“What is
happening in the United States took me
by surprise. I anticipated that in the
aftermath of Sept. 11, there would be
an enormous hue and cry to find out
what went wrong. There has been no hue
and cry in the United States. No
recriminations, nothing even similar
to what happened after Pearl Harbor in
1941… The United States has drawn a
veil of silence over the issue of
intelligence failure.”
Wesley
Wark, Canadian Intelligence Expert and
Consultant to the Privy Council Office
of Canada on Intelligence Policy
(Globe & Mail, 18 December 2001)
“We’ve been focusing
on this perpetrator Osama bin Laden
for 3 years, and yet we didn’t see
this one coming,” said Vincent
Cannistraro, former chief of CIA
counter-terrorism operations. A U.S.
Air Force General described the attack
as “something we had never seen
before, something we had never even
thought of.” FBI Director Robert
Mueller further declared that “there
were no warning signs that I’m aware
of.” Senior FBI officials insisted
that in terms of intelligence warnings
received prior to 11th
September: “The notion of flying a
plane into a building or using it as a
bomb never came up.”[1]
According to this official version of
events, no one in the Bush
administration had the slightest idea
of the identities of those who
orchestrated the 11th
September attacks, the nature of their
plans, or their targets.
Contrary to these
prolific claims, there is compelling
evidence that the U.S. intelligence
community had extensive forewarning of
the 11th September attacks
on New York and Washington. Further
evidence suggests that the attacks
may, in fact, have been in the
interest of certain elements of the
Bush administration (see Chapter VII).
Using Planes as
Bombs
The Pentagon
commissioned an expert panel in 1993
to investigate the possibility of an
airplane being used to bomb national
landmarks. Retired Air Force Col. Doug
Menarchik, who organised the $150,000
study for the Defense Department’s
Office of Special Operations and
Low-Intensity Conflict, recalled: “It
was considered radical thinking, a
little too scary for the times. After
I left, it met a quiet death.” Other
participants have noted that the
decision not to publish detailed
scenarios issued to some extent from
fear that this may give terrorists
ideas. Nevertheless, a draft document
detailing the results of the
investigation was circulated through
the Pentagon, the Justice Department
and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. Senior agency officials
decided against a public release.[2]
The veracity of the
Pentagon’s “radical thinking” was
confirmed in 1994 when there occurred
three attempted attacks on buildings
using airplanes. The first, in April
of that year, involved a Federal
Express flight engineer facing
dismissal.
Having boarded a
DC-10 as a passenger, he invaded the
cockpit, planning to crash the plane
into a company building in Memphis.
Fortunately, he was overpowered by the
crew.
The second attempt
occurred in September. A lone pilot
crashed a small plane into a tree on
the White House grounds, just short of
the President’s bedroom.
The third incident
occurred in December. An Air France
flight in Algiers was hijacked by
members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA)—
who are linked to Al-Qaeda—aiming to
crash it into the Eiffel Tower. French
Special Forces stormed the plane on
the ground.[3]
Al-Qaeda’s
Plans: Project Bojinka
Western intelligence
had been aware of plans for such
terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as
early as 1995. Both the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) had
detailed information about the
possible use of hijack/suicide attacks
by terrorists connected to Osama bin
Laden. The New York Times
reported that:
“In 1994, two
jetliners were hijacked by people who
wanted to crash them into buildings,
one of them by an Islamic militant
group. And the 2000 edition of the
FAA’s annual report on Criminal Acts
Against Aviation, published this year,
said that although Osama bin Laden ‘is
not known to have attacked civil
aviation, he has both the motivation
and the wherewithal to do so,’ adding,
‘Bin Laden’s anti-Western and
anti-American attitudes make him and
his followers a significant threat to
civil aviation, particularly to U.S.
civil aviation.’”[4]
Moreover, the U.S.
intelligence community was aware of
bin Laden’s specific intentions to use
hijacked civilian planes as weapons.
