ABLE DANGER ARCHIVE

By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.

August 23, 2005

NewsWithViews.com

Recently, there has been revealing news about the U.S. Army's Project "Able Danger," which was established in September 1999 by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, then head of the Special Operations Command. Schoomaker had previously advised Texas Governor Ann Richards and the FBI regarding what military equipment could be used in the attack upon the Branch Davidians at Waco (a mock-up of the Davidians' compound was at Fort Hood, Texas, where Schoomaker was an assistant to Gen. Wesley Clark, a Rhodes Scholar named by fellow Rhodes Scholar President Bill Clinton to be military head of NATO). Schoomaker has also advocated joint military training exercises with the Communist Chinese, and on August 1, 2003 President George W. Bush named him Army Chief of Staff.

Able Danger used advanced technology and data analysis to identify and target Al-Qaeda members around the world. Long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Able Danger identified 9-11 ringleader Mohammed Atta in September 2000 as part of an Al-Qaeda cell in Brooklyn, and eventually 60 members of Al-Qaeda were identified.

Concerning Atta's background, in November 1998 he and several other terrorists moved into a 4-bedroom apartment in Hamburg, Germany. On February 17 of the next year, German intelligence began tapping suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist Mohammed Haydar Zammar's phone, and they heard Zammar was at a meeting with Atta. By December 1999, the CIA began to recruit German businessman Mamoun Darkazanli for information because he knew Atta and others of the Hamburg Al-Qaeda terrorist cell.

The next month (January 2000), according to the German intelligence magazine FOCUS (September 24, 2001), the CIA began surveillance of Atta which lasted to May 2000. Christian Elflein and others wrote in the FOCUS article that "U.S. agents followed him (Atta) mainly in the area around Frankfurt am Main and noted that Atta bought large quantities of chemicals for the possible production of explosives....On May 18, 2000 the U.S. Embassy in Berlin gave (Atta) a visa....Strange that the visa application and granting it happened in the period when the (CIA) was still observing the suspicious buying of chemicals by the person (Atta) concerned....Someone from the (German) intelligence service (told) FOCUS: 'We can no longer exclude the possibility that the Americans wanted to keep an eye on Atta after his entry in the USA.'...German security experts are still stunned about the speed with which the FBI could present the conspirative ties of Atta and his presumed Hamburg accomplices. 'As (if all it needed was) a push on a button,' an insider says, 'As if the Americans for a long time already had loads of info on their computers about the culprits.'"

At this point, it is worth mentioning that Yossef Bodansky (director of the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare) in TARGET AMERICA: TERRORISM IN THE U.S. TODAY (1993) referred to a large Islamist network spanning the U.S. including "all the components of a mature terrorist support system (with) safe houses in major cities, weapons, ammunition, money, systems to provide medical and legal aid, false identity papers, and intelligence for the operative." The point in including this here is to ask how Bodansky would know about all this unless the terrorist network were already being monitored by the federal government?

Returning to Mohammed Atta, he used his aforementioned visa to come to the U.S. on June 3, 2000. He stayed at the Wayne Inn on Route 23 in New Jersey, and in July went to Venice, Florida to take flying lessons at Huffman Aviation flight school. Then in May 2001, he rented an apartment in Hollywood, Florida.

Several months later, Atta received $100,000 wired to him at the request of Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, head of the ISI, Pakistani intelligence (also see my NewsWithViews.com article "Richard Armitage and the ISI"). Shortly thereafter, September 3-5, 2001, members of Atta's Hamburg terrorist cell left Germany for Pakistan. At about this same time (the week before the 9-11 attacks), Gen. Ahmad came to the U.S. to talk to top Pentagon, CIA and NSC (National Security Council) officials (in May 2001 Gen. Ahmad already had an unusually long meeting in Pakistan with CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage).

Then, on September 10, 2001 some top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled their travel plans for the morning of 9-11 apparently because of security concerns. Late that same night (September 10), San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown also received a phone call warning him and all Americans to watch out for air travel (Mayor Brown was supposed to fly to New York City the morning of 9-11). In case you think these top Pentagon officials and Mayor Brown simply received a general warning, alert or emergency ruling from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), I filed 2 Freedom of Information requests and received replies from the Department of Homeland Security stating that while there were 12 warnings, alerts or emergency rulings between May and September 15, 2001, none occurred from September 2 through September 11.

At the end of the Preface of long-time Middle East CIA agent Robert Baer's 2002 book, SEE NO EVIL, one finds the following: "The other day a reporter friend told me that one of the highest-ranking CIA officials had said to him, off the record, that when the dust finally clears, Americans will see that September 11 was a triumph for the intelligence community, not a failure."

In October 2003, Able Danger officer Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer testified to the 9-11 Commission about their monitoring Mohammed Atta and other 9-11 terrorists long before the attacks of 9-11, but the Commission did not include this information in its report. Regarding this, NATIONAL REVIEW's Jim Geraghty exclaimed: "As for the 9-11 commission, after all that patting themselves on the back, all that gushing praise from left, right and center, after their work was called 'miraculous' by NEWSDAY, and the nomination for a National Book Award, and calling their own work 'extraordinary'...man, these guys stink. Really, if this checks out, and the staffers had information like this and they disregarded it, never believing that we in the public deserved to know that the plot's ringleader was identified, located and recommended to be arrested a year before the attacks...boy, these guys ought to be in stocks in the public square and have rotten fruit thrown at them. What a sham." In addition, members of the organization SEPTEMBER 11 ADVOCATES released a statement saying in part: "As 9-11 widows who fought tirelessly for the creation of the 9-11 commission, we are wholly disappointed to learn that the commission's Final Report is a hollow failure."

