Killtown's

9/11 coincidences and oddities page!

(and other note worthy tidbits.)

 

Pre 2001 • 2001 • 9/11 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006

 

Last updated:  01/01/2007

(Use the Wayback Machine for expired links.)

• January 2, 2004 - Reporter John Buchanan, who published documentary proof of Bush's grandfather's and great-grandfather's Nazi link,  launches his campaign bid for the Republican nomination against President Bush in which one of his main issues is to end Bush's "cover-up of September 11th".

"The veteran journalist who made history last October when he published in The New Hampshire Gazette documentary proof that the grandfather and great-grandfather of President George W. Bush were Nazi traitors to their country will officially launch his campaign against Bush in the Presidential primaries with an appearance on Monday, January 5 at the New Hampshire Political Action Association’s Presidential Candidates Forum, the oldest such event in the state’s long history of explosive, confrontational politics.
“My three issues,” says Buchanan, a 53-year-old native of Virginia, “are the unanswered and troubling questions about 9/11 and ongoing attempts by the Bush administration to obstruct any investigation of what happened and who is accountable; the campaign of lies and deceit that led to the Iraq war, which is nothing but a war profiteering scam, and Bush’s violation of major campaign promises and core Republican values, from ‘no nation-building’ to the biggest deficit in history.”
“The American people have to right to know, based on the facts and sworn testimony, whether the President of the United States is a liar and war criminal,” says Buchanan. “If he led us to war, costing nearly 500 American lives and thousands of Iraqi deaths, or he was complicit in allowing the tragedy of 9/11 to happen, costing almost 3,000 lives, he is guilty of treason and should be held accountable.”" - DC Indymedia (1/02/04)

"Do you think George W. Bush misled us about the reasons for sacrificing over 400 brave American lives and $166 billion in Iraq - while he gives billion-dollar no-bid contracts to Halliburton?
Do you want an end to secret government, "outing" of CIA officers, domestic spying under the un-American USA Patriot Act, and official coverups - including the coverup of September 11th?" - Buchanan for President 2004

Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed, by John Buchanan
"After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners." - New Hampshire Gazette (10/10/03)

 

• January 11, 2004 - The Barreling Bushes:  Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest.

"Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.
As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens — though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden — going back to the 1970s.
Eldest son George W. Bush made his first Middle East connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) — billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using Bin Laden-Bin Mahfouz funds.
After losing his bid for a second term as president, [George H.W.] Bush joined up in 1993 with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the company's Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors. Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them.
Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family's ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, "There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis." - LA Times (01/11/04)

(Also see:  1997 - Taleban meet in Texas with Unocal.)

 

• January 13, 2004 - The truth is out there - but many prefer a good conspiracy

"Meanwhile conspiracists are running amok in Europe. First there was the claim by the French commentator Thierry Meyssan in his book The Frightening Fraud [The Big Lie] that September 11 was a US-initiated conspiracy to justify military action. In particular, he claims that "no plane crashed into the Pentagon" - but has yet to account for what happened to American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, 2001 - along with its passengers and crew.
Similar theories abound in Germany. In his book Conspiracies, Conspiracy Theories and the Secrets of September 11, Mathias Brockers alleges that the US - with Israel, of course - blew up the World Trade Centre from the inside. It was a plot by the neo-conservatives (of course) to take over the world. So what about the images of the plane flying into the Twin Towers? Well, they were flown by remote control as part of the cover-up. Convenient, eh? Brockers is a former minister in Helmut Schmidt's social democratic government." - Sydney Morning Herald (01/13/04)

 

• January 13, 2004 - Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says President Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11, releases a Treasury Department memo which contains a military plan of a "post-Saddam Iraq" marked secret.

O'Neill denies use of secret papers

"Ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Tuesday he doesn't believe he gave classified documents to the author of a new book about the Bush administration, but said he wished he could take back unflattering comments he made about President Bush.

O'Neill gave author Ron Suskind two compact discs containing 19,000 documents from his 23 months as Bush's Treasury chief.

A document said to contain plans for "post-Saddam Iraq," and marked "secret," was shown during an interview on the CBS program "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. But O'Neill said the page displayed was only a cover sheet, not the classified document itself.

Suskind's book, "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill," was published Tuesday. It has drawn attention in large part because O'Neill said Iraq was on the president's agenda from his first days in office.

"I was surprised, as I've said in the book, that Iraq was given such a high priority," he told NBC.

In the book, Suskind says that O'Neill -- the former CEO of aluminum producer Alcoa, who sat on the National Security Council as treasury chief -- told him, "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it -- the president saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.' "

Several Democratic presidential candidates seized on O'Neill's comments to argue that the Bush administration misled Americans about the need for war with Iraq, where nearly 500 American troops have been killed since March.

Bush repeated his argument Monday that his administration turned to war with Iraq only after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington changed the way U.S. officials viewed Baghdad's suspected weapons programs." - CNN Money (01/13/04)

O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

"The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told CBS, according to excerpts released Saturday by the network. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap." - CNN (01/14/04)

 

(See also:  January 31, 2001 - Treasury Department memo contains military plan for a post-Saddam Iraq marked secret)

 

• January 15, 2004 - Two of the 9/11 Commission's own senior officials, Philip Zelikow and Jamie Gorelick, were so closely involved in the events under investigation that they have been interviewed as part of the inquiry.

"The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, faced angry questions Thursday after revelations that two of its own senior officials were so closely involved in the events under investigation that they have been interviewed as part of the inquiry.
Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new administration took power, advising his longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, on the incoming National Security Council.
The news was greeted with dismay by many of the relatives of the victims who campaigned for the commission to be set up.
"This is beginning to look like a whitewash," Kristen Breitweizer, who lost her husband Ron in tower two of the World Trade Center, told United Press International.
Jamie S. Gorelick, one of the 10 members of the commission itself, and the other official who has answered investigators' questions, was deputy attorney general in Janet Reno's Justice Department during the Clinton administration.
The families have said for many months that they are not happy with Zelikow's role, which they argue creates at least an appearance of a conflict of interest. They were furious Thursday that they learned from the newspapers he had given evidence.
"Did he interview himself about his own role in the failures that left us defenseless?" asked Lori Van Auken, the widow of Kenneth. "This is bizarre."
Zelikow -- an historian based at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia -- has also come under fire from some critics for his close ties to senior administration officials. He has had a longstanding relationship with Rice, who hired him to work for her when she was a White House official in the first Bush administration. The two have written a book together.
More recently, some relatives have accused him of being in touch with White House political supreme Karl Rove -- the man widely believed to be the most powerful figure in the administration.
Zelikow, who the commission says has withdrawn himself from those parts of its investigation directly connected with the transition -- a process known as recusal -- was also appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in October 2001.
The board provides the White House with advice about the quality, adequacy and legality of the whole spectrum of intelligence activities.
Relatives say the news about Gorelick and Zelikow is a particularly sharp blow to the commission's credibility because they are the two officials to whom the White House has granted the greatest access to the most secret and sensitive national security documents, the presidential daily briefings.
Last year, officials acknowledged that one such briefing in August 2001, more than a month prior to the attacks, warned that al-Qaida was determined to strike in the United States. Some reports suggested that hijacking -- and even the use of airplanes as missiles -- was mentioned as the mode of assault." - UPI (01/15/04) [Archived:  Wayback Machine]

(See also:  December 18, 2003 - Sept. 11 Panel: Bush, Clinton Not to Blame; January 19, 2004 - Bush and Speaker Hastert oppose granting more time to 9/11 Commission)

 

• January 15, 2004 - A meeting of TV anchormen and their bosses with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge discuss how they'll cover the next terrorist attack.