In this regard, the Chicago
Sun-Times reported that:
“The FBI had
advance indications of plans to hijack
U.S. airliners and use them as
weapons, but neither acted on them nor
distributed the intelligence to local
police agencies. From the moment of
the September 11th attacks,
high-ranking federal officials
insisted that the terrorists’ method
of operation surprised them. Many
stick to that story. Actually,
elements of the hijacking plan were
known to the FBI as early as 1995 and,
if coupled with current information,
might have uncovered the plot.”[5]
Details of these
advanced indications have been noted
in a report by the respected German
daily, Die Welt: “Western
secret services knew as far back as
1995 that suspected terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden planned to attack
civilian sites using commercial
passenger planes.” Quoting sources
“close to western intelligence
agencies,” the newspaper reported
that: “The plan was discovered in
January 1995 by Philippine police who
were investigating a possible attack
against Pope John Paul II on a visit
to Manila…
“They found details
of the plan in a computer seized in an
apartment used by three men who were
part of Bin Laden’s al‑Qaeda network.
It provided for 11 planes to be
exploded simultaneously by bombs
placed on board, but also in an
alternative form for several planes
flying to the United States to be
hijacked and flown into civilian
targets. Among targets mentioned was
the World Trade Center in New York,
which was destroyed in the September
11 terror attacks in the United States
that killed thousands.”
This plot
“re-surfaced during the trial in New
York in 1997 of Pakistani Ramsi Yousef,
the mastermind of the attack on the
World Trade Center in 1993... [The]
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
and CIA would have known about the
plan at the latest at this time.”[6]
As the Washington DC-based Public
Education Center (PEC) observes,
“Federal investigative sources have
confirmed that Murad”—who was “a close
confidant and right-hand man to Yousef,
who was convicted of crimes relating
to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade
Center”—“detailed an entire plot to
dive bomb aircraft in the headquarters
of the Central Intelligence Agency in
Langley, VA.” along with other U.S.
buildings. “Yousef independently
boasted of the plot to U.S. Secret
Service agent Brian Parr and FBI agent
Charles Stern on an extradition flight
from Pakistan to the United States in
February 1995,” continues the PEC
report. “The agents later testified to
that fact in court… [T]he plan
targeted not only the CIA but other
U.S. government buildings in
Washington, including the Pentagon.”[7]
Rafael M. Garcia
III, Chairman/CEO of the Mega Group of
Computer Companies in the Philippines,
who often works with the National
Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in his
field of expertise, was involved in
the intelligence operation that
uncovered Project Bojinka. Garcia was
responsible for the decoding of
Yousef’s computer. “This was how we
found out about the various plots
being hatched by the cell of Ramzi
Yousef. First, there was the plot to
assassinate Pope John Paul II,” he
observes. “Then, we discovered a
second, even more sinister plot:
Project Bojinka, or a Yugoslav term
for loud bang.
[8]
This was a plot to blow up 11 airlines
over the Pacific Ocean, all in a
48-hour period. The planes would have
come from Seoul, Hong Kong, Taipei,
Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, and Manila…
“Then we found
another document that discussed a
second alternative to crash the 11
planes into selected targets in the
United States instead of just blowing
them up in the air. These included the
CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia;
the World Trade Center in New York;
the Sears Tower in Chicago; the
TransAmerica Tower in San Francisco;
and the White House in Washington, DC…
I submitted my findings to NBI
officials, who most certainly turned
over the report (and the computer)
either to then Senior Superintendent
Avelino Razon of the PNP [the
Philippine National Police] or to Bob
Heafner of the FBI… I have since had
meetings with certain U.S. authorities
and they have confirmed to me that
indeed, many things were done in
response to my report.”
[9]
The
World Tribune similarly reports,
citing an intelligence source involved
in the Philippine operation,
that: “The hijacked aircraft were to
be crashed into structures in the
United States, including the World
Trade Center, the White House,
Pentagon, the Transamerica tower in
San Francisco and the Sears Tower in
Chicago.”
[10]
Paul Monk, Senior Fellow at the
Australian Thinking Skills Institute
and a Professor at the Australian
Defense University, cites
“confidential sources” in Manila and
Washington detailing that: “Project
Bojinka was an AQ [Al-Qaeda] plan to
hijack eleven airliners
simultaneously, exploding many of them
at various places over the Pacific,
but flying at least two of them into
major federal government buildings in
the United States. The flights to be
hijacked were specified. They were all
United Airlines, Northwest Airlines
and Delta flights…
“The plan has been
masterminded by one Ramzi Yousef, who
was arrested in Islamabad in the wake
of Murad’s interrogation. Both Murad
and Yousef were extradited to the
United States, tried and convicted for
complicity in the 1993 attack on the
WTC. The date of Yousef’s conviction
was 11 September 1996. From that
point, given the fascination
terrorists have with anniversaries, 11
September should surely have become a
watch date.”