Concerning the July 7, 2005 London terrorist bombings, the terrorist ringleader also trained with Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The photo of the 4 bombers widely shown in the press and media appears to be doctored, as the man in the white cap supposedly in front of the railed fence actually has one of the rails in front of his left arm. In a July 29, 2005 interview on Fox News Channel's "Day Side" program, former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and terror expert John Loftus said that 7-7 mastermind, Haroon Rashid Aswat, came to America in 1999. Loftus then revealed: "The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon....We've just learned that the headquarters of the U.S. Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat..., apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence....The Brits know that the CIA wants to get a hold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves....He's on the watch list. The only reason he could get away with that was if he was working for British intelligence. He was a wanted man." Aswat allegedly left London on July 6, 2005, the day before the bombings, to go to Pakistan where he was arrested but released within 24 hours.

Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.

Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.

© 2005 Dennis Cuddy.

Orginal http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=657

Weldon Says Records Were Ordered Destroyed!! (Able Danger)

Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 02:17 PM

Dom Giordano Show - 1210AM Radio "Big Talker" - Philadelphia | 29 AUG 05 | Vanity

Posted on 08/29/2005 6:23:38 PM PDT by Lancey Howard

Congressman Curt Weldon (R - Pennsylvania) gave another exclusive interview to Dom Giordano this evening (Monday) and broke the news that he will be giving a speech on September 8th (next Monday) during which he will present yet another 'Able Danger' witness. This new witness will attest (and will swear under oath when called) that he was "ordered to destroy records" relating to the 'Able Danger' program.

This order to destroy the records occurred prior to 9-11-01. Weldon intimated that it happened during the Clinton Administration. The witness, who Weldon did not name, says that he was ordered to destroy records and was threatened with jail if he failed to comply. Weldon said that he has the names of the people involved, including the person who gave the order, and HE WILL NAME THEM in his speech.

Congressman Weldon also said that his staff has met with Senator Arlen Specter's (R - Pennsylvania) staff regarding the upcoming Judiciary Committee hearings. Weldon wants to be sure that everybody is on the same page. Weldon also said that he will do whatever he has to do to make sure that ALL the facts come out and that the process "is not manipulated".

Curt Weldon is like a pit bull on a steak. He expressed disgust with the "incompetence" of the 9-11 Commission and said that the victims of the 9-11 terror attacks deserve answers. Weldon is determined to see that they get them.

Weldon did express confidence in Tim Roehmer and John Lehman and speculated that perhaps the poor job done by the Commission was the result of an incompetent staff. Weldon sounded amazed and disappointed that so much important information was either glossed over or swept under the rug by the Commission.

Weldon will give his September 8th speech either to the National Press Club or to a "9-11 families" group which has asked him to speak. He apparently hasn't nailed down the exact venue yet.

Copyright 2005 Lancey Howard. Used here for information purposes under fair-use provisions, please see Fair-Use Notice, below.

German press reports on CIA surveillance of the "Hamburg Cell" and Mossad observation of Atta in Florida

Oct. 5, 2002

This week two articles in the German press reported new details about the alleged surveillance of Mohamed Atta and his accomplices in Florida by the Israeli "Art Students" spy ring. In the following, I present translations of both stories. They seem very exciting at first glance, but I must warn that the headlines are more spectacular than the bulk of either article, nearly all of which should be well-known to the versed researcher of 9/11 oddities. 

The second story below, an article by Oliver Schroem published in DIE ZEIT, is an in-depth "dossier" on the "intelligence failures" of the CIA and other American agencies, leading up to the disaster of Sept. 11. Schroem reviews in fairly accurate detail the findings of the congressional joint investigation as released to date. He goes through the known semi-official history, including such now-familiar matters as the failure of the FBI headquarters in Washington to act on the warnings from investigators Colleen Rowley and Kenneth Williams.

ZEIT begins its account with the Jan. 2000 meeting of high-level Qaeda personnel in Kuala Lumpur. According to the official story, this is where the attacks on the USS Cole and World Trade Center are now believed to have been planned. The Kuala Lumpur meeting was monitored by Malaysian intelligence at the request of the CIA. The CIA was able to determine the identities of the participants, if not the entire agenda. Among those attending: 1) Ramzi Binalshibh, a student in Germany who then returned there and supposedly organized the Hamburg cell led by Atta; and 2, 3) Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. They subsequently entered the United States and moved around the country freely for 18 months, before they allegedly helped to hijack the Pentagon plane on Sept. 11.

Alhmihdhar's story is especially incredible because he left and reentered the United States at least twice more, once traveling to Germany to meet Binalshibh, and once going to Yemen, where the CIA believes he helped prepare the bombing of the USS Cole. Although he was identified as a suspect in the Cole bombing soon after that attack, the CIA never told the FBI or the INS anything about either him or Alhazmi until late Aug. 2001 -- after he had reentered the United States yet again. This proved to be far too late.

ZEIT writes that the CIA also did not inform the German authorities about its suspicions regarding Binalshibh. ZEIT leaves open whether American agents continued observing Binalshibh once he was back in Germany, where they could have connected him to the other members of the "Hamburg cell" that included the alleged WTC suicide pilots, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi.

It seems likely that the CIA did monitor Binalshibh long enough to connect him to Atta, for it fits perfectly with earlier reports in the German press that the CIA had Mohamed Atta under surveillance in Hamburg starting in January 2000. The German press wrote that this surveillance continued until Atta applied and received a U.S. entry visa from the U.S. embassy in Berlin (on May 18, 2000) and flew to the United States out of Prague in June.

Below, I have included an additional translation of one the many early German stories about CIA surveillance of Atta in Germany (Berliner Zeitung, Sept. 24, 2001).

So we have strong indications that Binalshibh led the CIA to Atta, who was then followed to the States. Did the surveillance of Atta continue once he was in the States? Technically, the CIA would have been required to cease the surveillance and pass the information on to the FBI, since the law before Sept. 11 banned CIA domestic operations. Of course, that law has most often been honored in the breach.

One way for the CIA to keep watching Atta without itself violating the ban on activities inside the United States would be to pass the baton on to a friendly intelligence service, such as the Mossad. An allied spy agency could violate American law on the CIA's behalf, and watch the suspect without needing to involve the FBI or any other domestic American agency.

