Who Bombed the U.S. World Trade Center? — 1993
Ralph Schoenman
Michel Chossudovsky, 23 April 2004
Editor's note: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SCH404A.html
We are publishing this incisive and pioneering analysis written eleven years ago by Ralph Schoenman pertaining to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Schoenman correctly identifies the support provided by the Clinton Administration to the al Qaeda network at a time when Al Qaeda, and more specifically Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was being accused of masterminding the 1993 WTC bombing.
The article is of particular importance in relation to the current debate on 9/11.
The 1993 WTC bombing is heralded by the Bush Administration as one of the earlier Al Qaeda attacks on the Homeland. Since 9/11, the 1993 WTC bombing has become part of "the 9/11 legend" which describes Al Qaeda as "an outside enemy," when the evidence amply confirms that Al Qaeda remains to this date a US sponsored "intelligence asset."
In the words of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (April 2004) at the 9/11 Commission:
"The terrorist threat to our Nation did not emerge on September 11th, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al-Qaida and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans." (See complete transcript of her testimony at (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RIC404A.html )
It should also be mentioned that at the time of the 1993 WTC bombing, the Clinton Administration and al Qaeda were actively collaborating in joint military operations in Bosnia, as confirmed by an official congressional report emanating from the Republican Party.
The alleged terrorist Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman was sentenced as the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombings and subsequently convicted to life imprisonment. In a bitter irony, the same individual Omar Abdul Rahman was identified in a 1997 Report of the Republican Party Policy Committee of the US Senate as collaborating with Clinton officials in bringing in weapons and Mujahideen into Bosnia:
The Clinton Administration's "hands-on" involvement with the Islamic network's arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials.
(...)
In short, the Clinton Administration's policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an ongoing international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia...For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. ["How Bosnia's Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups," Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also "Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $ 300 Million Program Had U.S. 'Stealth Cooperation'," Washington Post, 2/2/96] TWA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Binladen, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96]
bold added
Clinton Administration supported the "Militant Islamic Base", Senate Press Release, US Congress, 16 January 1997, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
original Senate Document http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm
In other words, the Republican party confirms that Omar Abdul Rahman and Al Qaeda were US sponsored "intelligence assets". Needless to say, when Bill Clinton, appeared before the 9/11 Commission (April 2004),these links between US officials and Al Qaeda in Bosnia and Kosovo were not raised.
Who Bombed the U.S. World Trade Center? — 1993 Growing Evidence Points to Role of FBI Operative
By Ralph Schoenman
(published in Prevailing Winds Magazine, Number 3, 1993) http://www.radio4houston.org/takingaim/home/articles/wtc93.html
Simultaneous with the detonation of an explosive bomb at the World Trade Center in New York on February 26 of this year (1993), FBI investigators were en route to New York.
"Even as office workers were trying to pry their way out of stalled elevators or stagger down smoky stairwells in the wake of a devastating explosion last Friday," wrote Ronald J. Ostrow and Robin Wright (Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1993), under the headline "U.S. Tackling Blast Probe on Unprecedented Scale," "a special team of men and women were leaving FBI headquarters here for the next flight to New York."
Not only the FBI was so prompt. "Thousands of people and dozens of agencies here and abroad sprang into action. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything bigger, except maybe the Kennedy Assassination,’ said one counter terrorism official."
Officials declared that the vast scale of their "investigation" notwithstanding, "it will take several months (emphasis added) before the forensic aspects are completed," if only because the bombing "could," according to CIA analyst Graham Fuller, "be an operational decision dating back a year that doesn’t have any relationship with immediate events" (Ibid.).
The ink wasn’t dry on the press release before the discovery of the alleged culprit in the bombing was announced by these same agencies within hours of their prior declaration, evincing investigative skills that eclipsed any heretofore in evidence. How was this accomplished?
A REFUND AND A CAR FRAGMENT
"He wanted his money back," begins a story by Ralph Blumenthal under the subheading, "Insistence on a Refund for a Van Led to the Arrest of Blast Suspect" (New York Times, March 5, 1993). Mohammed A. Salameh had returned three times to a Ryder Truck Rental dealer in Jersey City requesting a refund of the $400 cash deposit he had placed on a yellow Ford Econoline van that, he stated, had been stolen the night preceding the explosion.
How then had the authorities linked Salameh’s request to the World Trade Center? It seemed unlikely, "(b)ecause the huge bomb had cored the garage with a crater spanning several parking levels, much of the vital evidence," reported The New York Times in the very story implicating Salameh, "including what remained of the vehicle suspected of delivering the bomb, was … buried under tons of rubble at the bottom."
There appeared to be no possibility of recovering anything of use for a very long time, given the force of the blast. "Top officials, including James M. Fox, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York office, and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, despaired of being able to reach evidence because of the unstable and unsafe conditions underground.
Nonetheless, agents of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) suddenly came forward with "yellow pieces of a vehicle that appeared to been blown apart with particular ferocity. One of the fragments carried a part identification number."
This discovery supposedly occurred on the Sunday morning following the Friday blast. By the same afternoon, the FBI had identified the presumptive source of the explosion, describing the vehicle as "a model 350 Ford Econoline van, color yellow," tracing it to Ryder Truck Rental (one of the largest lease chains in the United States) and then to a specific Ryder dealership on the property of Rockview Auto Sales, a used-car lot in a section of Jersey City not far from the apartment of Salameh and from the walk-up mosque of a blind Egyptian cleric named Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. To date, the fragment bearing the serial number has not been produced.
Salameh’s biography was distributed instantly to the media, replete with claimed political sympathies and associations going back years. "Suspect Tied to Islamic Fundamentalist Sect" was the subheading of The New York Times story (Ibid.) whose account of the "evidence" and Salameh’s arraigment without bail before Judge Richard Owen of Federal District Court in Manhattan was breathless, "concluding a tumultuous day in a case that has drawn national attention and … statements by President Clinton, the Governors of New York and New Jersey and other officials."
White House spokesperson George Stephanopoulos confirmed the arrest. Acting Attorney General Stuart M. Gerson followed Stephanopoulos, declaiming, "It’s a remarkable day in the history of the FBI."
DISARRAY AND CONTRADICTORY SIGNALS
Federal and city field operatives seemed less than pleased by the Washington announcements. "the unusual statements virtually preempted announcements by the federal and local investigators in New York working on the case and touched off a flap of angry recriminations. The arrest’s timing brought on another bitter dispute. City law-enforcement officials, bristling for days over what they called news leaks by federal officials, said a New York Newsday report, tracing the van to a rental agency in Jersey City, had forced a premature arrest." Nonetheless, "there was no indication that the newspaper was asked to withhold the article."
The disarray amongst high ranking officials and the contradictory signals regarding the release of politically charged declarations was a tell-tale sign that there were central features of the events about which government officials were seriously concerned and that the authorities wished to conceal.
The New York Times noted that at the Stephanopoulos press conference, Acting Attorney General Gerson became disturbed when asked about the motivations for the bombing. "I don’t know the answer to that," he replied, adding, "and I wouldn’t tell you if I did" (Ibid.), a cryptic reply echoed by FBI Director William Sessions.
The New York Times article was less reticent. Salameh was linked to Sheikh Rahman, to "several radical groups that make up the Egyptian branch of Islamic Jihad," through the Sheikh to "the 1982 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat." To a Brooklyn mosque, Farouq Majid, "noted by investigators in the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Mier Kahane," and to El Sayyid A. Nosair, who had been charged with and acquitted of the 1990 Kahane slaying.
Salameh, days after the bombing, was thus connected in the press to "a wide array of contacts and associations with terrorist organizations." By March 9, The New York Times published a photo of Salameh alongside Nosair at the time of his acquittal of the earlier assassination of Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and a virulently anti-Arab legislator in Israel.
The authorities "pursued a dizzying array of clues and lessons on fronts raging from Jersey City, N.J., to Brooklyn and to the Mideast." A new "major suspect" was announced, Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, who was said to have ties to Salameh Nosair and was described as "a leading official of a Brooklyn mosque frequented by Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman."
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
A New Jersey storage locker was uncovered, containing "chemicals used for explosives," which the authorities "seized and detonated," a strange way to handle incriminating evidence. Two other apartments were discovered in which "‘other chemicals and electronic equipment were found … linked to Mr. Salameh and others through aliases as well as witness accounts, officials said." (Ibid.)
The authorities were seeking to depict a group of conspirators who had attempted to blow up a skyscraper in Manhattan and then left their various apartments without removing the chemicals, wire or bomb paraphernalia employed in the enterprise. Indeed, it was difficult to understand why they would leave this evidence in so many disparate places.
