Wikileaks Might Have Helped Stop 9/11 Say Two Federal Agents

[sabrina 1]

Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic ponder the question 'what if Wikileaks had existed in 2001' when they were trying to warn the government about a possible plot to attack within the U.S.?



WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?

Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.

If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of 9/11 have been prevented? The idea is worth considering.

The organization has drawn both high praise and searing criticism for its mission of publishing leaked documents without revealing their source, but we suspect the world hasn't yet fully seen its potential. Let us explain.

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get information out.

Emphasis mine ~

As many people will remember, Coleen Rowley, "a special agent/legal counsel at the FBI's Minneapolis division" participated in the work that resulted in the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui on an immigration violation just weeks before the World Trade Center was destroyed. Federal agents asked for permission to search Moussaoui's computer but were turned down.

Special Agent Harry Samit and an INS colleague were responsible for detaining Moussaoui. Additionally, they had information from a foreign intelligence service that Moussaoui had connections to a terrorist organizataion. But even with all of this, officials refused to allow them to investigate Moussaoui further.

When Special Agent Samit informed them that he was "trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center." (Yes, he was that explicit.) they stone-walled his requests. In testimony at Moussaoui's trial, Samit called the behavior of his FBI superiors in DC "criminal negligence."

The 9/11 Commission later, and frustrately way too late, agreed that Moussaoui was probably being trained to be one of the hi-jackers.

The Commission also agreed that if details about his arrest had been reported in the press, the attack might have been postponed.

WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against "talking to the media" and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.

Criminal negligence is putting it mildly. The terrible news on that tragic day of 9/11 must have torn these agents apart, all of whom HAD done their jobs so well that had officials listened to them, 9/11 could not have happened.

They had nowhere to turn. They were warned about talking to the press. Whistle-blowing was 'frowned on' but if there had been a safe way to get the news out in the open, would the officials have been forced to act? And would the plotters have cancelled the attack assuming that maybe Moussaoui had talked and rather than risk arrest, fled the country?

And it is stunning to read this from testimony given at the 9/11 Commission by Dzakovic about tests he had conducted to find vulnerabilities in airport security:

"The Red Team was extraordinarily successful in killing large numbers of innocent people in the simulated attacks … we were ordered not to write up our reports and not to retest airports where we found particularly egregious vulnerabilities.... Finally, the FAA started providing advance notification of when we would be conducting our 'undercover' tests and what we would be checking."

This testimony never made it into the Commission's report. However the Commission concluded that the failure to share information among agencies, AND among the press and the public, directly led to the failure to prevent 9/11.

Rowley's and Dzakovic'a final conclusions considering all these facts:

Decisions to speak out inside or outside one's chain of command — let alone to be seen as a whistle-blower or leaker of information — is fraught with ethical and legal questions and can never be undertaken lightly. But there are times when it must be considered. Official channels for whistle-blower protections have long proved illusory. In the past, some government employees have gone to the media, but that can't be done fully anonymously, and it also puts reporters at risk of being sent to jail for refusing to reveal their sources. For all of these reasons, WikiLeaks provides a crucial safety valve.

Again, the emphasis is mine. And for all these reasons, Wikileaks and/or a truly free press is necessary for the survival of this democracy.

I don't think any reasonable person would disagree that there are are legitimate reasons for governments to classify information. But so far, from what I've seen of the leaked documents, much of it is information that should have been published by the press. In fact much of it was published by some excellent, independent investigative journalists, like John Pilger, Robert Scheer, Jeremy Scahill, Dahr Jamail and others, but mostly in the foreign press or on Indy sites and other online publications.


If our elected officials really cared about our national security, and feel the need to prosecute those who are a threat to it, then they need to start looking at those who lied us into war. That crime did more to make to threaten our national security than anything Wikileaks has published. Rather than protecting those in office who violate our laws, isn't it time to start restoring the rule of law?

Wouldn't it make more sense from a National Security pov to prosecute those who broke our laws and boasted about publicly, rather than expending energy hunting down someone who in reality, has merely confirmed what many people already knew or suspected?

Coleen Rowley and the other agents mentioned in this article, are true patriots and heroes. But when the hands of those who actually are looking out for the American people are tied, none of us is safe. Let's get the real bad guys, and stop censoring those who are telling the truth.

[stray cat]

1. Was that conversation of the two individuals leaked too?

[sabrina 1]

3. I'm not sure which conversation you are referring to? n/t

[leveymg]

2. Somewhere, in some vault in Langley, the real history of 9/11 is buried. I want to see THOSE files.

Is there still one, single patriot with a T/S? Anyone willing to put it on the line, and share the true history of what George W. Bush and George Tenet said to each other in Bush's pickup truck and decided to do in those crucial final weeks that summer?

Not one?

[Individualist]

4. +1

[sabrina 1]

6. I think a vast majority of the world's population would agree with you.

Maybe that is why they are so desperate to silence him? Or one reason anyhow. The Bank information seems to have set them off more than anything else.

[malaise]

7. Truth will out

Eventually we will hear the truth.

[leveymg]

8. We already know the truth. I want to see the documents . . .

marked as People's Exhibits in U.S. v. George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, et al.

[sabrina 1]

9. Are there such documents that have been classified? I

did follow this back when it was happening, and was thoroughly frustrated by the Commission's obvious reluctance to really expose the truth. But I was not aware of documents that might reveal much that we have suspected. I would have thought they would be more careful than that? If so, then yes, let's see them all!