The SPIEGEL story, which is shorter and more spectacular than the ZEIT dossier on which it is supposedly based, claims that the Mossad indeed kept Atta under continuous surveillance while he was attending flight school in Florida in 2000 and early 2001. As its source, SPIEGEL cites "documents obtained by ZEIT," but the ZEIT article does not actually mention the same details as SPIEGEL. This leaves me wondering whether SPIEGEL is daring to publish items that ZEIT prefers to edit out, or whether SPIEGEL is merely "supplementing" the ZEIT story with details adapted from the already known American reports on the Israeli "Art Students."

"According to research by ZEIT, between December 2000 and April 2001 a whole horde of Israeli counter-terror investigators posing as students were on the trail of Arab terrorists and their cells in the United States," SPIEGEL writes. "In their secret investigations the Israelis came very close to the later perpetrators of Sept. 11. In the town of Hollywood, Florida, they identified the two former Hamburg students and later terror pilots Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi as suspected terrorists. Agents lived in the vicinity of the apartment of the two seemingly normal flight school students, observing them around the clock."

Again, these details do not actually appear in the ZEIT story. But they state as established a connection that until now has only been speculative: that the Israeli "Art Students" in Hollywood, Florida were actually there to track the activities of Atta and his accomplices. If it is true that ZEIT has new material - possibly obtained from the congressional joint investigation, possibly from the Mossad itself - then this is a big revelation.

The "Art Students," a ring of perhaps as many as 120 Israeli spies operating in the United States, were rounded up by American domestic law enforcement in the spring and summer of 2001. They were deported to Israel, without fanfare, hue or cry.

After this, SPIEGEL writes, the Americans failed to pick up the surveillance of Atta and the other terrorists. But the Mossad later (on Aug. 23) provided the United States with a list of 19 potential terrorists, whom the Mossad believed were planning an imminent attack within the United States. At least four of the names on this list later turned up again as four of the 19 alleged Sept. 11 hijackers. (To clear up any confusion, according to SPIEGEL the Mossad list numbered 19 names, just like the list of alleged Sept. 11 hijackers.)

ZEIT presents the same details on the Mossad warning to the United States, citing "documents" in its possession of unspecified provenance:

"Langley, Aug. 23, 2001. The Israeli intelligence service Mossad presents to its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who are living in the United States and seem to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. According to documents obtained by DIE ZEIT, Mossad agents in the United States were following at least four of the 19 hijackers, including Almihdhar. The CIA now finally does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Department, the FBI and the INS about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, who are immediately put on a watch list as presumed members of Qaeda."

So if this is true - and we do not yet know what ZEIT's source is - we see that when the CIA finally decided to tell the domestic American agencies what it knew about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, it was only because the Mossad forced its hand, by naming these very men in its own warning to the United States.

We need to keep in mind that these stories, like everything else in the mainstream European and American press, consistently avoid what we might call the Forbidden Question, although it suggests itself quite obviously. Were these repeated and astounding CIA failures -- failure to inform the Germans about Binalshibh and presumably Atta, failure on many occasions to inform the FBI about Almihdhar and Alhazmi -- really and solely the product of bureaucratic obstacles and/or incompetence? Did they not fit in with a darker agenda, given the enormous benefit that the CIA (and not just the CIA) stood to derive if, just once, a successful and horrible "attack on America" demonstrated the need to "unleash the CIA" -- allow it to conduct domestic operations -- allow it to kill and subvert freely again around the world -- raise its budget by another $10 billion -- reestablish its central role in making foreign policy?

Of course, once we think like this, we may see a lot of darker agendas at work that would have benefited from allowing the Sept. 11 attacks to happen.

Even members of the congressional joint investigation have promised that "more bombshells are coming." 
[Note, 2004: Not.]

Jack Riddler (Nicholas Levis)
www.osamaskidneys.com

------------------------------------------------------------

Translations of Three Articles from the German

(1) SPIEGEL, Oct. 1, 2002
(2) DIE ZEIT, Oct. 3, 2002
(3) Berliner Zeitung, Sept. 24, 2001

(4) ADDENDUM
New York Times, Feb. 24, 2004: German authorities informed CIA about the Hamburg Cell and named alleged terror pilot Marwan al-Shehhi as unsavory character back in 1998.

------------------------------------------------------------
(1)
DER SPIEGEL, newsweekly, Hamburg, first published Oct. 1, 2001 on Internet:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,216421,00.html

CIA BLUNDERS

Mossad Agents Were On Atta's Tail

New revelations are putting the CIA in a tight spot. Apparently the Israeli intelligence service Mossad gave early warnings to their American counterparts about the terrorist group around Mohamed Atta. Furthermore, German investigators found out after the attacks that their U.S. colleagues had already known a great deal about the Hamburg students two years in advance of Sept. 11, 2001.

WASHINGTON/TEL AVIV/HAMBURG. The latest discoveries were made by the Hamburg weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, which on Thursday (Oct. 3) intends to publish an extensive dossier on the failures of the Central Intelligence Agency. Freelance author Oliver Schroem therein sums up the results of his research among various European and American agencies. The findings will surely be depressing for the troubled CIA director, George J. Tenet. Apparently the CIA acquired very specific [prior] information on several of the later suicide pilots of Sept. 11. These clues were ignored, although the suspects were already in the United States. Two of the later pilots were on an FBI wanted list starting in August 2001. Nevertheless, they were able to move unrecognized around the country and get on to the death jets using their own real names.

The hottest lead would have led the Americans straight to the Hamburg terrorists around Mohamed Atta - if they had listened to their colleagues from the Israeli Mossad. Israeli agents were observing several of the terror pilots in the United States.