The explanation was instructive in its scarcely concealed racism. "‘One search is leading to another," said one ranking investigator. ‘But these are nomadic people. While it may lie in the culture, they bounce from place to place. All different people sleep there and stop there, stay a short time, then leave.’" (Ibid)
Several reporters, however, raised the obvious problem with the official scenario. "After five days of frantic activity since Mr. Salameh’s arrest, investigators admit puzzlement over two key questions: the method and the motive. Why, they have asked, "would anyone planning a car-bomb attack lease a vehicle in their own name — as the federal complaint contends Mr. Salameh to have done — even if he planned to claim later that the vehicle had been stolen from him and he had returned on three separate occasions to the rental office to demand a $400 refund?"
"And even if the van had been totally obliterated, officials reason, would not Mr. Salameh’s theft report have attracted attention, at some point leading investigators to him and his same group of associates they are now studying?"
The New York Times acknowledges that "such enigmas caused local investigators to "dismiss Mr. Salameh as perhaps a patsy for others, someone who may have been duped into carrying out the attack and taking the blame."
It soon emerged that the very people who worked at the Ryder rental office which rented the van to Salameh were FBI operatives. "The trap was set for Salameh by FBI agents disguised as employees of the rental outlet. They dickered with Salameh over the deposit, giving him $200 in a partial refund. He was then arrested at a bus stop near the agency"(Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1993).
How then did they conclude that Salameh was directly engaged in the planning, fabrication of the explosives and implementation of the plan? James Fox, Assistant FBI Director in charge of the New York office, informed journalists that the critical piece of evidence was "a telephone number listed on the rental agreement. … Investigators traced the number to an apartment in Jersey City where they found a letter addressed to Salameh as well as the tools and electronic equipment that indicated the presence in this apartment of a bomb maker."
This then was the pivotal evidence leading to the implication of Salameh. In whose name was the telephone number on the rental agreement listed, and who had rented the apartment in Jersey City? Someone long monitored by the FBI.
SOMEONE LONG MONITORED BY THE FBI
Both the telephone number and the apartment were listed (on the rental agreement for the Ryder Truck alleged to have contained the explosives), and indeed, the apartment had been rented by "an [Israeli] woman identified as Josie Hadas" (Ibid.). Her name was flaunted, almost as a signal, "the latest name on the mailbox was Josie Hadas… who moved into the apartment before Christmas" (Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1993).
It was during her occupancy of this apartment that the chemicals and bomb components were supposedly stored there. Salameh, moreover, was being "handled" by mysterious others whose relationship to the crucial evidence would become important.
"The authorities say several associates of Mr. Salameh who may have been involved in the bombing have dropped out of sight. … One of the people being sought for questioning is an unidentified man who accompanied Mr. Salameh on two visits to the rental agency. Another is [Israeli Mossad agent] Josie Hadas, whose name was listed for a telephone at an apartment at 34 Kensington Avenue in Jersey City" (New York Times, March 8, 1993). The name placed on the rental agreement as a reference was Josie Hadas, an Israeli citizen who escaped back to Israel immediately.
Under the heading "Possible Tampering by Agent," New York Times reporter Joseph B. Treaster writes, "in a bizarre twist that could potentially complicate the prosecution of the bombers …[f]ederal officials were investigating a report that an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tampered with some evidence … substituting her name for that of an investigator from another agency. … John O’Brien, a spokesman for the firearms Bureau, acknowledged that one of the bureau’s agents was being questioned. … James M. Fox, the head of the FBI investigation, would not comment on the inquiry about the agent and the evidence"(Ibid.).
"Sources," however, now disclosed to the press that Salameh had been closely monitored by the FBI "long before the bombing occurred. He was … listed in the FBI’s computerized terrorism information system." Officials refused to confirm that "the suspect’s mail had been intercepted or that he had been subjected to physical surveillance, electronic intercepts or other investigative techniques."
Suddenly, the person who was supposedly brought to light because of his fortuitous request for a refund on the van which carried the bomb, emerged as someone long monitored by the FBI and other agencies. Indeed, the authorities now claimed that "the arrest came as the result of one of the largest investigations in the nation’s history."
ISRAELIS’ ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE
Who then was the Israeli woman in whose name the telephone and apartment were listed and where the incriminating evidence was "found?" Josie or Guzie Hadas was not unknown. The International Herald Tribune (March 8, 1993) quoted FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette’s familiar response to their reporter’s query about the role of Hadas in the Israeli secret service, Mossad: "Even if it were true, we wouldn’t tell you anyway." CNN even showed her apartment where bomb drawings and material were shown in un-censored report.Soon CNN realized that she was Moosad agent and after that no mention of Hadas any where!
