American Media Completely Distorting Bombshell Le Monde 9/11 Report

[HamdenRice]

I assume it's because so few Americans read French. I guess a wire service wrote a blurb about the French story, and American papers are summarizing the blurb rather than the original le Monde story.

I'm amazed at this Newsday "translation," of the Le Monde report that appeared Monday:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-france-911,0,5163839.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

<quote>

"But the French warning hinted at a plot in Europe, not the United States, and there was no suggestion of suicide attacks or multiple planes. One former official said al-Qaida may have leaked misinformation to divert intelligence agencies from the bigger, deadlier plot to come on Sept. 11, 2001.

The warning was another example of how intelligence agents sensed al-Qaida was hard at work in the months leading up to Sept. 11 but were unable to piece together fragmented warnings into a coherent plot.

<unquote>

Now compare that to what the Le Monde article actually says. I’ve tried to translate the French into idiomatic English so that it is easier to understand it. Words in brackets <> are either inserted to make sense or alternative translations of specific words:

<quote>

Dès janvier 2001, la direction d'Al-Qaida se montre néanmoins transparente aux yeux – et aux oreilles – des espions français. Les rédacteurs détaillent même les désaccords entre terroristes sur les modalités pratiques du détournement envisagé. Jamais ils ne doutent de leur intention. Provisoirement, les djihadistes privilégient la capture d'un avion entre Francfort et les Etats-Unis. Ils établissent une liste de sept compagnies possibles. Deux seront finalement choisies par les pirates du 11-Septembre : American Airlines et United Airlines (voir fac-similé). Dans son introduction, l'auteur de la note annonce : "Selon les services ouzbeks de renseignement, le projet d'un détournement d'avion semble avoir été discuté en début d'année 2000 lors d'une réunion à Kaboul entre des représentants de l'organisation d'Oussama Ben Laden…"

By January 2001, Al-Qaida’s direction, however, has become transparent to the eyes - and the ears - of French spies. The writers <of the French intelligence reports> even detail the operational disagreements between terrorists about how they envision the hijackings. They <the French intelligence report writers> never doubt the <terrorists’> intentions. For a while, the jihadists focus on hijacking a plane <en route> between Frankfurt and the United States. They draw up a list of seven possible airline companies. The pirates of 9/11 <ie hijackers> finally chose two: American Airlines and United Airlines (see facsimiled). In his introduction, the author of the note announces: “According to the Uzbek <intelligence> service’s information, the hijacking project seems to have been be discussed at the beginning of 2000 at a meeting in Kabul between representatives of Usama Bin Laden’s organization…”

Des espions ouzbeks renseignent donc les agents français. A l'époque, l'opposition des fondamentalistes musulmans au régime pro-américain de Tachkent s'est fédérée dans le Mouvement islamique d'Ouzbékistan, le MIO. Une faction militaire de ce parti, emmenée par un certain Taher Youdachev, a rejoint les camps d'Afghanistan et prêté allégeance à Oussama Ben Laden, lui promettant d'exporter son djihad en Asie centrale. Des livrets militaires et des correspondances du MIO, trouvés dans des camps afghans d'Al-Qaida, en attestent.

The Uzbek spies thus inform the French agents. During this period, Islamic fundamentalist opposition to the pro-American policy of <the Uzbek regime in> Tachkent, united to form the Islamic Movement of Ouzbékistan, the MIO. A military faction of this party, created by a certain Taher Youdachev, joined the <al Qaeda> camps in Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, promising him to export jihad to Central Asia <ie Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc>. Military records and correspondences of the MIO, found in Afghan Al-Qaida camps, confirm this.

Alain Chouet a gardé en mémoire cet épisode. Il a dirigé jusqu'en octobre 2002 le Service de renseignement de sécurité, la subdivision de la DGSE chargée de suivre les mouvements terroristes. Selon lui, la crédibilité du canal ouzbek trouve son origine dans les alliances passées par le général Rachid Dostom, l'un des principaux chefs de guerre afghans, d'ethnie ouzbek lui aussi, et qui combat alors les talibans. Pour plaire à ses protecteurs des services de sécurité de l'Ouzbékistan voisin, Dostom a infiltré certains de ses hommes au sein du MIO, jusque dans les structures de commandement des camps d'Al-Qaida. C'est ainsi qu'il renseigne ses amis de Tachkent, en sachant que ses informations cheminent ensuite vers Washington, Londres ou Paris.

Alain Chouet recalls this episode. Until October 2002, he was the director the Security Information Service, the subdivision of the DGSE charged with tracking terrorists' movements. According to him <ie Chouet, head of French counter-terrorism>, the credibility of the Uzbek channel originated in the past alliances of General Rachid Dostom, one of the principal Afghan warlords, who is also an ethnic Uzbek, and who was then fighting the Taliban. In order to please his protectors in the Uzbek security <ie intelligence?> service, he infiltrated some of his men in the heart of the MIO <ie the Uzbek jihadist organization being trained at Al Qaeda camps> up to the very command structure of the al Qaeda camps. Thus, he informed his friends in Tachkent <ie, the capital or government of Uzbekistan> with the knowledge that his information would proceed onwards to Washington, London or Paris.

La formulation de la note française de janvier 2001 indique clairement que d'autres sources corroborent ces renseignements sur les plans d'Al-Qaida. Selon un dispositif bien huilé en Afghanistan, la DGSE ne se contente pas d'échanges avec des services secrets amis. Pour percer les secrets des camps, d'une part elle manipule et "retourne" des jeunes candidats au djihad originaires des banlieues des grandes villes d'Europe. D'autre part, elle envoie des hommes du service action auprès de l'Alliance du Nord du commandant Massoud. Sans compter les interceptions des téléphones satellitaires.

The formulation of the French note of January 2001 states clearly that other sources corroborate this information within Al-Qaida. According to the well oiled <intelligence gathering> machine in Afghanistan, the DGSE was not satisfied with <information> exchanges with friendly secret services. In order to pierce the secrecy of the <al Qaeda> camps, it on the one hand, manipulated and “turned” <returned?> young male applicants for jihadist <training> from the suburbs of large European cities, <ie Muslim and North African ghettos> and on the other hand it stationed <French counter-terrorism intelligence operatives> with the Northern Alliance commander Massoud <ie Ahmed Shah Massoud, charismatic head of the Northern Alliance, who was murdered by a Taliban or al Qaeda camera bomb just two days before the 9/11 attacks began>. Not to mention intercepting satellite telephones.

<end quote>

The revelation here is the level of penetration into al Qaeda. The French have Uzbeks posing as jihadists in the command structure of al Qaeda; they have European born or based Muslims posing as jihadists in the al Qaeda camps; they are listening to their satellite conversations.

They have such sweeping and deep penetration of al Qaeda, that al Qaeda had become “transparent” to French intelligence. They even listen in to the jihadists debates about which airlines to strike and which airline routes to hijack. Their eyes and ears are there when it is decided months before 9/11 to hit American Airlines and United Airlines.