"STEVEN Brill had a summit meeting of TV anchormen and their bosses over dinner at his Fifth Avenue apartment on Tuesday night with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to discuss how they'll cover the next terrorist attack. Brill, whose book "After" detailed the response to 9/11, spearheads the America Prepared Campaign to educate the public. Joining Brill, his wife Cynthia and two of their three kids for dinner were Fox News Channel boss Roger Ailes, ABC News prexie David Westin, CBS News chief Andrew Heyward, CNN anchor Aaron Brown, plus Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw." -  NY Post

 

• January 16, 2004 - The U.S. military is continuing to withhold documents over Cold War WMD tests it conducted on over 5,800 soldiers -- many unsuspecting -- during 1960 - 1972.

"The Pentagon is continuing to withhold documents on Cold War chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting sailors as "human samplers" after telling Congress it had released all medically relevant information.
In response to questions from The Associated Press about a deposition last month by a former military scientist, J. Clifton Spendlove, who planned and supervised the testing program, the Defense Department acknowledged this week it still has documents laying out the scope and methods of the tests.
Detailed planning documents and reports for each of the tests are classified because they identify vulnerabilities of military vessels to chemical and biological warfare agents and capabilities for delivering the agents, the Pentagon said in a response to questions from the AP.
The secretive tests involved 5,842 soldiers and sailors — many of whom were unwitting guinea pigs.
After a three-year investigation that Pentagon officials characterized as "exhaustive," the Defense Department released an overview of the tests and a series of fact sheets last June and then disbanded the probe.
But the overview and fact sheets didn't acknowledge the documents and films that were obtained by the plaintiffs and authenticated by Spendlove, including results of tests to determine how much of the chemical simulants the "human samplers" were exposed to."
The United States scrapped its biological weapons program in the late 1960s and agreed in a 1997 treaty to destroy all its chemical weapons. But according to an October 2003 report by the General Accounting Office, 1990, the U.S. has destroyed only 26 percent of its 31,500-ton stockpile of chemical agents." - CBS (1/16/04)

(See also:  1962 to 1970 - U.S. military secretly tests WMD's on over 5,800 soldiers; July 1, 2003 - U.S. military releases their final findings into the testing of WMD's on thousands of unsuspecting soldiers)

 

• January 16, 2004 - Halliburton, V.P. Dick Cheney's former company, wins a competitive bid on a two-year contract worth $1.2 billion to rebuild the oil industry in southern Iraq despite a Pentagon probe into alleged overcharging for fuel delivered to Iraq.

"Despite a Pentagon probe into alleged overcharging for fuel delivered to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company yesterday was awarded a $1.2 billion contract to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.
Halliburton won a competitive bid on a two-year contract to rebuild the oil industry in southern Iraq, the Army Corps of Engineers said. The northern Iraq contract, worth up to $800 million, went to a joint venture of California-based Parsons Corp. and the Australian firm Worley Group.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency last month said KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, charged more than double the price for gasoline brought in from Kuwait than it did for gas trucked in from Turkey. Auditors said KBR may have overcharged the Army by $61 million.
Pentagon auditors this week asked for an investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing.
Halliburton has denied any wrongdoing and said the Kuwaiti government designated the supplier, Altanmia Marketing, and that the U.S. Army approved the subcontract.
A Corps of Engineers document released Thursday says Halliburton chose the high-priced Kuwaiti supplier in one day after considering bids from only three companies." - Seattle Times (01/17/04)

 

• January 19, 2004 - President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to the 9/11 Commission investigation.

"President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week.
A growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel that they oppose any delay, which raises the possibility that Sept. 11-related controversies could emerge during the heat of the presidential campaign, sources said.
Public hearings in coming months will include testimony from key Cabinet members in the Bush and Clinton administrations. The likely roster will include Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, CIA Director George J. Tenet, former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, former defense secretary William S. Cohen, and the current and former directors of the FBI, two officials said. The next hearing, scheduled over two days beginning Jan. 26, will focus on border and aviation security issues.
Commission representatives are also negotiating to secure private testimony from President Bush, former president Bill Clinton, Vice President Cheney and former vice president Al Gore. None of the four would be likely to be asked to testify publicly, several sources said.
Several relatives have also strongly criticized the commission's executive director, Philip Zelikow, because of his ties to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials.
Zelikow has recused himself from issues connected to his role as an administration adviser in the early weeks of Bush's term, but he was also interviewed several months ago as a witness by the commission, officials said. Commission member Jamie Gorelick, a Democrat who served in the Clinton Justice Department, has also been interviewed as a witness, officials said.
Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the World Trade Center, said the interviews underscore a conflict-of-interest problem at the commission and cast serious doubts on the panel's credibility.
"We've had it," said Breitweiser, who met with several commission leaders last week. "It is such a slap in the face of the families of victims. They are dishonoring the dead with their irresponsible behavior." Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said Zelikow and Gorelick were among more than 800 witnesses who have been interviewed so far and said their experiences in national security are relevant to the panel's investigation. "Whether these people were involved in this commission or not, they may have well made this list because of the perspective they would have had about the work of the government during the time in question," he said." - Washington Post (01/19/04)

(See also:  January 15, 2004 - 9/11 Commission interviews two of it's own members; January 29, 2004 - Battle Over 9/11 Panel's Deadline Intensifies; April 29, 2004 - Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, meet behind closed doors with 9/11 Commission instead of testifying before public panel and were not under oath)

 

• January 19, 2004 - Watchdog groups question Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia going on a hunting trip and having a private dinner together along with Donald Rumsfeld after the Supreme Court had agreed to hear a lawsuit over Cheney's private energy meetings with energy industry lobbyists including former Enron CEO Ken Lay.

"Justice Antonin Scalia has not indicated whether he will pull out a of an upcoming Supreme Court case involving Vice President Cheney, following reports the two recently went on a hunting trip and had dinner together.
Scalia denies doing anything improper.
Cheney invited Scalia, an old friend, to Louisiana earlier this month to hunt waterfowl on a private reserve. The trip occurred three weeks after the court agreed to hear the case, scheduled for sometime in April. Details of the trip were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The two also had a private dinner with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Maryland's Eastern Shore in November, when the justices were still considering Cheney's appeal.
Cheney is fighting a federal court's order that he release internal files of a task force he headed for the Bush administration. A lawsuit claims he made improper contacts with energy industry lobbyists when developing government policy.
The White House has argued the courts and Congress have no business making inquiries, even limited ones, into the decision-making power of federal agencies and offices. Cheney has said executive power needs to be increased in such confidentiality cases.
Cheney's task force met throughout in 2001 and developed a report recommending opening more federal land to oil, natural gas and coal development. That includes the remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. Such development has become a political rallying point for both environmentalists and pro-energy forces.
Among the task force advisers was former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay.
A lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a private watchdog group, and the Sierra Club, an environmental organization, seeks to gather records related to the task force.
Attorneys for the groups say they want to know whether lobbyists for the energy industry privately helped craft the U.S. government's long-term energy policy." - CNN (01/19/04)

 

• January 22, 2004 - Report: bin Laden held; U.S. denies bin Laden caught.

"Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been captured, Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported Thursday.
The newspaper, on its Web site, cited "unconfirmed reports" as the basis for its report." - Interest!ALERT/UPI (1/22/04)

"The United States has denied al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been captured, Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported Thursday.
The newspaper, on its Web site, earlier cited "unconfirmed reports" as saying the al-Qaida leader had been captured." - Washington Times (1/22/04)

(See also:  December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies)

 

 

• January 22, 2004 - Todd Beamer's father's parent company, EMC, wins a $40 million Pentagon contract.

 

Pentagon Awards EMC $40 Million Contract

"EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage and management, today announced a $40 million competitive award of EMC's networked storage, business continuity software and open management software for the Pentagon Renovation Office (PENREN), a large-scale initiative to modernize the Department of Defense's IT infrastructure. PENREN supports multiple agencies within the Pentagon, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army, Navy, Air Force and the Marine Corps.
PENREN intends to use the new contract to build on the Pentagon's existing infrastructure of one petabyte-plus of EMC networked storage and advance its information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy for optimally managing and storing information throughout its useful life, thereby lowering operational costs and improving data availability. In a separate $4.3 million award, PENREN will utilize LEGATO Software's business continuity solutions for automated monitoring and failover of critical applications coupled with EMC's SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility) and Global Services (see separate LEGATO news release)." - EMC (01/22/04)

 

(See also:  December 15, 2003 - Beamer's company EMC's Legato Software is awarded a $4.3 million Pentagon contract)

 

• January 22, 2004 - Terror trial witness links Iran to 9/11.

"On what had been the eve of his widely expected acquittal, the trial of the second person charged by German authorities as an accomplice of the Sept. 11 hijackers was thrown into turmoil Wednesday after prosecutors disclosed the existence of a surprise witness purporting to link Iran to the hijackings.
The mysterious witness, who goes by the name Hamid Reza Zakeri and claims to have been a longtime member of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigators that the Sept. 11 plot represented what one termed a "joint venture" between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and the Iranian government." - Chicago Tribune (01/22/04)

 

• January 23, 2004 - Final WTC death toll at 2,749 with only 1,538 confirmed by matching with remains.

"Three names have been removed from the list of those killed in the World Trade Center attack, bringing the death toll to 2,749, which could stand as the final count, the medical examiner's office said Friday.
Two weeks after the attack, the number of missing-person reports peaked at 6,886 amid confusion and calls from frantic relatives. The number stood at 2,792 from December 2002 until October, when 40 unsolved cases were removed from the list.
Only 1,538 of the confirmed victims have been matched to remains. More than 1,200 others are listed solely on the basis of court-issued death certificates, which were provided to families who could prove their loved ones were in the trade center at the time of the attack." - Guardian (01/23/04)

 

• January 23, 2004 - Ex-U.S. arms hunter David Kay says no stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq.

"David Kay, who stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said on Friday he does not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.
"I don't think they existed," Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s," he said.
The United States went to war against Baghdad last year citing a threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. No actual banned arms have been found." - ABC (01/23/04)

 

• January 23, 2004 - Bush to ask for $401.7 billion defense budget, a 7 percent increase.

"President Bush will ask Congress to approve $401.7 billion in defense spending for the budget year that begins in October, a 7 percent increase over this year, the Pentagon announced Friday.
The money does not include the cost of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, the Pentagon is spending about $1 billion a week in Iraq and about $1 billion a month in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld said the budget reflects Bush's commitment to prosecuting a global war on terrorism.
One year ago, when the Pentagon announced its proposed budget for the current year, it projected that spending for 2005 would be $399.8 billion." - FOX (01/23/04)

 

• January 23, 2004 - Halliburton workers took $6 million worth of kickbacks from a Kuwaiti company that was awarded contracts from the U.S. military.

"Two Halliburton Co. officials accepted up to $6 million in kickbacks from a Kuwaiti company that was awarded contracts to supply U.S. troops in Iraq, according to a newspaper report.
Halliburton disclosed the alleged impropriety to the Pentagon inspector general's office this week, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Friday.
The two employees, who have been fired, worked for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root in Kuwait, the same division of the company involved in a highly scrutinized gasoline contract, the Journal said.
The newspaper said the new allegations do not involve the gasoline controversy, in which the company charged the Army more than double the price for fuel brought in from Kuwait than for gas from Turkey.
Democrats have demanded further investigations into contracts awarded to Halliburton, which was formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney and has donated to the Bush campaign.
Critics have cited the Halliburton's contracts as evidence of the Bush administration's favoritism to corporate friends. White House and Pentagon officials say the Defense Department's contract decisions are not affected by political concerns." - FOX (01/23/04)

 

• January 23, 2004 - Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has been the focus of an investigation into the leak of classified intelligence intercepts linked to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has for months been the focus of an investigation into the leak of classified intelligence intercepts linked to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Shelby, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the attacks, denied that he or his staff knowingly leaked classified information and said he has no knowledge about where the 18-month-old investigation would head.
Two law enforcement officials and one former official, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said a grand jury in Washington has heard testimony about the disclosure in 2002 of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero day." The intercepts were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.
The intercepts had been disclosed by the NSA director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, during a private meeting of a joint House-Senate intelligence committee that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. Shelby was on the panel at the time.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who served with Shelby on the intelligence panel, said Thursday she and the Alabama senator had been privy to more secrets than others on the committee because of their senior status.
The investigation involves the FBI, CIA and NSA and is incomplete, the officials said. No decision has been made whether anyone will be prosecuted for knowingly leaking the classified material, which would be a felony if proved." - FOX (01/23/04)

 

• January 24, 2004 - The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after George Bush entered the White House three years ago, says former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. - CNN (01/24/04)

 

• January 24, 2004 - CIA Picks New Iraq Weapons Inspector

"The CIA named a new inspector to lead the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction Friday, choosing a veteran investigator who has expressed recent skepticism that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons that posed an immediate threat.
Charles Duelfer, the No. 2 United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq for much of the 1990s, is taking over the task of sorting out Saddam's weapons program. He said CIA Director George Tenet assured him he wanted one thing: ``That is the truth, wherever that lay.'' - Guardian (01/24/04)

 

• January 26, 2004 - A federal judge has declared a section of the USA Patriot Act unconstitutional that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
"A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.
"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.
Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles." - ABC (01/26/04)

(See also:  July 1, 2003 - Cities across the country have been quietly staging a revolt against the Patriot Act; February 2, 2005 - Ashcroft urges renewal of Patriot Act powers)

 

• January 26, 2004 - White House Retreats From Once-Confident Claims That Iraq Had Weapons of Mass Destruction

"The White House retreated Monday from its once-confident claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and Democrats swiftly sought to turn the about-face into an election-year issue against President Bush.
The administration's switch came after retired chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said he had concluded, after nine months of searching, that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of forbidden weapons. Asked about Kay's remarks, White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to repeat oft-stated assertions that prohibited weapons eventually would be found." - ABC (01/26/04)

 

• January 28, 2004 - The Bush Administration says they never used the word "imminent" to describe the threat they claim Iraq posed to the U.S. even though senior Bush aides agreed with this term in describing the threat from Iraq in exchanges with reporters and President Bush said the U.S. faces "clear evidence of peril" from Iraq in which the word "peril" means "imminent danger".