The London Periodical Impact (march 12, 1993 and April 8, 1993) revealed, in an article titled "Who Bombed the World Trade Center," that on February 26, the day the bomb exploded, an Israeli intelligence group sent an urgent communiqué over a telephone access computer network about the event. The communiqué was picked up when it was discovered accidentally on a confidential government "information base" known in the Israeli intelligence community as "Matara," an official source of classified data pertaining to intelligence and security matters.
Either leaked or accessed by news sources, the communiqué states that Israeli Intelligence had advance knowledge of the timing and target of the World Trade Center bombing and that it would be attributed to "known activists from the Occupied Territories."
Three days after the bombing, "Anne," an Israeli operative of the Shin Bet, Israel’s FBI, was cited by journalists in Israel "boasting of Israeli Intelligence capabilities." She stated that Israel had advance knowledge of the bombing, confirming the communiqué disclosed on Matara.
The next day, an Israeli Defense Force spokesperson responded to a direct question from a Jerusalem reporter concerning Israeli governmental involvement in the bombing of the world Trade Center. The Jerusalem journalist (whose name will be protected here) told Irfan Mirza, the author of the Impact articles, how he had confirmed that "Israeli intelligence knows more about the bombings than they are ever going to disclose at this time."
This author discussed the data with journalist Lorraine Mirza, who confirmed that Irfan Mirza’s investigation led to bomb threats which were taped. He has left London. On March 6, an article in the London Times confirmed that "Israeli intelligence has detailed information" about the World Trade Center bombing, adding that "the FBI has given no explanation as to why Israel has not come forward to the U.S. authorities with information."
Zafar Bangas, editor of Crescent International, an Ontario, Canada-based journal conversant in Islamic politics and one of the most widely read newspapers in the North-American Muslim world, confirmed to this author that Guzie (Josie) Hadas was long-established as a Mossad operative. She had penetrated Islamic circles in New York, as had another intelligence operative, Emad Ali Salem, a colonel in Egyptian intelligence.
Bangas confirmed investigative work of Irfan Mirza concerning the role of Emad Ali Salem. It was he who rented the van in the name of Mohammad Salameh [who happens to be a poor and mentally handicapped Palestinian man], purchased and disseminated chemical and bomb materials in various apartments and who tipped his employers, the FBI, as to his handiwork.
The serial number released by the ATF after, supposedly, coming upon a metal fragment, nominally buried under five stories and tons of debris, came from "undercover operative, Emad Ali Salem" (Ibid.). Salameh had attempted to report the theft of the van rented in his name previous to the bombing of the World Trade Center. Despite the public impact of the explosion, Salameh, unaware of the significance of the van, showed up asking for the return of the deposit.
ROLE OF EMAD ALI SALEM
On June 24, the FBI arrested eight Muslims alleged to have plotted a series of bombings which would have dwarfed in global impact the bombing of the World Trade Center.
According to the authorities, the detainees — all linked to Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman — had advanced plans to bomb the United Nations, the New York headquarters of the FBI, and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Some reports also mention the Statue of Liberty. Assassinations of New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato and United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali were in advanced preparation.
The pre-dawn raids, which resulted in the arrest of the plotters, followed months of surveillance. Within hours of the arrests, FBI agents seized documents and tapes from the Sheikh’s residence. Among those arrested was Mahmoud Abouhalima, now declared a suspect, as well, in the World Trade Center bombing.
The Dallas publication, Muslim World Monitor, disclosed on July 4 that Emad Ali Salem was an Egyptian intelligence officer who had entered the milieu of the followers of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman at the behest of the FBI. He was in attendance at the trial of El Sayyid Nosair, accused in the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and he offered his services as a bodyguard of the Sheikh.
Salem was "wired" throughout his association with the Muslim followers of the Sheikh. "A high-ranking former Egyptian intelligence officer, he was the informant who provided the FBI with taped conversations and all other evidence" used in the World Trade Center arrests and those of June 24. (Ibid.)
Salem worked with other informants for the FBI, including Mahmoud Zaki Zakhary, who had been reporting regularly to the FBI since January 10, 1990. Between the two, the U.S. intelligence authorities knew every residence, office and meeting which occurred between the Sheikh and his followers for a period of three and a half years.