[leveymg]

10. Tenet made an unscheduled trip to Crawford on August 23 or 24, and then perjured himself

to the Commission by claiming that he had no communication with Bush in the 30 days before 9/11.

That came out in Tenet's 2007 book. The Commission did not get all the Agency documents. Not even close.

Yes, I'm convinced some of them still exist. It's SOP to keep CYA files - it's the institutional norm at CIA.

See, leveymg's Journal - THEY KNEW: Tenet reveals late August '01 ...
1 post - Last post: May 7, 2007
leveymg's Journal. THEY KNEW: Tenet reveals late August '01 meeting w/Bush, Rummy, ... George Tenet's new book, At the Center of the Storm, ...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/258

[sabrina 1]

12. Thank you, I remember that now. The visit to Crawford.

Hard to keep all the lies straight, but when no one is asking any questions, I guess it is easier for them.

I'd also like to see the report on Bush/Cheney testimony, testimony they outrageously thought they had the right to refuse to provide. But it wasn't of much use, since no one knows what they said. The whole think still stinks and always will until all of the evidence is revealed.

[sabrina 1]

21. I just got back and have had time to read your journal more thoroughly

I just felt a chill reading it. Nothing happened after those revelations of Tenet being at Crawford. I remember those days and the frustration we felt hoping someone would do something, but no one ever did.

Some day I hope someone will talk. I no longer expect or hope that justice will be done in this country. I did hope that other countries might do it for us, but we now learn from Wikileaks, that anyone who tries, will get a visit from this government's representatives.

So, that leaves the American people. Your work on this was so important, not to mention, excellent. It stands as a record of the history of how they ignored the threats.

I don't know what to think anymore. Good people, like you and Rowley and so many others, were doing all that they could to stop the attack, and when they couldn't, to get some accountability. But the forces working against the good guys, are appartently way, too powerful. :cry:

[defendandprotect]

46. True ... and remember that '01 was Coleen Rowley's second time around on this

game-playing -- she had also been whistle-blowing re the '93 WTC attack.

[rschop]

53. It is even worse that you could ever imagine!

When Director of the CIA George Tenet flew down to Crawford Texas, for a meeting with Bush on August 24, 2001, he not only knew that Moussaoui had been arrested in Minnesota, when the FBI thought he was a al Qaeda terrorist trying to get simulator training on a B747 aircraft but even knew that Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were inside of the US.

But what is even , more horrific Tenet knew as did Cofer Black, CTC head, and Richard Blee, head of the CIA Bin Laden unit and many other people at the CIA that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans. Emails from Tom Wilshire, the CIA manager that had been moved over to the FBI in mid-May 2001 to spy on the FBI Cole bombing investigators, back to his CIA managers, Blee, Black, and Tenet confirm that the CIA knew Mihdhar and Hazmi were going to take part of the next big al Qaeda attack, an attack that the CIA had been warned about since April 2001.

This was the al Qaeda attack that Tenet, Black, Blee had warned Rice and Clarke about on July 10, 2001, at an emergency meeting at the White House. Wilshire’s assignment was to find out what the FBI Cole bombing investigators knew about the al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in January 2000, and if they knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at that meeting with Walid Bin Attash actually planning the Cole bombing. This is the information that the CIA had been desperately trying to keep secret, and away from the FBI Cole bombing investigators so the CIA culpability in allowing the attack on the USS Cole was kept secret. Wilshire found out at the June 11, 2001 meeting he set up between the FBI Cole bombing investigators, FBI HQ and the CIA that these investigators did not even know who Mihdhar and Hazmi were when FBI HQ agent Dina Corsi showed them photographs from Kuala Lumpur of Mihdhar and Hazmi and CIA officer Clark Shannon asked these FBI investigators if they could recognize any of these al Qaeda terrorists. In July when Wilshire became aware that these al Qaeda terrorists were connected to the massive warnings of a huge al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans, he was denied twice by his CIA managers, Blee, Black and Tenet, from giving this information to the these FBI investigators. His job was not only to spy on the FBI but to make sure the information on Mihdhar and Hazmi never reached the FBI Cole bombing investigators even though the CIA and even the FBI HQ knew these al Qaeda terrorists had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing.


So what did Tenet tell Bush about this when he went to Crawford for a 6 hour meeting with Bush on August 24, 2001. We don’t know and probably will never know, because of Tenet's lies to the 9/11 Commission. On April 14, 2001, at the 9/11 public hearings, Tim Roemer asked Tenet if he knew in August 2001 that a huge al Qaeda attack was about to take place, an attack that would kill thousands of Americans, what did he tell the President of the US. Tenet said he had not talked to the President in August 2001. Roemer then asked him why and Tenet said that he, Tenet, was in Washington DC and the President was in Crawford Texas. Then Roemer asked him if he picked up the phone and called Bush with this horrific information. Tenet said no he had not and said he could not go beyond this as his explanation.

Everyone in that room listening to Tenet knew he was lying, but Roemer and the 9/11 Commission did not call him out on these lies, so at this point they could not ask him further what he had told the President.

