CIA head Porter Goss was in Pakistan in weeks before 9/11

[HamdenRice]

It is well known and documented that at the moment that hijacked airplanes were crashing into the WTC, Porter Goss, a House member from Florida and then Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was meeting with Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan's ISI, and the paymaster of the 9/11 hijackers. Also at the meeting was Sen. Graham, also of Florida, and then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But I just discovered two new facts from the Times of India -- first, that Goss had also flown to Pakistan in the weeks before 9/11, and second, that the subject of the discussion at the breakfast meeting was indeed Osama bin Laden.

Most press reports state that the breakfast meeting concerned "terrorism emanating from Afghanistan." The Times article is more specific, that they were discussing bin Laden.

Just imagine: what information could Gen. Ahmad have had about bin Laden, considering he was both bin Laden's and Atta's financiers?

Goss had been a legendary CIA officer in Europe in the 1960s, a fact that he trumpeted as a credential when he ran for Congress. The congressional district he represented was on the Gulf Coast of Florida, a few miles from where Mohammed Atta lived and went to flight school. After the reorganization of US intelligence, Rep. Goss was appointed head of the CIA.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-809840,curpg-3.cms

For the debunkers: I guess it was just bad timing and incompetence that Mohammed Atta's paymaster was meeting with the Pentagon, CIA, National Security Council staff and intelligence chairs of Congress in the days before and on 9/11.

[pauldp]

1. Wait, Wait Hamden - don't you really want to argue about demolition?

or holograms or some photographs?
:sarcasm:

I'm tellin' ya physical evidence (intriguing as it is) is used as mis- direction more often than not.

Hellooo! smoking gun right over here!!

chirp:chirp

[HamdenRice]

2. So-called debunkers NEVER address this kind of issue ...

so fortunately we don't have to worry about them trying to hijack this thread!

[CJCRANE]

3. It's kinda obvious

that 9/11 was a set-up when you realize that Bushco's so-called "allies" in the War On Terror - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan - both had connections (financial and otherwise) to 9/11.

The neocons got their "new Pearl Harbor" and deftly turned American anger onto Iraq - and now Iran - two countries that had no involvement in 9/11.


It's such a simple realization, but it's amazing that only a few "conspiracy theorists" like us even discuss it.

The neocons are literally creating enemies so they can then go off and fight wars of their own choosing*.

*Well, obviously not them personally.

[Kevin Fenton]

4. Other people present

"August 28-30, 2001: Senator Bob Graham (D), Representative Porter Goss (R) and Senator John Kyl (R) travel to Pakistan and meet with President Musharraf. They reportedly discuss various security issues, including the possible extradition of bin Laden. They also meet with Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. Zaeef apparently tells them that the Taliban want to solve the issue of bin Laden through negotiations with the US. Pakistan says it wants to stay out of the bin Laden issue. All three are meeting with ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed in Washington at the time of the 9/11 attacks (see September 11, 2001 (H)). Mahmood gave $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta (see October 7, 2001). Since the ISI was funding the 9/11 hijackers, what else might have been discussed in these meetings?"
http://billstclair.com/911timeline/main/mahmoodahmed.html

The thing I don't get about Ahmed's visit is, if it isn't just a coincidence, then what is its purpose? Did he bring some sort of message?

[mirandapriestly]

5. Well, there is the pipeline

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/141355.php The New Pearl Harbor, chapter 7, excerpts:

...the Taliban was originally created by the CIA, working in conjunction with Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), with additional financial support from Saudi Arabia.>4 According to Ahmed Rashid's well-known book Taliban, the pipeline project was central to this support:

..the then-emerging Taliban to cut a pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban.>5"
When the Taliban, with this financial support from Saudi Arabia and the CIA funneled through the ISI, conquered Kabul in 1996, Unocal was hopeful that it would provide enough stability to allow its pipelines to be built and protected...7 The fact that the Taliban continued to serve the purposes of the ISI is illustrated, Thompson points out, by the fact that when Taliban troops were about to conquer the major city in northern Afghanistan in 1998, an ISI officer sent a message saying: "My boys and I are riding into Mazar-i- Sharif.">8 In any case, after the Taliban conquered this city, it had control of most of Afghanistan, including the entire pipeline route. CentGas then announced that it was "ready to proceed.">9
The final attempt to find a non-military solution reportedly occurred at a four-day meeting in Berlin in July of 2001. The Bush administration tried to get the Taliban to share power, thereby creating a joint government of "national unity." According to the Pakistani representative at the meeting, Niaz Naik, one of the Americans said "either the Taliban behave as they ought to...or we will use another option..a military operation"
More in chapter 7
Discussing the Afghan War? and arranging for Atta (didn't ISI pay him?)

http://timelines.ws/countries/AFGHANISTAN.HTML


2001 Sep 13, The US requested that Pakistan grant air and land space for military actions in Afghanistan. US Special Forces arrived in Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 9/14/01, p.A1)(NW, 8/26/02, p.38)