The trail of the suspects was not picked up

Not long after, however, the agents were discovered by the U.S. authorities and deported to Israel. As is usual in such cases, the discovery was not made public and caused much annoyance between the traditionally competitive intelligence services, Mossad and CIA. Once again this case showed that the U.S. intelligence community was not ready for cooperation, even when faced with a specific danger, and preferred to engage in infighting. [sic re "infighting" with Mossad] With the deportation of the agents, the observation of the later terrorists was terminated. The Israelis provided a list [to the CIA] including the names of at least four out of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, but this was apparently not treated as sufficiently urgent by the CIA and also not passed on to the FBI. What is clear is that the U.S. agencies did not react quickly in following up on the tips from the Israeli agents. The ongoing congressional joint investigation has also found out about the Israeli angle.

However, the Israelis also had not yet found out about the specific plan for the Sept. 11 attacks [before they were rounded up by the U.S. authorities]. At the same time, they believed that the 19 persons named in their list [of Aug. 23] were potential terrorists who "were planning attacks in the United States," as DIE ZEIT writes. Only later did the American police search for Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. Both were on the Israeli list, and both later sat in the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. Although their names were on an FBI national watch list starting in the late summer of 2001, they traveled without trouble in the United States and also boarded the death jets on Sept. 11 with passports in their real names.

CIA knew about Binalshibh since January 2000

The failure in American-Israeli cooperation was not the only blunder described in the ZEIT dossier. Next to the embarrassments for the CIA already revealed by the congressional joint investigation, the dossier also criticizes the cooperation between American and German authorities. The CIA was aware that in January 2000, several high-ranking Qaeda terrorists met in Kuala Lumpur, among them the Yemenite Ramzi Binalshibh, a presumed mastermind of the Hamburg cell. He was arrested in September [2002] in Pakistan and is currently being interrogated by U.S. authorities. The two terrorists Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi were also at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, where the CIA closely observed the suspects, having recognized already at the time that it was a planning meeting for Qaeda attacks. Supposedly the CIA even received photos of the suspects from the Malaysian Secret Service.

These important findings apparently led to no further action, at least not in Germany, where Binalshibh was in the process of organizing the terror cell. After the Malaysia meeting Binalshibh returned to Hamburg, where he already had a regular residence permit as a student at Harburg Technical University. The Americans did not pass their findings about the Yemenite on to the German authorities. Soon thereafter, when another one of the Kuala Lumpur suspects, Almihdhar, traveled to Germany (presumably in order to meet Atta and his accomplices) the American side did not warn the German authorities or ask that they monitor him. Only on Sept. 12, 2002 did the German authorities hear for the first time about the Hamburg cell, Binalshibh, and Almihdhar. This was after the American FBI had faxed to them the passenger lists of the death jets, in the usual friendly manner of cooperation among Western intelligence services.

--------------------------------------------

(2)
DIE ZEIT, Hamburg, Dossier 41/2002

Published on Internet, Oct. 1, 2002

Deadly Mistakes

U.S. Investigators Knew About Planned Terror Attacks, Let the Suspects Get Away.

More Clues That CIA and FBI Could Have Prevented the Attack on America

By Oliver Schröm

WASHINGTON, D.C. Sept. 11, 2001. Scant hours ago, 19 terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and flew two of these into the towers of the World Trade Center, the third fell into the Pentagon, the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Although firefighters still search for the survivors at the scenes of the disaster, President George W. Bush is ready to announce the mastermind of the attacks: Osama bin Ladin.

Really? Others demand the proof. Secretary of State Colin Powell announces that he will be presenting the documents very soon. In the end, he leaves it to British premier Tony Blair to present the evidence to the world. The 20-page document that Blair publishes is a collection of clues and assumptions meant to demonstrate that only the terror organization of Osama bin Ladin is capable of planning and carrying out this manner of terror action. The document says: "There is evidence of a very specific nature with regard to the guilt of Bin Laden and his followers that is too sensitive for publication." (back trans)

That is true. Besides confirming that two of the hijackers had close contacts to the Qaeda terror organization, the documents also bear witness to the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency, which learned about plans for an attack 18 months before Sept. 11, and did nothing against the terrorists.

In the meantime, the joint investigation of the House and Senate intelligence committees is investigating this matter. ZEIT has acquired the testimonies and reports seen by the committee. [Does not specify whether these are the ones freely available on Internet or confidential material.] Almost on a daily basis, the joint investigation is revealing new details that are slowly showing the certainty of what at first seemed like a nasty insinuation: The CIA could have prevented the attacks of Sept. 11, had it not committed a series of systematic mistakes.

Kuala Lumpur, Jan. 5, 2000. The terrorist Taufig bin Atesch has called a few loyal followers to a meeting in the capital of Malaysia. Bin Atesch, codename "Chalid" [Khallad], is a close confidante of Osama bin Laden. Together with bin Laden he fought in Afghanistan against the Red Army and lost one of his legs in battle. The one-legged man's choice of Kuala Lumpur for the meeting was carefully considered. Several years ago, Malaysia declared that Islam was the state religion. Muslims can enter without visas. Even better, a Malaysian member of Qaeda owns an eight-story apartment house on the edge of the city. One of the apartments is used regularly by the terrorist organization as a safe house. The one-legged man waits there for his accomplices, with the aim of plotting terrorist actions.

The CIA found out about the place and timing of this meeting in advance, and asked the Malaysian secret service to keep it under surveillance. When the terrorists leave the apartment, the cameras of the Malaysian police click away. Whole photo series are taken. The terrorists wander around the city like regular tourists. Sometimes they go to Internet cafes and spend several hours on the computers, always watched inconspicuously by observation teams. Next to the one-legged man the Malaysian police also gets pictures of Ramzi Mohammed Binalshibh. The Yemenite, 27 years old at the time, has lived in Germany since 1995. He is the logistical brains of the Hamburg Qaeda cell, whose members in 18 months will murder 3,000 people. Binalshibh has traveled to the meeting from Germany. For as yet unexplained reasons, the CIA does not inform its partner services in Germany of the logistics expert's visit to Malaysia. He can return unmolested to Germany and start organzing the attacks together with the other members of his Hamburg cell. There is much indicates that the decisive plans for the attacks in the United States were put together in Malaysia. Also at the meeting are Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar. Later they will be among the 19 hijackers.