But what is even more horrific is that when the FBI Cole bombing investigators accidentally found out that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US, on August 28, 2001, and even knew they were in the US to take part in an al Qaeda terrorist attack, Wilshire and Corsi shut down their investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and forced his him and his investigators to destroy all of the information they had on Mihdhar and Hazmi. Since senior managers at both the CIA and FBI HQ knew about this huge al Qaeda attack, they had to know that by shutting down the FBI Cole bombing investigators investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, thousands of Americans would perish in these attacks.

All of this information is now detailed in "Prior Knowledge of 9/11", also available in a Kindle version.

[rschop]

54. More details in this information

See my journal for more details on this information, and where to get a summary of all of this information along with the actual documents from official US government sources that back all of this up.

[sabrina 1]

60. First, it's clear that Tenet lied about talking to Bush. A blatant lie

apparently.

Regarding the others, those who could not get anyone to listen to them, did any of them think of going to the press?

And if they had, would the press have published the story?

Thank you for your post. This is truly shocking. Even more shocking, that there has been no accountably, only cover-up.

I will try to get that book, but NOT from AMAZON.

[rschop]

68. Kick!

[malaise]

16. True but I love corroboration

and WikiLeaks is confirming everything we knew or suspected.

[chimpymustgo]

52. Who killed JFK?

[annabanana]

5. . . . and a kick . . . .. n/t . . .because that says it all.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, sabrina.

[sabrina 1]

15. You're welcome, Uncle Joe ~

I trust those men and women and we should be able to help them do their jobs but I feel like we failed them also. Coleen Rowley should be in Congress. It just shows how little attention the people have been paying to what has been going on.

[Subdivisions]

13. 'Official' 9/11 conspiracy theory tag team up from the Dungeon in 3..2...1...

[villager]

14. given how the corporate/totalitarian agenda has prospered via 9/11, no wonder they hate Wikileaks!

They don't want the next "9/11" -- whatever grand manipulation they have planned - to be prevented.

[leftstreet]

17. K&R

[defendandprotect]

18. Wikileaks should be looked as a new cornerstone for building a truly free press....

on the internet --

[sabrina 1]

19. I read somewhere today that there is another group, formerly

Wikileaks volunteers, who are starting another organization similar to Wikileaks. I hope these groups spread across the globe like wildfire. The more there are, the less chance governments have of silencing them.

I agree with you. This is a turning point in how people will get their news from now on IF they do not succeed in destroying it, as they have destroyed our free press.

[defendandprotect]

47. Interesting ... especially if they're able to hang on --

[noise]

20. In theory 9/11 is a good example of what Wikileaks is trying to expose

1) The excessive government secrecy.

2) The fawning mainstream media coverage.

3) The authoritarian accusations against anyone who dares to challenge the low standard of political/media establishment conduct.

4) The authoritarian apologists who gleefully accept the low standard of conduct and rail against anyone who dares to question authority.

I say in theory because Assange is on the record denouncing 9/11 skepticism. It's ironic because he appears to resent (i.e. the whole Wikileaks project) that sort of authoritarian statement from government and media .

Example of secrecy:

An excerpt from a New York Observer article by Aram Roston (published 3/16/10)

So the question has always been quite simple: Why wasn't the Mihdhar information shared with the F.B.I.? "That is one of the big mysteries. Why was the information not passed on?" Mr. Farmer told The Observer. Mr. Farmer is also the author of a recent book about the attacks, Ground Truth. "And the explanations aren't good," he added.

The Gay Terrorist by Aram Roston

Farmer was the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission. He wrote an entire book (The Ground Truth) based on the premise that US government failure to prevent 9/11 was attributable to bureaucratic inefficiency. How can Farmer assure the reader that bureaucratic inefficiency explains the failure to prevent 9/11 when he openly admits that he doesn't know why the CIA failed to share the al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar info in a timely manner?

A government acting in good faith would have released the 9/11 records years ago. Yet the commission voted to delay the release of records until 1/09 and the intelligence agencies are still sitting on MFR's (interview summaries) which deal with the al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar sharing issues. The very same intelligence agencies that claim they need the power to torture, issue NSL's and use warrantless surveillance.

[sabrina 1]

22. I had not heard that Assange denounced 9/11 skepticism. That puts

him very much in the minority as almost everyone has doubts about why and how this happened, especially since the official theory is so unacceptable.

The question about why information was not shared among agencies, IS simple. But we'll never really get any answers unless there are some huge changes in our political system.

Thanks for a very interesting post.

[noise]

24. Here is his comment

His obsession with secrecy, both in others and maintaining his own, lends him the air of a conspiracy theorist. Is he one? "I believe in facts about conspiracies," he says, choosing his words slowly. "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news." What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg conference? "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes."

Wanted by the CIA: The man who keeps no secrets

Unless Assange knows more than John Farmer he is making quite a declarative statement backed up by nothing but his own opinion. I understand that many people are turned off by the 9/11 truth movement. The conduct of the 9/11 truth movement does not excuse the lack of government transparency.

There is a strange deal in the US whereby a politician can exploit 9/11 at every turn but if a citizen wants answers that crosses the line.

[sabrina 1]

25. I'm not sure that he was saying he believed the official story

just that he has no patience with false conspiracies. It's not clear that he is dismissing legitimate questions. It's also possible that he has not studied the case. His statement is vague.

Anyhow, thanks for the quote. And I completely agree with your last sentence. There are many unanswered questions about 9/11, a fact agreed upon by a majority of people around the world. Assange may not want to delve into the subject aware that people are only waiting to jump on him as a 'wacko conspiracy theorist' to discredit his other work.

