THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
The Events Preceding 9/11
Page Three: 1997-2000
1997
Gore Commission report on terrorism issued, recommendations are opposed by airline industry
- February 12: The Gore Commission on Terrorism releases its final report. Though the recommendations for beefed-up security are sound, federal bureaucracy and the resistance of the commercial airlines ensures that virtually none of them are implemented. One airline spokesman admits that had some of the recommendations been implemented, it is likely the 9/11 attacks could have been averted. (CCR)
- April: The B'nai B'rith headquarters in Washington DC receives an envelope purporting to contain "anthracks." While no anthrax is in the envelope, it does contain bacillus cereus, a close but harmless cousin to anthrax. The mailing happens two years before the first anthrax mailing of October 2001, but as of July 2002, the FBI had yet to question the B'nai B'rith representatives about their mailing. (CCR)
Clinton authorizes assassination of bin Laden
- Fall: Clinton authorizes the assassination of Osama bin Laden. In 2001, Clinton will say, "I authorized the arrest, and, if necessary, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and we actually made contact with a group in Afghanistan to do it -- and they were unsuccessful." (BBC/Killtown)
- December: FBI agent Robert Baer learns about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's activities in the Qatar and of his plans to hijack planes to use in attacks on American soil. Baer passes along the information to his superiors in the FBI, but nothing is done to follow up the warnings. Even after 9/11, when Baer once again presents the information, the FBI leadership seems uninterested. (CCR)
1997-1999
- Khalid Shaikh Mohammed relocates to Prague, where he lives openly through most of 1997. By 1999 he is living in Germany, where he has frequent contacts with terrorists there. He uses at least 60 aliases and a fistful of passports to travel all over the world, setting up cells of al-Qaeda and planning terrorist operations. In 1998, the US government sets a $2 million bounty on him. However, the Bush administration claims that the US only found out about Mohammed's terrorist activities after 9/11. (CCR)
1998
al-Qaeda begins planning WTC strikes
- According to Congressional sources, al-Qaeda began planning the WTC attacks this year. However, evidence shows that preliminary planning may have begun as early as 1995 as an outgrowth and modification of Operation Bojinka (see above). During that same year, American Muslim Aukai Collins serves as an informant for the FBI in Arizona. Collins warns the FBI that a number of known terrorists, including 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour, are taking flying lessons. Collins claims that the FBI had detailed knowledge of Hanjour and the other Arizona-based terrorists; the FBI claims to have none of the information, and denies Collins told them anything about Hanjour. Also, a French Arab specialist, Antoine Sfeir, claims that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset in the 1980s, and that the CIA maintained contact with him until this year. Sfeir says that the CIA always hoped bin Laden would return to the fold. (CCR)
- February: Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda issue a threat to "kill Americans everywhere," and declare a jihad, or holy war, against the United States. Both American civilians and military personnel are specifically named as targets. Another threat from bin Laden was broadcast on American television in June 1998. (CCR)
- May: An FBI agent warns that a large number of suspicious Middle Eastern men are taking flight classes in Oklahoma flight schools. His memo "states this is a recent phenomenon and may be related to planned terrorist activity." The agent also speculates that "light planes would be an ideal means of spreading chemical or biological agents." The memo is ignored by senior FBI officials. (CCR)
- August: After the embassy bombings in Africa, the CIA ignores warnings from case officer Robert Baer that Saudi Arabia was harboring an al-Qaeda cell led by two known terrorists. A more detailed list of known terrorists is offered to Saudi intelligence in August 2001 and refused. (CCR)
1999
CIA reports on possible terrorist attacks using hijacked jetliners
- September: A CIA report is released, detailing the possibilities of terrorist attacks using jetliners to target public buildings, in particular envisioning an attack on the Pentagon by a commandeered jetliner stuffed with high explosives. In May 2002, Condoleezza Rice will claim that no one could envision such a situation, yet just a few years before, the CIA produced an expansive document titled "sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," detailing just that kind of scenario. The Bush administration will claim to be unfamiliar with the report, though it was made available to members of Congress and has been posted on the Internet for years. Among its pages is the following quote: "suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House,"' The report urged the government to consider potential new forms of terror strikes, and cited the first World Trade Center blast, which killed six, as an example. According to an AP report, "Until the report became public, the Bush administration has asserted that no one in government had envisioned a suicide hijacking before it happened." A concurrent report is issued by the Library of Congress, detailing the likelihood of suicide hijackers crashing planes into the White House, the Pentagon, and/or CIA headquarters. The CIA report also notes that an al-Qaeda terrorist first arrested in the Philippines in 1995 and later convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had suggested such a suicide jetliner mission: "Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters." (CCR, CBS)
- September 15: The first report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, is issued, which Hart characterizes as "the most comprehensive review of US national security since 1947." It concludes: "America will be attacked by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction and Americans will lose their lives on American soil, possibly in large numbers." Hart later says, "The first of fifty recommendations [in the report], all of which were eminently doable, was to create a National Homeland Security agency. And if CNN or anyone else was saying that it wasn't feasible, well, two years later, we had one finally created. So the question was: are you going to do it before the terrorists attack, or afterwards? And unfortunately, the Administration waited until well afterwards." (Buzzflash, Gary Hart News)
- October 26: Golfer Payne Stewart's private Learjet, enroute to Dallas from Palm Beach, Florida, suffers onboard malfunctions and begins to go down; it is theorized that the pilots and passengers all died from hypoxia well before the plane crashed. Five minutes after local air traffic control loses contact with Stewart's plane, flight controllers contact the Air Force. Standard procedure requires that under these circumstances, the Air Force is contacted without the need for any other approval, civic or military. Sixteen minutes later, an F-16 arrives next to the Learjet and conducts a visual inspection. A series of military planes escort the jet, some attempting to assert radio control over it, while it flies at random until running out of fuel and crashing near Mina, South Dakota. Contrast this with the events of September 11, when multiple jetliners suddenly broke contact and diverged from their flight paths. According to its official Web site, Andrews Air Force Base, one of the largest bases in the US and a mere 12 miles from the White House, is not only home to Air Force One, but to two combat-ready squadrons of jet interceptors mandated to ensure the safety of the U.S. capital. On September 11th the squadrons there were the 121st Fighter Squadron of the 113th Fighter Wing, equipped with F-16s, and the 321st Marine Fighter Attack Squadron of the 49th Marine Air Group, Detachment A, equipped with F/A-18s. (On September 12, Andrews would update its site, expunging the two fighter squadrons and claiming that only transport planes ever used the base, an astounding falsehood that is later corrected by a quiet restoration of the site.) Nevertheless, fighters were ordered airborne from Andrews AFB after the second WTC strike, but were inexplicably unable to reach Washington in time to intercept the third jetliner before it could plunge into the Pentagon. (VisionTV, Dallas Morning News/Want to Know)
- December 24: A group of al-Qaeda terrorists armed with knives hijack Indian Airlines Flight 814, cut the throat of one passenger, and force the pilots to fly the plane to Kandahar, Afghanistan. (The plane is denied permission to land in Kabul by Taliban officials; the plane lands briefly in Dubai and allows women, children, and the body of the murdered passenger to deplane.) Taliban officials refuse to negotiate with the hijackers, whom they label terrorists, and cooperate with Indian authorities in refusing to allow the plane to take off again. The passenger who is murdered has his throat cut and is allowed to bleed to death, a technique to cow the other passengers apparently used again during the 9/11 hijackings. The hijackers demand the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, an Islamic terror leader held in Indian custody since 1994. After a threat by the hijackers to begin killing passengers if their demands are not met, the Taliban promises to storm the plane if the hijackers carry out their threat. On December 31, the Indian government agrees to release Azhar and two other militants, Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, in return for the release of the plane and the 155 passengers. The hijackers escape in waiting vehicles. (SAPRA, BBC, Seymour Hersh)
2000
- January: The CIA tracked two known terrorists to an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia, and let surveillance of the two lapse. Both were on the airliner that was crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. (CCR)
- Spring: The Hart/Rudman commission on national security issues its second report on the threat of terrorism and the state of national security. The Bush administration ignores the report. (Buzzflash, Gary Hart News)
- August: Suspected al-Qaeda operatives wiretapped by Italian police make apparent references to plans for major attacks involving airports, airplanes and the United States. Italian authorities refuse to comment on the report. (From the Wilderness)
Terrorists attack USS Cole
- October 12: Terrorists ram a rubber boat packed with explosives into the side of the USS Cole while it is docked in Aden, Yemen, killing five sailors and wounding thirty-nine. Candidate Bush promises dire retributions against the attackers. In January 26, 2001, Bush is presented with evidence proving that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were behind the attacks. No further action is taken by the Bush adminstration. (CCR)
Defense Department simulates hijacked airliner crashing into Pentagon
- October 24-26: The Pentagon runs an exercise simulating the response to a terrorist attack on the building. The scenario, which involves a hijacked airliner being deliberately crashed into the building, is discussed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. An account of the scenario is posted on the Military District of Washington's Web site; less than 24 hours after Democrats.com discover the site (on May 20, 2002), the account and the entire Web site is scrubbed. Later, the site itself is restored, but the article itself is gone. Before 9/11, standard jokes in the building are based on the fact that the Pentagon is such an obvious target, and the snack bar in the central courtyard is named "Ground Zero." After 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman will claim: "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's event, anyone would have expected anything like that here." (CCR, From the Wilderness)
- November: A mock terrorist attack is staged at the Pentagon, using models, to simulate the damage that could be caused by a hijacked plane being flown into the Pentagon. Again, contrary to administration claims, people in the intelligence and military communities were envisioning just these kinds of scenarios. (CCR)
