FBI Nixed Al Qaeda Mole / Mag: Had chance to infiltrate training camp before 9/11

New York Daily News ^ | 6/01/02 | LEO STANDORA

[kattracks]

The FBI had a chance to infiltrate an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan months before Sept. 11, but top agents responsible for tracking terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden rejected the plan, according to a report published yesterday.

The decision by leaders of the Bin Laden unit at FBI headquarters may have wasted a golden opportunity to learn about plans for the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The news magazine said an informant told a bureau field agent months before the Sept. 11 attacks that he was invited to attend a commando training course at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

The information was relayed to a supervisor, who passed it on to FBI headquarters, where it hit a brick wall in the Bin Laden unit of the bureau's counterterrorism division.

A field office communiqué asked the Justice Department to authorize what it described as "otherwise illegal activity" — the informant's participation in terrorist training — sources told the magazine.

But the Bin Laden unit flatly rejected the request without even doing an "asset validation" to see whether the informant's information was on target, the sources said.

The FBI declined to comment.

It was unclear which of the bureau's 56 offices made the request or exactly when it was made.

The FBI has come under fire for ignoring warnings from field offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis about terrorist activity.

In New Jersey yesterday, the Bush administration's top prosecutor for anti-terrorism said the U.S. had plenty of evidence before Sept. 11 that a devastating terrorist attack on American soil was likely.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, cited nearly a decade's worth of hints that foreign terrorists were targeting Americans.

But he didn't say there was specific information that could have prevented the Sept. 11 airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In a speech to Seton Hall Law School graduates at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., Chertoff cited warning signs including the bombing of the Trade Center in 1993; a mid-1990s plan in which an Islamic radical was convicted of plotting to blow up jetliners and New York landmarks and assassinate the Pope; a death sentence pronounced on Americans by Bin Laden in the late 1990s, and the failed millennium bomb plot at Los Angeles International Airport.

[Nita Nupress]

That she would write this article is telling.

Very. And we ignore it at our own peril. But I don't have much hope of anything ever seeing the light of day. Not unless there is another whistleblower from up the chain of command.

[Seeking the truth]

Do you remember Woolseys' exact words re: Flight 800? Please post it if you can; perhaps, the question posed to him also.

[Nita Nupress]

Not that I don't believe you, but if you can post a link with a proof statement, a lot of us would love to have that!

I saw it myself, Gene. Woolsey didn't come right out and say it, of course. Instead, he threw the idea out there in the context of: "You know, many people still claim that a missle brought down Flight 800..." (paraphrasing)

I'll look for a transcript later. I definitely got the impression it was one of those situations where someone is trying to get some information out there for public consumption & discussion without wanting to come right out and say it.

It was similar to when former CIA agent Larry Johnson threw out the "Islamic terrorist/OKC bombing" information on Fox News one day. I got that same "fall-out-of-my-chair" feeling. ;-)

[McGavin999]

Thanks for the ping Nita, and the links. I think it's very likely that there were Al Qaeda (or Iraqui?) operatives in the FBI, after all, look what happened to Scott Ritter in just a few short years.

[Nita Nupress]

I found it. Hang on...

[rdavis84]

"It's not all Clinton's fault. Both parties are to blame."

That's true. And there are plenty on here to blame/indict Clinton, me included.

"All I'm saying is, when law enforcement conducts an investigation, the proper way to do it is not to start at their favorite suspect and build a case around him. Instead, they start at the bottom and follow the evidence up the ladder to see where it takes them.

This thread should start at the bottom: Who in the FBI HQ nixed the Al Qaeda mole? Instead, you guys start at your preconceived "Bush/BCCI/Bin Ladin/Saudi Connections" rung of the ladder."

Two things about that are a fallacy --1.) I'm not, and likely most others on this forum and this thread ARE LAW ENFORCEMENT!  2.) Where in the heck do you think you're going to find ANY information about an FBI OR CIA Agent to construct ANYTHING about him or her? So YOU find out the Agents/Supervisors Names that controlled the flow of information. While you're at it, trace ALL of their Background and let us know about that too.