[11]
Detailed elaboration
on this matter is provided by the
Washington DC-based media watch group,
Accuracy In Media (AIM). AIM has
harshly criticised the media for
largely ignoring the U.S. intelligence
community’s advanced knowledge of
Project Bojinka:
“In 1995, the
CIA and the FBI learned that Osama bin
Laden was planning to hijack U.S.
airliners and use them as bombs to
attack important targets in the U.S.
This scheme was called Project Bojinka.
It was discovered in the Philippines,
where authorities arrested two of bin
Laden’s agents, Ramzi Yousef and Abdul
Hakim Murad. They were involved in
planting a bomb on a Philippine
airliner. Project Bojinka, which
Philippine authorities found outlined
on Abdul Murad’s laptop, called for
planting bombs on eleven U.S.
airliners and hijacking others and
crashing them into targets like the
CIA building…
It required
aviators like Japan’s kamikaze pilots
who were willing to commit suicide.
Bin Laden had no such pilots in 1995,
but he set out to train young fanatics
willing to die for him to fly
airliners. Abdul Murad, whose laptop
had revealed the plan, admitted that
he was being trained for a suicide
mission. Bin Laden began training
pilots in Afghanistan with the help of
an Afghan pilot and a Pakistani
general.
Project Bojinka was
known to the CIA and the FBI. It was
described in court documents in the
trial in New York of Ramzi Yousef and
Abdul Murad for their participation in
the bombing of the World Trade Center
in 1993. Since the CIA had been
mentioned as one of the targets in
Project Bojinka, it should have had an
especially strong interest in any
evidence that bin Laden was preparing
to carry it out. The most obvious
indicator, and one that should have
been watched most carefully, was the
recruitment of young, dedicated
followers to learn to fly American
airliners. That would require keeping
a close watch on flight schools where
that training is given.”[12]
Post-Bojinka
Intelligence Gathering
And indeed, the
surveillance of flight schools is
exactly what subsequently occurred,
indicating that the threat posed by
Project Bojinka was not
dismissed—rather, it was taken
seriously and used as the basis for
intensive intelligence gathering. As
Garcia testifies, in meetings with
“certain U.S. authorities… they have
confirmed to me that indeed, many
things were done in response” to the
findings of Project Bojinka.
[13]
The Washington Post, noting the
plans outlined in Project Bojinka,
reported that: “Since 1996, the FBI
had been developing evidence that
international terrorists were using
flight schools to learn to fly jumbo
jets.” This evidence began to
accumulate shortly after the FBI
learned of Project Bojinka. “A foiled
plot in Manila to blow up U.S.
airliners and later court testimony by
an associate of bin Laden had touched
off FBI inquiries at several schools,
officials say.”[14]
It should be noted that this report
indicates that Al-Qaeda’s plans for
Project Bojinka were considered by
U.S. intelligence to be a credible
threat, and thus “touched off” further
investigations.
Early in the same
year, U.S. officials had identified
crop-dusters and suicide flights as
potential terrorist weapons. Elaborate
steps were adopted to prevent an
attack from the air during the Summer
Olympic Games in Atlanta. U.S.
aircraft were deployed to intercept
suspicious aircraft in the skies over
Olympic venues, while agents monitored
crop-duster flights within hundreds of
miles of downtown Atlanta. According
to Woody Johnson, head of the FBI’s
Atlanta office at the time, law
enforcement agents fanned out to
regional airports throughout northern
Georgia “to make sure nobody hijacked
a small aircraft and tried to attack
one of the venues.” From 6th
July to 11th August, when
the Games ended, the FAA had banned
all aviation within a one-mile radius
of the Olympic Village where athletes
were resident. Aircraft were also
ordered to stay at least three miles
away from other sites, beginning three
hours before each event until three
hours after each event ended.
[15]
These extensive measures in 1996, in
response to the general threat of a
possible terrorist attack, should be
duly noted—there is a stark contrast
between these measures and the almost
total lack of preventive measures in
response to warnings of the 11th
September attacks.