This is almost the complete opposite of the English language description of the article, which claims that the French had some information, but couldn’t put the pieces together.

All of this information was passed to the CIA Station Chief in Paris, Bill Murray, one of the highest ranking overseas CIA officers, one who is embedded in the heart of NATO’s intelligence structure – and incidentally who apppears to be a stand up guy who later would try to quash the Niger yellow cake hokum, a guy who thereafter retired (or was retired) from the agency, but is reluctant to talk to the press because his CIA “contracts” could be withdrawn in revenge.

Also unprecedented in the French report is the disclosure that the forces of Northern Alliance warlord General Rashid Dostum were a significant source of intelligence on al Qaeda before 9/11. You may recall that Gen. Dostum has been a destabilizing force in post Taliban Afghanistan, and was responsible for the massacre of surrendered Taliban forces after the seige of Kunduz, in which up to 1,000 surrendered insurgents were loaded in shipping containers and allowed to die of thirst and exposure, and many of the remainder were raked with machine gun fire when they screamed for water.

Other aspects of the English language translation and summary of the French news story are laughable. The Newsday version is that "But the French warning hinted at a plot in Europe, not the United States, and there was no suggestion of suicide attacks or multiple planes."

The original French version is that "And initially a surprise: the high number of notes devoted only to the threats of Al-Qaida against the United States, in the months before the suicide attacks in New York and Washington. Nine reports/ratios entirely on this subject between September 2000 and August 2001.

Do they think that we're that stupid? That everyone in the United States is too lazy to look at Le Monde's website, and that even if we did, not one of us can read French?

Now for my own speculation about why this Le Monde report is so important. If both French intelligence and the lowly Uzbek intelligence service and a Northern alliance warlord, Rashid Dostum, have penetrated al Qaeda up to the command structure, and if other friendly middle eastern intelligence services also warned the US of the 9/11 attacks, is it reasonable to believe these other intelligence agencies also penetrated al Qaeda so completely?

Is it reasonable to assume that Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi or even Palestinian Authority intelligence might also have slipped some operatives into the Afghan al Qaeda camps to keep an eye on what was going on there? Might the Mossad during the closing era of good feelings between the Barak administration and the Palestinian Authority have slipped an operative or two into the al Qaeda camps? Wouldn't the Russians have slipped in a few "turned" or make believe Chechens and the Chinese a few fake Uyghurs? Might actual penetration of al Qaeda have been the source of the many warnings by foreign intelligence agencies about the impending attacks, and if so, were they more concrete than we have been led to believe?

Considering that even the lone American, John Walker Lindh, was able to walk into the training camps and get training, can we conclude that prior to 9/11 al Qaeda recruited indiscriminately and that its counter intelligence capacity was pathetic?

If Uzbek intelligence was so good, and the Uzbekistan was in the tight embrace of the US, what intelligence might the US have been receiving in Tachkent?

Also note that the French story completely discredits assertions by both the Clinton and Bush administrations that they had no human intelligence on the ground, in the camps. Apparently, the west did. This makes sense as disinformation: of course both administrations would not want to disclose to the enemy that they had intelligence sources fairly high up in the al Qaeda structure, because such operatives might have been outed and killed, and al Qaeda would have taken counter measures to avoid such infiltration.

This might explain away one of the raps against the Clinton administration -- namely, that when they had bin Laden located in the camps, the military had to get clearance at the highest levels (ie the president) in order to launch cruise missiles. The Le Monde reporting explains why: a missile could easily have killed friendly intelligence operatives within the camp command structures. If my speculation is correct, an errant cruise missile would have slaughtered a virtual United Nations of friendly intelligence operatives.

The Le Monde report does not disclose what is in the French intelligence reports closer to 9/11. So, I suspect that there will be follow up reporting by the author, Guillaume Dasquiéfrom, on the 328 page dossier.

Also of interest is why someone in French intelligence leaked this dossier now. A post in the other thread asks why the mainstream media is picking up on this old news. It's not old news. Someone in French intelligence has decided to drop a bombshell now.

The set up of the French article is almost funny: Guillaume Dasquié walks into the office of Emmanuel Renoult, private secretary of the director of French intelligence, plops down the 328 page dossier, and the private secretary deplores this breach of intelligence and refuses to comment. Dasquie then confronts the former private secretary of the director of central intelligence with the 328 page dossier, who (presumably gulps hard first and) blurts out something to the effect of, but of course no one could have imagined that hijacked planes would be used as missiles ... The western press duly reports in English that the Le Monde news story confirms that prior to 9/11 no one in French intelligence suspected that planes would be used as missiles. My capacity to grasp French irony in print may be limited, but I don't think that's the meaning Dasquie had in mind.

I wonder if someone in French intelligence finally smells blood in the water across the pond in Washington.

[Phredicles]

1. The usual rightie talking point is that nothing French can be trusted;

I'm sure we'll be hearing more of that.:eyes:

[KurtNYC]

18. That section of the RW playbook reads as follows

"A liar can be discredited but a truth teller must be destroyed."

[itsnot2L8]

43. Maybe now to get the drop on G Tenet's little book coming out

They want their story told before Georgie can tell it for them.

[The Count]

2. This flsh film mas made in 2001(or 2002?) - it mentions the French alerts

http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/startrek.htm

But then again, O'Really recently said that starting the war was wrong, but you have to trust the American Administration(sic!) - because - what's the alternative - France?"

[bullwinkle428]

3. Wow, this is utterly eye-opening -

it makes Condi Rice's protestations of blissful ignorance sound even more pathetic than we originally thought, if that's even possible. What a stirring indictment of that whitewash 9/11 Comission report as well...

K&R as well...

[HamdenRice]

7. I don't know what's stranger -- the actual info in Le Monde ...

or the way the article is being mischaracterized here!

[blm]

4. Now THIS needs to stay out there - It belongs on the Home Page and spread far

as we can.

Thanks for a great post, HamdenRice.

[HamdenRice]

11. Thanks -- feel free to spread it! nt

[Mandate My Ass]

5. thanks for all that work

K & R. I hope this makes its way around the internets.

[HamdenRice]

19. The work was done by Guillaume Dasquié

the author of the le Monde article. I just did a little translation and speculation!

[Richard Steele]

6. Red lights across the board and BushCabal™ did NOTHING. Recommended.

[NewJeffCT]

8. Yes, they do think we're too lazy to go to the "French" website

we're used to being spoonfed our news in sound bites on the nightly news and in blurbs in USA Today. Will enough people actually go to the French website to make a difference over here? Until it shows up in places beyond DU, DailyKos, etc., will most people know about it?

That is what Team Bush is counting on - the limited attention span of the American news consumer. If something doesn't happen on this within a few days in regards to a major news organization picking it up, then the story will become "old news"...

[Supersedeas]

9. the U.S. Media/GOP Establishment continues to distort and spin for this Admin

[HamdenRice]

20. It's also laziness

It seems it was summarized by a wire service and the same story was re-written over and over by various news outlets.

Only Newsday, usually a very good tabloid, seemed to go out of its way to get the story wrong.

