Reply #80: Let's call the FBI. Oops. Sorry.

[Octafish]

It'd be nice to have an honest FBI, let alone an honest Attorney General, on our side. Here's what we do know: FBI was warned by many of their own agents and they did nothing. Why?

FBI's Shifting Versions on Missed 9/11 Warnings

by Thomas Oliphant
 
EXCERPT...

That is a generic reason for remaining skeptical about FBI director Robert Mueller's tardy and modified mea culpa on the bureau's and his pre- and post-Sept. 11 behavior.

A more direct reason may be found in Colleen Rowley's remarkable letter of May 21, in which the Minneapolis field office's legal counsel notes with dry wit that this is the director's third public position on the FBI's relationship to the tragedy, not exactly a credibility booster.

The first line, she notes, emerged almost immediately after the attacks. The assertion was made that if only the FBI had some form of warning, it might have been able to take preventive action.

Rowley discloses in her letter that she and her colleagues at once began trying to reach his office in case he was unaware of the arrest and mishandling of the possible 20th hijacker, Zaccarias Moussaoui, in the weeks before the tragedy. When the public line kept getting repeated, she wrote, her office came to the ''sad realization that the remarks indicated someone, possibly with your approval, had decided to circle the wagons ... in an apparent effort to protect the FBI from embarrassment and the relevant FBI officials from scrutiny. Everything I have seen and heard about the FBI's official stance and the FBI's internal preparations in anticipation of further congressional inquiry had unfortunately confirmed my worst suspicions in this regard.''

As details about the bungling of the Moussaoui matter began to emerge, as well as the earlier report about ''Middle Eastern men'' at flight school around Phoenix, the story line changed. This spring, Mueller began claiming that even if the Phoenix tip had been acted on, and even if the French-Algerian terrorist's belongings and laptop hard drive had been searched, the attacks would almost certainly still have occurred on Sept. 11.

Rowley expressed surprise that the press never noticed the inherent contradiction between statement one and statement two, but of course this distinction has now been superseded by a fresh Mueller statement that the proper handling of the Minneapolis office's diligent work might indeed have lead to a breakthrough.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0602-04.htm

Me? I've tried warning people about Bushco since 1980. Maybe when we get an honest and free Press, I can do something more. Until then, I'll keep shouting.