JULY 21, 2001 : (IRAQ, FOREWARNING IN NEWSPAPERS) On July 21, approximately six weeks before the September 11 th attacks, Iraqi columnist Mulhalhal reported that bin Laden was making plans to “demolish the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.” Mulhalhal’s July 21 article further informed that bin Laden would strike America “on the arm that is already hurting.” Upon information and belief, this references a second Iraqi sponsored attack on the World Trade Center. This interpretation is further bolstered by another reference to New York as “[bin Laden] will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra everytime he hears his songs.” (e.g., “New York, New York”) identifying New York, New York as a target. Mulhalhal further indicated, “The wings of a dove and the bullet are all but one and the same in the heart of a believer.” (Emphasis supplied) This appears to be a reference to the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon. The information was reported in an Iraqi newspaper who’s editor-in-chief serves as secretary to Uday Hussein’s Iraqi Syndicate of Journalists. The article expressed Iraqi admiration and support for bin Laden’s plans and its appearance in the newspaper would clearly have to be endorsed by Saddam Hussein himself. All Iraqi news media is strictly controlled and censored by the government of Saddam Hussein and is under the direct oversight of Uday Hussein. Various members of Iraqi intelligence work at and control the content of each and every newspaper published inside Iraq. The information contained in Mulhalhal’s published statements were known prior to the events of September 11 th , and that Mulhalhal has ties to Iraqi intelligence, demonstrates foreknowledge of the planned attacks by bin Laden and indicates support by Iraqi co-conspirators. - Findlaw, Ashton, et al. v. al Qaeda ... see also http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003069 from the WSJ
JULY 21, 2001 : (IRAQI PAPER AL-NASIRIYA PRAISES BIN LADEN) More recently, and eerily, a July 21, 2001, commentary in the Iraqi publication Al-Nasiriya praised bin Laden: "In this man's heart you'll find an insistence, a strange determination that he will reach one day the tunnels of the White House and will bomb it with everything that is in it."
The article recounts bin Laden's attacks on U.S. targets and U.S. efforts "to pressure the Taliban movement so that it would hand them bin Laden, while he continues to smile and still thinks seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."
The commentary is ominously prescient, especially since it could never have appeared without official sanction. "Bin Laden is a healthy phenomenon in the Arab spirit," it continues, speaking about his goal to "drive off the Marines" from Arabia. Most eerily of all, the writer adds that those Marines "will be going away because the revolutionary bin Laden is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting. That the man . . . will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs." Is that a reference to Sinatra's "New York, New York"? Did Saddam know what would happen two months later? - "Saddam and the Next 9/11 : The Iraqi dictator and his son talk about the uses of biological weapons," REVIEW & OUTLOOK, OpinionJournal, WSJ.com, Friday, February 14, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST