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 Four: 2001, January through Summer
2001
- Sometime during the year, veteran DIA analyst Julie Sirrs returns from an undercover assignment in Afghanistan with critical information about Taliban and bin Laden's terrorist activities. Instead of getting a hearing, Sirrs's information is confiscated and she is later forced to resign from the DIA. Sirrs was stymied in her attempts to get the administration to understand that bin Laden and the Taliban were so closely connected: "The main thing I -- I would have wanted to tell them was how closely linked bin Laden was with the Taliban. US policy seemed to prefer to treat them as two separate issues and didn't seem to realize that bin Laden was vulnerable through the Taliban." (CCR)
- January-September: The FAA issues 15 separate threat warnings of imminent hijackings; two of those warnings specifically mention Osama bin Laden. (CCR)
Bush administration orders FBI to cease surveillance of bin Laden family members in Virginia
- January: The Bush administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, Virginia, right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996, frustrating efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. According to a highly-placed source in U.S. intelligence, there have always been "constraints" on investigating members of the bin Laden family, but "under President Bush it had become much worse." The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, Michael Springarn, told BBC2's Newsnight that "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants [including suspected terrorists]. People who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained there. I complained here in Washington to Main State, to the inspector-general and to Diplomatic Security and I was ignored." National security expert and author Joe Trento says, "The FBI wanted to investigate these guys. This is not something that they didn't want to do -- they wanted to, they weren't permitted to."
- Lawyer Michael Wildes, a former federal attorney, recalls that after the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, he tried to give over 14,000 documents from a Saudi diplomat who defected to the US to the FBI; the FBI refused the documents. Wildes claims the documents implicates high-ranking Sauds in financing terrorism and more. "'Take these with you,' he remembers telling the agents. 'We're not going to charge for the copies. Keep them. Do something with them. Get some bad guys with them.' They refused." Wildes says the FBI field agents wanted the documents, but they were told to "see no evil." He says, "You see a difference between the rank-and-file counter-intelligence agents, who are regarded by some as the motor pool of the FBI, who drive following diplomats, and the people who are getting the shots called at the highest level of our government, who have a different agenda -- it's unconscionable."
- Trento gives one possible explanation for the FBI officials' reluctance: "If you recruited somebody who is a member of a terrorist organisation, who happens to make his way here to the US, and even though you're not in touch with that person anymore but you have used him in the past, it would be unseemly if he were arrested by the FBI and word got back that he'd once been on the payroll of the CIA. What we're talking about is blow-back. What we're talking about is embarrassing, career-destroying blow-back for intelligence officials." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports, "I received a phone call from a high-placed member of a US intelligence agency. He tells me that while there's always been constraints on investigating Saudis, under George Bush it's gotten much worse. After the elections, the agencies were told to 'back off' investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that angered agents. I'm told that since September 11th the policy has been reversed. FBI headquarters told us they could not comment on our findings. A spokesman said: 'There are lots of things that only the intelligence community knows and that no one else ought to know.'" (Greg Palast, Information Clearinghouse)
- January 20: Clinton NSC chief Sandy Berger gives incoming NSC head Condoleezza Rice an extensive briefing on the current state of world terrorism, and told her that she would be spending more of her time on this issue than any other. At or about the same time, outgoing Defense Department head William Cohen was doing the same thing with Donald Rumsfeld. (CCR)
Final report of Hart-Rudman terror commission issued; Bush administration ignores it
- January 31: The United States Commission on National Security issues its final report after three years of effort. The Commission report, in the words of the Columbia Journalism Review, "was a devastating indictment of the 'fragmented and inadequate' structures and strategies already in place to prevent, and then respond to, the attacks on U.S. cities, which the commissioners predicted. [Co-author Gary] Hart specifically mentioned the lack of preparation for 'a weapon of mass destruction in a high-rise building.'" The report gave a blueprint of how the U.S. should revamp its efforts to ensure its safety from terrorist attacks, including the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency, the resurrection of frontline public services, and the consolidation of the forty or so discrete official bodies with responsibility for national security. "We need orders-of-magnitude improvements in planning, coordination, and exercise," the report concluded. "Any reorganization must be mindful of the scale of the scenarios we envisage and the enormity of their consequences." Both the mainstream media and the Bush Administration ignore the report; though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and some members of Congress try to get Congressional hearings scheduled on the report, the White House stops any such hearings, and announces its intention to form its own task force on terrorism to be headed by Dick Cheney. That task force only met once, on September 4, 2001, and did not produce any documents. (CCR)
- February: The National Security Agency cracks the secret code used by al-Qaeda to exchange information. Presumably the NSA was able to listen in on at least some of the planning for the 9/11 attacks, but this is denied by the Bush administration. (CCR)
- February: Al-Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui begins flight training in Norman, Oklahoma. Although taking 57 hours of flight training, far more than the 20 most students get before flying solo, he leaves the school without his pilot's license. Moussaoui has been watched by French intelligence, who provides information to the FBI which leads to Moussaoui's arrest in August 2001. Moussaoui will be labeled "the twentieth hijacker" by the administration and by the media, but the truth is more complex; Moussaoui is apparently considered a "wannabe" by his al-Qaeda colleagues, too unstable and unreliable to have been allowed to take part in the hijackings. However, Moussaoui, who has always denied having a role in the attacks, undoubtedly has valuable, possibly critical information. The FBI refuses to take Moussaoui seriously as a source of information, and Attorney General Ashcroft will appear more determined to use Moussaoui as a symbol of US revenge on the terrorists (by insisting on the death penalty, and refusing to bargain with Moussaoui for a reduced sentence in return for his testimony) rather than a source of information. (Seymour Hersh)
- March 4: A short-lived Fox TV program called The Lone Gunmen, a spin-off of The X-Files, airs a pilot episode in which terrorists try to fly an airplane into the WTC. There are no terrorists on board the aircraft; remote control technology is used to steer the plane. Ratings were good for the show, yet the coincidence is barely mentioned after 9/11. Says one media columnist, "This seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order." The show's heroes avert disaster, and at the end of the show state, "The terrorist group responsible was actually a faction of our own government. These malefactors were seeking to stimulate arms manufacturing in the lean years following the end of the Cold War by bringing down a plane in New York City and fomenting fears of terrorism." (Killtown)
- March 7: The Russian Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly submits "an unprecedentedly detailed report" to the UN Security Council about bin Laden, his whereabouts, details of his al-Qaeda network, Afghan drug running, and Taliban connections in Pakistan. The report provides "a listing of all bin Laden's bases, his government contacts and foreign advisors," and enough information to make an assassination attempt possible. The US fails to act. Alex Standish, the editor of the highly respected Jane's Intelligence Review, concludes that the attacks of 9/11 were less of an American intelligence failure and more the result of "a political decision not to act against bin Laden." (CCR)
Meeting between 9/11 hijacker and Iraqi intelligence agent debunked
- April: According to initial Czech intelligence reports, a meeting takes place between 9/11 plotter Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague sometime during the month. The Bush administration seizes on the report and uses it to "prove" that the Iraqi government is connected to al-Qaeda. An investigation by Czech intelligence proves the report is completely false, and Atta was nowhere near Eastern Europe on the day in question. Months later, Czech president Vaclav Havel personally informs US officials that the report is false. An exhaustive report by the FBI also concludes that the meeting never took place. Yet Bush and administration officials continue to use the Czech report as evidence of a connection. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld goes so far as to call the evidence "bulletproof." In later months, as stories of the report's discreditation become more widespread, the administration stops citing the report, but it never withdraws its earlier statements. (Strategic News Service/Smalla)
White House ignores CIA warning about al-Qaeda attack
- April-May: The CIA warns the White House of a possible al-Qaeda attack. By this point, the administration is well aware of the deep connections between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but continues to treat them as separate entities -- in August 2001, a senior State Department official made the incredibly naive request that the Taliban actually extradite bin Laden. (CCR)
- May: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an arm of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has been quite effective in recent months in countering the huge amounts of illegal cash used by terrorists to carry out their plans. Drug smuggling and money laundering operations were stymied and brought to light by FATF efforts. Most publicly, the FATF has been successful in what it calls a "name and shame" campaign designed to humiliate nations with lax banking laws or enforcement procedures into cooperating with international efforts to clean up the banking industry and reduce the amount of terrorist cash flowing through its pipelines. The Bush administration suspends American cooperation with the FATF after Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill complains that it conflicts with the administration's tax and economic priorities. Further cooperation with the FATF will be subject to review, a review that abruptly ends on September 11. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
Bush administration "pays off" Taliban
- May: The Bush administration gives the Taliban $43 million, supposedly for its efforts to eradicate the opium poppy from Afghanistan. Speculation is strong that the money was really targeted to facilitate the American oil industry's attempts to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Specualtion is equally strong that the 9/11 attacks were a direct result of the administration's attempts to bully the Taliban into acquiescing to having the pipeline built to their specifications. (CCR)
- May: Attorney General John Ashcroft announces that the top priority for the Justice Department is "the prevention of terrorist acts." Unfortunately, his DOJ does virtually nothing over the next several months in the area of counterterrorism, instead focusing on efforts to stop the use of medicinal marijuana in California and closing down New Orleans bordellos. More revealing is his statement upon first meeting then-FBI director Louis Freeh upon taking the position of attorney general, telling Freeh that his two priorities are "violent crimes and drugs." When Freeh tried to discuss terrorism with Ashcroft, Ashcroft terminated the discussion. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- May-June: During the trial of the "millennium bombers," Condoleezza Rice announces that participants in the millennium plot said al-Qaeda deputy Abu Zubaydah stated "there might be interest in attacking the United States." After two bombers were convicted, a number of threats were issued by various terrorist organizations. Most of these threats received very little media attention. (CCR)
FBI's Tenet tries to warn administration officials of impending attacks, is ignored
- May-July: CIA Director George Tenet, one of the few holdovers from the Clinton administration, is "frantic" about the huge amount of credible intelligence concerning an impending attack on American soil. He fails to get the attention of Vice-President Cheney, whose anti-terrorism task force held only a single meeting (on September 4). His concerns led to the July 5 briefing of members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to Tenet, the threat assessment is the most severe his office had received in decades. (CCR)
Cheney "task force" on terrorism formed, does nothing
- May 5: A task force on terrorism is formed under the aegis of Vice President Cheney, and including FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh. The task force only meets once, on September 4, and produces no documents nor recommendations. (CCR)
- Summer: Significant amounts of money wired from Omar Saeed Sheikh to 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta are facilitated through Pakistan. Sheikh is a member of Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI; orders for the transfers are signed by Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmad, chief of ISI. (9/11 Press for Truth/Daily Kos)
