Did Osama charter flight out of U.S. after 9/11?
From World Net Daily
Excerpt: ... Judicial Watch said the FBI documents show several chartered flights eventually were authorized during the time frame right after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, to expedite the return of the Saudi nationals to their homeland. The team of terrorists later was determined to include a majority with Saudi backgrounds.

"The document states: 'ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND,'" the Judicial Watch report said. ...

... The papers were obtained after U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts ordered the FBI to resubmit "proper disclosures" to the court and Judicial Watch, having previously criticized the adequacy of redaction descriptions, the validity of exemption claims, and other errors in the FBI paperwork.

"Incredibly, the FBI had previously redacted Osama bin Laden’s name from the records in order "to protect privacy interests," Judicial Watch said.

"According to [an FBI spokesman], FBI counterterrorism agents pursuing the investigation were stranded all over the country, unable to fly for several days. Yet now the same counterterrorism unit was effectively acting as a chaperone for the Saudis," the report added.
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Labels: bin Laden, Saudi, September 11

More deaths may be linked to Ground Zero cleanup
From the New York Daily News via Kentucky.com
Excerpt: ...But the New York Daily News has learned that an additional 22 men, mostly in their 30s and 40s, have died from causes their families say were accelerated by the toxic mix of chemicals that lodged in their bodies as they searched for survivors or participated in the cleanup after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Among them are private employees, a sanitation worker, a correction officer, a utility worker, transit workers, firefighters and police officers. They died from black lung and cancers of the esophagus and pancreas.
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Labels: Ground Zero, health, September 11

Able Danger

Fear of Backlash Kept pre-9/11 data from FBI
From the Washington Times
Excerpt: Pentagon lawyers, fearing a public-relations "blow back," blocked a military intelligence unit from sharing information with the FBI that four suspected al Qaeda terrorists were in the country prior to the September 11 attacks, after determining they were here legally, a former Defense Department intelligence official says.
Members of an intelligence unit known as Able Danger were shut out of the September 11 commission investigation and final report, the official said, despite briefing commission staff members on two occasions about the Mohamed Atta-led terrorist cell and telling them of a lockdown of information between the Defense Department and the FBI...
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Former Flight School Owner says US Intelligence Failure Ruined His Life
From the Herald Tribune (SW Florida)
Excerpt: ...The revelation had particularly strong ties to Venice because Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, who each piloted a hijacked jetliner into the World Trade Center, learned to fly at Huffman Aviation, a flight school that operated out of Venice Municipal Airport.

Huffman’s former owner, Rudi Dekkers, was angered that the government may have known about Atta but never shared it with the FBI or other agencies who could have stopped the terrorists.

“We are civilians here. We’re supposed to be protected, and we apparently were not,” Dekkers said.

Dekkers claims the fallout from unwittingly training the terrorists cost him his business, his reputation and his marriage. Huffman closed six months after the attacks.

“Everywhere I come, they say, ‘Are you not that guy that trained terrorists?’” said Dekkers, who now lives in Naples. “I am without a job right now. I have no income anymore. My life was destroyed.”
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Labels: al qaeda, FBI, pentagon, September 11

Former Bush Official Calls WTC Collapse Story Bogus
From the Washington Times
Excerpt: A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. ...
...Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." ...
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Labels: September 11

FAA Manager Destroyed 9/11 Tape
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: "Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by Federal Aviation Administration managers...
...Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said."
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Labels: agency, FAA, September 11

9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
From CBS News
Excerpt: ...Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame...

Document tying Saddam to Atta "Probably Faked"
From MSNBC
Excerpt: A widely publicized Iraqi document that purports to show that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta visited Baghdad in the summer of 2001 is probably a fabrication that is contradicted by U.S. law-enforcement records showing Atta was staying at cheap motels and apartments in the United States when the trip presumably would have taken place, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and FBI documents...

Labels: September 11

Bin Laden family allowed to leave after 9-11
Washington Times
Excerpt: The bin Laden family were granted extraordinary White House privileges to fly out of U.S. airspace following the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001 ... According to the magazine's sources, at least four flights with about 140 Saudis, including roughly two-dozen members of the bin Laden family, flew to Saudi Arabia that week without even being interviewed or interrogated by the FBI...