[drm604]

10. K&R

:kick:

[myrna minx]

12. HamdenRice, thank you for the translation.

Do you have a link to the original LeMonde article? I'd like to provide it to my French speaking friends for them to review as well. Thanks!

[HamdenRice]

13. This is only a few paragraphs!

There are more juicy bits I'm working my way through.

Here's the link:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-896448,0.html

[myrna minx]

14. Thank you so much!

I love your threads. :toast:

[Greyskye]

15. K&R for importance!

Great work here!

:kick:

[starroute]

16. Here's something else that brings in the Uzbeks

As I was checking my files this morning for material that would throw light on the French claims, I ran into an Asia Times article from 2005 that seemed to be related. Now, given the expanded translation you've posted, it appears even more relevant. The short version is that the US has been fostering *some* Islamic terrorists (the anti-Russian ones) while conveniently ignoring their close ties to *other* Islamic terrorists (the anti-US ones), and this has been getting us into a boatload of trouble.

There's a lot more to the article than can be covered by a four-paragraph quote, so consider this just a sampling:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GE27Ag01.html

Apart from various Islamic preachers, two major Islamic groups function in the Ferghana Valley, whose common objective is to change the regimes in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. These are the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the HT. While the IMU openly thrives on violence, the HT is strongly promoted by the United Kingdom, where it is headquartered, as peaceful. But records indicate that that the IMU and the HT work hand-in-hand. . . .

The relationship between the Taliban and the IMU pre-dates September 11. In September 1996, after the Taliban had captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldashev - long-time adversaries of Karimov and considered the founders of the IMU - held a press conference in the city to announce the formation of the IMU. Namangani, who had served as a Soviet paratrooper in Afghanistan in the 1980s, became the group's leader (or amir) and Yuldashev its military commander. Their aim was to topple Karimov and turn Uzbekistan, and ultimately the whole of Central Asia, into an Islamic state. The Taliban provided them with a place to shelter and train, and to plot against Karimov. It is also said that Yuldashev developed contact with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and the two became supportive of each other. Although Karimov is a target of the IMU, in recent months he has identified the HT as the greater threat. Following the Andijan incident, Uzbek authorities again blamed the HT.

Unlike the IMU, which has concentrated its role in Central Asia, with the Ferghana Valley as the focus, the HT is an international Islamic movement. It is headquartered in London, but also has a strong organizational presence in Birmingham, Liverpool and Bradford. . . . The leader of the Islamic Party of Tajikistan, Deputy Prime Minister Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, has identified HT as a Western-sponsored bogeyman for "remaking Central Asia". He said: "A more detailed analysis of HT's programmatic and ideological views and concrete examples of its activities suggests that it was created by anti-Islamic forces. One proof of this is the comfortable existence this organization enjoys in a number of Western countries, where it has large centers and offices that develop its concept of an Islamic caliphate." It is evident that Turajonzoda has seen through this game. But he has little capability to stop the juggernaut once it has been unleashed.

It is not a lack of understanding on the part of American neo-conservatives associated with the Bush administration, but their keenness to use the "Lewis Doctrine" to achieve what they believe is justified that promises untold danger.

The HT, or Hizbut-Tehrir, is also discussed by Peter Dale Scott in http://lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/global-drug.htm">"The Global Drug Meta-Group." There's a lot here that I'm very far from understanding -- but the upshot seems to be that the US has been playing dangerous geopolitical games in Central Asia, that the real targets are Russia and China and not Iraq or Iran, and that US encouragement of Islamic terrorism has been an important part of the strategy. I'm starting to think this may be the real dirty secret behind 911.

However, the fact that the French were actively infiltrating these guys adds an additional layer of complexity as well. This is starting to look like a vast, multi-national game of chess, with 90% of the iceberg still hidden below the surface...

[HamdenRice]

17. Apparently, the Uzbeks are not "our" friends anymore because of games

like the one you point out. The US was embracing the "stans" while also undermining them, if I understand it. At any rate, in recent years, the Uzbeks have tried to kick American bases out of their country.

Very complicated stuff indeed. But it does all seem to have to do with control of central asian oil and gas resources and denying them to Russia and China.

[Peace Patriot]

21. So why are the Bushites in such disrepute with our own global corporate predators--

if the game is central Asia? They seem to be pulling out the props under the Bush Junta--ousted Rumsfeld, let the Democrats get an edge in Congress to start investigations, with whistleblowers all over the landscape permitted some backpage inches, if not headlines, and Gonzales, Rove and Cheney suddenly looking vulnerable on various scandals. Congress onto the missing 5,000 emails. Their purge of US Attys who were prosecuting Republican corruption, exposed. Wolfowitz embattled. This looks like a corporate game plan to me. Or somebody's game plan. I've thought it might be because the Bush Junta has "lost" South America. There you see a similar political landscape vis a vis the Bush Junta. Their big buds in Colombia in huge trouble over rightwing paramilitary drug trafficking, murder of leftists, union organizers and peasants, and a plot to assassinate Chavez. All getting exposed. The old tools of assassination and mayhem not working any more. Bush's Latin American tour, a bust. Total rebellion there against World Bank/IMF and US-run "free trade."

Everything Bush tried, failed. The only deliverable (to his corporate paymasters) may be the ethanol deal with Brazil, but Brazil, in the same breath, joined the Bank of the South (started by Venezuela), and that and Mercosur (So. American trade group) may end up making the ethanol deal not so profitable for Bush's corporate pals--and, what with the small farmer and environmentalist movement against it, may kill it altogether. And the only other thing Bush got was public lectures by Latin American leaders, from Brazil to Mexico, on the SOVEREIGNTY of Latin American countries. "Butt out, Bush!" was the message.

I figured that was Bush/Cheney's last hope of continued protection and propping up by corporate interests, and keeping them out of jail.

But I was not all that aware of this oil/gas game in the Stans, and, if it is as described, by others in this thread, as "the" game of games, then...why would the Bushites be in disrepute? They seem to be supporting terrorists to the end of toppling the current Stan regimes and installing friendlier terrorists, to corner the gas/oil and keep it away from China/Russia. Is that not what their puppetmasters want?

[JackRiddler]

22. Thank you friend and here's some more on the big picture...

Osama wasn't divorced from everyone in his family, or from his old contacts. His outfit was closely tied up with ISI and infiltrated by multiple agencies. Many of the Mujahedeen operations in the 90s coincided with interests of Western intel agencies, as in former Yugoslavia and Chechnya. Some of "his" leading agents, like Ali Mohamed (now blamed as a mastermind of WTC 93 and the 98 embassy bombings) were at many times working for "us."

The US was getting information about the movements of the alleged 9/11 perps from multiple foreign agencies, and also keeping them under observation by CIA and NSA.

The mode of attack was so "imaginable" that it was "coincidentally" being rehearsed in the wargames and drills held by the CIA and military on 9/11/2001 itself.