"THE White House today denied it ever warned that Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent" threat to the United States.
It is already smarting from the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
But if US President George W. Bush never called Saddam's Iraq an "imminent threat" in so many words, he said it was "urgent".
In an October 7, 2002 televised speech...he warned that Saddam "could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists" like the al-Qaeda network behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq," Rumsfeld testified to lawmakers in September 2002.
Other senior Bush aides shied away from using the word "imminent" but agreed with that characterisation in exchanges with reporters.
On January 26, 2003, CNN television asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett "is he (Saddam) an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
"Well, of course he is," Bartlett replied.
On May 7, 2003, a reporter asked then White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: "We went to war, didn't we, to find these – because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?"
"Absolutely. One of the reasons that we went to war was because of their possession of weapons of mass destruction. And nothing has changed on that front at all," the spokesman replied." - The Australian (01/28/04)

President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat
"Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril..." - White House (10/07/02)

Peril - 1a. Imminent danger.

 

• January 26, 2004 - Motorola Tied To Lawsuit On Radios at WTC

"The families of 12 firefighters killed in the World Trade Center collapse have added Motorola, Inc. as a defendant in their lawsuit over radio transmission problems that hampered the Fire Department's response during the attacks.
The families claim that the electronics manufacturer failed to tell the FDNY that its analog radios in use on Sept. 11, 2001 wouldn't work properly in a high-rise building.
As a result, the lawsuit says, firefighters working in the North Tower couldn't hear the evacuation order that commanders transmitted when the South Tower collapsed.
Of the 343 FDNY members killed in the Trade Center's collapse, 121 were in the North Tower. The families, which include relatives of firefighters from the North Tower, are seeking $5 billion in damages from the radio manufacturer and the city." - ufalocal94

 

• January 27, 2004 - Flight 11 Attendant on Sept. 11 Plane Calm in Tape of Conversation With Ground Crew

"Shortly before Flight 11 slammed into the World Trade Center, the American Airlines operations center received a calm phone call from one of its flight attendants.
"The cockpit is not answering their phone," said Betty Ong. "There's somebody stabbed in business class and, we can't breathe in business. Um, I think there is some Mace or something. We can't breathe. I don't know, but I think we're getting hijacked."
Ong, 45, known as "Bee," was on the American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001, before suspected 9-11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and four others took over the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the Trade Center.
Nydia Gonzalez, who was on duty at the operations center that morning, told the panel how she received Ong's call at about 8:20 a.m.
"Several media accounts of what occurred on Flight 11 claimed that Betty was 'hysterical with fear,' 'shrieking' and 'gasping for air,' she said. "Those accounts were wrong."
"In a very calm, professional and poised demeanor, Betty Ong relayed to us detailed information of the events unfolding on Flight 11," Gonzalez added. "I honestly believe after my conversation with Betty that the 81 passengers and new crew members on Flight 11 had no idea of the fate they were to encounter that day."
In the tape played before the commission, Ong tells the operations center her flight and seat number and describes the scene on board.
"We can't even get into the cockpit. We don't know who's there," Ong says, before the call ends in a dial tone." - ABC

 

• January 29, 2004 - Military is 'Sure' of Catching Bin Laden This Year

"The U.S. military is "sure" it will catch Usama bin Laden this year, perhaps within months, a spokesman declared Thursday, but Pakistan said it would not allow American troops to cross the border in search of the Al Qaeda leader." - FOX (01/29/04)

(See also:  December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies)

 

• January 29, 2004 - Battle Over 9/11 Panel's Deadline Intensifies

"Long-simmering tensions with the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks became a more immediate problem for the White House this week as the panel released a series of damaging revelations about missed opportunities to stop the al Qaeda hijackers and opposed the administration by asking for more time to complete its work, according to panel members and political experts." - Washington Post (01/28/04)

(See also:  January 19, 2004 - Bush and Speaker Hastert oppose granting more time to 9/11 Commission; March 23, 2004 - Gorelick referrers to the object heading towards the Pentagon on 9/11 as a "missile" when questioning Rumsfeld)

 

• January 31, 2004 - Killtown makes the prediction that Osama bin Laden will be "found" dead or alive before the next presidential election.

(See also:  December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies; October 29, 2004 - Four days before the 2004 Presidential elections, a new videotape of a "healthy looking" Osama Bin Laden airs in which he admits for the first time in public of ordering the attacks of 9/11; November 2, 2004 - Killtown's prediction that Osama bin Laden will be "found" dead or alive before the next presidential election fails to materialize; To date, the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden are still unknown.)

 

• March 4, 2004 - Retrial ordered for 9/11 suspect, Mounir el Motassadeq.

"A German appeals court has ordered a retrial of the only person convicted in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
The Federal Criminal Court ruled Thursday that the case involving Mounir el Motassadeq must be sent back to a lower court in Hamburg "for a new trial and decision," Presiding Judge Klaus Tolksdorf said.
Lawyers for the 29-year-old Moroccan argued that he was denied a fair trial because the U.S. refused to provide access to a key witness.
El Motassadeq, an electrical engineering student, is serving a 15-year prison sentence after a Hamburg court found him guilty in February 2003 of being an accessory to more than 3,000 murders in New York and Washington and being a member of a terrorist organization.
El Motassadeq's lawyers have asked the appeals court for acquittal or a retrial, alleging their client was wrongly convicted because the U.S. refused to allow court testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to be the Hamburg cell's key contact with al Qaeda.
Binalshibh was captured in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks and is in U.S. custody.
Motassadeq consistently denied the charges during his three-and-a-half-month trial and his lawyers were seeking an acquittal from the five-judge panel." - CNN (03/04/04)

(See also:  February 20, 2003 - A German court has sentenced Motassadeq for 15 years; April 8, 2004 - German court frees Mounir Motassadeq)

 

• March 11, 2004 - A terrorist bomb attack in Madrid, Spain (referred to as 3/11) blows up multiple commuter trains during rush hour exactly 911 days after 9/11.