Labels: September 11

White House refuses to release Sept. 11 info
From the San Jose Mercury News
Excerpt: The Bush administration and the nation's intelligence agencies are blocking the release of sensitive information about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, delaying publication of a 900-page congressional report on how the terrorist assault happened. Intelligence officials insist the information must be kept secret for national security reasons. But some of the information is already broadly available on the Internet or has been revealed in interim reports on the investigation, leading to charges that the administration is simply trying to avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report.
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Labels: September 11

The Secrets of September 11
James Baker's firm defending Saudis against 9-11 families' lawsuit
Both from Newsweek
Also see: Meet James Baker

Moussaoui wants Ashcroft to answer quiz
Jay Garner: "We should be beating our chests"
Both from Guardian

Labels: September 11

Cheney still being paid by Halliburton
Guardian

Halliburton wins bid to fight Iraqi oil fires
Forbes

Halliburton gets contract to help rebuild Iraq
Guardian

Radioactive device stolen from Halliburton
CNN

Labels: cheney, contractors, halliburton, September 11

Cheney derailed 9-11 Investigation
From Newsweek
Excerpt: Dick Cheney played a behind-the-scenes role last week in derailing an agreement to create an independent commission to investigate the 9-11 attacks. Last month the White House endorsed the formation of the panel. But on Thursday, hours after congressional negotiators hailed a final deal over the scope and powers of a 9-11 panel, Cheney called House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Porter Goss, sources told NEWSWEEK...

Labels: cheney, September 11

9-11 Lawsuit: Families find Smoking $audi Gun
From the New York Post
Excerpt: The legal team - which is suing some members of the Saudi royal family and Osama bin Laden's family business - says new evidence shows that more than $1 million was funneled to al Qaeda cells in Europe, including 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's in Hamburg.
also
Bush pressures 9-11 families to drop Saudi lawsuit
From the Guardian
Excerpt: ...Some plaintiffs in the case say the Bush administration is pressuring them to pull out of the lawsuit in order to avoid damaging US-Saudi relations, threatening them with the prospect of being denied any money from the government's own compensation scheme if they continue to pursue it. Bereaved relatives who apply to the federal compensation scheme must, in any case, sign away their rights to sue the government, air carriers in the US, and other domestic bodies - a condition that has prompted some of them to call the government compensation "hush money". They remain, however, free to sue those they accuse of being directly responsible for the attacks, such as Osama bin Laden, and - so they thought - the alleged financers of terrorism...
But now the department of justice says it is investigating whether participation in that lawsuit could disqualify the relatives from claiming government compensation. The investigation, the plaintiffs argue, is meant to frighten them off because Washington is intent on preserving cordial relations with Saudi Arabia - above all, in the event of proposed military action against Iraq.
also see
Bush and Bin Laden families' business connections
Flashback from Red Herring

Labels: September 11

Flight 93 & Private Jet tapes won't be played in Moussaoui trial
From the Miami Herald
Excerpt: ...The tapes from United Airlines Flight 93, and a private jet that tracked the doomed airliner, should not be played to jurors unless prosecutors can demonstrate they are essential evidence, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said. End excerpt.
Private jet? What private jet?

300,000 protest Berlusconi in Italy
Reuters
In Iraqi war scenario, oil is key issue
Washington Post
State Department website had link to Republican Party website
Washington Post
Hundreds in California protest war
Tampa Tribune
Noelle Bush's Counselors Subpoenaed; Lawyer Says They Won't Talk
Tampa Tribune

Labels: September 11

Bush and Blair share same false 9-11 memory
Both claim to have seen the first plane hit the World Trade Center on TV live on TV.
George W Bush:
"I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it. And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my Chief of Staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, 'A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack.' "
Town Hall Meeting Transcript, December 4, 2001
Tony Blair:
"I remember it very, very clearly. I was about to give the speech to the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, and so I was preparing my speech and the television was on in the background. You saw the first plane crash, and then people came in and started to brief me on it, and then of course it became clear a short time afterwards that this was not simply a terrible accident but was almost certainly a terrorist incident, and then everything changed." BBC News, September 11, 2002

Nobody else saw footage of the first plane hitting until hours later. Were they watching some bizarre closed-circuit broadcast from the Twilight Zone? Do you think that's what they were watching at the DC Ritz Carlton on 9-11, when James A. Baker and Frank Carlucci of The Carlyle Group were meeting with the Bin Laden family?