Also, he may have reasoned that by getting the warmongers, being that there is far more information about the lies they told and the other crimes they committed, that is the way to resolve all of the crimes committed on and after 9/11. I would like to hear more from on the subject, but I do think he's wise to be careful what he says about it lacking real evidence to back up any theories he might have.

[cpwm17]

28. Assange's discounting of crazy 9-11 conspiracies

gives him credibility. He isn't distracted by nonsense such as government officials planting bombs in in the towers or building 7.

The poor performance of US intelligence agencies is a completely different matter altogether. That has been documented by private individuals, but ignored by the US Government. It's just CYA - no need for a huge government conspiracy.

[defendandprotect]

42. Didn't know they had published Bilderberg "meeting notes" ... will try to

catch up with that later -- thanks!!

[leveymg]

27. Thnx for posting that link - however, Roston obscures a couple important points:

First, he rekindles the neocon canard that Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi, was somehow central to the CIA's surveillance of the Kuala Lumpur meeting and the tracking of Khalid al-Midhar. This is simply not consistent with the accounts by the 9/11 Commission Report and the testimony of CIA Director Tenet before the 2002 Joint Intelligence Committee panel, and subsequent news media reporting.

The CIA's surveillance of the summit was initiated when in December 1999 the NSA picked up communications that Nawaf al-Hazmi, al-Midhar's partner, was going to be traveling to Malaysia for an important al-Qaida meeting. Al-Hazmi and al-Midhar would go on to commandeer AA-77, that slammed into the Pentagon. If, indeed, Shakir, "the gay terrorist", picked up al-Midhar upon his arrival in Kuala Lumpur, that was several steps removed from the Agency's initial knowledge of the planning session.

Indeed, 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, his brother Salem Alhazmi, and Khalid Almihdhar were issued US visas by the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during the first week in early April, 1999. The NSA and CIA were aware of their identities as al-Qaeda veterans for years prior to their entry into the U.S. at LAX on January 15, 2000, following their attendance at the al-Qaeda planning summit. The CIA obtained a copy of al-Midhar's passport with its US multiple entry visa as he transited Dubai Airport. The following from History Commons: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=nawaf_alhazmi

The CIA is aware that hijacker Khalid Almihdhar is staying at a highly monitored al-Qaeda communication hub (see Late 1998-Early 2002) and is planning to travel to an al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. He is closely watched as leaves the hub and flies from Sana’a, Yemen, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on his way to Malaysia. Agents from eight CIA offices and six friendly foreign intelligence services are all asked to help track him, in the hopes he will lead them to bigger al-Qaeda figures. The CIA and local authorities are running an operation to track militants transiting Dubai airport (see 1999), and United Arab Emirates officials secretly make copies of his passport as he is passing through it, immediately reporting this to the CIA. Another account suggests CIA agents break into Almihdhar’s Dubai hotel room and photocopy the passport there. Either way, the information is immediately faxed to Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit. The CIA not only learns his full name, but also discovers the vital fact that he has a multiple entry visa to the US that is valid from April 1999 to April 2000. But even though the CIA now knows about this US visa which indicates he plans to go to New York City, they do not place him on a terror watch list and they fail to tell the FBI about the visa. (Bamford, 2004, pp. 224; 9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004, pp. 6 pdf file)

The CIA and NSA had been monitoring the communications and travels of the Flt. 77 hijackers for months before the summit.

December 29, 1999: NSA Tells CIA about Planned Al-Qaeda Summit Involving Future Hijackers
Edit event

The NSA, monitoring a telephone in an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen (see Late August 1998 and Late 1998-Early 2002), has listened in on phone calls revealing that hijackers Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi are to attend an important al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000 (see Shortly Before December 29, 1999). Almihdhar’s full name was mentioned, as well as the first names of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi. On this day, the NSA shares this information with the CIA’s Alec Station bin Laden unit. Other US intelligence agencies, including FBI headquarters and the FBI’s New York field office, are told as well. Although Khalid Almihdhar’s full name was mentioned in one call, the NSA only passes on his first name. Also, the NSA has already learned from monitoring the Yemen hub that Nawaf’s last name is Alhazmi and that he is long-time friends with Almihdhar (see Early 1999). However, they either don’t look this up in their records or don’t pass it on to any other agency. <9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004, pp. 6 pdf file; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 239 pdf file; Wright, 2006, pp. 310> An NSA analyst makes a comment that is shared between US intelligence agencies, “Salem may be Nawaf’s younger brother.” This turns out to be correct. A CIA officer will later tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that information from the Africa embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998) was reviewed in late 1999 during a worldwide effort to disrupt millennium attack plots (see December 15-31, 1999) and “a kind of tuning fork… buzzed when two reportedly planning a trip to were linked indirectly to what appeared to be a support element… involved with the Africa bombers.” The fact that they are connected to the Yemen communication hub already indicates some importance within al-Qaeda. It is learned they are connected to the embassy bombings in some way (see October 4, 2001 and Late 1999). The NSA report about them on this day is entitled, “Activities of Bin Laden Associates,” showing the clear knowledge of their ties to bin Laden. <9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 502; Vanity Fair, 11/2004> The CIA will track Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to the Malaysia summit (see January 2-5, 2000 and January 5-8, 2000).

. . .