Almihdhar is well-known to the CIA. Long before his appearance in Malaysia, the American spy agency knew his name, his passport number and other personal data. The CIA also knows that Almihdhar has for a long time [unspecified] possessed the multiple re-entry visa that allows him to travel to the United States at will. He received the visa from the U.S. consulate at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. It is valid until Apr. 6, 2000.

It was Almihdhar who inadvertantly tipped off the CIA about the meeting. The CIA has had its sights on the Saudi Arabian citizen and his family clan for some time. Almihdhar's father-in-law owns a safe house for Qaeda terrorists in the Yemeni city of Sannaa. The apartment is an important nerve center in the terror organization's network. Information about operations in the whole world comes together there, and the investigators already know about it.

The FBI found out about this apartment already back in August 1998. At the time, the FBI was looking for the masterminds of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Suicide commandos detonated nearly simultaneous bombs in front of the two embassies, killing 223 and woudning almost 5,000 people. Soon after, a letter taking credit was faxed to London. The FBI managed to find out who had sent it, from Azerbaidjan. From there, a clue led them back to the apartment of Almihdhar's father in law, in Yemen. The FBI put the house and the telephone under surveillance, with success. A surviving member of the suicide squad from Kenya called Almihdhar's father-in-law and was heard saying: "Tell them that I did not go on the trip." The attacker tells how he lost his courage seconds before the bomb went off, how he jumped out of the car. Soon thereafter, the FBI registered a further call. This time from a satellite phone that is thought to be Osama Binladin's private number. And from that time [Aug. 1998], Almihdhar's telephone number has been under constant surveillance. As a result, the CIA learned about the planned meeting in Malaysia one month in advance.

Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2000. After the meeting with the one-legged man, Almihdhar and Alhazmi travel by separate routes. After a stop in Bangkok, Almihdahr arrives in Los Angeles. His accomplice goes to the same destination via Hong Kong.

The security and control apparatus at Los Angeles International Airport have never been as great. One month earlier, an Algerian Qaeda member was arrested at the border to Canada with 50 kilos of explosives in his trunk. [Ressam-trans.] was on his way to Los Angeles, where he wanted to set off a bomb at the airport on New Year's Eve.

Almihdhar and Alhazmi presumably know nothing about that yet, as they line up for passport control. Both have U.S. visas in their own names, which the CIA knows by now. Although they have come in under their own names, the passport control lets them through without problems. The Customs computers do not show that the two Saudi Arabian citizens are actually terrorists. For reasons still unknown to this day, the CIA did not inform either the FBI or the INS or the State Department that the two were something other than respectable students. This is surely the most fateful error in a whole chain of omissions and mistakes by which the American services allowed the later Sept. 11 hijackers to get away.

When they arrive in Los Angeles, Almihdhar and Alhazmi presumably already have their mission. Presumably only the place, time and exact details of the attack still needed to be worked out. The two do not spend long in LA but continue to San Diego, where they rent an apartment. At the Parkwood Apartments, a complex with 175 rooms, they live in Apt. No. 127. Alhazmi signs the lease. Apparently they do not worry in the least that they might be discovered, and they do nothing to conceal themselves. Alhazmi even gets a telephone line and his name and number make it into the local phone book. For 3,000 dollars he buys a blue 1988 Toyota Corolla, which he registers in his proper name.

Four months after their arrival in the U.S., Alhazmi and Almihdhar take six hours of theoretical lessons at the Sorbi Flying Club in San Diego. They say openly that they want to learn how to fly a Boeing, as quickly as possible. At first, they must make do with a small Cessna. The first flight hours turn into a disaster. The terrorists are very clumsy, they lack the talent to fly a plane. As Alhazmi prepares to land under the guidance of the flight teacher, Almihdhar goes into a panic and starts a loud prayer. "This is not going to work," the teacher says. He refuses to train the two as pilots.

Frankfurt am Main, June 2000. The mission of the two terrorists appears to have ended before it even began. In June 2000, Almidhar travels to Frankfurt. What he does in Germany is unclear. Probably he meets Binalshibh, the logistics expert of the Hamburg cell. Because the CIA does not inform its German partner services about the terrorists, Almihdhar's visit goes unobserved. But Binalshibh and Almihdhar knew each other even before the meeting in Malaysia. They are relatives. Binalshibh is the cousin of Almihdhar's wife. Presumably Almihdhar has told his relatives that he has failed as prospective pilot, and now needs a replacement. Presumably that poses serious problems for Binalshibh, at least in the short term. He has registered for a flight school in the United States by telephone, but he cannot be one of the pilots. On May 17, two weeks before Almihdhar's arrival in Germany, the U.S. embassy informed Binalshibh that his application for a visa had been rejected. The other members of the Hamburg cell have more luck. Like Binalshibh, they applied for their visas soon after his return from Malaysia and have already used the phone and e-mail queries to inform themselves about 31 flight schools in the United States.

Soon after Almihdhar's arrival in Germany, Mohamed Atta and two other members of the Hamburg Qaeda cell travel to the United States and begin their training as pilots. On Sept. 11, 2001, Atta will fly the plane that stuck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

From Germany, Almihdhar returns to the U.S. Now that he and Alhazmi are no longer potential pilots, their task will be to coordinate the planning for the attacks. First, Alhazmi must take care of his immigration paperwork, because his visa is due to expire. He applies to the INS on July 7, 2000. Just before that date, the CIA headquarters in Langley was informed explicitly by its Malaysia station that according to its documents, the Qaeda terrorist Alhazmi traveled to the United States in January. But everyone stays relaxed in Langley. Alhazmi is not put on a watch list. Neither the FBI nor the State Department are informed. Nor is the INS informed, so no one there has any reason to be suspicious when Alhazmi applies (using his San Diego address) for an extension of his visa. His wish is met.