The Reason that the top levels must be the focus is because they have a History. And that History has been covered in depth thru their rise to Prominence. Your Approach is Wrong if there is to be accountability at the Top, where it belongs.

If that's where the line of inquiry goes, then fine, that's where it goes. But to start out there is bad research, IMHO.

Well, your opinion is different than mine. So?

[rdavis84]

I just read thru your replies to others on this thread and there's an inconsistancy. You are starting with Top Level guys and working down the way it reads to me. At the Least, you're mixing various levels of responsibility to present information. You can't have it both ways.

I believe in Accountability from the top down, especially with the Deceptive, Controlling SOB's that infest our government. What/where do you believe the Responsibility should end? With the lowest level Fall Guy that is set-up for Sacrifice?

[Nita Nupress]

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

 

Fox News Network
SHOW: THE BIG STORY WITH JOHN GIBSON
May 31, 2002 Friday
(Snip)

GIBSON: Joining us now from Washington to discuss how we should assess this type of intelligence warning, attorney and former CIA director James Woolsey.

So, Mr. Woolsey, this advisory to the airlines -- if not a warning, what is it?

JAMES WOOLSEY, ATTORNEY: I can't take it as anything except a warning. They say they don't have any evidence that al Qaeda plans to use such, but, if they're in the country, they weren't brought here to go into a museum.

GIBSON: Well, yeah. Are they making perhaps a distinction without difference that we know there are al Qaeda operatives here, and, if there's evidence they've smuggled in a Stinger, that military aircraft could be targeted as well as commercial jet aircraft.

WOOLSEY: Any kind of aircraft can be targeted. The deadly thing about a Stinger is that it is capable of shrugging off a lot of decoys and things that would be used to defeat these systems by military aircraft.

But, against an airliner, a Russian SA-7 will do just as well. These are relatively low-altitude systems, up to 10,000 feet, 15,000 feet and firing out a few miles, but anywhere near an airport, yeah, that -- it could be a problem.

GIBSON: What is it you do to secure yourself or your airplane from this sort of weapon?

WOOLSEY: It's very difficult. It's -- say military aircraft have various countermeasures they can use, but civilian aircraft don't. And this is a troubling development. They may not have any intelligence that anybody plans to use them or that they have them in a specific place, but they have something apparently suggesting that we should be concerned about it.

And there's not a lot we can do about it except look very hard for the al Qaeda or other people who might have these systems and see if we can discover them. But these are small, you know, about the size of a World War II bazooka or slightly larger. These are not massive systems.

GIBSON: So, when they sent an advisory out to the airlines, evidently, the airlines let the pilots see it, and the pilots are very often military pilots. They might recognize something streaking up at them from the ground. What can a pilot do at that point?

WOOLSEY: Not much. Not in a civilian aircraft. You know, there were theories that TWA 800, I guess, back in 1996 was hit by something like this and the technical investigation suggesting that a largely empty tank of fuel exploded didn't entirely satisfy all of the people who looked at it. It's impossible [ Note: I heard him say the word "possible," not "impossible" ] -- I won't say that it was at all proven, but there's at least a suggestion that something like this may have happened before.

GIBSON: Let's take a look at this quote today. This comes from the American Airlines CEO whose name is Donald Carty, and he is speaking in Japan, and he was suggesting that security at American -- that is U.S. airlines is -- may actually have gotten to be too much, and he said it would be a hollow victory, indeed, if the system we end up with is so onerous and so difficult that air travel, while obviously more secure, becomes more trouble for the average person than it is worth.

Now, bearing in mind, he's in the business of selling tickets to sit on his airplanes, is there any notion going around in official circles that we may have overdone security?

WOOLSEY: I don't know whether there is in official circles, but it seems to me what's important is having smart security rather than dumb security. They seem to focus very heavily on those little nail files that are attached to fingernail clippers and on grandmothers in tennis shoes. You know, these are not the threats.

The Israelis do this very thoroughly and carefully person by person. They have a lot fewer flights than we do, but we're going have to focus on people who actually might be involved in hijacking of aircraft, such as young men, maybe regardless of race or ethnic background.

