to Hill, “the intelligence community obtained
information from a source with terrorist connections, who speculated that
bin Laden would be interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists.
The source warned that the United States should not focus only on
embassy bombings, that terrorists sought ‘spectacular and traumatic’
attacks and that the first World Trade Center bombing would be the type
of attack that would be appealing.”

During the period between March and September 2001, Hill testified,
“the intelligence community detected numerous indicators of an
impending terrorist attack, some of which pointed specifically to the
United States as a possible target.” This information, gathered by the
CIA and the military intelligence, was eventually shared with the FBI, the
INS, the Customs Service and the State Department, and “was included
in a closely held intelligence report for senior government officials in
August 2001.” The reference is to President Bush, although Hill was not
allowed to say so because of White House-imposed secrecy.

In June 2001, the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center “had information that
key operatives in Osama bin Laden’s organization were disappearing
while others were preparing for martyrdom.” A month later, an individual
returning from Afghanistan reported that “everyone is talking about an
impending attack.”

Hill cited a briefing prepared for “senior government officials” at the
beginning of July 2001, which warned that Osama bin Laden “will launch
a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the
coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict
mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations
have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”

Airplanes as weapons
GO HERE FOR FULL REPORT:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/sept-s26.shtml

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