By 1999, the Federal
Aviation Administration’s annual
report on Criminal Acts Against
Aviation noted the threat posed by
bin Laden, recalling that a radical
Muslim leader living in British exile
had warned in August 1998 that
bin Laden “would bring down an
airliner, or hijack an airliner to
humiliate the United States.” The 2000
edition of the annual report,
published early in 2001, reiterated
concerns that although bin Laden “is
not known to have attacked civil
aviation, he has both the motivation
and the wherewithal to do so… Bin
Laden’s anti-Western and anti-American
attitudes make him and his followers a
significant threat to civil aviation,
particularly to U.S. civil aviation.”[16]
Meanwhile, the
surveillance of Al-Qaeda operatives on
U.S. soil continued. Between 2000 and
2001, the CIA had made the FBI aware
of the names of about 100 suspected
members of bin Laden’s terrorist
network thought to be headed to, or
already in, the United States. A 23rd
August 2001 cable specifically
referred to Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq
Alhazmi, who were allegedly aboard the
hijacked airplane that crashed into
the Pentagon.[17]
Six months before 11th
September, U.S. agencies became aware
through authoritative intelligence
warnings that bin Laden was planning
to implement Project Bojinka soon.
Three months later, these warnings
were repeated. The warnings were,
again, not dismissed. On the contrary,
the U.S. intelligence community took
the reports very seriously.
Newsbytes, an online division of
the Washington Post, reported
in mid-September that:
“U.S. and Israeli
intelligence agencies received warning
signals at least three months ago that
Middle Eastern terrorists were
planning to hijack commercial aircraft
to use as weapons to attack important
symbols of American and Israeli
culture, according to a story in
Germany’s daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
The FAZ, quoting
unnamed German intelligence sources,
said that the Echelon spy network was
being used to collect information
about the terrorist threats, and that
U.K. intelligence services apparently
also had advance warning. The FAZ, one
of Germany’s most respected dailies,
said that even as far back as six
months ago western and near-east press
services were receiving information
that such attacks were being planned.
Within the American intelligence
community, the warnings were taken
seriously and surveillance
intensified, the FAZ said.”
[18]
The last
comment—“Within the American
intelligence community, the warnings
were taken seriously”—is crucial. It
clearly indicates that in response to
the ECHELON warnings, the entire U.S.
intelligence community—all U.S.
intelligence agencies—were on alert
for a Project Bojinka-style attack,
and consequently intensified
surveillance. The New Yorker
further reports that according to
Richard A. Clarke, U.S. National
Coordinator for Counterterrorism in
the White House, about ten weeks
before 11th September, the
U.S. intelligence community was
convinced that a terrorist attack by
Al-Qaeda on U.S. soil was imminent.
Seven to eight weeks prior to the 11th
September attacks, all internal U.S.
security agencies were warned of an
impending Al-Qaeda attack against the
Untied States that would likely occur
in several weeks time. This warning
coincided with the second ECHELON
warning cited before:
“Meanwhile,
intelligence had been streaming in
concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack.
‘It all came together in the third
week in June,’ Clarke said. ‘The
C.I.A.’s view was that a major
terrorist attack was coming in the
next several weeks.’ On July 5th,
Clarke summoned all the domestic
security agencies—the Federal Aviation
Administration, the Coast Guard,
Customs, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.—and
told them to increase their security
in light of an impending attack.”
[19]
It is apparent then
that all U.S. intelligence agencies
were fully expecting an impending
attack by Al-Qaeda by the beginning of
July 2001, and moreover that the U.S.
intelligence community was aware that
“terrorists were planning to hijack
commercial aircraft to use as weapons
to attack important symbols of
American… culture.” In other words,
the U.S. intelligence community was
anticipating a Project Bojinka-style
attack. Among the buildings identified
as “symbolic of American culture” in
Al-Qaeda’s Project Bojinka plans,
known by U.S. intelligence, was the
World Trade Center. That the WTC was
an extremely likely target is further
clear from the fact that operatives
linked to Osama bin Laden had
previously targeted the Twin Towers in
a failed bombing attempt. As a
consequence, the entire domestic
intelligence and security apparatus
seems to have been alerted to increase
relevant security and surveillance.
Warnings of the
impending attack continued to be
received thereafter. Approximately 4
weeks prior to 11th
September, the CIA received specific
information of an attack on U.S. soil.
The Associated Press reports that:
“Officials also said the CIA had
developed general information a month
before the attacks that heightened
concerns that bin Laden and his
followers were increasingly determined
to strike on U.S. soil.” A CIA
official affirmed that: “There was
something specific in early August
that said to us that he was determined
in striking on U.S. soil.” AP
elaborates that: “The information
prompted the CIA to issue a warning to
federal agencies.”