I mean, I don't know why they spend so much time on grandmothers. Every flight I go on, those seem to be the people who are mainly getting frisked.

GIBSON: Well, I guess the point we're getting at is maybe -- maybe he's right in the sense that security at the airplane and at the airport is so good terrorists may not try it.

But it does raise the question, well, if they get a Stinger missile, they can be three miles away from the airport, never come in contact with any security people, and do an awful lot of damage from there.

WOOLSEY: Right. And, you know, if we were operating our airport security well -- and some of it is operated well, but we don't have X-ray machines that work very well, for example.

If we make improvements in smart security at airports, we may be able to make things a bit more efficient and also more effective against terrorists. But, as you say, that's not going to deal with the problem of the Stinger or the SA-7 two or three or four miles away.

GIBSON: Does that mean that we have to extend airport security out to the four-mile range around an airport?

WOOLSEY: Well, it wouldn't be the same kind of security, but people are going to have to start thinking about this so-called MANPAD, man portable air defense system, SA-7, Stingers, that kind of thing, being around airports.

They're going to have to find some way to search for such systems and to establish security. It won't be the same kind of security as going through a line at an airport, but there will probably have to be something.

GIBSON: James Woolsey, former director of the CIA.

Mr. Woolsey, thanks very much for coming in.

WOOLSEY: Good to be with you.

(snip)

Now, I really must run. Nice seeing ya. Later!

[Mo1]

Betty Jo threw a big heap of crap onto the forum floor and pinged the dung beetles to fly on in an roll their balls around a bit.

Seems to be a habit of hers these days

[Icthus]

"..How many government officials were accepting bribes.."

It does seems plausible that something is going on here....
The level of FBI/CIA incompetence being uncovered almost daily is way beyond what would be expected. I'm beginning to wonder whether we have been "dumbed down" to 3rd world standards, there is major dirt on some of these guys floating around out there, or the FBI/CIA have been infiltrated at the highest levels.

It is time we wake up and realize that our house is on fire!

[browardchad]

This NYT article today -- by Risen and Johnston -- reeks of the Clintonites playing CYA, but there are some interesting tidbits (and some names):

F.B.I. Was Warned It Could Not Meet Terrorism Threat

Towards the end, we read:

efforts were hampered by the fact that the bureau's New York office had become a major, independent player in counterterrorism investigations, however, making it more difficult to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts on a bureauwide basis.

This links to John O’Neill, head of the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, who quit the FBI in August 2001 – due in no small part to a “lost briefcase” incident in Orlando in July 2000 – O’Neill became security chief at the WTC, and died on 9/11.

In this January 2002 New Yorker story about O’Neill, there was tremendous friction between him and the State Department over the investigation of the Cole bombing in Yemen (remember that mess?)

A link to the David Johnston NY Times story about the investigation into the brief case incident here. (A bizarre site, but the only place I could find the story). The New Yorker story places the incident in Orlando, while the NYT story places it in Tampa – possibly just sloppy journalism.

Note the New Yorker story relies heavily on information from “Richard A. Clarke, the national coördinator for counter-terrorism in the White House from the first Bush Administration until last year.”

That’s not quite accurate: According to the CIAO bio here, “President Clinton appointed Richard Clarke as the first National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism in May 1998,” and “In 1992, Mr. Clarke joined the National Security Council staff…. He has served as chairman of the interagency counter-terrorism committee since 1992.” He held various State Department posts since 1979. In October, 2001, Bush designated “Richard A. Clarke to be Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. Clarke was recently named Special Advisor to the President for Cyber Space Security and was previously the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism on the National Security Council,” according to the White House.

Clarke was therefore removed as National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism on October 9, 2001, and replaced with retired four-star Gen. Wayne A. Downing. Link here

[Nita Nupress]

Two things about that are a fallacy --1.) I'm not, and likely most others on this forum and this thread ARE LAW ENFORCEMENT!  2.) Where in the heck do you think you're going to find ANY information about an FBI OR CIA Agent to construct ANYTHING about him or her? So YOU find out the Agents/Supervisors Names that controlled the flow of information. While you're at it, trace ALL of their Background and let us know about that too.

