Sabotage

[k-robjoe]

"In July 2004, when the 9/11 Commission released its Final Report, we read with enormous interest, Chapter 6 - "From Threat to Threat", including footnote #44. Footnote #44 details an instance where a CIA desk officer intentionally withheld vital information from the FBI about two of the 9/11 hijackers who were inside the United States. This footnote further states that the CIA desk officer covered-up the decision to withhold said vital information from the FBI. Finally, footnote #44 states that the CIA desk officer could not recall who told her to carry out such acts."

http://www.911blogger.com/node/20200

[wildbilln864]

1. Thank you! nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. sounds like the lies about the yellowcake!

[noise]

3. This is a very confusing aspect of 9/11

If the CIA is all about CYA then why on earth wouldn't they have covered their tracks better? For example, we have an email from Wilshire stating that associates of bin Attash were likely to be involved in the next al Qaeda attack. Yet most of the key summaries of interviews (including Wilshire's) conducted by the 9/11 Commission are still classified. Why would Wilshire's email have been declassified considering it makes the CIA look awful?

It almost appears that the CIA was set up by the naming of al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar as hijackers. Yet the obvious question is why the CIA would set themselves up in such a manner? It doesn't make sense. This is one reason why some people don't buy 9/11 skepticism. After all, if the CIA was involved in 9/11 then why on earth did they go out of the way to make themselves appear complicit? A CIA involved in 9/11 would not have any problem picking names from a Saudi phone book and claiming they were hijackers. A complicit CIA would seemingly care less about the integrity of the 9/11 investigation. Yet the named hijackers were two al Qaeda operatives the CIA had tracked for over 20 months. It doesn't make any sense.

An alternate explanation for the bizarre conduct of the CIA is the transparent MO. This theory suggests that concealment of involvement is not as important as social conditioning objectives. One reason I find this possible is because there was so much manipulation of the public during the Bush years.

[eomer]

4. I think part of the problem is an oversimplification you are making,

which is that the CIA would necessarily have a single coordinated and consistent plan that everyone within the CIA would be marching to. That simplified explanation surely cannot be the case.

An accurate view of the situation would need to be more complex: different elements of the CIA acting on different plans and agendas that were in opposition to each other, either openly or perhaps just implicitly. Such a view would help explain some aspects that otherwise are perplexing. The explanation is that the elements who were working the 9/11 plot did what they could with the assets they had, which did not rise to the level of the full resources and power of the entire CIA but rather had to contend with or work around other parts of the CIA who were real patriots and would vehemently oppose any such plan.

[hack89]

5. So post 911, the "good" parts of the CIA

that were "were real patriots and would vehemently oppose any such plan." were unable to figure out what happened and reveal the plotters? If 911 is so obvious that a bunch of laymen on the Internet can figure it out, why didn't they?

[eomer]

7. Why didn't they?

Compartmentalization, need-to-know basis. Pretty basic stuff, no?

[hack89]

8. So the "evidence" that the truth movement has uncovered

is not enough to make the "good" parts of the CIA start wondering and digging? You know the "truth" even though your knowledge and access to the evidence is limited or non-existent. Yet the experts at the CIA are so constrained by bureaucracy that the murderers in the desk next to them can get away undetected? That not a single one has the moral courage to ask hard questions? Is that how you would have reacted?

And what about all the other agencies involved in the cover up like NIST, FAA, FEMA, FBI, NYPD, NTSB etc? "Compartmentalization and need-to-know basis" is irrelevant to most of them.

When you consider the size of the plot and cover up, "compartmentalization and need-to-know basis" is a pretty weak answer. It certainly ignores basic human nature.

[eomer]

12. Did you accidentally reply to the wrong post?

Or perhaps in the wrong thread?

Because no one here made any claims about knowing the "truth".

My point is merely that, if you're going to speculate, then don't base your speculation on gross misstatements of how things work. Don't base your theories on bizarrely out-of-reality models of the US government that treat it as a monolith or of the CIA that treat it as a monolith.

Also, don't pretend that if one person within the US government was involved then thousands of people from dozens of agencies had to have been involved.