[20]
It was further
revealed by a United Press
International (UPI) report by U.S.
terrorism correspondent Richard Sale
on ECHELON’s monitoring of bin Laden
and other terrorist groups that:
“The targets of
Echelon center on the penetration of
the major components of most of the
world’s telephone and
telecommunications systems. This could
cover conversations NSA targets. Also
included are all the telexes carried
over the world’s telecommunications
networks, along with financial
dealings: money transfers, airline
destinations, stock information, data
on demonstrations or international
conferences, and much more.”
ECHELON’s
effectiveness against bin Laden’s
network was further revealed in
relation to a case against him in a
U.S. District Court in Manhattan,
illustrating that the National
Security Agency was able to penetrate
bin Laden’s most secure
communications. The case, Sale noted,
“is based mainly on National Security
Agency intercepts of phone calls
between bin Laden and his operatives
around the world—Afghanistan to
London, from Kenya to the United
States.”
The technology had
been used since at least 1995. Ben
Venzke, Director of Intelligence and
Special Projects for iDefense, a
Virginia information warfare firm, is
also quoted: “Since Bin Laden started
to encrypt certain calls in 1995, why
would they now be part of a court
record? ‘Codes were broken,’ U.S.
officials said, and Venzke added that
‘you don’t use your highest levels of
secure communications all the time.
It’s too burdensome and it exposes it
to other types of exploitation..’” The
UPI report clarifies that much of the
evidence in the case had been obtained
in ECHELON intercepts subsequent to
the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in
East Africa.[21]
Given that U.S. officials “believe the
planning for the Sept. 11 attacks
probably began two years ago,”
information on preparations for the
attacks should have been available to,
and picked up by, ECHELON.
[22]
Confirmation that
U.S. intelligence had been
successfully monitoring Al-Qaeda’s
communications right through to the
aftermath of 11th September
came from Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a
conservative Republican with wide
contacts in the national security
establishment. On the day of the
attacks, Hatch stated that the U.S.
government had been monitoring Osama
bin Laden’s communications
electronically, and had thus
intercepted two bin Laden aides
celebrating the attacks: “They have an
intercept of some information that
included people associated with bin
Laden who acknowledged a couple of
targets were hit.”
[23]
ABC News
further reported that shortly before
11th September, the U.S.
National Security Agency intercepted
“multiple phone calls from Abu
Zubaida, bin Laden’s chief of
operations, to the United States.” The
information contained in these
intercepted phone calls has not been
disclosed.
[24]
Given that ECHELON
was monitoring Osama bin Laden and Al‑Qaeda,
and even breaking their secure codes,
the implications are alarming. As
Canadian social philosopher Professor
John McMurtry of Guelph University,
Ontario, has noted in this connection:
“The pervasive
Echelon surveillance apparatus and the
most sophisticated intelligence
machinery ever built is unlikely not
to have eavesdropped on some of the
very complicated organisation and
plans across states and boundaries for
the multi-site hijacking of planes
from major security structures across
the U.S.—especially since the suicide
pilots were trained as pilots in the
U.S., and the World Trade Centre had
already been bombed in 1993 by Afghan
ex-allies of the CIA. Since the prime
suspect, Osama bin Laden, is himself
an ex-CIA operative in Afghanistan,
and his moves presumably under the
intensest scrutiny for past successful
terrorist attacks on two U.S.
embassies in 1998, one has to reflect
on the connections.”
[25]
Air Authorities
Were Warned of Bojinka
It is worth noting
here that around the time of the first
ECHELON warnings, near the end of June
2001, Airjet Airline World News also
issued a warning, specifying Project
Bojinka: “During the trial a Secret
Service agent testified that Yousef
boasted during his extradition flight
to New York that he would have blown
up several jumbo jets within a few
weeks if his plan had not been
discovered. The government said the
defendants even devised a name for
their airline terror plot named,
‘Project Bojinka’… The airlines are at
risk—They need to take all appropriate
measures and counter-measures to
ensure the safety of their
passengers.”
[26]
The White House National Coordinator
for Counterterrorism, Richard Clarke,
had also given direct warning to the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
to increase security measures in light
of an impending terrorist attack in
July 2001.[27]
The FAA refused to take such measures.