When all this gets left out of the official investigations, that's a cover-up. And I have a right to speculate what it means, without artificially limiting the possibilities to the reassuring fairy tale of mass serial total incompetence by everyone -- all of whom were then promoted, even as the most important whistleblowers were disciplined and fired!

We the people have the right to the answers and the duty to demand them and not to tolerate an obvious cover-up, knowing that when such important information is withheld (even as 9/11 is used as the excuse for every atrocity in our name), we no longer have anything but tyrants in charge.

[HamdenRice]

46. Thanks for mentioning this! You can now read the le Monde...

comments on this in Paul Thompson's post below!

[CGowen]

65. Can you find someone inside Al-Qaeda who isn't an agent? n/t

[HamdenRice]

66. LOL! "Ali, all this time I thought YOU were a real jihadi!"

"That's hilarious, Mohammed, because that's what I thought of you!"
"I've heard Damascus is beautiful this time of year!"
"Ah, but Mohammed, I have heard it cannot be as beautiful and peaceful as your Aman!"

Can you imagine the conversations that occurred when two fake jihadis run into each other on vacation from the camp in a bar in Islamabad?

[pauldp]

23. Kicked and recommended. Thanks HR.

Al Qaeda was infiltrated to the top from the get go. This is just more confirmation of that.
To think western intelligence agencies would let an asset like the Mujahedeen go completely south
once they started working under another name is ridiculous.

[SpiralHawk]

24. BushCo republicons & cronies LIHOP

And now they lie, lie, lie to the people of the USA about 9/11.

[Beam Me Up]

27. LIHOP my ass

Everything about 9/11 is a fabrication. It was false flag operation and al Quida was nothing but the patsies.

[SpiralHawk]

33. Okay - then MIHOP

Either way, the republicons are guilty of TREASON
against the United States of America.

[tom_paine]

25. Excellent work. Tremendous information.

[StrictlyRockers]

26. Kicked and rec'ed for being hugely important! This is a revelation.

The French warned the US directly and specifically. And once again the US media is under-reporting and even mis-translating to minimize the story. What are we being sold? It is not the truth. Don't buy it.

[sce56]

28. Great work HamdenRice! I just hope this does not travel to the dungeon where it does not belong!

IBTL

[Ghost Dog]

29. C'est vrai ça... And there's more.

I will be reading the full artice and thinking it over overnight.

BW, the full (print) article is here: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/imprimer_element/0,40-0,50-896448,0.html

Please, all those, in whatever language, in any way close to being in the know, continue along these lines...

edit. But notice:

"Il faut se rappeler, précise M. Lorenzi, que jusqu'en 2001, le détournement d'avion n'a pas la même signification qu'après le 11-Septembre. A l'époque, cela implique de forcer un appareil à se poser sur un aéroport pour mener des négociations. On est habitué à gérer ça." Mise en perspective utile pour comprendre pourquoi cette alerte du 5 janvier n'a provoqué aucune réaction chez ses destinataires : les piliers du pouvoir exécutif.

-> (paraphrasing: literal translation please, anyone?): M. Lorenzi points out that, at that time (early 2001) an airliner 'hijacking' was understood as <merely> taking over the plane, landing at an airport, and negotiating from that position. The journalist suggests that what M. Lorenzi says provides a 'useful excuse' by which to explain the 'lack of action' of those <in the US> with the power to respond <to the threat>.

[HamdenRice]

35. Thanks for the translation of that last sentence ..

I couldn't quite get it. It's veryt troubling.

[victorhugo]

30. Merde, inspector Clouzot lost the complete alquaida file and Dasquier found it…

I'm french, and even i'm little short in english, your translation seems perfect to me. This "accidental declassification" from french intelligence is very interesting… The origin of the release of the 326 pages is not clear, but I don't think that someone from la piscine ("the swimming-pool", french intelligence headquarters) just lost the complete file by driving home...

For the records, French intelligence could easily imagine terrorists plans to blow up aircrafts over cities because algerians islamists intented to do so in France in 1994.

Condy said "No one could have imagined..." French intelligence did not need a great imagination :

In december 1994, an Air France Flight 8969, bound for Paris from Algiers, was hijacked by the Algerian terrorist organization Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

The four hijackers boarded the aircraft disguised as Air Algerie security staff. Authorities delayed departure, but were intimidated into giving the go-ahead when the hijackers killed 2 of the 227 persons on board.

The French government decided not to allow the aircraft to approach Paris because its consulate in Oran, Algeria, had received an intelligence warning that the hijackers intended to blow up the aircraft over Paris.

The flight crew convinced the hijackers that refueling in Marseille was required. After the aircraft touched down hours of negotiations ensued, whereupon the terrorists demanded fuel. French police commandos (GIGN) stormed the aircraft and after a 20 minute gunfight successfully rescued the 161 remaining passengers (some had been released during negotiations) and 3 flight crew. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969

About Dasquier, he is a specialist in geopolitic and intelligence questions, for those who read french, you can check out his websites here : http://www.geopolitique.com/ http://www.guillaumedasquie.net/

[HamdenRice]

36. OMG! A compliment from a French person on my translation!

I can translate Spanish and sometimes Portuguese idiomatically, but French is very difficult for me. That's why I only have done a few paragraphs so far.

But it is very gratifying for me to hear you say my translation was good!

Also, welcome to DU. Check out the Francophone Group if you want to communicate in French!

[HamdenRice]

37. Important question about French translation

I wanted to ask a native speaker, maybe you can answer this.

The Le Monde report has this sentence:

Pour percer les secrets des camps, d'une part elle manipule et "retourne" des jeunes candidats au djihad

The author put the word "retourne" in quotes. In English, sometimes when journalists use a slang word, they put the slang word in quotes. We Americans have an expression when discussing the intelligence world, when one agency convinces as agent to switch to the other side. For example, "The CIA turned the al Qaeda agent to work for the Americans..."

I wasn't sure whether the Le Monde article was saying the "jeunes candidats au jihad" had "returned" from jihad overseas, or had been "turned" in the slang sense to work for the French?

[Ravachol]

40. Native speaker here.

"Pour percer les secrets des camps, d'une part elle manipule et "retourne" des jeunes candidats au djihad "
Means the DGSE "made them" work for the French, "turned" them to work for.

You made another small mistake:
"Selon un dispositif bien huilé en Afghanistan, la DGSE ne se contente pas d'échanges avec des services secrets amis."
The first part of this sentence should be understood as:
"Following a well oiled dispositive in Afghanistan". The word "Selon", in this case, is a synonym of "Suivant".

The second part:
", the DGSE doesn't limit itself to <information> exchanges with friendly secret services."

Besides these little mistakes, your translation's pretty good and the article is very revealing.

[myrna minx]

54. Welcome to DU, Ravachol.

Thanks for the information. :hi:

[myrna minx]

53. Welcome to DU, victorhugo.

:hi: Thank you for the information. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

[libodem]

31. A true treasure trove of information

thank you for the translation and all your hard work.

[ftr23532]

32. K&R!

And thanks for the translation!

[The Doctor.]