A US Treasury press release in 2003 will state that “ was videotaped in a January 2000 meeting in Malaysia with two of the September 11, 2001 hijackers of AA Flight 77 - Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.” Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi, is also videotaped at the meeting. US intelligence officials consider the summit so important that CIA Director George Tenet, FBI Director Robert Mueller, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, and other high-ranking officials are given daily briefings about it while it is taking place (see January 6-9, 2000).

[defendandprotect]

43. Also buttressed by the

fakery of the '93 attack on the WTC ....

a practice run? But they couldn't push Clinton into attacking Iraq after it --

obviously not sufficient.

FBI had similar problems -- some agents trying to get the story out as they

saw the threat and were reporting it -- others obviously helping to set this up!

[Swamp Rat]

23. Yeah, we would have been able to stop Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the necons

[laughingliberal]

26. K & R nt

[Anakin Skywalker]

29. Imagine that, playa! They should've listened to their own agents

but now they would rather harass all innocent people at airports in the name of "security".

[SpiralHawk]

30. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R) & RepubliCrony Chickenhawks

[WinkyDink]

31. That cover is IRONIC, given how timid and puerile TIME has become. LOOK at issues from 40 years ago.

[Enthusiast]

32. K&R

What a fantastic OP! Well done!

[Crabby Appleton]

71. K&R

[JDPriestly]

33. And, applying this principle to current events, did someone

in the State Department leak the Wikileaks in order to avert yet another war in Iran? Is that the message here?

[defendandprotect]

45. +1000%

[sabrina 1]

50. That's a good question. I hadn't thought of that.

[JuniperLea]

57. I had a Cheney feeling from the beginning...

Too much like Cheney planting a story, then referring to said story as proof of his assertions elsewhere.

[Poboy]

34. Recommend.

[Bluerthanblue]

35. wikileaks could also have prevented the assisination of JFK and

RFK and MLK. It could have exposed the Iran Contra affair, and the rise of the Neo-Cons the futility of 'whitewater'. Itcould have exposed the truth about what really went on between Saddam Hussien and April Galaspie leading up to the first Gulf War and helped topple Slobodan Milosevic and exposed ...............................................

:shrug:

[defendandprotect]

48. You could be absolutely correct ....

because when the right wing pulled off the JFK assassination, they not only took

our president they took our "people's" government --

Those Democrats who tried to respond with hearings, were quickly silenced -- and

the WC put in place by LBJ who was an obvious co-sconpirator. Without having LBJ

in the WH, the coup could not have been carried through -- it depended, obviously,

heavily on the cover up.

All the future right wing political violence depended upon keeping Democrats powerless.

Government documents hidden for 75 years -- and those who would cooperate with the

cover up in the WH and in positions of power in government.



"The myth of a free press died with the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy"

[sabrina 1]

67. Yes, it could. But a truly free press could have done the same thing.

And if there was such a thing as a free press here, we would not need Wikileaks, but there isn't and so it was inevitable that something would step into the void. I'm surprised it took so long.

[ooglymoogly]

36. As the guilty assume that the stupid populous as a whole, cannot

add 2+2, and as they also control the "msm", lihop or worse, probabilities and common sense be damned, is just so much tinfoil.

Between the lines of this OP lies the proof; laid out in Sesame St. alphabet neon, for even the stupidest amongst us.

[pnwmom]

37. Conspiracy theorists will go for this idea. n/t

[noise]

41. The officials who had the information before 9/11 sat on it

The public never found out why they sat on the information because the records are still classified.

[sabrina 1]

44. Most intelligent people know that if there is a truly free press in

a democracy, governments cannot get away with not being responsive to the needs of the people. What happened with this was criminal negligence.

When agents do their jobs to protect this country but their superiors will not respond, there was no way for them to let the public know they were in danger. Our media would not have published anything the government didn't want them to publish.

But a whistle-blowing organization like Wikileaks would have filled in the gap and whistle-blowers would have had a safe way to get the information out.

I think most thinking people would like this idea, especially seeing what happened as a result of there being nowhere for the agents to go with the information they had. They KNEW the country was in danger. What would you do if you had that kind of information and your superiors basically told you to get lost?

[BrownieGman]

38. Don't blame GULF WAR

Was Blow Back for the Gulf War the motivation of 19 hijackers..?

Yes as sure as rain falls on a rainy day.!

USA actions are viewed from the eyes and minds of victims a bit different than our MSM portrays.

Our planes bomb Iraq for months, we bring the World down on the middle east ,,and wonder why ,, they retaliate within a short decade ,, Bin Laden,,said he was getting back for US treatment ,,both to the Arab Nations, and to him after the USSR left Afgn..

Bush had supported him as CIA director..

Cause and effect...think... a bit..!

If you keep shit'n on people don'nt complain about their shitty behavior..

[saras]

39. Depends on what they leaked

Given that the NSA had complete records of EVERY phone call, cell phone, phone booth, whatever, of all the acknowledged 9-11 conspirators, if Wikileaks had leaked THAT info, the general public could have stopped 9-11, regardless of government incompetence or malfeasance. Bamford's NSA books document repeatedly how the NSA tried to give information to other agencies, who simply didn't want to hear it, for reasons Bamford mostly refuses to speculate on.

And don't forget, national security has nothing to do with whether you or I are secure. It refers to the government being secure that no one, citizen or otherwise, will interfere with any government operation, no matter how corrupt or illegal.