 "At least 190 people were killed and 1,240 wounded Thursday as 10 bombs rocked three Madrid train stations during the height of the morning rush hour. The attack took place just three days before Spain's general elections.
A van containing several detonators and an Arabic-language tape of Koranic verses had been found near Madrid, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said later Thursday, announcing that new lines of investigation into the bombings were being opened.
Until that point, suspicion had focused on Spain's primary domestic terrorists, the Basque separatist group ETA (search).
The bombers used titadine (search), a kind of compressed dynamite, a source at Aznar's office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mansoor Ijaz, a foreign-affairs analyst for Fox News, said the attacks had many of the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda operation.
A total of 10 bombs, nearly all in backpacks, exploded in a 15-minute span along nine miles of the commuter line -- running from Santa Eugenia to the Madrid hub of Atocha -- killing 190 people and injuring more than 1,240, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.
Police found and detonated three other bombs.
The blasts began about 7:40 a.m., tearing through trains or platforms on the commuter line running to the Atocha station. At least two of the bombs went off in trains at that station." - FOX (03/11/04)

"Spanish officials, stunned by co-ordinated bomb blasts in Madrid on Thursday that killed 192 people and wounded more than 1 400, said they were keeping their lines of investigation open after clues emerged possibly implicating Basque or Islamic militants.
The atrocity, which Spanish media and officials described as "our own September 11", came exactly two and a half years after the attacks in New York and Washington, or 911 days, and just three days before general elections that the ruling conservative Popular Party is widely expected to win." - News 24 (03/12/04)

"Claim: 911 days separated the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain.
Status:  True." - Snopes.com

(See also:  9/11 - The most devastating and unprecedented terrorist attack in history happens against the United States of America, the world's mightiest superpower)

 

 

• March 13, 2004 - Donald Rumsfeld took a piece of the aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon as a souvenir.

 

Rumsfeld, senior FBI official took Sept. 11 souvenirs

"The Justice Department investigation that criticized FBI agents for taking souvenirs from the World Trade Center site also found that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a high-ranking FBI official kept items from the Sept. 11 attack scenes.
The final investigatory report said the Justice Department inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld "has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Friday.
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on Sept. 11, 2001.
"He doesn't consider it his own," Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. "We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them." - USA Today (03/13/04)

 

• March 14, 2004 - On CBS's Face the Nation, Donald Rumsfeld gets busted by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman for contradicting his claim the no one in the Bush Administration, including himself, said the Iraq posed an "imminent" threat to the United States.

"It seemed for a while that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's appearance Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" would degenerate into yet another tiresome "did so-did not" spat over whether anyone in the administration said Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed an "immediate threat" to the United States.
"You," Rumsfeld said to host Bob Schieffer, "and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase 'immediate threat.' I didn't; the president didn't." Despite that, "it's become kind of folklore that that's what's happened."
So New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, not previously known as a folklorist, pulled out a Rumsfeld quote from 2002. "Right here it says," Friedman said, " 'Some have argued' -- this is you speaking, 'some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons; I would not be so certain.' " Friedman said that was "close to imminent."
"Well, I've tried to be precise," Rumsfeld said, "and I've tried to be accurate."
" 'No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people,' " Friedman quoted Rumsfeld as telling Congress in September 2002, " 'and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.' "
"Mmm, ah, my view of the, the situation," Rumsfeld said, "was that he, he, had -- we believed, the best intelligence that we had, and other countries had, and that we believe, and we still do not know, we will know." - Washington Post (03/17/04) [Video:  MoveOn.org]

 

• March 19, 2004 - House votes to double reward for Osama bin Laden from $25 million to $50 million.

"The House of Representatives, amid an intensifying hunt for leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network, voted unanimously Thursday to double the reward for Osama bin Laden's capture to $50 million.
The bill, which was passed 414-0, now goes to the Senate. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Florida, said it recognizes the growing link between the illicit drug trade and the financing and support of terrorist activities." - CNN (03/08/04)

(See also:  December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies)

 

• March 19, 2004 - Ex-Advisor Says Bush Eyed Bombing of Iraq on 9/11

"A former White House anti-terrorism advisor says the Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation after Sept. 11, 2001 even though it was clear al Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Richard Clarke, who headed a cybersecurity board that gleaned intelligence from the Internet, told CBS "60 Minutes" in an interview to be aired on Sunday he was surprised administration officials turned immediately toward Iraq instead of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
"They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," Clarke says.
"Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq. ... We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq."'
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection" between Iraq and al Qaeda, Clarke tells "60 Minutes."
"But the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,"' says Clarke." -  Reuters (03/19/04)

(See also:  9/11 (2:40 pm) - Donald Rumsfeld began planning strike plans against Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in Iraq)

 

• March 22, 2004 - 9/11 CitizensWatch Press Conference is covered by C-SPAN.

"The advocacy group 9/11 CitizensWatch holds a press conference at the National Press Club to critique the job done by the national Sept. 11 Commission." - C-SPAN (03/22/04)

 

 

• March 23, 2004 - A war in Afghanistan would have been politically impossible pre-9/11.

 

War not realistic option before 9/11

"In retrospect, it seems obvious: President Clinton or President Bush could have gotten a head start in the war on terror and might even have averted the 9/11 attacks by acting sooner to invade Afghanistan, depose the Taliban regime and hunt down the al-Qaeda terrorists based there.
But Democrats and Republicans alike told a bipartisan commission Tuesday that neither U.S. nor world opinion would have stood for such aggression before the fall of 2001. It was only after the Sept. 11 attacks that public opinion here and abroad changed enough to make an invasion politically possible.

"The very hard part," Clinton administration secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the commission Tuesday, "is that we have to put ourselves into the pre-9/11 mode. ... It would be very hard pre-9/11 to have persuaded anybody that an invasion of Afghanistan was appropriate. I think it did take the mega-shock, unfortunately, of 9/11 to make people understand the considerable threat."

A commission report noted that diplomatic efforts failed to disrupt or dislodge al-Qaeda, and some commission members were sharply critical Tuesday of the Clinton and Bush administrations for not using military force more aggressively. But the impediments to military action were considerable in the last years of the Clinton administration and the first months of the Bush administration:

• Invading Afghanistan would have required bases in one of its neighbors. The United States still has no diplomatic relations with Iran, which has the second-longest boundary with Afghanistan. And before Sept. 11, U.S. relations were strained with Pakistan, which has the longest border with Afghanistan, because of Pakistani nuclear tests and a military coup in 1999 that removed an elected government. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage testified Tuesday that the Bush administration had started trying to improve relations with Pakistan, but the process was complicated by the need to remove "an unbelievable number of (U.S. sanctions on Pakistan), which are put on by people with very strong views on Capitol Hill."
• U.S. popular opinion would not have supported an Afghan war. Clinton had been harshly criticized for sending cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan after al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. The strikes came soon after Clinton's admission that he had lied about his relationship with a White House intern, and political opponents accused him of trying to divert public attention from the scandal. Clinton faced similar charges in December 1998 when the United States bombed Iraq and was also criticized for the air war against Serbia in 1999 that was intended to stop ethnic killings in the province of Kosovo." - USA Today (03/23/04)

 

(See also:  September 10, 2001 - White House battle plan to invade Afghanistan awaits Bush's approval)

 

• March 23, 2004 - Former deputy attorney general Jamie S. Gorelick referrers to the object heading towards the Pentagon on 9/11 as a "missile" when questioning Donald Rumsfeld at the 9/11 Commission hearings.

MS. GORELICK: ...So my question is, in this summer of threat, what did you do to protect, let's just say, the Pentagon from attack? Where were our aircraft when they -- when a missile is heading toward the Pentagon? Surely that is in -- within the Pentagon's responsibility, to protect -- force protection, to protect our facilities, to protect something -- our headquarters, the Pentagon." - 9/11 Commission (03/23/04)

(See also:  October 12, 2001 - Rumsfeld says missile hit Pentagon in magazine interview; April 22, 2004 - Senate Republicans urge Gorelick be forced to testify)

 

• March 26, 2004 - 9/11 skeptics gather for 3-day conference in San Francisco.