2001 Sep 15, As many as 300,000 Afghans reportedly had fled Kandahar in fear of US air strikes.
(SFC, 9/17/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 15, Iran ordered its security forces to seal off its 560-mile border with Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 9/16/01, p.A7)
2001 Sep 15, Pakistan agreed to close its border with Afghanistan and pledged full support to combat int’l. terrorism.
(SSFC, 9/16/01, p.A7)

2001 Sep 16, Pakistan told Afghanistan to surrender Osama bin Laden within 3 days or face almost certain military action.
(SFC, 9/17/01, p.A8)

2001 Sep 17, In Afghanistan Islamic clerics demanded proof from the US that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the Sep 11 terrorist attacks. They also requested that the Organization of Islamic Conference, a group of over 50 Muslim countries, make a formal demand for bin Laden’s handover.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 17, Pakistan virtually shut down its 1,560-mile border with Afghanistan. Some 1.2 million Afghan refugees in the North-West Frontier Province were confined to dozens of camps in the region.
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.A8)

[Kevin Fenton]

8. There will never be any oil pipeline in Afghanistan

The oil pipeline deal was dead by 9/11 and will never be revived; Unocal had already entered another Central Asian pipeline project.

This article from Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections was written on 10 October 2000 (more than 11 months before 9/11) and mentions Unocal as a shareholder in the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline:
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cnc04439.htm

This pipeline is finished and pumping oil.

If he was discussing the Afghan war, then why would he have to be there on the day?
What would he be arranging for Atta (or another hijacker)?

[mirandapriestly]

9. I know the pipeline deal is dead, it's in the link I gave

but Pakistan and the US were together on it and seemed to have dealings with the Taliban etc. in order to gain control of Afghanistan. Possibly when that fell through they turned their sites to Iraq for their oil or access to other countries through Iraq, it shares borders with most ME countries. If the 9-11 plan was something that they were in on together then obviously they were discussing something related to that. Why dismiss the pipeline when it shows a connection to the two countries? , I think it is important.

[Kevin Fenton]

11. Tension in Pak-US relationship

The Pakistan-US relationship is not quite that straightforward, and it's certainly not the case that the US was the master and Pakistan the client. There was, for example the time when Pakistan shipped surplus stinger missiles to North Korea for reverse engineering (1993) and the US put them on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. One of the problems is that, whilst the people on the ground might have understood what was going on, the people in Washington had no idea and the Pakistanis were able to manipulate them sometimes to get something they wouldn't have been able to get if the US decision-makers could tell their arse from their elbow. There is a similar dynamic in the relationship between Pakistan and it's other sponsor - Saudi Arabia.

I don't really think the US wanted to control Afghanistan, through the Taliban or otherwise. The pipeline-driven US policy to Afghanistan in the late-90s came about for two reasons:
(a) The US didn't actually have any policy towards Afghanistan and Unocal was able to step into this vacuum with a little lobbying;
(b) The US wanted to ensure that Caspian oil wasn't monopolised by the Russians, which meant a pipeline somewhere else, but Iran (by far the best route) was out of the question and there were various civil wars in Georgia, which left Afghanistan as the option of the last resort.

As for the reasons for invading Iraq, I really don't think it's the oil. IMHO Wolfowitz et al. are just complete lunatics, they don't actually need what you or I would think of as logical reasons to do something (remember the "Ramsi Yousef is an Iraqi agent" argument? as a conspiracy theory it's worse than the idea that the moon landings were faked), they just wanted to do it because they've always wanted to do it. Perhaps they had a real reason at the beginning, but I'm sure they've forgotten it now.

If you're looking for a link between the US and Pakistan then what about the seige of Kunduz? The US created an air coridor so 2,500 Al Qaeda fighters could be airlifted from a city under seige by the Northern Alliance to safety in Pakistan.

[mirandapriestly]

12. I guess, I am thinking "what would have been in it "for Pakistan?

If they were part of 9-11, I mean. I thought the Caspian turned out to be a disappointment as far as oil went. I guess my assumption was that they have an alliance which results in the same interests , and what is the basis of that alliance? I remember the Kunduz story, and again, why would the US do that? you know much more than moi, what do you think was going on that day ,re: bin laden, or is it a kind of hypothetical question to get people to think and realize that there was foreknowledge?

[Kevin Fenton]

14. I don't think there was foreknowledge...

... at least on the part of the US administration.

The Caspian was a disappointment as far as oil went, but it was still worth building the one extra pipeline to Turkey (or at least somebody thought so).

AFAIK the Kunduz airlift took several nights; even if they sent in three planes a night and took off 160 people each, then it would have taken them five nights to get the 2,500 fighters out. There's a good account of Kunduz in "Manhattan to Baghdad" by Paul McGeough, who was actually there with the Northern Alliance the whole time. Seymour Hersh says, "American intelligence official and high-ranking military officers told me that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequnces, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus." Chain of Command, pp. 129-130. This is probably near the mark. The US lacks local knowledge and as a result is easily manipulated by Pakistan. Plus, the Neocons don't really care about Al Qaeda anyway.