Former Federal Air
Safety Inspector Rodney Stich, who has
50 years of experience in aviation and
air safety, had warned the FAA about
the danger of skyjacking, specifically
highlighting the fact that cockpit
doors weren’t secure, and further that
pilots should be allowed to carry
basic weapons. The FAA refused to
implement his suggestions, and when it
became apparent the threat was real,
they blocked efforts to arm pilots, or
to place air marshals on planes, among
other security measures. In an
extensive study of the subject, Stich
observes that:
“Federal
inspectors… had years earlier reported
the hijacking threat and the simple
inexpensive measures to prevent
hijackers from taking control of the
aircraft. Numerous fatal hijackings
further proved the need for urgent
preventative measures. Instead of
taking the legally required corrective
actions, arrogant and corrupt FAA
management personnel destroyed
official reports of the dangers and
the need for corrective actions;
warned air safety inspectors not to
submit reports that would make the
office look bad when there is a crash
related to the known problems;
threatened inspectors who took
corrective actions or continued to
make reports—even though crashes from
these uncorrected safety problems
continued to occur.”
[28]
The Los Angeles
Times corroborates this
assessment: “Federal bureaucracy and
airline lobbying slowed and weakened a
set of safety improvements recommended
by a presidential commission—including
one that a top airline industry
official now says might have prevented
the Sept. 11 terror attacks…
“The White House
Commission on Aviation Safety and
Security, created in 1996 after TWA
Flight 800 crashed off Long Island,
N.Y., recommended 31 steps that it
said were urgently needed to provide a
multilayered security system at the
nation's airports... The Federal
Aviation Administration expressed
support for the proposals, which
ranged from security inspections at
airports to tighter screening of mail
parcels, and the Clinton
administration vowed to rigorously
monitor the changes. But by Sept. 11,
most of the proposals had been watered
down by industry lobbying or were
bogged down in bureaucracy, a Times
review found.”
[29]
The U.S. government
thus bears direct responsibility for
this state of affairs, by consistently
failing to comply with its avowed
responsibility to “rigorously monitor”
and enforce the required changes.
Larry Klayman, Chairman and General
Counsel of Judicial Watch, the
Washington-based legal watchdog,
comments that: “It is now
apparent—given the near total lack of
security at U.S. airports and
elsewhere—that the U.S. government has
not been forthright with the American
people…
“During the last
eight years of scandal during the
Clinton administration, and the first
eight months of the Bush
Administration, reports this morning
confirm that little to nothing was
done to secure our nation’s airports
and transportation systems as a
whole—despite warnings. Instead,
cosmetic reform of education, social
security, taxes, and other less
important issues were given
precedence. In addition, the American
people were led to believe that
appropriate anti-terrorist counter
measures were being taken. Instead of
telling the truth so the problems
could be addressed, politicians
painted a rosy picture in order to be
elected and re-elected.”
[30]
This is clearly more
than a case of incompetence. This
systematic inaction, despite
escalating warnings of a terrorist
threat to the U.S. from the air,
indicates wilful and reckless
negligence of the highest order on the
part of the U.S. government, rooted in
sheer indifference to the potential
loss in American lives.
Intensification
of Surveillance After Confirmation of
Bojinka Plans
It is against this
backdrop that the multiple
intelligence warnings of an impending
terrorist act by bin Laden’s
operatives should be assessed.
Clearly, on the basis of the 1995
revelations about Project Bojinka,
coupled with the authoritative
warnings in 2001 from America’s own
ECHELON network among others, “the
American intelligence community” was
aware that bin Laden was planning
imminent attacks on U.S. soil through
the hijacking of civilian airliners to
be used as bombs against key buildings
“symbolic of American culture.” Among
the buildings in Washington and New
York known to be on bin Laden’s list
of targets was the World Trade Centre.
Project Bojinka, in
other words, was underway. U.S.
intelligence agencies subsequently
intensified their surveillance, and in
doing so began tracking suspected
terrorists. This indicates that the
U.S. intelligence community had
intensified surveillance by its
various agencies in direct response to
fears of a Project Bojinka-style
attack on U.S. soil, orchestrated by
Osama bin Laden.
It is appropriate
then to consider in more detail the
findings of this surveillance.