[keepfreespeechalive]

40. Wikileaks needs our support!

[defendandprotect]

49. Wikileaks website HERE ... with instructions on how to donate --

http://wikileaks.ch/support.html






"The myth of a free press died with the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy"

[sabrina 1]

51. Thanks for that. They will need a lot of support now

and I am glad they have given people several choices of how to pay. I would not be surprised if the CIA checks their mailing address in Australia to see how many and who the people are who are supporting them.

I wonder if this government will put him on a terror list. I'm sure they are working on it.

[rschop]

55. Could Wikileaks have preveted the attacks on 9/11

What if when FBI HQ agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi was shut down by FBI HQ FBI Agent Dina Corsi and her boss, Rod Middleton, he had posted that two extremely dangerous al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US, terrorists connected to the east Africa al Qaeda attack, and these terrorists were inside of the US to carry out another al Qaeda attack, but FBI HQ was inexplicably shutting down the criminal investigation of these terrorists.

What if FBI Agent Harry Samit had posted that the INS had arrested someone, based on FBI info, who appeared to be connected to the al Qaeda terrorists, who was trying to learn how to fly a B747 without a private pilot’s license, but FBI HQ was shutting down any investigation of this person when it appeared that this person wanted to hijack a US aircraft an fly it into the WTC Towers.

What if Samit had seen Bongardt's post and Bongardt had seen Samit's post on Wikileaks. Just maybe 9/11 could have been prevented. Oddly enough two people at FBI HQ already knew all of this information. CIA officer Tom Wilshire who had been moved over to be Deputy Chief of the ITOS unit, from his position at the CIA Bin Laden unit, and who had shut down with Dina Corsi’s help had shut down the FBI criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and Attorney Sherry Sabol who had heard arguments by the FBI HQ people who were trying to shut down these investigations. It was Sherry Sabol who had ruled on both the investigation of Moussaoui and the investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

[noise]

58. Where is the media on this?

Answer: AWOL. I've never seen a single interview with Blee, Wilshire, Middleton, Sabol or Corsi. Not one.

This sort of pathetic media coverage explains why Wikileaks resonates with the public.

[sabrina 1]

59. That's why we need not just one, but many Wikileaks.

Too bad they weren't around back then.

[noise]

62. Here are the 9/11 Commission notes

from a meeting in which they debate the record declassification timetable:

July 21, 2004 meeting

These champions of transparency voted to delay the release of commission records until 1/09.

I'm finding withdrawal notices in the boxes. What are those?


The Commission records that were withdrawn or redacted fall within one or more of the specific exemptions listed in our review guidelines. The majority of the withdrawn items have been removed for reasons of national security. Non-textual records such as audiocassettes or CDs have also been removed from the boxes and replaced with a withdrawal notice.

9/11 Commission FAQ

Reasons of national security. The magic words.

[rschop]

63. Media silence and 9/11

The main stream media has been absolutely silent on this. No interviews of these people, no reporting even on things that are now in the public domain. Even after they heard the absolutely moronic answers by Tenet at the April 14, 2001 9/11 public hearings. Tenet said he had not told Bush that a huge al Qaeda attacks was about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans because he (Tenet) was in Washington DC and Bush was in Crawford Texas.

The big hot shot reporter Michael Isikoff was there, at this April 14, 2001 hearing and has never said anything. The two rows of people just behind Tenet at these hearings were the relatives of those killed on 9/11, and they all knew Tenet was lying. All of the information that has come out since 9/11 and that proves that people at the CIA and FBI HQ had deliberately and intentionally allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place has been kept secret from the American people.

If these media organizations are not working for the criminals at the CIA and FBI HQ that had allowed these attacks to take place they should be since everything they have done has been to not only to cover up the criminal actions at these huge intelligence agencies that had allowed these attacks to take place but to even cover up the actions at the 9/11 Commission to hide the fact that the attacks on 9/11 had been intentionally allowed to take place by people inside of the US government

What does this tell you about main stream media? And, what does this tell you about the corruption by people inside of our own US government?

[rschop]

69. Other people main stream media could interview if they really wanted the truth about 9/11

How about Maltbie, Frasca, and Rolince, and while they were the good guys, Bongardt and Soufan. None of these people have ever been interviewed by main stream media. It was as if main stream media does not want to know why the attacks on 9/11 were allowed to take place even though the CIA had known about Mihdhar and Hazmi since January 4, 2000.

And why has main stream media not asked Bush during his book tour, what Tenet said to him at the August 24, 2001 meeting in Crawford, a meeting that had been so secret that Tenet had to lie to the 9/11 Commission and the American public on April 14, 2004, "a crime", to keep this meeting a secret, so 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer would not ask him what he told Bush at this meeting.

Does the main stream media really want the truth about 9/11. It would appear that they do not! Maybe that is why they are referred to a lame stream media.

[sabrina 1]

72. The media doesn't report on anything the government doesn't want

them to report on. Look at what is happening to Julian Assange? Would be willing to buck this government knowing how ruthless it is?

[BeFree]

70. What If?

It would have stopped it cold and we'd be living in a totally different world.

9/11 would mean as much as October 11. Nothing too important.

It is that simple.

What if bush had said on September 1st what he knew to be true: "Hijackers of jets are on the loose"?