34. Thank you, I look forward to 'brushing up'.

K+R

[Mme. Defarge]

38. You are one of my favorites on the DU, HamdenRice...

What a brilliant contribution! I am bookmarking so that I may read at my leisure with a good cup of coffee.

[Usrename]

39. Another crucial post. Thanks a bunch.

Hey, doesn't our good buddy who everybody trusts, David Gregory, speak French?

One might think he would clear this up if he wanted to pretend like he gave a crap about the country.

:eyes:

[paulthompson]

41. The complete translation is here

A volunteer at Cooperative Research just translated the whole article. In the spirit of DU cooperation, please offer suggestions for any spotty areas. I understand for instance that the title could be translated several different ways, and this is just one option. (I hope it's okay to post the whole thing here, since this is a translation work in progress - if not, please delete.)


September 11, 2001: How Much the French Knew

by Guillaume Dasquié
Le Monde
April 16, 2007
translated by John Goldsmith (some minor clarifications are in brackets)



It's an impressive mass of documents. From afar, you would say a dissertation. From up close, not at all. It's stamped "confidential" and "strictly national use" on each page. At the top left, a royal blue logo: that of the DGSE, Direction Générale des Services Extérieurs , the French secret services. All told, 328 classified pages. Notes, reports, syntheses, maps, graphs, organization charts, satellite photos. All of it devoted to al-Qaeda, its chiefs, sub-chiefs, hide-outs, and training camps. Also to its financial supports. Nothing less than the essence of the reports of the DGSE written between July 2000 and October 2001. A veritable encyclopedia.

After an inquiry of several months' duration on this very special document, we contact the headquarters of the DGSE. And April 3, the current chief of staff, Emmanuel Renoult, allows us to see him in the Tourelles barracks in Paris. After looking through the 328 pages that we put on his desk, he cannot hold back from deploring such a leak as this, all the while letting us understand that this packet represents essentially all of the DGSE's work on the subject during this crucial period. About the content, however, it is impossible to get him to say anything at all. It's too sensitive.

It is true that this chronicle from the secret services on al-Qaeda, with their various revelations, raise a number of questions. And first of all, a surprise: the high number of notes specifically devoted to the threats of al-Qaeda against the US, months before the suicide attacks. There are nine reports on this subject between September 2000 and August 2001. This includes a summary note of five pages, entitled "Hijacking of an airplane by radical Islamists", and dated January 5, 2001. Eight months before 9/11, the DGSE reports tactical discussions since the start of 2000 between Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies about such an operation against US airlines.

Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, chief of staff to the head of the DGSE until August 2001 (today president of Serenus Conseil, a corporation specializing in crisis strategy and influence crisis), flips through the 328 pages, and also comes across that note. He hesitates, and then says, "I remember that one...You have to remember that until 2001, hijacking an airline did not have the same meaning as after 9/11. In those days, it meant forcing it to sit in an airport and hold negotiations. We were used to that." A way to put all this in perspective, to understand why this alert dated January 5th did not provoke any reaction from those to whom it was sent: the pillars of executive power.

From January 2001, the leadership of al-Qaeda was visible to the eyes and ears of French spies. The authors of this report even detail the disagreements between terrorists on precisely how to conduct the hijacking. They never doubt their intention. At first, the jihadists want to get an airplane going from Frankfurt to the US. They set up a list of 7 possible companies. Two will finally be chosen by the pirates of September 11: American Airlines and United Airlines. In the introduction, the author of the note announces: "According to Uzbek intelligence services, the hijacking of an airplane seem to have been discussed in early 2000 at a meeting in Kabul among the representatives of the bin Laden organization."

So the Uzbek spies told the French agents. At that point, the fundamentalist Muslims in pro-American Tashkent formed the IMU, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. A militant faction led by Taher Youdachev, had gone to Afghanistan and pledged loyalty to bin Laden, promising to export his jihad in Central Asia. Military records and IMU correspondence found in Afghan al-Qaeda camps later, attest to this.

Alain Chouet remembers this. Until October 2002, he directed the Service of Security Intelligence, the subdivision of the DGSE charged with following terrorist movements. According to him, the credibility of the Uzbek channel is based on the origin of the alliances set up by Gen. Rashid Dostum, one of the principal warlords in Afghanistan, who is Uzbek himself and fighting then against the Taliban. To please his protectors in the Uzbek security services next door, Dostum infiltrated some men into the IMU, as high as the command structures in the camps of al-Qaeda. That is how the intelligence came to Tashkent, knowing full well that his information would eventually go to Washington, London, or Paris.

The January 2001 note indicates clearly that other sources corroborate this information on al-Qaeda's plans. The DGSE is not just trading for information with their colleague intelligence organizations; it is manipulating and "turning" young candidates for the jihad from the suburbs of the big cities of Europe. In addition, the DGSE sends agents to (Ahmed Shah) Massoud (head of the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban). Not to mention the satellite telephone intercepts.

A source close to Pierre Brochand, current head of the DGSE, assured us that the service had a "bin Laden cell" since at least 1995. The alert on 5 January is based, thus, on a tested system. Alain Chouret, after asking us to make clear that he was not speaking in the name of French institutions, is laconic but clear: "It is rare that one transmits a paper without cross-checking it." And this paper follows and precedes multiple reports from the DGSE establishing the credibility of bin Laden's war chants.

In its note, the DGSE estimates that al-Qaeda's desire to pass into action (hijacking an airplane of the USA) is certain: "In October 2000 bin Laden attended a meeting in Afghanistan at which the decision to mount this action was upheld." This is January 5, 2001, the die is cast, the French know it... and they are not the only ones.

As with all information dealing with risks to American interests, the note went to the CIA. It goes first to the CIA in Paris, Bill Murray, a French-speaker with the build of John Wayne, who has since returned to the US. We contacted him, but he did not want to talk with us. Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, who was responsible at that point for liaison with foreign services at the DGSE, cannot conceive of this information not going to him: "That, typically, is the kind of information that would certainly have been forwarded to the CIA. It would even have been an error not to have done it."

On the other side of the Atlantic, two former CIA specialists on the al-Qaeda who we contacted do not remember any special alerts sent by the DGSE. Neither Gary Berntsen, attached to the office of the DDO from 1982 to 2005, nor Michael Scheuer, former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA, have any recollection of specific information coming from the DGSE.

In Washington, the 9/11 Commission, in its final report published in July 2004, underscored the inability of the FBI, the CIA, and the immigration services to piece together the sparse data pointing towards some of the 9/11 hijackers. At no point did the commission bring up the possibility that the CIA would have sent up to political powers as early as January 2001 intelligence coming from French intelligence regarding the tactical choice of bin Laden to hijack American airliners.