In other words, if you're going to theorize or else debunk theories, do so with the most plausible theories you can craft after putting some hard thought into it. Don't just build up ridiculously implausible ones and knock them down. You wouldn't want to do that would you? How would that further our understanding?

[hack89]

15. My answer addresses common truther CTs

and how divorced from reality they are when it comes to how the government works - in that respect I guess we see eye to eye. To make nearly every 911 CT works requires either the active involvement or passive acceptance of tens of thousands either in execution or cover-up.

Compartmentalization doesn't work.

[CJCRANE]

18. Have you ever worked for a big corporation. Compartmentalization does work.

What the people at the top know and what those at the bottom are fed are two completely different things.

[eomer]

19. Compartmentalization doesn't work?

So if there was a covert operation in the CIA that only 3 people knew about, it is somehow impossible that they would be able to keep it secret? Is that what you're saying?

[hack89]

24. What about the DoD, FAA, FBI, NTSB, NIST, FEMA?

all the organizations required to pull off the cover up? It doesn't work when you have to embrace the massive and complex plot required to encompass all the CTs regularly espoused here.

[eomer]

25. Well that's very interesting, but would you want to come back on topic?

The theory I put forward was that there was a small cell in the CIA (say one to three people) who pulled off a covert op. None of the agencies that you list would have had any more to do with it than they would have with the OCT. It is "OCT plus" as someone called it the other day. The "plus" part is very small and very closely held.

I guess you'd rather knock down "lizards from space" theories than address mine.

[noise]

27. We are talking about withholding of information

about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar from 1/00 through 08/01. That is an extremely long time.

Officials involved:

1) 50-60 people at the CIA who saw cables stating that al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar were traveling to the US.

2) Alec Station. Black. Rich B. Wilshire. Rossini. Miller. The red haired women who ordered Rossini and Miller to withhold the information.

3) FBI UBLU. Middleton. Corsi.

4) NSA. Hayden.

I would guess at least a half dozen other officials at these agencies/units knew the real reason al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar were being protected or knew that the protection was intended for a sinister purpose.

Another theory is that they were undercover GID agents who had infiltrated al Qaeda. Meaning they functioned as agent provocateurs in the 9/11 plot. They attended the Malaysian meeting in early January 2000. Nobody else at the meeting was an actual suicide attacker. For example the Cole attackers didn't attend. I find it odd that al Qaeda would have invited suicide attackers to such a meeting. One wonders if they truly were on Flight 77. Three photos of al-Mihdhar have appeared over the years. Why would there be any confusion to his identity since we are told Malaysian intelligence (on behalf of the CIA) photographed him at the Malaysian meeting?

[hack89]

29. I mistook you for a truther and applied your theory to 911

If you are talking about the CIA in general then you have a point.

If you agree that your theory does not allow for CD, stand downs, no-planes, planting of evidence, suppression of witnesses, plus a massive cover up then OK. If you don't agree then your theory has no application to 911.

[noise]

11. Nobody has answered the questions

You imply that the questions of "layman on the Internet" are without basis. Yet nobody from the CIA has explained why al-Hazmi and al-Midhar were not watchlisted until late August 2001. In all of this we are going by the CIA's story. They tell us al Qaeda was an extremely dangerous terrorist organization. They tell us they were panicked in the summer of '01. They refuse to tell us what explains their contradictory conduct--withholding information about a threat while at the same time warning policymakers of that very threat.

Tenet claimed nobody saw the cables that stated that al-Hazmi/al-Midhar were headed to the US. Yet the CIA IG report states that 50-60 people at the CIA had seen such cables.

James Bamford reported that Rossini and Miller (FBI agents attached to Alec Station) were ordered to withhold information about al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar from the FBI. This also refutes Tenet's other explanation that faulty cable traffic procedures were to blame.

Why haven't we gotten a credible explanation for this conduct over seven years later?

[hack89]

16. Your questions are completely valid

and I don't have an answer. I suspect that they point to incompetence that they don't want to reveal.

My only point is that is not reasonable for a part of the government to pull off 911 and especially the cover up without detection. The CIA is not a monolithic organization that works in complete lock step - if part of the CIA pulled off 911 then other parts of it would know and they could not be silenced.

[CJCRANE]

17. You're assuming that these people made it obvious

what they were doing.