WorldNetDaily, the Internet news
service of the U.S.-based non-profit
Western Journalism Center, reports
some pertinent revelations in this
respect:
“The FBI and other
federal law enforcement agencies also
knew that two of the hijackers were in
the country, according to the Los
Angeles Times. They were on a
terrorist watch list. But the airlines
were not notified… The FBI had several
terrorists under surveillance,
according to the Oct. 1 issue of
Newsweek. They intercepted
communications just prior to Sept. 11
that suggested something very big was
about to happen… Still, there were
more clues. Zacarias Moussaoui was
arrested after flight trainers tipped
off the feds that he wanted to learn
how to fly a 747 but wasn’t interested
in takeoffs or landings. Zacarias was
traveling on a French passport. When
contacted, the French government
reported that he was a suspected
terrorist [linked to Osama Bin
Laden].”[31]
Reuters reported in
relation to Zacarias that: “The FBI
arrested an Islamic militant in Boston
last month and received French
intelligence reports linking him to
Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden
but apparently did not act on them,” a
French radio station said on Thursday…
“Europe 1 radio
reported that U.S. police arrested a
man with dual French and Algerian
nationality who had several passports,
technical information on Boeing
aircraft and flight manuals. The man
had been taking flying lessons, it
added. Asked for information by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation,
French security services provided a
dossier clearly identifying him as an
Islamic militant working with bin
Laden.”[32]
At the time of his
arrest, Zacarias had been in
possession of technical information on
Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. It
was on 26th August that the
FBI headquarters was informed by
French intelligence that Zacarias had
ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Despite the confirmation of his
involvement in bin Laden’s terrorist
network, a special counterterrorism
panel of the FBI and CIA reviewed the
information against him, but concluded
there was insufficient evidence that
he represented a threat. The Minnesota
flight school, Pan Am International
Flight Academy, where Zacarias had
been training, also warned the FBI in
no uncertain terms.
As the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune reported,
“Moussaoui raised suspicions at the
Pan Am International Flight Academy in
Egan [Minnesota]” when he attended the
Academy in August 2001 to learn how to
fly jumbo jets. He “first raised
eyebrows when, during a simple
introductory exchange, he said he was
from France, but then didn’t seem to
understand when the instructor spoke
French to him… Moussaoui then became
belligerent and evasive about his
background… In addition, he seemed
inept in basic flying procedures,
while seeking expensive training on an
advanced commercial jet simulator.”
[33]
Even the flight
school’s own employees “began
whispering that he could be a
hijacker.” Director of Operations at
the Academy John Rosengren recounts
how Zacarias’ instructor was
“concerned and wondered why someone
who was not a pilot and had so little
experience was trying to pack so much
training into such a short time… ‘The
more he was able to talk to him, the
more he decided he was not pilot
material… There was discussion about
how much fuel was on board a 747-400
and how much damage that could cause
if it hit anything.’”
[34]
So the instructor contacted the FBI,
as the San Francisco Chronicle
reported:
“An instructor at
a Minnesota flight school warned the
FBI in August of his suspicion that a
student who was later identified as a
part of Osama bin Laden’s terror
network might be planning to use a
commercial plane loaded with fuel as a
weapon, a member of Congress and other
officials said yesterday. The
officials, who were briefed by the
school, said the instructor warned the
FBI in urgent tones about the
terrorist threat posed by the student,
Zacarias Moussaoui.
According to U.S.
Representative James L. Oberstar of
Minnesota, the instructor called the
bureau several times to find someone
in authority who seemed willing to act
on the information. His warnings could
not have been more blunt. Oberstar
noted that: ‘He told them, ‘Do you
realize that a 747 loaded with fuel
can be used as a bomb?’
Congressional
officials said the account by the
school, the Pan Am International
Flight Academy in Eagan, outside
Minneapolis, raised new questions
about why the FBI and other agencies
did not prevent the hijackings… [The
flight instructor] was a former
military pilot who grew suspicious
after encounters in which Moussaoui
was belligerent and evasive about his
background and because he was so
adamant about learning to fly a 747
jumbo jet despite his clear
incompetence as a pilot. Moussaoui,
33, was arrested in August on
immigration charges. But despite the
urging of the school and federal
agents in Minnesota and despite a
warning from the French that Moussaoui
was linked to Muslim extremists, FBI
headquarters resisted opening a
broader investigation until after
Sept. 11.”