And beyond that, the most astounding thing about the 328 page DGSE report lies in the juxtaposition of the reports warning of the threat, like that of January 2001, and those that give quite early on highly detailed information on the function of the organization. Beginning on July 24, 2000, with a 13 page report entitled "The Networks of Osama bin Laden," it's all there in black and white. The context, the anecdotal details, and all the strategic aspects relative to al-Qaeda are already there. Quite often, later documents simply add additional details. For example, the rumor that bin Laden was dead--which went around in September 2006 --is reported with the intonations of an oft-heard refrain, but nonetheless not without foundation: "The ex-Saudi, who has lived for several years in grim circumstances, is constantly on the move, from camp to camp, suffering equally from kidney and back problems...Recurring rumors speak of his imminent demise, but he does not seem to have changed his daily habits up to now."

On an aerial photo from August 28, 2000: DGSE agents spot a key figure, Abu Khabab (Abu Khabab al-Masri, al-Qaeda's chief bomb maker and chemical weapons expert), close to bin Laden. He is an Egyptian bomb-maker, known for having taught how to make home-made bombs to generations of jihadists, and he is a high ranked target. In two biographical items on him, dated October 25, 2000 and January 9, 2001, the DGSE specifies information exchanged with Mossad, the CIA, and Egyptian security services regarding him. His activities and movements are well covered.

Likewise for Omar Chabani (a.k.a. Abu Jafar, said to be killed in Tora Bora in late 2001), the emir who is in charge of training all the militant Algerians who have come to Afghanistan, according to the DGSE. Al-Qaeda, thanks to him, have set up during 2001 some infrastructures made available to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the terrorist Algerian movement whose head, Hassan Hattab, ex-ally of bin Laden, which endorsed in 2006 a policy of reconciliation with the Algerian president Bouteflika, provoking the ire of the younger generation in the GSPC. These younger people kept up the combat which their elders had dropped; the younger created a new GSPC, renamed al-Qaeda for an Islamic Maghreb, which seems to have been responsible for the attacks of April 11th in Algiers.

Alongside operational aspects of the functioning of al-Qaeda, these DGSE documents propose another look at the political go-betweens used by its chief. An example: in a note of February 15, 2001 devoted in part to the risk of attacks against the French military base in Djibouti, the authors note the presence in the country of bin Laden's representative for the Horn of Africa, Nidal Abdel hay al Mahainy. They note that he arrived on May 26, 2000, and met with the president of the Djibouti Republic.

But it is Saudi Arabia that is constantly the most worrisome with regard to sympathies for Afghanistan which bin Laden is profiting from. The DGSE reports explore bin Laden's relations with business men and various organizations in that country. Certain Saudi personalities have proclaimed their hostility to al-Qaeda, but evidently they have not convinced everyone. Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi remembers well what the high-placed people at the DGSE were thinking: "The DGSE had a lot of difficulty believing that he didn't have any relations with the Saudi monarchy just because he was banished. It was hard to accept."

The report from July 24, 2000 mentions a payment of 4.5 million dollars going to bin Laden from the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a group directly under the Muslim World League, itself considered the political instrument of the Saudi ulemas (Islamic scholars). It was not until August 3, 2006 that the IIRO offices appeared on the official list of organizations financing terrorism according to the US Department of the Treasury. Throughout July 2000, two years after the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the authors of this memo doubt the sincerity of the public positions taken by bin Laden's family: "It seems more and more likely that bin Laden has maintained contacts with certain members of his family, although the family, which directs one of the largest groups of public works in the world, has officially renounced him. One of his brothers apparently plays a role as intermediary in its professional contacts or the monitoring of its business." According to Lorenzi, it was his recurring doubts, and more specifically the ambivalence of the IIRO, which led the DGSE to work together with the Quai d'Orsay (the Foreign Ministry in Paris) when French diplomats would propose an international convention to the UN against the financing of terrorism.

Another note from DGSE dated September 13, 2001 entitled "Elements on the financial resources of bin Laden" repeats the suspicions regarding the Saudi Binladin Group, the family empire. It speaks of a powerful banker, once close to the royal family, as the chief architect of a plan "that seems to have been used for the transfer to the terrorist of funds that came from the Gulf countries." An annex to this memorandum of September 13, 2001 lists the assets supposedly under Osama bin Laden's direct control. Surprise: In the middle of the known structures that the "Sheikh" managed in Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia and Bosnia, a hotel situated in Mecca in Saudi Arabia still figures in 2001.

Alain Chouet is skeptical about the desire on the part of Saudi authorities to capture bin Laden before September 11. "His loss of Saudi nationality is nothing but a farce. As far as I know, no one did anything in fact to capture him between 1998 and 2001." And a document backs this up, a report from October 2, 2001: "The departure of Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence: a political eviction" which reveals the underside of this spectacular firing just before September 11. The authors underscore the limits of Saudi influence especially in Kandahar. "Prince Turki was not able, during his recent trips to Kandahar, to convince those he met with to extradite bin Laden."

And 6 years later? In a large report of the DGSE dated June 6, 2005 that we were able to peruse and entitled "Saudi Arabia, A Kingdom in Danger?" a picture is painted in which the Saudi regime is doing more to combat al-Qaeda. Nonetheless some paragraphs betray remaining doubts about the real desire of the Saudis. The French secret services are still anxious about the penchant for holy war among some Saudi "doctors of the faith" (ulema).

[paulthompson]

42. By the way...

The US summaries of this article such as AP and Reuters try to downplay it as much as possible. One of them go into some length speculating that this warning had nothing to do with 9/11 but was a ruse about an alternate attack meant to confuse Western intelligence agencies.

Not so. How do we know? Because the Uzbeki rebel movement (the IMU) mentioned in the Le Monde article got increasingly good info about the upcoming attacks so that eventually this warning came to the US:

Late July 2001: Taliban Foreign Minister Tries to Warn US and UN of Huge Attack Inside the US

Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learns that bin Laden is planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America. The attack is imminent, and will kill thousands. He learns this from Tahir Yildash, leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which is allied with al-Qaeda at the time. Muttawakil sends an emissary to pass this information on to the US consul general, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence services,” also attends the meeting. The message is not taken very seriously; one source blames this on “warning fatigue” from too many warnings. In addition, the emissary supposedly is from the Foreign Ministry, but did not say the message came from Muttawakil himself. The emissary then takes the message to the Kabul offices of UNSMA, the political wing of the UN. They also fail to take the warning seriously. (Independent, 9/7/2002; Reuters, 9/7/2002)

[HamdenRice]

45. The translations in the American press are bizarre--and question about Dostum

On edit: Is this the first press report you are aware of that identifies warlord Gen. Dostum's spies as the source of AQ intelligence? The timeline entry you posted mention the actual Uzbek jihadist organization rather than the "fake" ones inserted by Dostum into the camps.

Thanks in advance!

I only hope the appalling translations in the msm are based on laziness alone -- ie that they are summarizing the first wire service blurb and self serving statements solicited from French officials.

Otherwise, I'll have to dress appropriately ...

[Judi Lynn]

48. Love that tinfoil wig! Thank you so much for this impressive thread.

It's something we'll be returning to over and over. Really appreciate it.

[HamdenRice]

52. The pic is not of me -- it's from the M.I.T. study ...

There was a semi-serious but mostly tongue in cheeck MIT engineering study about whether tin foil hats actually would deflect government transmitted radio waves from a person's brain. They concluded that in fact a tin hat might concentrate such waves on the brain!