I was speaking hypothetically, but now that I read it again, I understand what it sounded like.  Sorry; I probably come across as egocentric at times, but I don't mean to.  Confrontive & saucy, yes.  Egocentric, no.  (I'll ignore all flames on this. :-)

Of course we're not law enforcement.  We're just a bunch of keyboard cowboys who would rather sit here and speculate rather than be cleaning the house & washing clothes (or whatever is on your Honey-Do list this morning).  This is what I said yesterday about the keyboard cowboy concept:

"It's easy to sit around & point fingers at the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, but most finger-pointers tend to forget we're on the outside looking in. We can sit here and speculate and place blame all we want (like I did in the previous paragraph), but that doesn't make it so."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/692148/posts#22

 

The Reason that the top levels must be the focus is because they have a History. And that History has been covered in depth thru their rise to Prominence. Your Approach is Wrong if there is to be accountability at the Top, where it belongs.

How do you know who to hold accountable until you first follow the trail to see where it leads?

 

Well, your opinion is different than mine. So

But that doesn't mean we can't work together to achieve the same goal.  But to do that effectively, we have to start at the level of the FBI HQ and look at who these people are.  We can see if there's anything to dig up and see where it leads.  What will you get by doing searches on these names?  How does Judge Lamberth and the FISA court figure in this, if at all?  Who sent Frasca to Cleveland and why?  Who is Frasca's boss? 

We already know about the connections between Saudi's/Bush/BCCI/Carlyle/etc.  And we already know about the  connections between Clinton/Freeh/FBI politicalization/etc.  But if  you start at BCCI/Bush and I start at Bill Clinton and we work our way down, we're on two different paths with two different preconceived outcomes. 

If we all start at the same place -- at Michael Maltbie and David Frasca -- and work our way up, then we can see if any dots are connected along the way.  We can see where it leads, if anywhere.   

I hate to bring up Teg Security again, but those six threads were only possible because we worked our way up, not down.

Just my ever-so-humble opinion.  We're all keyboard cowboys anyway, so it's not worth arguing about. ;-)

[swarthyguy]

David Frasca's boss: R. Mueller?. In the FBI/DOJ since the BCCI Affair and the jihadi/Saudi connection nurtured when the jihadis were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Follow the money if anyone dares; the Saudi Lobby runs silent and it runs deep. Why do think we're conducting this war with kidgloves when it comes to the Saudis whose delicate sensibilities we don't want to offend? Why? Certainly not sentiment of any kind. Money. Saudi money, lots of it in the US economy. Just a thought.

[L`enn]

I never doubted it then,I certainly do not now, along with te M.E. connection to OKC. With all this media viewing of history through the rear view mirror, I am amazed these issues have not come in to view. Only "mainstream" media looking at any of this is the Indianapolis Star.

[Nita Nupress]

I just read thru your replies to others on this thread and there's an inconsistancy. You are starting with Top Level guys and working down the way it reads to me. At the Least, you're mixing various levels of responsibility to present information. You can't have it both ways.

Arrrgh!  If you're talking about my comments about Trent Lott & his Republican colleagues, I was voicing my reason for doubting we'll ever find out the truth about a possible Al Qaeda mole in the FBI.  If you're not referring to that, I'm not sure to what you are referring.

[Nita Nupress]

I agree that's one place it may lead.

[L`enn]

How does Judge Lamberth and the FISA court figure in this, if at all?

Good, then I am not the only one whose antennae raised when I saw this moron's name resurface in recent supports. While they are at it find out the connections of Judge Matsch and find who is pulling his strings. Are these two judges just imbeciles, or is there a script? I would like to know.

[Nita Nupress]

I have to go for a while, but I can't wait to come back and digest all that!

[proudofthesouth]

I agree with you. They have been too busy setting up and killing Americans in incidents like Ruby Ridge and Waco. I think the FBI really stands for Fu*king Bunch (of) Idiots!

[F16Fighter]

Hmmmm, does the cinematic charactor, Corky Romano indeed work for the FBI?