[rschop]

73. Kick!

[rschop]

76. Part 1: More details on "Could Wikileaks have prevented the attacks on 9/11"

Part 1

If you combine all of the US official reports on 9/11, you can put the entire account on 9/11 back together again, in particular the account of the investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi by FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and his team of FBI Cole bombing investigators. It is irrelevant that they have still kept records classified. This is unimportant, as there is now more than enough information already in the public domain to figure out what had taken place that had allowed the attacks on 9/11 to occur. It turns out that while each individual report left out critical details of the account on 9/11, in almost all cases one of the other reports had the details that had been left out. In the end the entire story is all there, the entire account.

By combining all of these reports, the Joint Inquiry report, the 9/11 Commission report, and the DOJ IG report and the along with the account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan, by Lawrence Wright, the meeting on July 10, 2001 in White House, by Bob Woodward, and the defense exhibits entered into the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui, there is more than enough information to prove that people at the CIA and FBI HQ had intentionally and deliberately allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place.

When the bombing of the USS Cole took place in October 2000, and FBI Agent Ali Soufan sent the CIA a passport photograph of Walid Bin Attash, the CIA realized that they had all of the people who attended the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting in January 2000 photographed, including Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Walid Bin Attash actually planning the bombing and then just let them walk away to carry out the attacks on the USS Cole 10 months later. In order to make sure this information never got out, in particular to the FBI Agents on the Cole bombing, the CIA orchestrated a wide ranging criminal conspiracy that included the CIA Yemen station, the CIA Pakistan Station, the CIA Bin Laden unit, and even included groups at the FBI that the CIA had subjugated. The CIA told FBI Agent Ali Soufan, lead FBI investigator on the Cole bombing, several times in response to his numerous official FBI requests for any information on Walid Bin Attash or information that the CIA had on any al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, that they had none of this information, when in fact they had much of the information that Soufan had asked for.

The groups at the FBI that had been subjugated by the CIA were the ITOS unit, that included Maltbie and Fracas in the RFU unit, the two who shut down FBI Agents Harry Samit’s investigation of Moussaoui, FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi in the Bin Laden unit, who along with ITOS Deputy Chief Tom Wilshire shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and even included FBI Director Louis Freeh.

NOTE: In November 2000, FBI Agent Ali Soufan, lead FBI investigator on the USS Cole bombing, asked Freeh if he would make an official request to the CIA for any information that the CIA had on any al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 or on Walid Bin Attash, and was told that the CIA had none of this information. But page 238-239 of the DOJ IG report says the NSA gave this information to Freeh in December 1999, and page 181 of the 9/11 report says the CIA gave Freeh this information in January 2000. From the US government own documents, it is clear that Freeh had criminally obstructed his own investigation of the USS Cole bombing.]

But it gets worse, much worse… See Part 2

[rschop]

77. Part 2: More details on "Could Wikileaks have prevented the attacks on 9/11"

Part 2

While criminal obstruction of the USS Cole bombing investigation was bad enough, what was beyond the pale was when FBI Agent Margaret Gillespie working at the CIA found that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001. She took this information to former CIA officer Tom Wilshire and FBI HQ Agent Corsi. It is clear that they both knew immediately that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

So what did Wilshire and Corsi do with this horrific information? First they realized that they had to keep this information away from FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and the rest of the USS Cole bombing investigators. They knew if Bongardt ever started any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi and then found the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, Bongardt would have immediately realized that he and his investigation of the Cole bombing had been criminally obstructed numerous times by both the CIA and FBI HQ.

In order to keep this investigation away from Bongardt, Corsi contacted Craig Donnachie, head of intelligence investigations at the FBI New York office on August 22, 2001 and requested that Donnachie immediately start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, hoping an intelligence investigation would head off any criminal investigation by Bongardt and his team. On August 23, 2001 Donnachie indicated to Corsi that he would start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, information Corsi sent immediately to Wilshire via email.

On August 23, 2001 Margaret Gillespie had the CIA Bin Laden unit issue a worldwide alert for Mihdhar and Hazmi, so the entire CIA hierarchy would have been aware that not only were Mihdhar and Hazmi inside of the US but because of Wilshire’s prior emails, plus the numerous warnings of a al Qaeda attack that the CIA had been receiving from April 2001, that they were inside of the US in order to take part in yet another al Qaeda terrorist attack. At the time of the August 24, 2001 6 hour meeting with President Bush, Tenet already knew that Moussaoui had just been arrested as a possible al Qaeda terrorist getting training on a B747, and that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack.

On August 28, 2001, Corsi sent Donnachie her EC to start an intelligence investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, based mainly on the December 1999 NSA cable, from a telephone tap of a phone connected to the communications center for the al Qaeda attacks in east Africa, that indicated Mihdhar and Hazmi were al Qaeda terrorists traveling to an important al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur. When Donnachie got this EC on August 28, 2001 he gave it to John Liguori, his boss, who thought this EC connected Mihdhar and Hazmi to the Cole bombing and sent this EC the same day to Bongardt and his team.