On their web site they showed pictures of various models of tin foil hats they tested, including this on, my favorite.

[muriel_volestrangler]

68. Doesn't that report point to the attempt at confusion being successful?

"The message is not taken very seriously; one source blames this on “warning fatigue” from too many warnings."

ie warnings like the French one about a hijacking of an AA or UA Frankfurt-USA plane.

[HamdenRice]

71. I don't think the le Monde reporter saw it that way

He paints a picture of AQ being thoroughly penetrated. He is describing French intelligence listening/watching tactical debates. They are also there when the final decision is made that the attack will be on AA and UA.

It doesn't appear to me to be a picture of confusion or warning fatigue, but of the outside intelligence agencies watching the plot develop.

[muriel_volestrangler]

72. But by July 2001, the report says "warning fatigue" was setting in

It's not the Le Monde reporter, talking about January, who could see it that way - it's the Independent's reporter, talking about July, who had a source that said that:

The emissary went first to the Americans, traveling across the border to meet the consul general, David Katz, in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar, in the third week of July 2001. They met in a safehouse belonging to an old mujahedin leader who has confirmed to The Independent that the meeting took place.

Another US official was also present ­ possibly from the intelligence services. Mr Katz, who now works at the American embassy in Eritrea, declined to talk about the meeting. But other US sources said the warning was not passed on.

A diplomatic source said: "We were hearing a lot of that kind of stuff. When people keep saying the sky's going to fall in and it doesn't, a kind of warning fatigue sets in. I actually thought it was all an attempt to rattle us in an attempt to please their funders in the Gulf, to try to get more donations for the cause."

The Afghan aide did not reveal that the warning was from Mr Muttawakil, a factor that might have led the Americans to down-grade it. "As I recall, I thought he was speaking from his own personal perspective," one source said. "It was interesting that he was from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, but he gave no indication this was a message he was carrying."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0907-08.htm

And, of course, the final decision wasn't to 'attack' AA and UA in the way the Le Monde report talks about - ie on a flight from Frankfurt. So the "final decision" wasn't final.

[HamdenRice]

74. The new French report shows why "warning fatigue" is highly unlikely

The main point of the le Monde article is not that it describes a specific warning, as the American media has portrayed it. It is that the article provides an entirely new context in which to understand how those warnings flowed from a successful intelligence penetration of AQ.

Up until now, "warning fatigue" was a possible explanation because AQ was a "black box" out of which seemed to flow incomplete or contradictory intelligence. Le Monde's dossier shows that AQ was not a black box, but was virtually transparent.

The old paradigm was that "warning fatigue" might set in because our warnings were: AQ is going to strike in Germany; AQ is going to strike in Chicago; AQ is going to strike airplanes; etc.

The new paradigm is that French, Uzbek and Northern Alliance intelligence operatives have penetrated the command structure of AQ. They are following the plot as it unravels.

The report you cite is from September 2002, before even the 9/11 Commission hearings, and the revelation of the August presidential PDB. The reporter knew very little about what the Bush administration knew and in what form its intelligence was received. That very Independent news article, however, is based on intelligence from the Uzbek jihadist movement that was leaked to a not very enthusiastic Taliban foreign minister who tried to convey it to the US embassy. In 2002, that might have seemed to a reporter like a loose tidbit of information. The Le Monde report, however, shows that that same Uzbek jihadist source was thoroughly penetrated by Uzbek and French intelligence -- that the French likely knew from the fake Uzbek jihadis in bin Laden's command structure what bin Laden was planning, even before the Taliban's foreign minister knew! That information would have been provided to the US CIA station chief in Paris -- and presumably directly to Tenet in Washington -- in narrative form in the context of a years' worth of steady narrative reports about what was coming out of bin Laden's camps through Uzbek channels.

The "warning fatigue" comment comes from an unnamed state department official when the Bush administration was still in full blown stonewall mode. But by the time of the 9/11 Commission hearings, both Tenet and Clark have admitted that they did not have "warning fatigue" but that "their hair was on fire" because of intelligence reports that were converging, not diverging, in their indications.

The Le Monde report means it is crucial for us to know how specific the reports were that were coming out of the Uzbek-French connection, and whether there were other intelligence agencies that penetrated AQ as thoroughly, and how specific those reports were.

The Le Monde report convincingly indicates that it is likely that those reports were very, very concrete and specific.

[muriel_volestrangler]

77. "Concrete and specific" - but pointing at the wrong continent

You may consider that a concrete warning; I'd say it's a warning that "AQ is going to strike in Germany". The people to send it to first would be the German security services, who would be in charge of preventing the hijackers boarding the plane.

You're assuming that somewhere else in the report, it carried on and indicated the change of plan. But so far, we've seen nothing to indicate that.

[HamdenRice]

80. Let's agree to disagree, because I don't think you get it

When I wrote, "AQ is going to strike in Germany" that was purely hypothetical under the "warning fatigue" paradigm. I was saying that it was possible for a reporter to think that had happened. It is not now possible for a reporter credibly to report that.

As for the change in plan, that's exactly what the French Le Monde report is saying: that French intelligence listened in as plans changed.

If you don't think that's what the Le Monde report says, then I guess we have to just leave it at that and agree to disagree.

[HamdenRice]

44. Thanks for this -- the material about the bin Laden family is telling

The French suspected that bin Laden had not severed his ties with his family, despite the formal estrangement.

This makes the decision of the White House to allow the entire bin Laden family to be evacuated without being interviewed by the FBI more outrageous.

[MetaTrope]

49. Of course, the Bush admin had no problem with kidnapping the wives and children

of Iraqi officials to force them to turn themselves in...

[paulthompson]

76. Very good point!

The article points out that the French report giving suspicions about the Binladin Group, the bin Laden family company, is dated September 13, 2001. Guess which day the US started to whisk all the bin Laden family members out of the US? September 13, 2001! Too bad Michael Moore didn't know that when he made his Fahrenheit 9/11 movie.

[Individualist]

63. Thank you, Paul

for this information and for all the research you've done on 9/11. For any new DUers, I'd like to add that your website, http://www.complete911timeline.org/, is a must see for anyone interested in learning facts about 9/11.

[mhatrw]

47. Kick n/t

[NewJeffCT]

50. Kick & a question

I'm writing a LTTE on this now - am I totally spacing out, but did the French attempt to warn anybody? I might have missed it this morning because I'm late for my coffee?

[HamdenRice]

51. French warnings

There are really two questions.

First, how did the French share the documents in the 328 page dossier with the Americans. The Le Monde article strongly infers, but cannot prove, that these were routinely shared with the CIA station chief in Paris, Bill Murray. See the complete English translation up thread.

Second, did the French provide additional, specific warnings in the weeks before 9/11. To answer that, go to Paul Thompson's 9/11 timeline at cooperativeresearch.org, which is based on mainstream media reports, often with a clickable link. I believe the answer is yes, but to pin this down, you would really want to look there.