Look at how the neocons do things. Look at the torture issue. They didn't say "let's torture these guys to cook up a false connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda". They phrase it in terms of patriotism, doing the right thing.

[hack89]

23. If it isn't obvious what they did

then why all the smoking gun threads in this forum? Why am I always being told that the truth is in front of me, I just need to open my eyes? Why all the cool YouTube videos with spooky music "proving" that 911 was MIHOP? How is the truth community detecting all this evidence that the CIA can't find because it was not "obvious"?

[CJCRANE]

26. It wasn't obvious because the crime hadn't happened!

Once a crime has happened it's a different ball game. Look at how the torture issue has been dealt with after the fact. Look at how Sibel Edmonds has been dealt with.

On edit: the smoking gun comes after a crime has been committed, not before, but you knew that already.

But it was pretty obvious that *something* was going on, as per Coleen Rowley's testimony about it seeming like there was an "al-Qaeda mole" in Washington.

[hack89]

28. So now that it is obvious

no one in the CIA is saying anything? Why?

[noise]

30. Good question

The silence from the intel community has been difficult to understand. There are some possible explanations--minders sitting in on interviews evidently to intimidate the intelligence agent, lack of protection for whistleblowers, lack of definitive knowledge.

I've mentioned the FBI UBLU. I believe there were 18 agents/analysts assigned to this unit. Yet to date we haven't heard from a single person. Not one of these people has come forward to explain what happened in the lead up to 9/11.

[hack89]

32. Or the obvious explanation - lack of a plot. nt

[noise]

33. If there was no plot and skeptics of 9/11 are full of it

then why is there so much secrecy? Why are interviews with the officials involved in the al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar issues still classified over seven years after 9/11? Some have suggested the only thing being covered up is incompetence. I would argue that this doesn't make sense as the CIA narrative takes incompetence to an absurd level. Their public story is that they did nothing for 20 months as al Qaeda operatives roamed around the US planning for 9/11.

I get your point about the failure of agents to come forward. One would think the murder of almost 3,000 people would not sit well with many people in the intelligence community.

[hack89]

34. Secrecy is in their DNA

secondly, you have yet to demonstrate that the level of secrecy is any different from past episodes the CIA would want to distance themselves from.

But to be completely honest, if the truth community would concentrate on issues like this, then I think you would have a lot more credibility and support. I have always thought that the only plausible MIHOP scenario would be a small group duping a small group of terrorists into planning the attacks, sheltering them from detection, and giving them the knowledge to evade US security. Very simple with a very small group, half of whom would be dead and with the huge advantage of no huge cover up involving thousands of people. It is yet to be proven but it is certainly plausible. I get off the bus when the conversation turns to CD, no-planes, mini-nukes, massive witness intimidation, etc. Not only were they not plausible or even necessary, but they increase the number of people who had direct or indirect knowledge of the plot and cover up exponentially.

[CJCRANE]

31. I can understand why they're not saying anything. I wouldn't

if I was in one of these agencies. I talk about 9/11 here in the Dungeon because I find it interesting but I wouldn't talk about it to the media especially if I was on the inside.

But as I understand it there are one or two ex-agents who have spoken out.

[Fainter]

21. Yet Again The OCT Default Position Of Incompetence...

did you not read #11? Rossini and Miller "...WERE ORDERED TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar" while there was still time for the FBI back home to thwart the plot. Whence your presumption of "incompetence"? Ridiculous!

[rschop]

35. RE: WERE ORDERED TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION

This is not exactly true. They were ordered by FBI HQ to withhold information about why they had not sent the information on Mihdhar to the FBI criminal investigators, from the DOJ IG investigators. But both Miller and Rossini, were required by law to get permission from the CIA deputy chief of the CIA Bin Laden unit at that time, Tom Wilshire, before any CIRs they wrote, including the CIA on Mihdhar were allowed to be forwarded to FBI criminal investigators. Incidentally this information was sent to the Director of the FBI Louis Freeh in early January 2000 and this information appeared in his daily briefing papers on January 4, 2000, information he later also kept secret from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing.