"Conspiracy theorists, anti-war activists and those with healthy doses of skepticism about the official version of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks converged in San Francisco on Friday for a three-day conference to try to figure out what really happened in the worst act of terrorism on American soil.
The gathering includes a hodgepodge of writers, filmmakers, and activists peddling their own version of what they claim was a cover-up by the Bush administration. In essence, they believe the administration knew about the attacks ahead of time but failed to act so that they could go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
The administration "motivated America into a war to control the last of the world's oil reserves,'' said Michael Ruppert, a former Los Angeles police officer who has a Web site devoted to what he believes really happened before the attacks.
"There is a 9/11 truth movement,'' said Nicholas Levis, another event organizer, as he addressed reporters while standing in front of a sign that read "Stop the 9/11 Cover-Up." Accusing the Bush administration of stonewalling,' he echoed the sentiments of other speakers that the White House had known ahead of time of the terrorist attacks, using it as an excuse to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
During the conference, participants also are ruminating over theories that the CIA created al Qaeda, that the military saw the planes heading for their targets but chose not to shoot them down and that there were links between Osama bin Laden and high level officials of the Bush administration.
Although organizers have no power to subpoena official documents, they have plenty of material to take offer for consideration. Participants will view a showing of the documentary "Aftermath - Unanswered Questions from 9/11'' as well as other films outlining the events that led to the fateful day.
The speakers include Ellen Mariani, whose husband, Louis, was a passenger on the plane that slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. She has sued President Bush and members of his administration for negligence and has stated publicly she does not trust the commission in Washington to uncover the truth.
As she faced a roomful of reporters and activists Friday, Mariani recalled how her husband was on his way to their daughter's wedding, having taken a flight two hours after hers left, when it crashed. "I had to give her away,'' she recalled as she choked back tears.
"I waited 2 1/2 years for justice, and it never came,'' Mariani said. She accused the government of lying to her and discouraging her from asking questions. "The more I wait,'' she said, "the more determined I get.''
Meanwhile, Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, said he refused to dignify the organizers' charges of a cover-up with a response." - San Francisco Chronicle (03/27/04)

"Now a growing subculture of skeptics, amateur sleuths and independent researchers of all stripes are questioning the "official narrative'' of Sept. 11, and about 100 people are gathering in San Francisco this weekend for a three-day inquiry of their own.
It's easy to dismiss the self-proclaimed "911 Truth Movement'' as little more than conspiracy theorists gone overboard.
But the movement, which until recently largely lived on the Internet, is increasingly holding public forums and attracting attention from the mainstream media.
The weekend event, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, includes panel discussions about Al-Qaida's links to the CIA, the history of covert operations, and the role of Pakistan in Sept. 11. Some of the more incredible theories say that the planes never hit the World Trade Center towers but that the towers were destroyed by remote control; others insist that some of the hijackers are still alive. The Internet is filled with Web sites like www.911review.org and www.911sharethetruth.com, many of which argue that Sept. 11 was an elaborately planned hoax.
"We want our inquiry to go on before the official inquiry comes to their own conclusions,'' said Carol Brouillet, a Palo Alto mother of three who is organizing this weekend's events. Brouillet, 46, is a longtime local peace activist, and she says that she wants the public to have a chance to hear from a variety of researchers.
The Internet has allowed Sept. 11 theories to spread like wildfire. And growing public concern about the government's rationale for the war in Iraq has fueled further speculation." - Mercury News (03/27/04)

 

• April 1, 2004 - Theologian David Ray Griffin charges White House complicity in the 9/11 attacks in his new book, The New Pearl Harbor.

"In his latest book, The New Pearl Harbor — released just two weeks ago — Griffin all but accuses the Bush administration of taking a dive on September 11 and giving Al Qaeda terrorists an unobstructed shot at the World Trade Center. According to Griffin, a case can be made that the Bush administration arranged the attack, or allowed it to happen. He is aware that he may be dismissed as a conspiracy nut, but given the “transcendent importance” of the issue, Griffin is willing to assume that risk and has taken to repeating Michael Moore’s line on the subject: “Personally, I’m not into conspiracy theories except those that are true.
NICK WELSH: Is there a smoking gun that shows the Bush administration knew 9/11 was likely to happen and did nothing about it?
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: I think there are four. One is the fact that standard operating procedures for dealing with possibly hijacked airplanes were not followed on 9/11.  And on that day, there were four airplanes that went for a half-hour or more after they were hijacked without jets intercepting them.
NICK WELSH: And the other smoking guns?
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: The second strongest piece of evidence I would say is the crash at the Pentagon. The physical evidence contradicts so violently the official account, that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 — Flight 77, that is.
And given that it only penetrated these three rings, the rest of the aircraft would have been sitting outside on the yard. And yet the photographs taken just as the fire trucks got there — very shortly after the crash — show no plane whatsoever.
NICK WELSH: President Bush has also been criticized for behaving somewhat bizarrely that day.
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: After Andrew Card reported the second crash on the World Trade Center, the president just nodded as if he understood and said, “We’re going to go ahead with the reading lesson.” And he sat there another 15 minutes listening to the children read a story about a pet goat.
In other words, [Bush and the Secret Service] showed no fear whatsoever that they would be targeted for attack, which strongly suggests they knew how many aircraft were being hijacked and what their targets were.
NICK WELSH: What about the plane that crashed down?
DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: We know that on Flight 93, which crashed over Pennsylvania, the passengers were trying to get control of the aircraft.
As soon as that happened, with the FBI listening in, the plane went down. There was a whoosh, then the sound of wind. And people on the ground reported hearing what Vietnam veterans said sounded like a missile. Furthermore, there was debris from the plan eight miles from the crash site, suggesting the plane had been hit and stuff started falling out. And one of the engines was found over a mile from the crash site." - Santa Barbara Independent (04/01/04)

 

• April 2, 2004 - Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says, 'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes'.

"A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".
She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."
She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used ­ but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities ­ with skyscrapers."
She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack.
"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away." - Independent/UK (04/02/04) [Archived: WayBack Machine; Reprinted at:  Common Dreams]

(See also:  April 26, 2004 - The Bush Administration tries to gag former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds)

 

 

• April 4, 2004 - Ex-Nixon legal aid John Dean, who was jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal, in his new book "Worse than Watergate" says the Bush Administration is the most secretive ever to run the United States, willfully mislead Congress over the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war, and was "stonewalling" over inquiries into the events of September 11.

 

Bush's administration is worse than Nixon's, says Watergate aide

"John Dean, Richard Nixon's legal counsel who was jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal, has accused the Bush administration of trumping even the Nixon regime in secrecy, deception and political cynicism.

In the latest book to attack the conduct of the current United States administration, Mr Dean says that it has created potentially the most corrupt, unethical and undemocratic White House in history.
His Worse than Watergate, the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush is published this week by Little Brown.