Labels: bush, carlyle group, September 11

Executive jet was tracking Flight 93
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Excerpts: Jurors in the trial of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will be drawn back to the day of the attacks through videos of the burning and collapsing World Trade Center and family pictures of victims...Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11, according to written proposals subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema...An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request.
End excerpt. This is the first I've heard of this. Why was a corporate jet "tracking" Flight 93 instead of a military jet intercepting it? NetJets is owned by multi-billionaire Warren Buffet, who Bloomberg reports this weekend has gone on a $20 billion spending spree that may have just begun, buying up pipelines from companies like Dynegy. He's the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, an Omaha based investment firm.

Labels: September 11

Could 911 have been prevented?
Time Magazine

Labels: September 11

Labels: September 11

Moussaoui NOT part of September 11?
From CBS News
Excerpt: A number of people are under surveillance. None is believed to have had a supporting role in the 9/11 attacks. Some may have been slated to assist Zacarias Moussaoui - the so-called "20th Hijacker" - who senior officials now believe, in fact, was not scheduled to be part of the Sept. 11 attacks after all, but was to have carried out a separate, unknown mission.
End excerpt. Compare to Government alters Moussaoui indictment from The Guardian, June 20, 2002.

Labels: September 11

Head of Sept. 11 Probe Obstructed Danforth's Waco Inquiry
From the Washington Post
Excerpts: The official in charge of ferreting out information about the FBI for a joint congressional intelligence panel allegedly obstructed a Justice Department probe of the bureau two years ago. As the FBI's deputy general counsel, Thomas A. Kelley was the bureau's point of contact for special counsel John C. Danforth's inquiry into the 1993 Waco debacle in which 75 Branch Davidians died in a fire after a 51-day standoff. Kelley, who has since retired from the FBI, heads the intelligence panel's probe of the bureau's role in tracking terrorists before the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to a December 2000 internal FBI memo, Kelley "continued to thwart and obstruct" the Waco investigation to the point that Danforth was forced to send a team to search FBI headquarters for documents Kelley refused to turn over. "This non-cooperative spirit was at the specific direction of [deputy general counsel] Kelley," the memo states. The memo, written by an agent in the bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility, is cited in a letter sent to the intelligence committee leadership by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). The letter was obtained yesterday by The Washington Post. "I am concerned that Mr. Kelley is part of this review," Grassley wrote.
The letter says that even when Kelley's supervisor recused him from dealing with the Waco investigators, Kelley "continued to insert himself into the Waco inquiry."...The memo says Kelley should have been investigated for alleged "unprofessional conduct, poor judgment, conflict of interest, hostile work environment and retaliation/reprisal" related to his role in the Waco investigation. Grassley's letter says Kelley retired "before an OPR investigation could proceed."

Labels: September 11

Government Alters Moussaoui Indictment
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: The government has altered the indictment of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, dropping indications that he was implicated in planning attacks with crop-dusting planes. There was no official explanation for the change. The possibility of crop-dusting attacks was considered so serious after the Sept. 11 hijackings that crop-dusting planes were grounded for a time...The new indictment also dropped a reference that the lead Sept. 11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, made inquiries about starting a crop-dusting company at various times in 2000 and 2001.

Labels: September 11

Ground Zero bank refuses clean-up
From the Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: A skyscraper next to Ground Zero believed to contain bodies of people who died on September 11 has still not been entered or searched because the bank which owns it will not let rescue workers inside...Deutsche Bank maintains that a mould which has infested its walls and ventilation system could be a health hazard, embroiling the company in potential liability lawsuits worth millions of dollars..."It's very disturbing that anyone would prevent the firefighters from bringing loved ones home to their families," said Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband David on September 11.
End excerpt. Coincidentally, this is the same bank that has been implicated in pre 9-11 insider trading

Labels: September 11

9/11 Terror Suspect Freed
From CNN
Highlights: Lotfi Raissi was originally held on suspicion of having trained one of the suicide pilots but those charges were dismissed at an earlier hearing when the U.S. failed to substantiate its case. On Wednesday, the U.S. attempt to have Raissi extradited on lesser charges such as lying on a pilot's licence application form was also thrown out...District Judge Timothy Workman said that the U.S. authorities had provided no evidence Raissi was linked to terrorism. "He has appeared before me on several occasions where allegations of involvement with terrorism were made," Workman told the court. "I would like to make it clear that I have received and the court has received no evidence to support such a contention."... Raissi was arrested at his London home on September 21 on a request from the FBI.

Labels: national security, September 11