The CIR Miller wrote up on Mihdhar that had had passport photo and number and visa information that said Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa specifying his destination as New York City, had written on the bottom, "Blocked by order of the Deputy Chief", Tom Wilshire. Wilshire is now famous for not only blocking this CIR but not informing the FBI when he found out on March 5, 2000 that Nawaf al-Hazmi, a known al Qaeda terrorist who had taken part in the east Africa bombings, had entered the US on January 15, 2000

He is also known for setting up the now famous meeting in New York City with his CIA and FBI HQ people and the FBI Cole bombing investigators to find out if these FBI investigators had uncovered the information on the Kuala Lumpur meeting where the planning of the Cole bombing took place, information that the CIA had desperately tried to keep secret from January 5, 2000.

He also worked with FBI IOS HQ Agent Dina Corsi to shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar when he Corsi found out Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001, and knew they were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

Both Corsi and Wilshire knew the CIA had been hiding the photograph of Walid Bin Attash, thought to be the mastermind of the Cole bombing, taken at the Kuala Lumpur meeting where both Mihdhar and Hazmi had also been photographed. By keeping this photograph secret, FBI Agent Steve Bongardt had no way of knowing that both Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken direct part in the planning of the Cole bombing. Not did Corsi and FBI HQ agent keep this secret but she also kept secret the fact that she had already obtained a written release from the NSA caveats on August 27, 2001 when she a day later told Bongardt on August 28, 2001, that he would have to shut down his investigation of Mihdhar because of these same NSA caveats prevented this information from going to FBI criminal investigators, without written permission from the NSA

When Bongardt protested and asked Corsi if she would go to the NSLU, the legal unit at the FBI, and get a legal ruling so he and his team could be part of an investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, since he clearly thought these al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in some horrific al Qaeda attack, it is now clear that Corsi fabricated the ruling from Sherry Sabol, the attorney she consulted at the NSLU.

It is now clear they when Corsi told Bongardt that the NSLU had ruled he could not take part in any investigation of Mihdhar, that Sabol had ruled just the opposite and had ruled that Bongardt and his team could take part in any investigation of Mihdhar since this NSA information had no connection to a FISA warrant.

Since Wilshire and Corsi as well as virtually the entire management hierarchy at the CIA and many mid-level managers at the FBI HQ also knew Wilshire and Corsi were sabotaging Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar when they also knew that these terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack, they also had to know their efforts to shut down the only investigation that could have found Mihdhar and Hazmi in time to prevent this huge attack would result in the deaths of thousands of Americans.

Not only is this now well documented, but even the exact documents from the US governments own web sites an sources that prove all of this are now available for anyone to see and understand, why the attacks on 9/11 were successful.

[noise]

9. The officials who look the most guilty

are the ones with firsthand knowledge of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.

[Marksbrother]

6. I think your initial premise is in error

CIA is NOT "all about CYA." CIA is all about DECEPTION. Start from THAT premise.

[noise]

10. And how does that apply to the CIA's 9/11 account?

What is notable about their account is the lack of deception. Tenet didn't have any good excuses. Instead he offered weak explanations that made no sense (i.e. faulty cable trafficking procedures).

[CJCRANE]

14. Exactly.

Amd more than that - spooks don't just deceive us, they deceive each other. You have moles, double-agents, agent provocateurs etc.

[CJCRANE]

13. "An alternate explanation for the bizarre conduct of the CIA

is the transparent MO. This theory suggests that concealment of involvement is not as important as social conditioning objectives."

Look who they appointed to be chairman of the 9/11 Commission...Philip Zelikow, expert on "public myths".

Also, if you look at the current torture issue, you can see how these things play out, from crime to cover-up, to plausible deniability, to limited hangout, to full-blown pro-torture media campaign.

[SDuderstadt]

20. zelikow was not ''chairman'' of the commission...

hamlton and kean were co-chairs...get your facts straight.

[CJCRANE]

22. "An alternate explanation for

the bizarre conduct of the CIA is the transparent MO. This theory suggests that concealment of involvement is not as important as social conditioning objectives."

Look who they appointed to be executive director the 9/11 Commission...Philip Zelikow, expert on "public myths".

Also, if you look at the current torture issue, you can see how these things play out, from crime to cover-up, to plausible deniability, to limited hangout, to full-blown pro-torture media campaign.

My facts are now straight.