As Muslim World Monitor explained, "Salem…had them under surveillance long before the February 26 blast took place." He was the source of "plans" to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations, other targets and the assassinations. "He has played the role, "concludes the Muslim World Monitor "of agent provocateur."
Defense lawyers for the eight accused assert that their clients were entrapped in schemes of which they were unaware and were subjected to proposals by Salem himself. "Salem was wired before, after and during every meeting. It is known that Salem was involved in the initial discussions, provided the safe houses in which bombs were allegedly manufactured, helped purchase the firearms and other materials that were to be used in the attacks." (Ibid.)
From the time of the El Sayyid Nosair trial, Salem was forever "brashly talking about violent actions and trying to incite people to do ‘crazy things.’ "These "things" were proposed after prior discussion with high-level intelligence authorities in the United States.
SALEM’S TRIAL
Under the headline "New York Trial in Rabbi’s Death Planted an Explosive Seed," the Los Angeles Times (July 4, 1993) confirms the information in the Muslim press with remarkable sangfroid. It cites the role of a "decorated former Egyptian military officer" for the emergence of "a clandestine cell of terrorists who conspired to set off the World Trade Center bomb blast, plotted an unparalleled wave of attacks on U.S. landmarks and political figures and shattered America’s image of invulnerability to terrorism."
The "trail’ left by Salem "led from those courthouse steps to the dramatic raid June 24 on a makeshift bomb factory in Queens, zigzags through militant mosques, rural shooting ranges and seedy safehouses."
It emerges that "critical evidence had been overlooked" by U.S. authorities, even though it was provided to them by "the still-mysterious cooperation of a stranger with Egyptian military medals."
Salem became close to El Sayyid Nosair before the assassination of Meir Kahane, assisting him with finding lodgings and other services. After the assassination of Kahane, Chief of Detectives Joseph Borelli "shrugged off questions about the political implications of the assault." Yet, in a police raid of Nosair’s rented house in Cliffside Park, N.J., they "discovered manuals for building bombs. They found photos of the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and the Washington Monument and a text advocating terrorists strikes on American soil."
A senior investigator called this collection of documents "a road map" to the World Trade Center. This and attendant documents concerning bombings and assassinations "sat" in police and FBI hands, "untranslated in about 50 storage boxes."
Thus, the FBI had all the documents concerning putative plans to blow up the World Trade Center and all the documents concerning like plans for the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other targets as early as 1990.
By late summer 1992, "federal investigators … had reports that militant Muslims were scheming to assassinate the Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali." Their principal informant, Emad Ali Salem, "kept pictures of torture victims among his family albums."
Their informant had arranged "by mid-February, the massive chemical bomb that would kill six and injure more than 1000 at the Trade Center, brewed in barrels hidden in the Jersey City storage unit." All these arrangements were reported by a wired Salem.
"Meanwhile, stored in boxes in an FBI locker, … were the documents that would help unravel a plot to blow up the United Nations, the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the Empire State Building and the Washington Monument."
EXTRAORDINARY ADMISSION
This extraordinary admission that the FBI had advance plans and the full documentation of where to find everyone and everything was blithely reported. Only after the detonation of the bomb in the World Trade Center did "the FBI finally open the boxes." They had been receiving regular reports from "the man they called ‘the Colonel,’ [who] wore a hidden microphone as he moved the inner circle. … There … federal agents heard first-hand as another plot evolved," one promulgated by their own operative and the rationale for the arrests of June 24.
All the while that the U.S. has sounded the alarm about "Muslim Fundamentalist terror," it has funded the Islamic Fundamentalist group in Afghanistan led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has received to date $3.3 billion in official U.S. aid administered by the CIA. Many of the figures in the Muslim movement in the U.S., including those accused of involvement in the World Trade Center bombing, were among those who organized the sending of CIA arms and funds to Hekmatyar. (See "Late For Work," Prevailing Winds #1.)
The U.S. rulers are terrorizing the American people with operations of their own authorship, deployed as a rationale for "maintaining vast military budgets for devastating assaults upon Iraq, Somalia and targets now on the Pentagon drawing board.