On edit: It is extremely important what you are doing, writing a LTTE, for two reasons. First, this information needs to get into the mainstream media, and lttes are one way of getting them to look at this. Second, the msm needs to explain why they reported the story dishonestly they way they did.

[NewJeffCT]

57. Thanks

I found it later (the caffeine cleared my head later!) But, submitting an LTTE is not the same as getting one published. I had submitted one a few years back on how the London train bombing was tied to the US outing of a double-agent (Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan) but that got nowhere...

The article did quote the French as saying it would have been a mistake not to warn the CIA, and even mentioned:

It goes first to the CIA in Paris, Bill Murray, a French-speaker with the build of John Wayne, who has since returned to the US. We contacted him, but he did not want to talk with us. Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, who was responsible at that point for liaison with foreign services at the DGSE, cannot conceive of this information not going to him: "That, typically, is the kind of information that would certainly have been forwarded to the CIA. It would even have been an error not to have done it." <

[paulthompson]

75. Other French warnings

Here's a couple other French warnings I have from this time period. It's interesting to note the first one wasn't even translated into English in a timely manner.

Early 2001: FBI Slow to React to French Report on Bin Laden’s Finances

French experts give an in-depth report on bin Laden’s financial network to a senior FBI official, according to a source close to French intelligence. A month later, the FBI official admits to his French colleagues that the document still hasn’t been translated into English. (Los Angeles Times, 10/14/2001) It is not known what the FBI does with the report after that, if anything.

September 7, 2001: French Give ‘Very Specific Information’ about Possible Attack on US Soil

The French newspaper Le Figaro will report in late 2001 that on this day, “According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence, very specific information transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against American interests around the world, including on US soil.” A French intelligence report sent to the US this day “enumerates all the intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack to come from Afghanistan.” (Le Figaro (Paris),10/31/2001) It will later be revealed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed gives Mohamed Atta the final go-ahead in a phone call from Afghanistan the day before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001).

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

79. And other French warnings

A Time magazine article described how the French Intelligence had also warned the FBI about Zacarias Moussaoui in the lead-up to 9/11. Colleen Rowley tried to act upon those French intelligence reports and just got shut off by the higher ups. Maybe if they had put all of the intelligence reports together, including knowledge that Moussaoui was training to fly planes, they might have had enough to avert disaster:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html

"As the Minneapolis agents' reasonable suspicions quickly ripened into probable cause, which, at the latest, occurred within days of Moussaoui's arrest when the French Intelligence Service confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups and activities connected to Osama Bin Laden, they became desperate to search the computer lap top that had been taken from Moussaoui as well as conduct a more thorough search of his personal effects. The agents in particular believed that Moussaoui signaled he had something to hide in the way he refused to allow them to search his computer.

3) The Minneapolis agents' initial thought was to obtain a criminal search warrant, but in order to do so, they needed to get FBI Headquarters' (FBIHQ's) approval in order to ask for DOJ OIPR's approval to contact the United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota. Prior to and even after receipt of information provided by the French, FBIHQ personnel disputed with the Minneapolis agents the existence of probable cause to believe that a criminal violation had occurred/was occurring. As such, FBIHQ personnel refused to contact OIPR to attempt to get the authority. While reasonable minds may differ as to whether probable cause existed prior to receipt of the French intelligence information, it was certainly established after that point and became even greater with successive, more detailed information from the French and other intelligence sources. The two possible criminal violations initially identified by Minneapolis Agents were violations of Title 18 United States Code Section 2332b (Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, which, notably, includes "creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to any other person by destroying or damaging any structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the United States or by attempting or conspiring to destroy or damage any structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the United States") and Section 32 (Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities). It is important to note that the actual search warrant obtained on September 11th was based on probable cause of a violation of Section 32.1 Notably also, the actual search warrant obtained on September 11th did not include the French intelligence information. ..."

[paulthompson]

81. Yes

There were lots of French warnings about Moussaoui. Initially the US said the French never told them much about Moussaoui, but of course that turned out to be untrue.

[Grateful for Hope]

55. Kick....and, thank you! n/t

[Jcrowley]

56. Thanks for this

K&R

[Stephanie]

58. "We thought it was going to be CONVENTIONAL hijackings." - Condi Rice

So we all went to Texas to wait until it was over.

[speedoo]

59. Thanks, everyone. K&R

nt

[HamdenRice]

60. Thanks everyone! Now let's "catapult the propoganda"...

to paraphrase Bush. It is great to see that the majority of DUers interpret the Le Monde article the same way. It's a great reality check.

Now, how do we get this out to the mainstream? This is one of the most significant breaks in the information logjams surrounding 9/11 since the 9/11 Commission hearings.

I don't think we can rely on the passive "pull" of non DUers to this information, but need to push it out, especially into the alternative media such as Pacifica, Air America, the Village Voice, etc.

Also, is there any chance that Le Monde will put this dossier on line so that the public can dissect it? I've read some press accounts that said that in France, in the paper version (as opposed to the web version we have), Le Monde published the text of one of the reports rather than just describing the report. If you are in France, is that true?

And let's thank the mods for recognizing that the substance of the Le Monde report is not a speculative theory not yet ripe for publication in GD, but well vetted research by a world class newspaper, and that the assertions in it were confirmed by top French intelligence officials in the body of the reporting.

[southpaw]

67. How about Olbermann?

I think Keith O. might be interested in this information. He could be the window to the MSM.

[EstimatedProphet]

61. What difference does it make? The French have the nerve to write in FRENCH!

If they really intended to tell us what was in their files, they'd print them IN ENGLISH!

USA!USA!USA!

[JackRiddler]

62. kick again

[emmadoggy]

64. Holy Smokes!

The complexities of this are mind-melting and the details are hard for me to wrap my brain around - but the crux of it all is clear.

I hope this can be spread far and wide and the MSM are forced to pick it up and report it honestly. (Though I won't hold my breath.)

Just when I think the evil, incompetence, and treason of this administration can't get any worse, another stone is unturned to reveal yet more dark and disturbing information.

Excellent work, HamdenRice. Thank you!

[Disturbed]

69. I have believed that it was LIHOP since '04.

There were many warnings that were ignored.

[Generator]

70. This is stunning

First, this has been "allowed" to stay in GD. (What's up with that, has something changed? Is 9/11 really important?-there is more irony and sarcasm in that sentence than you will ever find) I was trying to read this yesterday and was getting thrown off with bugs.

Second, really this is the crux of everything. How in plain site, with numerous sources, the truth is out there. Only Americans are rubes, still believing in our government to tell us the truth and oh yes-protect us-this wasn't a real warning. There was nothing that could be done. Nothing could be done. It's a mantra. It's never changed.

Lastly, it's always the same old story. The media is always working ACTIVELY, with great vigor to protect our government. Your leaders are innocent. Nothing is wrong here. Nothing at all.

[Blue_Tires]

73. ttt nt

[me b zola]

78. Thank you, HR

Another amazing post :toast: