Reply #97: LOL! You certainly are, burythehatchet. Why IS that IG report so redacted?

[Octafish]

Muffled No Longer, Rowley Runs for Congress

Speaking of suicide bombers, FBI agent did—before 9-11—but superiors in D.C. didn't listen

EXCERPT...

To refresh your memory, read Rowley's May 21, 2002, memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller; a redacted (of course) version was posted by Time. In it, Rowley told Mueller:

The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY and go to the heart of the FBI's law enforcement mission and mandate.

There's a reason she capitalized the word integrity. She basically accused Mueller and other HQ jerkoffs, who include Marion "Spike" Bowman, of not only screwing up before 9-11 but then covering their asses afterwards by misrepresenting what the Minneapolis agents had done. Here's what happened, excerpted from her letter:

The Minneapolis agents who responded to the call about Moussaoui's flight training identified him as a terrorist threat from a very early point. The decision to take him into custody on August 15, 2001, on the INS "overstay" charge was a deliberate one to counter that threat and was based on the agents' reasonable suspicions.

Rowley noted that Moussaoui could be held because he had overstayed his visa and termed that "fortuitous":

It allowed for him to be taken into immediate custody and prevented him receiving any more flight training, it was certainly not something the INS coincidentally undertook of their own volition. I base this on the conversation I had when the agents called me at home late on the evening Moussaoui was taken into custody to confer and ask for legal advice about their next course of action. The INS agent was assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and was therefore working in tandem with FBI agents.

The FBI agents weren't lying down on the job. They wanted to get a criminal warrant, but they needed HQ's OK. Info from French investigators piqued the interest in Moussaoui, but HQ wouldn't listen:

FBIHQ personnel disputed with the Minneapolis agents the existence of probable cause to believe that a criminal violation had occurred/was occurring.

Now bear with me while I quote a lengthy passage from her letter. It's important because, you see, after 9-11, FBIHQ OK'd a search warrant, of course. Here's Rowley, talking about the Minneapolis office's attempt to investigate before 9-11:

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. Therefore, the only main difference between the information being submitted to FBIHQ from an early date which HQ personnel continued to deem insufficient and the actual criminal search warrant which a federal district judge signed and approved on September 11th, was the fact that, by the time the actual warrant was obtained, suspected terrorists were known to have hijacked planes which they then deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

To say then, as has been iterated numerous times, that probable cause did not exist until after the disastrous event occurred, is really to acknowledge that the missing piece of probable cause was only the FBI's (FBIHQ's) failure to appreciate that such an event could occur. The probable cause did not otherwise improve or change.
This all came out in 2002, so it's astonishing that Congress didn't immediately launch a thorough investigation. It's even more incredible that Congress trusted the Bush regime's word that the best way to fight terror was to invade Iraq. And then it's really amazing that Bush got a second term.

CONTINUED...

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/001074.php

Thanks for the kind words, burythehatchet. As are all good people who give a damn -- who CARE -- about where the nation is and where it is heading. I'm no Bodhisatva, but I play one on the Internet.