Bongardt immediately realized how critical it was to locate Mihdhar and Hazmi quickly before they had any chance to carry out yet another al Qaeda attack and contacted Corsi to get permission to start this investigation. But he was told by Corsi, and her boss Rod Middleton, that since the information had come from the NSA, the “wall”, prevented him from possessing this information without written permission from the NSA, and he would have to stop any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi and in addition destroy the information he had from Cori’s EC on Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Unfortunately we now know that Corsi had already been given written permission from the NSA (see DE #448) to pass this NSA information to Bongardt and his team in New York, on August 27, 2001 the day before she tells him he had to stop his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. Since Bongardt did not see any connection between this NSA information and any FISA warrant, the only real reason he could be denied this information without written permission from the NSA, he asked Corsi to get an opinion from the legal unit at FBI HQ, the NSLU to see in view of the fact that no FISA warrant had been used by the NSA to get this information, if he could take part in the investigation of search for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

On August 29, 2001, Corsi told Bongardt that the NSLU attorney had ruled he and his team could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But page 538, footnote 81 in the 9/11 Commission report says that the attorney, Sherry Sabol, told DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002, that she had told Corsi that since no FISA warrant was connected to this NSA information, Bongardt could take part in any investigation and search for Mihdhar and Hazmi. When Corsi shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi she knew as she admitted to the DOJ IG investigators, that the CIA had a photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, (see page 302 of the DOJ IG report) knew that this photo connected Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing and knew that this meant there was no legitimate reason Bongardt should not have been allowed to immediately start an investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Almost beyond belief.. See Part 3

[rschop]

78. Part 3: More details on "Could Wikileaks have prevented the attacks on 9/11"

Part 3

Almost beyond belief:


In an email to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt on August 29, 2001, Corsi stated that “if substantial evidence is developed of a federal crime”, (by Mihdhar and Hazmi), this information will be passed over the “wall”. But she already had used in her EC to start an investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, the NSA cable that was based on the tapped phone conversation from the telephone number for the communications center for the east Africa al Qaeda bombings, connecting Mihdhar and Hazmi not only to the al Qaeda terrorist organization but to the east Africa bombings. This was clear "substantial evidence of a federal crime". But she also knew that Bin Attash, Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting actually planning the Cole bombing, yet another crime that had killed 17 US sailors. So she already had "substantial evidence of several federal crimes", information she, the FBI HQ and even the CIA had been hiding from FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and his team.

On August 30, 2001 Middleton was given by the CIA the actual photo of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur. In spite of being on the phone with Corsi on August 28, 2001 shutting down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, he now had photographic proof that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting planning the Cole bombing with the master mind of this bombing, Walid Bin Attash.

On September 5, 2001 FBI Agent Robert Fuller, a New York FBI agent who had been given the responsibility for the intelligence investigation of Midhar and Hazmi but who had never done an intelligence investigation before, called Corsi and said he had gotten nowhere with his search in the FBI data base for Mihdhar and Hazmi, and requested permission to contact Saudi Arabian airlines in order to get Mihdhar’s passport number, FBI HQ knew that Mihdhar had flown back to the US on July 4, 2001 on Saudi Arabian Airlines. She refused to give him permission to get this passport number from Saudi Arabian Airlines, and Fuller’s investigation failed, when he could go no further in his search for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Since Corsi was working under the control of CIA Officer Tom Wilshire, Deputy Chief of the FBI ITOS unit, and Middleton her supervisor, and Wilshire had been denied permission twice in July, on July 13, 2001, and July 23, 2001, from turning over the information from the al Qaeda Kuala Lumpur planning meeting to the FBI investigators on the Cole bombing, by very high level CIA managers, it is clear that the orders to block Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi came from the very top of the CIA and FBI HQ.

While shutting down the FBI Agent’s criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, the people at the CIA and FBI HQ and perhaps even the administration, who were allowing this, knew that this would block the only investigation of these al Qaeda terrorists that could prevent the al Qaeda attack that took place on 9/11.

Since the 9/11 Commission had all of this information, it is inconceivable that they came to the conclusion that they, the 9/11 Commission, just could never figure out why the CIA or the FBI HQ had never connected Mihdhar and Hazmi to the massive warnings of an al Qaeda attack that they had been receiving since April 2001, when Wilshire had connected these terrorists to this attack in emails that the 9/11 Commission had and even knew that Wilshire had been denied twice from sending this information to the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing by high level managers at the CIA.

See Part 4 for even more information on this:

[zeos3]

56. KICK

[PBS Poll-435]

61. Wikileaks could have stopped the War of 1812!

:shrug:

[sabrina 1]

64. So do you have any comment on what the Federal Agents, several

of them, reported and the reaction of their superiors? Why do you think their superiors ignored the warnings? And do you think that the agents should have gone to the press as a last resort? It seems they were absolutely correct since what they most feared would happen DID happen.

You seem very flippant about this. Over 3,000 people died because Officials in our intel agencies refused to listen to agents who were desperately trying to stop an attack. Since then, hundreds of thousands of human beings have been slaughtered, tortured and maimed.

Quite honestly I find it sad that anyone could find this to be something they can joke about.

[PBS Poll-435]

65. I believe I have heard about the Gorelick/Ashcroft 'wall' before

On RW radio.

[sabrina 1]

66. I was talking about what the agents in the OP testified to.

Their testimony to the 9/11 Commission.

I don't listen to rightwing radio. Perhaps you should consider turning it off. It has been known to have very adverse effects on ones brain cells if you do it too often.

I do remember rightwingnuts slamming these agents, but then they were trying to defend Bush, their 'leader'.

[Rabrrrrrr]

74. Hannibal never would have crossed the Alps!

[David Zephyr]

75. Kicking this helpful thread up. Truth helps freedom better than secrets and weapons do.

Excellent.