©Ralph Schoenman 1993
available in pamphlet — see Order Form http://www.radio4houston.org/takingaim/home/articles/..%255Cvp.html
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/adam.htm
Following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, assistant FBI director James Fox declared that the man who was responsible for planting the explosives in the infamous Ford Econoline Van was Mohammed Salameh, one of the followers of Omar Abdel Rahman. The New York Times ran an article which declared him a "Suspect Tied to Islamic Fundamentalist Sect."
This conclusion was made when the police searched the apartment of one Josie Hadas — a long established Mossad operative. On June 8, 1993, the International Herald Tribune ran an article in which it was stated that the telephone number and apartment listed on the rental agreement for the van belonged to Josie Hadas. According to Malcolm Gladwell of the Washington Post, "The FBI complaint read Thursday night in court said that Salameh had provided a telephone number "in connection with the rental agreement that was traced to a person named Josie Hadas, at a Jersey City address." The article added: "A search of the Hadas apartment Thursday afternoon had discovered "among other things, a letter addressed to the defendant, tools and wiring, and manuals concerning antennae, circuitry and electromagnetic devices."
The article stated: "A law enforcement officer trained as a bomb technician has examined these materials," the FBI said, "and concluded that they constitute evidence of a 'bomb maker' at the location. Lastly, a dog trained in the detection of explosives responded positively to a closet space within the apartment." If this letter addressed to Salameh and the bomb making tools were located in Hadas's apartment, then the question of why Hadas was not also implicated in this crime still remains to be answered. Furthermore, where is Josie Hadas?
Following the explosion, investigators started to sift through the rubble in the parking garage under the World Trade Center. They found fragments of a vehicle with an identification number corresponding to the number of the Ford Econoline Van which Salameh had rented in his own name. Salameh had reported the vehicle as being stolen to the police prior to the explosion, and thus the van had been listed in a nationwide computer directory of stolen vehicles. According to the way in which the pieces of the truck appeared to be positioned on the ground, the FBI strongly suspected that it was this Ford Econoline van which had carried the bomb.
Salameh returned to the Jersey City Ryder rental center in order to hand over the police documents confirming that he had reported the vehicle stolen. Furthermore, he asked for his $400 deposit to be returned, and as he left the agency, the police arrested him. The FBI had suspected that Salameh was involved in the bombing when they examined the rental documents that he had returned to the Ryder clerk when he first reported the vehicle stolen the previous week. According to the FBI, the documents were covered with traces of chemical nitrates.
The Washington Post article asked a senior law enforcement official why, "if he is guilty, Salameh would have been so naïve as to rent the truck in his own name, report it stolen to the agency and the police, and return twice to the agency to attempt to retrieve his deposit, the senior law enforcement official said: "Who knows. Just because he's a terrorist, doesn't mean he's a brain surgeon. ... Call it good investigating."
However, a problem arose with the FBI's claim that the bomb was composed of nitrates. On Thursday, September 14, 1995, the Washington Post affirmed that the FBI crime laboratory was being probed and that "the Justice Department is investigating complaints that workers in the bureau's crime laboratory have offered misleading or fabricated evidence in a number of major criminal cases."
The article went on to cite that these allegations were made by special agent Frederic Whitehurst with specific regards to the World Trade Center bombing case, as well as other well publicized cases. On August 14, 1995, special agent Frederic Whitehurst testified in the bombing trial that urea nitrate, the claimed chemical compound which had been used in the bombing, was such a rare substance that it could not be found in the United States. Although Whitehurst confirmed that the substance could be used to make a bomb, he was not aware of it being reported in use since 1960 when the Australians discontinued its use because of its propensity to decompose very quickly. Moreover, the substance was so rarely used to make bombs that he was not aware of it ever having been tested in FBI laboratories.
During the course of the trial, special agent Frederic Whitehurst testified that the FBI concocted misleading scientific reports and pressured two of their scientists to perjure their testimony in order to support its prosecution of the defendants:
Dr. Whitehurst was asked the following questions in the course of his testimony, as mentioned in an official court transcript, page 16337:
Q: "During your examination of the bomb residue materials and the chemicals associated with the defendants, you became aware that the FBI agents investigating the case had developed a preliminary theory that the bomb that blew up the World Trade Center was a urea nitrate bomb?"
A: "Yes, that is correct."
Q: "Did there come a time when you began to experience pressure from within the FBI to reach certain conclusions that supported that theory of the investigation?"
A: "Yes, that is correct."
Q: "In other words, you began to experience pressure on you to say that the explosion was caused by a urea nitrate bomb?"