"Bush and [Vice-President Richard] Cheney are a throwback to the Nixon time," Mr Dean, 65, told The Telegraph last night. "All government business is filtered through a political process at this White House, which is the most secretive ever to run the United States." - Telegraph (04/04/04)

 

Cheney is running a shadow government, claims Watergate aide

"Thirty-one years ago Mr Dean - Nixon's legal counsel - began co-operating with prosecutors into the Watergate burglary, revealing the inner workings of the most secretive and manipulative administration in American history.
Now, in the latest political blockbuster, Mr Dean "testifies" against President Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney, accusing them of trumping his former boss when it comes to political sharp practice.
He accuses them of wilfully misleading Congress over the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the war in Iraq, and of "stonewalling" over inquiries into the events of September 11.
Much of the blame for the White House style, he suggests, lies with Mr Cheney, who is "by nature a secretive man" who "wants to turn the clock back to pre-Watergate styles of Imperial Presidency". - Telegraph (04/04/04)

 

• April 8, 2004 - German court frees Mounir Motassadeq convicted in 9/11 case, U.S. would not provide evidence at Hamburg trial.

"A Moroccan man who is the only person ever convicted of aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers was freed by a court in Hamburg Wednesday pending a retrial.
Mounir Motassadeq, 30, walked from the courthouse one month after an appeals court panel ruled that his first trial had been compromised by the judges' failure to adequately consider the U.S. government's refusal to provide evidence from an al Qaeda operative it holds in secret custody.
Motassadeq's attorneys contend that the operative, Ramzi Binalshibh, and other prisoners could support their client's defense that although he was friendly with the hijackers when they lived in Hamburg before the attacks in New York and Washington, he had no knowledge of what they planned.
In freeing Motassadeq Wednesday, the court ruled that there was no longer "urgent suspicion" that he had been involved in planning the attacks. Attorneys said that could result in a retrial focusing on the lesser charge that he was a member of a terrorist group.
The release followed disclosure of new evidence that appeared to support his defense. At a hearing on Friday, the court was given a letter written in 2002 in which Said Bahaji, an alleged member of the Hamburg cell who is now a fugitive, told his mother that "Mounir didn't know anything."
Motassadeq had been serving a 15-year sentence after he was convicted last year on charges of membership in a terrorist organization and 3,066 counts of accessory to murder. Prosecutors had successfully argued that he provided material support to the hijackers by paying some of their bills and assisted them in the plot.
But the conviction began to appear vulnerable last year after another Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, was released midway through his trial on identical charges because German police reported to the court, as required under German law, unconfirmed intelligence that he did not know of the plan. Mzoudi was later acquitted on all counts.
The U.S. government has refused to provide evidence for the cases, citing national security concerns.
Wearing khaki pants and a down coat, Motassadeq smiled as he emerged at the heavy wooden doors of the court Wednesday after a closed hearing. The judges ordered that his passport be retained and that he live with his wife and children in Hamburg and report to police twice a week pending the start of a new trial, set for June." - Washington Post (04/08/04)

(See also:  March 4, 2004 - Retrial ordered for Motassadeq; May 5, 2004 - Motassadeq has asked court to release him from prison pending his new trial)

 

• April 10, 2004 - The White House releases the August 6th memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" early in the evening the day before Easter, a time of very low news consumption.

"President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al Qaeda had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that was consistent with a hijacking plot. The memo did not, however, contain specific warnings of any imminent threats.
Since 1998, the FBI had observed "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," according to a memo prepared for President Bush and declassified Saturday. They included evidence of buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists.
The document also said the CIA and FBI were investigating a call to the U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May "saying that a group of (Osama) bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives."
The White House released the memo early in the evening on the Saturday before Easter, a time of very low news consumption.
The Aug. 6, 2001, memo made plain that bin Laden had been scheming to strike the United States for at least six years. It warned of indications from a broad array of sources, spanning several years.
The memo cited intelligence from another country, but the White House blacked out the name of the nation. It was the first time a presidential daily brief has ever been released publicly.
The senior administration officials refused to say what Bush's response to the memo was, or precisely what government action it had triggered." - CBS (04/10/04)

(See also:  Aug 6, 2001 - Bush is warned in a CIA memo of possible terrorist attacks and plane hijackings in the U.S. from Osama bin Laden; May 16, 2002 - News comes out that the Bush Administration received warnings about terrorist attacks and plane hijackings by Osama Bin Laden)

 

• April 12, 2004 - In an article published by the alternative newspaper American Free Press, AFP reports that pools of "molten steel" were found in the basements of the WTC 1, 2, and 7 and quotes Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc, as saying he would have put "explosives in the basement" of the Twin Towers to help bring it down.

NEW SEISMIC DATA REFUTES OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

"Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center.
Tully was contracted after the Sept. 11 tragedy to re move the debris from the site.
Tully called Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Md., for consultation about removing the debris. CDI calls itself “the innovator and global leader in the controlled demolition and implosion of structures.”
Loizeaux, who cleaned up the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, arrived at the WTC site two days later and wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation.
AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site.
“Yes,” he said, “hot spots of molten steel in the basements.”
These incredibly hot areas were found “at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels,” Loizeaux said.
The molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,” Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon.
Asked what could have caused such extreme heat, Tully said, “Think of the jet fuel.”
Loizeaux told AFP that the steel-melting fires were fueled by “paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they ‘pancaked’ into the basement.”
However, some independent investigators dispute this claim, saying kerosene-based jet fuel, paper, or the other combustibles normally found in the towers, cannot generate the heat required to melt steel, especially in an oxygen-poor environment like a deep basement.
Experts disagree that jet-fuel or paper could generate such heat.
The foundations of the twin towers were 70 feet deep. At that level, 47 huge box columns, connected to the bedrock, supported the entire gravity load of the structures. The steel walls of these lower box columns were four inches thick.
Videos of the North Tower collapse show its communication mast falling first, indicating that the central support columns must have failed at the very beginning of the collapse. Loizeaux told AFP, “Everything went simultaneously.”
Asked if the vertical support columns gave way before the connections between the floors and the columns, Ron Hamburger, a structural engineer with the FEMA assessment team said, “That’s the $64,000 question.”
Loizeaux said, “If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure.” - AFP (04/12/04)

 

(See also:  September 22, 2001 - CDI hired to help clean up WTC & their president said knew towers were 'coming down' after planes hit)

 

• April 13, 2004 - Prof says 'no proof' Muslims behind 9-11, Suspects United States itself responsible for attacks on its soil

"There is "no conclusive proof" Arabs and Muslims were behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the U.S. itself may be responsible, asserts an Egyptian professor at American University of Cairo.
The charge by Galal Amin, a professor of economics, came in reaction to the U.S. administration's Greater Middle East Initiative, reports the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Amin says the initiative's claim that its aim is to partly or wholly eliminate terror is "unconvincing," insisting "there is still doubt that the September attacks were the outcome of Arab and Islamic terror."
The professor contends there is no "conclusive proof" Arabs Muslims were involved and says many American, European and Arab writers "suspect that the attacks were carried out by Americans, or with American assistance, or that Americans knew about them and kept silent."
The initiative's real motives, he contends, is controlling Iraqi oil, carving off regional markets and "softening the region for Israel's domination." - WorldNetDaily (04/13/04)

 

• April 14, 2004 - News breaks that for at least two years before 9/11, NORAD had conducted drills of hijacked airplanes used as weapons against targets that included the WTC and Pentagon.