[35]
Indeed, the U.S.
government actively prevented a
further investigation from being
conducted. Local FBI investigators in
Minneapolis had immediately viewed
Zacarias as a terrorist suspect and
sought authorisation for a special
counterintelligence surveillance
warrant in order to search the hard
drive of his home computer. The
government’s Justice Department plus
top FBI officials blocked an FBI
request for a national security
warrant to search Zacarias’ computer,
claiming that FBI agents lacked
sufficient information to meet the
legal requirements to justify the
warrant. The block remained in place
even after the notification from
French intelligence that Zacarias was
linked to bin Laden.[36]
According to ABC
News, however, at the time the Justice
Department justified the refusal of a
warrant by claiming that there was
insufficient evidence connecting
Zacarias to any known terrorist group:
“Moussaoui was taken into custody on
August 16, but to the outrage of FBI
agents in the field, headquarters was
slow to react and said he could not be
connected to any known terror group.”
[37]
This was despite the information from
French intelligence demonstrating the
latter’s links to Osama bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda. While some law enforcement
officials justify the block as a legal
necessity, others strongly disagree
that such justification has any real
basis in law. “That decision is being
questioned by some FISA experts, who
say it’s possible a warrant would have
been granted,” reported Greg Gordon.
“The special court that reviews FISA
requests has approved more than 12,000
Justice Department applications for
covert search warrants and wiretaps
and rejected only one since the act
was passed in 1978, according to
government reports.”[38]
MS-NBC has similarly reported that:
“…other law
enforcement officials are equally
insistent that a more aggressive probe
of Moussaoui—when combined with other
intelligence in the possession of U.S.
agencies—might have yielded sufficient
clues about the impending plot. ‘The
question being asked here is if they
put two and two together, they could
have gotten a lot more information
about the guy—if not stopped the
hijacking,’ said one investigator.”
[39]
The New York
Times comments that the Moussaoui
case “raised new questions about why
the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and other agencies did not prevent the
hijackings.”
[40]
The U.S. response to
Mohamed Atta, the alleged lead
hijacker, was even more extraordinary.
The German public TV channel, ARD,
reported on 23rd November,
2001, that Mohamed Atta was subject to
telephone monitoring by the Egyptian
secret service. The latter had found
that Atta had made at least one recent
visit to Afghanistan from his home in
Hamburg, Germany. The FBI had also
been monitoring Atta’s movements for
several months in 2000, when he
traveled several times from Hamburg to
Frankfurt and bought large quantities
of chemicals potentially usable in
making explosives. Atta’s name had
also been mentioned in a Hamburg phone
call between Islamic fundamentalists
monitored by the German police in
1999.
[41]
In January 2001,
Atta was permitted reentry into the
United States after a trip to Germany,
despite being in violation of his visa
status. He had landed in Miami on 10th
January on a flight from Madrid on a
tourist visa—yet he
had told immigration inspectors that
he was taking flying lessons in the
U.S., for which an M-1 student visa is
strictly required. Jeanne Butterfield,
Executive Director of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association,
points out that: “Nine times out of
10, they would have told him to go
back and file [for that status]
overseas. You’re not supposed to come
in as a visitor for pleasure and go to
work or school.”
[42]
PBS’ Frontlines also
takes note of “The failure of the INS
to stop the attack’s ringleader,
Mohamed Atta, from entering the U.S.
three times on a tourist visa in 2001,
even though officials knew the visa
had expired in 2000 and Atta had
violated its terms by taking flight
lessons.”
[43]
This failure should
be evaluated in context with the fact
that Atta had been under FBI
surveillance for stockpiling
bomb-making materials. Furthermore,
Canadian TV reported that Atta had
already been implicated in a terrorist
bombing in Israel, with the
information passed on to the United
States before he was first issued his
tourist visa.
[44]
Yet despite these
blatant terrorist connections, Atta
was still allowed into the United
States freely, and made repeated trips
to Europe, each time returning to the
U.S., and being admitted by U.S.
customs and immigration without
obstruction—not
because visa regulations were lax, but
because they were willfully violated.
The London Observer notes in
surprise that Atta:
“… was under
surveillance between January and May
last year after he was reportedly
observed buying large quantities of
chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for
the production of explosives and for
biological warfare… The U.S. agents
reported to have trailed Atta are said
to have failed to inform the German
authorities about their investigation.
The disclosure that Atta was being
trailed by police long before 11
Sept