I don't know whether it was the same at Khost, i.e. whether Bin Laden was allowed deliberately to escape or not.

[DemInDistress]

6. good find HR,,another nail the coffin of the bush crime family

the killers the murderers of 3,000 innocent AMERICAN citizens..YES., 911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB..
funny post earlier..a dem here posted,"your hatred of bush" wow..
that poseur should be booted..jmho

anyway good story HR

[greyl]

7. So, then the official identity of the hijackers is true?

The article assumes:

- bin laden was behind it.
- the official identity of the hijackers is true
- The hijackers were educated in piloting aircraft.

I realize the above doesn't deal with the focus of your post, but I'm trying to eliminate some extraneous implausible explanations.

[HamdenRice]

10. I don't jump to any conclusions -- I am just reporting facts I've found ..

You wrote that the article assumes:

- bin laden was behind it.

But it does not make any ultimate claims about who is behind bin Laden, or what in fact "bin Laden" is. There is an entity called "bin Laden", a left-handed Saudi who created a terrorism network and training ground in Afghanistan and who has carried out terrorist acts in the past, and there is a "bin Laden" who makes speeches distributed through cassettes and videos inflaming the Muslim world, but there is also a "bin Laden" who is the brother of the financier and business partner of the Bush family going back some 30 years, and then there is a fat dark right handed "bin Laden" who claimed responsibility for 9/11.

- the official identity of the hijackers is true

The article does not assume that the identity of the hijackers is true, although people using those names were in Florida. According to reputable sources, the people with those names in Florida, Newark and Boston, although supposedly devout Muslims, gambled at Jack Abramoff's casinos, drank heavily, used cocaine, frequented strip clubs, hired hookers and the mastermind lived with a lingerie model. There are also credible reports that people with those names and identities are still alive and that others match identities of people who were trained at American air force bases some years ago.

- The hijackers were educated in piloting aircraft.

Some people did take flight school lessons, and according to some sources, one of the flight schools had connections with the CIA and drug running. Moreover, reputable sources say that the flight school students were mediocre and that the maneuvers in Washington were too difficult for someone with such poor performance on a flight simulator.

While none of these allegations can be completely verified, none of your assumptions are necessarily true.

But the breakfast meeting has been confirmed by Porter Goss himself and the financial connection between Gen. Ahmad and Mohammed Atta has been confirmed by the Wall St. Journal and the FBI. FBI sources also confirmed that the Bush administration instructed them to back off the investigation of the Pakistan-Atta financial connection because it could embarrass and allie in the "war on terror," and it is an indisputable fact that the Wall St. Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, who reported these confirmed facts was murdered in Pakistan by the very same Pakistan ISI operative who carried out Gen. Ahmad's order to transfer money to Atta.

Now can you please explain -- something not one of the "debunkers" has ever even attempted to do -- how the incompetence theory can be reconciled with Gen. Ahmad, financier of 9/11, meeting with top defense and intelligence officials in the days before 9/11 to discuss bin Laden?

I am still patiently waiting.

[seemslikeadream]

13. THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A MILITARY ORDER

BUDDY BUDDY
http://www.gsnmagazine.com.nyud.net:8090/images/aug_05/atta.jpg
DO THE MATH

24 MINUTES

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A MILITARY ORDER WATCH THIS VIDEO

http://www.bushflash.com/buddy.html

[mirandapriestly]

15. CIA...Pakistan...UAE...Drugs

http://cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=united+arab+emirates&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on

October 1996-early 2002: Arms Dealer Aligns with Taliban and ISI Complete 911 Timeline

Russian arms merchant Victor Bout, who has been selling weapons to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance since 1992, switches sides, and begins selling weapons to the Taliban and al-Qaeda instead. The deal comes immediately after the Taliban captures Kabul in late October 1996 and gains the upper hand in Afghanistan's civil war. In one trade in 1996, Bout's company delivers at least 40 tons of Russian weapons to the Taliban, earning about $50 million. Two intelligence agencies later confirm that Bout trades with the Taliban “on behalf of the Pakistan government.” In late 2000, several Ukrainians sell 150 to 200 T-55 and T-62 tanks to the Taliban in a deal conducted by the ISI, and Bout helps fly the tanks to Afghanistan. ...
Based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bout operates freely there until well after 9/11. The US becomes aware of Bout's widespread illegal weapons trading in Africa in 1995, and of his ties to the Taliban in 1996, but they fail to take effective action against him for years. ...
...
After President Bush is elected, it appears the US gives up trying to get Bout, until after 9/11. Bout moves to Russia in 2002. .
..
The Guardian suggests that Bout may have worked with the CIA when he traded with the Northern Alliance, and this fact may be hampering current international efforts to catch him.