"In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.
One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say." - USA Today (04/18/04)

(See:  1999 - NORAD starts conducting exercises in which airplanes are hijacked and crashed into targets; April 2001 - NORAD planned to practice a scenario in which a terrorist group hijacks a plane and crashes it into the Pentagon)

 

• April 15, 2004 - Larry Silverstein's lawyer says his insurance brokers changed WTC policy two months before 9/11.

Silverstein Lawyer: WTC Insurance Policy Was Changed
"Two months before the World Trade Center collapsed, leaseholder Larry Silverstein's insurance brokers changed the trade center's policy form from one that defined the towers' destruction as one event to another form, Silverstein's lawyer said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.
Closing arguments began after a contentious, 10-week trial that Silverstein hopes is the first round in a bid to collect twice the $3.5 billion insurance policy he took out on the center, one for each tower that fell on Sept. 11, 2001.
Thirteen insurance companies led by Swiss Reinsurance Ltd. have sued Silverstein Properties Inc., arguing that they agreed to coverage under an insurance form issued by Silverstein broker Willis Group Holdings Ltd., which specifically defines the word "occurrence" and holds that the Sept. 11, 2001, destruction of the trade center was one event.
Silverstein has argued that Willis switched to a form issued by Travelers Property Casualty Corp. from the Willis form, known as Wilprop." - NYSCPA.org (04/15/04)

• April 19, 2004 - Scott Forbes, an IT employee at Fiduciary Trust located in top floors of the South WTC tower, sends an email to a 9/11 researcher John Kaminski claiming that there was a "power down" in the South Tower, which would have disabled all security cameras and locks, on Sept. 8th and 9th for "cable upgrading" that lasted approximately 36 hours from floor 50 up and that many "engineers" were coming in and out of the building.

"From: "Scott Forbes" <scottforbes2002@hotmail.com>
To: skylax@comcast.net
Subject: Official Verison of 9/11 - new info
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:35:12 +0000
To John Kaminski,
I was pleased to read your article "The Official Version of 9/11 is a Hoax" ... Please note some other facts. My name is Scott Forbes and I still work for Fiduciary Trust. In 2001 we occupied floors 90 and 94-97 of the South Tower and lost 87 employees plus many contractors.
On the weekend of 9/8,9/9 there was a 'power down' condition in WTC tower 2, the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approx 36hrs from floor 50 up. I am aware of this situation since I work in IT and had to work with many others that weekend to ensure that all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brough back up afterwards. The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling in the tower was being upgraded ... Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower. I was at home on the morning of 9/11 on the shore of Jersey City, right opposite the Towers, and watching events unfold I was convinced immediately that something was happening related to the weekend work ...
I have mailed this information to many people and bodies, including the 9/11 Commission but no-one seems to be taking and registering these facts. Whats to hide? Can you help publicise them?
Please feel free to mail me.
Scott Forbes" - [posted at:  Serendipity] (See also:  Pre-9/11 World Trade Center Power-Down by Victor Thorn)

 

Note:  I emailed Scott Forbes at the listed hotmail email address and asked him if the above email was sent from him and was accurate.  Here's his reply...

"From:  "Scott Forbes" <scottforbes2002@hotmail.com>

To:  killtown@yahoo.com

Subject:  RE: Hi Scott, favor to ask about your "power down" email sent to Kaminski

Date:  Sat, 13 Aug 2005

Hi Killtown,
Thanks for your mail. I can confirm that the information is correct ... Please feel free to contact me for any other related information at any time ...
Scott Forbes"

 

(See also:  Killtown's:  Scott Forbes Interview; George Washington's Blog interview with Scott Forbes)

 

• April 22, 2004 - Eleven Senate Republicans send a letter to the 9/11 commission demanding that Jamie Gorelick, a Democratic member of the panel, be forced to testify.

"Eleven Senate Republicans fired off a letter Thursday to the 9/11 commission demanding that Jamie Gorelick, a Democratic member of the panel, be forced to testify.
The senators want Gorelick to testify about her role in strengthening the so-called "wall" between the FBI and CIA that some say hampered government efforts to prevent terrorist attacks.
During her tenure at the Justice Department, Gorelick wrote a memorandum establishing distinctions between intelligence that could be used for law enforcement purposes and intelligence that could be used for national security purposes.
Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey, dismissed that demand as "silly" and praised Gorelick's work on the panel.
The separation that Gorelick outlined originally was required as a safeguard against abuse of citizens' rights by government investigative agencies. But passage of the Patriot Act in the wake of the attacks eliminated the requirement.
This separation or "wall" governing intelligence has been a key subject at hearings of the commission. It has been blamed for being a main obstacle to better sharing of information in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The existence of the memo was disclosed last week by Attorney General John Ashcroft in his testimony before the commission.
The letter was also signed by Republican senators: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Conrad Burns of Montana; Bob Bennett of Utah; Pete Domenici of New Mexico; Don Nickles of Oklahoma; Ted Stevens of Alaska; Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; John Cornyn of Texas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota." - CNN (04/23/04)

(See also:  January 15, 2004 - 9/11 Commission interviews two of it's own members; March 23, 2004 - Gorelick referrers to object heading towards Pentagon on 9/11 as a "missile" when questioning Rumsfeld at hearing; April 26, 2004 - Sen. Sessions calls on Gorelick to resign)

 

• April 26, 2004 - The Bush Administration tries to gag former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds from telling the 9/11 commission that she had seen information that there was plenty of evidence before 9/11 that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the U.S. with aircraft.

"The Bush administration will today seek to prevent a former FBI translator from providing evidence about 11 September intelligence failures to a group of relatives and survivors who have accused international banks and officials of aiding al-Qa'ida.
Sibel Edmonds was subpoenaed by a law firm representing more than 500 family members and survivors of the attacks to testify that she had seen information proving there was considerable evidence before September 2001 that al-Qa'ida was planning to strike the US with aircraft. The lawyers made their demand after reading comments Mrs Edmonds had made to The Independent.
But the US Justice Department is seeking to stop her from testifying, citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege". Today in a federal court in Washington, senior government lawyers will try to gag Mrs Edmonds, claiming that disclosure of her evidence "would cause serious damage to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States".
Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who had top secret security clearance, claimed this month that while working in the FBI's Washington headquarters, she saw information proving senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes. She has provided sworn testimony to the independent panel appointed by President George Bush to investigate the circumstances surrounding 11 September.
Her lawyer, Mark Zaid, said last night: "The FBI wants to shut her up completely." He said it was ridiculous to claim that everything Mrs Edmonds knew had national security implications. Rather, he said, the FBI wanted to silence his client to save its embarrassment.
Mrs Edmonds said yesterday: "What are they are afraid of? If I am not allowed to give evidence, the families will not get the information I have; that will be that."
She said it was wrong for the Bush administration to claim it wanted a full investigation. "If there is transparency, there is going to be accountability and that is what they don't want." - Independent-UK (04/26/04) [Archived:  Wayback Machine; Reprinted at: Common Dreams]

(See also:  April 2, 2004 - Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says, 'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes'; January 12, 2005 - The ACLU files brief to DC Court of Appeals to reinstate case Sibel Edmonds)