San Diego, Sept. 2000. The neighbors are getting mistrustful. Alhazmi and Almihdhar have lived in the complex for eight months and still have no furniture. They sleep on the floor and go constantly to make phone calls from a pay phone, although they have a telephone in their apartment. The two Saudis apparently notice that their neighbors are suspicious, for without warning they cancel their lease and move to the apatment of Abdussatar Shaikh, a Muslim they met at the San Diego mosque. He, a retired English teacher, rents them a room and helps them set up a bank account and an Internet connection.

Shaikh is also an occasional informant to the local branch of the FBI. He provides the bureau with information on militant Muslims in San Diego. His case officer regularly visits him at home. Sometimes Almihdhar and Alhazmi are present in the apartment during these talks. [!!!] On these occasions, Shaikh closes the door to the living room, so that his tenants do not figure out anything about his activities as an informant. Neither the informant nor his case officer realize that the two young men are actually Qaeda terrorists.

Almihdhar moves out after six weeks. He tells his host he is returning to his wife and children in Saudi Arabia. In fact, he is on a terror mission. On Oct. 12, 2000, a suicide commando carries out an attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor. A rubber dinghy packed with explosives motors right into the side of the ship. Seventeen U.S. soldiers are killed, 38 ar wounded. The CIA suspects that Almihdhar is involved.

Alhazmi meanwhile stays in San Diego, still living at the house of the FBI informant. He still has realized nothing, although the worst terrorist attack in American history is being prepared under his roof. Alhazmi spends hours in front of the computer and surfs the Internet. He tells his landlord he is looking for a wife, preferably a Mexican. Shaikh tries to teach him a few Spanish phrases, like: "Que pasa?"

In late Dec. 2000, Alhazmi also leaves San Diego and moves to Mesa, Arizona, to a fellow Saudi named Hani Hanjour, who has lived in the U.S. since 1996 and already got his pilot's license from a school in Scottsdale, Arizona. Now that Alhazmi and Almihdhar have failed as pilots, Hanjour is supposed to take over the role.

But he lacks flight experience. He therefore arranges to take a few hours at a flight school in Phoenix, Arizona. Although he has been resident in the U.S. for several years, his English is so bad that the operator of one flight school guesses that he must not have a valid flight license. Presented with the license, the teacher takes it for a forgery and informs the FAA. But the license turns out to be genuine.

Washington, D.C., Jan. 2001. Both FBI and CIA are now looking for the masterminds of the attack on the Cole. The CIA finally determines that Khallad, the one-legged man was behind the attack. The observation reports on the meeting in Malaysia are pulled out again. Now, finally, the CIA people read the reports with interest. They assume that Kuala Lumpur was the planning meeting for the Cole attack. The other participants in Malaysia, including Almihdhar and Alhazmi, are suspected of having been involved at least in the planning for Cole. Although the CIA can see from its own reports that Almihdhar possesses a valid U.S. visa and Alhazmi must still be in the United States, the investigators do not set off any alarms, and they do not pass the names on to the FBI. Under the law, the CIA as a foreign intelligence agency is not allowed to be active within the United States. [!!!]

At the CIA, the hunt for the terrorists in the Binladin network is the highest priority. "We are at war with al Qaeda," CIA director George Tenet writes in an internal memorandum. "I don't want to spare resources or personnel." In Feb. 2001, soon after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Tenet warns explicitly in a speech to Congress that more Qaeda attacks are likely. "Osama Binladin and his global network of members and followers remain the most direct threat to the security of the USA." And: "We have reinforced security measures around government and military facilities. The terrorists are looking for 'soft targets' that would cause the greatest number of casualties." [above all back trans]

There is still much [for the terrorists] to organize. Alhazmi is constantly driving from place to place in his old Toyota. But he doesn't always pay attention to the speed limit, and on Apr. 1, 2001, Alhazmi runs into a radar trap on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma. He is stopped by the police and must show his ID, driver's license and registration. The trooper sends his name out by radio to see if there are any warrants. There are no entries in the police data bank. A ticket is issued to him and Alhazmi is free to keep driving. The fine for speeding is 138 dollars, which Alhazmi pays by postal money order.

New York, June 11, 2001. FBI agents from the New York office and from Washington headquarters meet to exchange information with CIA representatives, with the aim of advancing the investigation into the Cole bombing. The CIA agents show the photos from Malaysia to their colleagues from the FBI and name Khallad as the mastermind of the attack. The CIA agents also mention Almihdhar, who can see in one of the photos together with Khallad. When the FBI agents ask for more exact information, the CIA people fall silent. They do not tell their FBI colleagues that Almihdhar possesses a valid U.S. visa and is at that same moment presumably in the United States. One year later, one of the CIA agents will be on the brink of tears as he tells a congressional committee that his group were not yet authorized to tell this information to the FBI. Internally however, the CIA already feared the worst. To leading members of the government, CIA investigators say the following: "Based on an analysis of all intelligence sources and reports in recent months, we believe that UBL [Osama Binladin] will carry out a significant terror attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the weeks to come. The attack will be spectacular, intentionally cause high casualties and be directed at U.S. facilities or interests." The Fourth of July is given as a possible date.

On July 4, Almihdhar returns to the United States after several months abroad on Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 53. Just before, while still in Saudi Arabia, he was able to get an extension on his U.S. visa through Oct. 3, 2001. Although the CIA suspects that he may have participated in the Cole attack, Almihdhar encounters no problems in re-entering the U.S. He uses his Saudi Arabian passport, in his actual name, and enters the New York Marriott Hotel as his address on the immigration form. Then he continues on to Arizona, to meet Alhazmi and the others.