A: "Yes, that is correct."
Q: "And you were aware that such a finding would strengthen the prosecution of the defendants who were on trial, who were going on trial in that case, correct?"
A: "Absolutely."
Special agent Frederic Whitehurst, the senior FBI explosives expert, was demoted to paint analysis.
The most disturbing part of this trial was the dubious testimony of one Emad Salem, an obscure figure who was hired by the FBI following the famed killing of right-wing militant rabbi Meir Kahane in 1991. Salem, a high ranking Egyptian government operative, had penetrated the circles of [Omar Abdel] Rahman [the blind Muslim cleric currently in jail] and had secretly tape recorded countless meetings. The prosecution's case relied almost entirely on the testimony of Emad Salem, who was taken into the Witness Protection program on June 24, 1993, and promised five hundred thousand dollars in exchange for his testimony.
Salem informed the FBI about the more than 1,000 conversations he had recorded within Rahman's circle sometime between December 1991 and June 1993. Unbeknownst to the FBI, he had also been secretly taping their conversations too. Bugging the FBI, Salem had deceived them, which would prove to be very problematic as these tapes established that the FBI was at the very least, aware of Salem's role of being an 'agent provocateur' in the bombing, as well as his involvement in the plans to blow up the United Nations Building and Lincoln and Holland Tunnels.
The Los Angeles Times ran a story on July 4, 1993, stating that fifty storage boxes of documents concerning plans to blow up the World Trade Center had 'sat' in police and FBI hands.
On Aug. 3, 1993, an epic edition of New York Newsday was released in which the presence of these cassettes would first be publicized, thus revealing a secret U.S. Government complicity in the World Trade Center bombing: "The Federal informant who allegedly foiled the plot to bomb the Holland Tunnel and the United Nations Building secretly tape recorded his conversations with Federal prosecutors and agents. Prosecutors fear that the recorded conversations, which must be turned over to defense lawyers, could damage the conspiracy case against the eleven defendants."
The article continued:
"Emad Salem, the shadowy Government informant — who videotaped Muslim Fundamentalists as they allegedly conspired to bomb a variety of city landmarks — made at least forty audiotapes of his discussions with FBI and Federal authorities, sources say. Law enforcement officials discovered the tapes last month while they were gathering items from Salem's apartment, sources say. Joyce London, lawyer for suspect Tariq El-Hassan, called the tapes 'a gold mine' because they will show jurors how the case was spawned, and will possibly bolster an entrapment defense. It's going to lay out exactly how the deal was set up — what instructions he (Salem) was given, and how far he was told to go to ensnare these people,' she said. 'This proves that Salem cannot be trusted. He betrayed everyone,' said Ron Kuby, lawyer for defendant Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali. 'He was working for the FBI, but he was also bugging the FBI.'"
The article maintained:
"Prosecutors concede that the conversations may become a potent weapon for defense attorneys, damaging the informant's credibility and strengthening the defense's theory that the FBI instigated the plot. 'This could definitely hurt the case,' said an investigator who asked not to be identified. 'Even though the investigation and its results are fair, the process can be pretty messy. Those conversations are definitely not the kind of thing you want a jury to hear.'"
After Salem had been placed on the Witness Protection program, the government sought to fend off any negative publicity from the news of these newly found cassettes by leaking the portions of the cassettes to the media which were incriminating to the defendants. Attorney William Kunstler said that "the news that this was coming out caused the United States Government, I believe, to leak out some of the tapes to ABC, which ran them last night, both on the Evening News with Peter Jennings and on the Nightline program at 11:30." He continued:
"The Government, which was ordered by the court on Friday not to continue these leaks, breached it immediately. So we're going to ask the court for a hearing. But what they did ... they did a preemptive strike! They knew that the Newsday story was coming today, and so, they tried to tamper it by leaking out only those portions of the tape which they thought were incriminating [to the defendants], and they hid those portions of the tape which were not incriminating — which were exonerative."
As for the portions which clearly indicated that the FBI was involved in a classic entrapment setup and had collaborated with Salem in the implementation of the bombing, they were conveniently not publicized. In a surreptitiously taped conversation involving Salem and Special Agent John Anticev, Salem refers to his contribution in the making of the bomb and the Bureau's awareness and consent of it. An avaricious Salem is seen pressing for more money. The conversation revolves around references to the bombing and the FBI's acquaintance of the bomb making:
Anticev: "But ah basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary but you got paid regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I told you this."