Phoenix, July 10, 2001. Kenneth Williams is a detective with experience. For 11 years he has worked for the FBI counter-terrorism squad in Phoenix, Arizona. Today, Williams sends a report of several pages to his superiors at FBI headquarters in Washington and his colleagues at the counter-terror squad in New York, who are considered the experts in Islamic extremism since the attack on the WTC in 1993.

In recent months Williams noted with concern that more and more young Muslims from the Middle East were taking flight lessons in Arizona. Williams investigates 10 people from Pakistan, India, Kenya, Algeria, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. A few of them are taking flight hours, others are studying airplane construction or international flight safety. The FBI agent has interrogated several of these students and heard a few hostile statements about the United States. He also noticed that these students were suspiciously well-informed about security measures at American airports. In his report, Williams therefore speculates that the flight school students could be followers of Osama Binladin. Williams considers it possible that terrorists may be learning how to fly so that they can later hijack a passenger plane. The FBI agent recommends running a check of all flight schools. His colleagues in New York reply that Williams's comments are "speculative and not very significant." In a few months they will learn that one of the flight school students investigated by Williams is an acquaintance of the suicide pilot who steered his hijacked plane into the Pentagon.

Crawford, Aug. 6, 2001. U.S. president George W. Bush is on vacation. He wants to spend the whole month at his ranch in Texas. Every morning, however, he still receives his Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, wherein the CIA informs the president about the country's security situation. On this morning, the report is straight from the CIA director. His PDB runs 11 and one-half printed pages, instead of the usual two to three, and carries the title, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Therein the CIA chief explains that Qaeda has decided to carry out attacks within the United States, and that presumably members of the terrorist organization have been in the country for some time. It is unclear whether the CIA director informed the president about the statements of arrested Qaeda members. According to their confessions, the terrorist organization for some time has been thinking about hijacking planes and using them as missiles.

Minneapolis, Aug. 15, 2001. A flight school in Minneapolis tells the FBI that one of its students is interested in flying Boeings, although he does not yet possess a license for small Cessnas. On the next day the student is arrested, officially because of a visa violation. The student, a French citizen of Morroccan descent, is Zaccarias Massaoui. His confiscated papers and his laptop are immediately sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, where however they are left unread.

An FBI agent takes over the case at the Minneapolis flight school. 47-year-old Colleen Rowley, a 21-year veteran of the bureau, contacts the French authorities and learns that they suspect the arrested man of having contacts to Islamist extremists. Rowley informs Washington headquarters and requests to search Massaoui's laptop. Her request is rejected. "We do not know if he is a terrorist. They don't have enough proof that he is a terrorist." Rowley keeps trying, she wants to see the laptop herself. She meets with an annoyed reaction headquarters and is finally told not to even call anymore.

In reality, Massaoui had close contacts to the hijackers of Sept. 11, as seen in evidence found on his laptop (first examined after the attacks). One of the trails leads to Germany. Massaoui received a great deal of money from Ramzi Binalshibh. Rowley is still unaware of this when at the end of Aug. 2001 she addresses a memo to her superiors. She writes that the Frenchman may have been taking flight lessons in the hope of one day flying a plane into the World Trade Center.

Langley, Aug. 23, 2001. The Israeli intelligence service Mossad presents to its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who are living in the United States and seem to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. According to documents obtained by DIE ZEIT, Mossad agents in the United States were following at least four of the 19 hijackers, including Almihdhar. The CIA now finally does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Department, the FBI and the INS about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, who are immediately put on a watch list as presumed members of Qaeda. In Almihdhar's case, the warning adds that he most likely participated in the Cole bombing. A response does not take long. The immigration service writes back that according to its documents, both of the wanted men are currently in the United States.

Now the investigative machinery kicks into gear. Because Almihdhar listed his address as the Marriott Hotel in New York, FBI agents visit all of the hotels of this chain in the metropolis, in vain.

One of the New York FBI agents calls headquarters in Washington and asks for reinforcements. He wants to widen the dragnet cast for Almihdhar. The FBI agent knows how dangerous Almihdhar is, for he spent months working on the Cole case. As a result he met CIA agents who mentioned the name Almihdhar. When he reads the name again on the watch list, with the additional notation that Almihdhar is suspected of involvement in the Cole bombing, the FBI agent becomes annoyed at his CIA colleagues, for having previously kept this information from him.

But he becomes even more annoyed when his own headquarters refuses any support. Invoking the strict legal separation between intelligence and police investigations, the lawyers at the bureau's National Security Law Unit point out that the search for Almihdhar has been prompted by intelligence information.

"Someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems,'" the frustrated FBI agent writes on Aug. 29, 2001 in an e-mail to his headquarters. "Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL, is getting the most 'protection.'"

Laurel, Maryland, Aug. 25, 2001. Almihdhar is in Room 343 of the Valencia Motel in Larel. He is not alone. Alhazmi, his brother, the pilot Hanjour and a further terrorist are also there. The five of them rarely leave the room. When the cleaning lady knocks and wants to make the beds, the terrorists open the door a crack and have her hand them fresh towels. "We thought they were gay, five men in one room," someone staying in a room next door later said. The sequence and timing of the attack have been determined. One by one, the men buy their tickets. Twelve days to go. Everything according to plan.

Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2001. Early in the morning, the five terrorists drive to Dulles Airport. In their Toyota, the police will later find a receipt for the payment of flight lessons in Phoenix, four drawings of a Boeing 757 cockpit, a boxcutter, a map of Washington and a page with notes and phone numbers.

The terrorists check in at around 7:30 a.m. The nationwide manhunt for Alhazmi and Almihdhar has been undeway for 20 days. But both men go right through airport security without problems. Their tickets and the passports that they must show [must they show passports?] are all in their real names. A few hours later, four hijacked planes create infernos in New York and Washington.

The CIA director learns about the attacks while having breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, a few steps away from the White House. "Everythng points to Osama Binladin," he says. He must tell the president who he suspects is in all likelihood behind the attacks. He gets up from the table and departs hastily.

Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2001. The biggest manhunt in American history has begun. Thousands of FBI agents crisscross the country and within a few days reconstruct the lives of the hijackers in the U.S. Which is not very difficult, since the terrorists in no way behaved secretively while in the country. Alhazmi even called the police after he was assaulted. FBI director Robert Mueller, who only took over the bureau in the week before the attacks, says, "I cannot say with certainty that there was no chance, no leads that could have led us to the hijackers in time." (back trans)

CIA director Tenet, a Clinton-era appointee, tells the Senate intelligence committee that he can speak proudly on behalf of the CIA, that it has nothing to hide. At no point before the attacks did his agency make careless mistakes, fail to concentrate, or show a lack of discipline.

New York, Oct. 23, 1001. "We know that Hamburg was the central operative base for planning the attacks of Sept. 11," says Attorney General John Ashcroft while standing alongside his German counterpart, Otto Schily, during a press conference in New York. The investigations therefore need to be shifted more clearly from the U.S. to Europe.

Minneapolis, May 21, 2002. Colleen Rowley, who can no longer stand how U.S. agencies are hiding their failures, sits down at her computer and writes a 13-page letter to the FBI director in which she once again lists all of the mistakes and omissions of which she is aware. She had warned urgently about potential terrorist attacks by militant Islamists in Aug. 2001. "I am very upset about the way," she writes, "that you and others on the highest levels of the FBI management concealed the facts... and portrayed them falsely and continue to do so." The agent brings her dossier to Washington personally and gives two copies to the Senate intelligence committee. Two weeks later a facsimile of her letter is on the cover of TIME magazine. The FBI is in trouble.

Washington, D.C. June 4, 2002. The FBI does not want to serve as the sole scapegoat for what the CIA has burdened it with. After all, the CIA committed the decisive mistake by not passing on the information about Alhazmi and Almihdhar for 18 months. This information is leaked to NEWSWEEK, which quotes an FBI man, "No question, if we had gotten the information in time, we would have bagged all 19 of the hijackers." The spies have started to sling mud at each other. Did the CIA and FBI fail disastrously? A joint commission of Senate and House members is supposed to explore these questions.

Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2002. The joint investigation began its work more than three months ago, but is being torpedoed by the Bush administration, says the Republican Senator Richard C. Shelby, vice-chairman of the committee to the New York Times. The government refuses to reveal just what information was passed on to President Bush in advance of the attacks. "I am certain that so far our questions have only scratched the surface," says Shelby. "I am sure that one or two bombshells are still going to go off."

As more information about mistakes and omissions of the CIA and FBI end up leaking to the media, an investigation is initiated against the congressional committee members. The FBI begins an investigation and asks the senators and House members if they are prepared to take polygraphs.

Washington, D.C., Sept. 18, 2002. The joint investigation's public hearings begin. Relatives of the victims of Sept. 11 also get to testify. 1,300 of them have joined an interest group, their spokesperson is Stephen Push, who lost his wife. She sat in the plane that was hijacked by the group around Almihdhar. "If the intelligence community had been doing its job, my wife would be alive today."

FBI and CIA agents then testify before the committee. They have been promised anonymity and testify from behind a wall that conceals them from the eyes of the attending public. Many relatives of the victims sit there, silently holding photos.

As a few agents confess how they were kept from investigating by their superiors, the widow of a firefighter who died in the WTC is overwhelmed. "These people are guilty of negligence in their jobs," she says. "They should be put in front of a court. They are at least partly responsible for the death of 3,000 people."

Berliner Zeitung, Sept. 24, 2001:

CIA Had Attacker In Its Sights

by Andreas Förster

BERLIN, 23 September. One of the alleged skyjackers of New York was tracked by the CIA well in advance of the attacks, according to a report. FOCUS magazine says Mohamed Atta was observed by the CIA for several months last year, when he was still living as a student in Hamburg. Atta is alleged to have piloted the first of the two airplanes that hit the World Trade Center. American investigators have identified him as one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 terror operation.

According to the report, Atta was under surveillance by CIA agents while in Germany from January to May, 2000. They observed Atta shopping at drug stores and chemist's shops in the greater Frankfurt/Main area, where he purchased chemicals that could be used in making explosives. The Americans did not inform German law enforcement authorities of their observation of Atta, or of the reasons that they considered him suspicious. The CIA furthermore did not alert German authorities to its knowledge of Atta's possible participation in a terror bombing incident in Israel in the mid-1980s, as now reported in NEWSWEEK. [NOTE: The latter was an initial mix-up during the first weeks; the Israeli bus bombing of 1986 seems to have involved a different Mohamed from Egypt, last name spelled Atar.]

But the CIA apparently also hid its incendiary findings from other agencies of the United States government. The American embassy in Berlin awarded a U.S. entry visa to Atta on May 18, 2000 - i.e., at the same time that the CIA was still conducting its surveillance operation of Atta in Germany. Experts believe that the suspect remained under surveillance [by the CIA] in the United States, where he is believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks. [NOTE: "Experts" not further specified - presumably German authorities.]

German law enforcement also had an opportunity to detect the presumed cell of terrorists around Atta in Hamburg well in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a report in DER SPIEGEL. But the German federal prosecutor's office last year rejected a proposed investigation to determine whether terror chief Osama Binladin had collaborators in Germany.

Before the probe was dropped, the BKA, the German counterpart to the FBI, had presented an extensive report on connections upheld by Osama Binladin's group in Germany. The BKA prepared the paper together with the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution. BKA warned that "unknown structures" were preparing to stage attacks abroad. One of the persons named in the BKA report supposedly had contacts with the Hamburg terror group.

[The last sentence may refer to Binalshibh, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who fled Germany after the attacks and is reported to have been arrested in Pakistan in Sept. 2002.]

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NYT, February 24, 2004

C.I.A. Was Given Data on Hijacker Long Before 9/11

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