Salem: "Well, I have to tell her of course."
Anticev: "Well then, if you have to, you have to."
Salem: "Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being honest and everything was submitted with receipts and now it's questionable."
Anticev: "It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the ordinary."
Salem: "Okay. I don't think it was. If that what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all informed about it and we know what the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful great case! And then he put his head in the sand I said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a bitch." (Deep breath) Okay. It's built with a different way in another place and that's it."
Anticev: "No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest with you as I can."
Salem: "Of course, I appreciate that."
Former Watergate associate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste warned that these tapes pose "an absolute nightmare for federal prosecutors."
When Ron Kuby, one of the defendant's attorneys in the case was questioned about an article which revealed that Salem and the FBI were involved in the bombing, he stated: "The article on the FBl being involved in the World Trade Center bombing actually understated the evidence, believe it or not. The informer, Emad Salem, is actually on tape saying that he built the bomb that ultimately blew up the World Trade Center."
Kuby continued:
"In addition, we have received information that he was visually observed at the scene of the bombing shortly after the bombing took place. Shortly after that, he was admitted to the hospital, suffering from an ear problem that was consistent with exposure to blast. The mastermind is the government of the United States. It was a phony, government-engineered conspiracy to begin with. It would never have amounted to anything had the government not planned it."
After having observed American intelligence agencies' findings on the second attack upon the World Trade Center, one gets the distinct feeling that some of the evidence which has been brought forward so far seems to contain a certain amount of inadequacy. Many questions have now come to fruition, the following being some of them: On September 11, four teams of hijackers walked past the security of three major metropolitan airports and hijacked four aircraft. Two were crashed into the World Trade Towers, one into the Pentagon, and one had reportedly come crashing to the ground after some of the passengers fought off the hijackers.
As regards the actual operation itself and the reactions of the defense mechanisms of the US government, there are many questionable occurrences which need to be given more consideration. How could it be that the synchronized hijackings of four large commercial jet aircraft over an extended period of time did not alert anyone to the likelihood of the looming assaults? Whoever carried out this organized and flawless operation must have been coordinated by a significant group who possess money, manpower, technological knowledge of force of impact and penetration capabilities, as well as insiders' information of strategic parts of the Pentagon. This attack required a high level of military exactitude and the resources of an advanced intelligence body. As well, the attackers would have needed to be familiar with possible defensive flight operations, civil airline flight paths, and the acquisition of a favourable ratio of probability of success without any intrusion from the security apparatus of the vast U.S. intelligence and radar systems. It is amazing to think that these planes were able to swerve from their assigned flight plan, remain undetected for reasonable periods of time and then crash into these key targets without any reported effort to stop them from the greatest military and intelligence system in the world.
Although we have heard much about possible encrypted messages from Al-Qaeda, intelligence operatives concede that Bin Laden has moved from being 'low-tech' to 'no-tech' in the last few years. Do these terrorists really possess the necessary characteristics to successfully carry out such a precise, coordinated and undetected attack?
Strangely enough, the day after the hijacking, the UK's Telegraph reported that "passengers on the hijacked aircraft were ordered to phone their families and tell them they were going to die" and that, "passengers were ordered at knifepoint to say that their flight had been hijacked and they were going to crash into the White House." The article also mentioned: "Similar calls were reported to have been made by passengers on the other flights." It seems odd to think that the hijackers would force passengers to call relatives, but more puzzling than this is the question of why there had been a uniform agenda for the victims on each of the planes to be forced at knifepoint to call their loved ones and convey specific messages. It would obviously have been a pre-planned affair, so what was the intent of the hijackers in carrying out this part of the operation?
Concerning the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, structural engineers and architects have concluded that when the buildings were struck by planes carrying more than 20,000 pounds of fuel and remained standing, heat became the real structural threat. The planes hit vital components of the building cascading massive amounts of fuel, thus triggering off raging fires which destabilized the load-bearing capacity of the interior structure.
Experts estimate that temperatures near the airplane wreckage may have risen to levels as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which can easily melt steel. This is what explains the thermal stress that occurred, which activated the great implosion of the buildings. [But see J. McMichael's I Tried To Be Patriotic.] This also shows us that the hijackers were well aware of these scientific and structural principles, and the buildings were well chosen. As New York architect John Young observed, "There are other buildings of similar construction, those with large open floor plans without interior support columns." [Except for the central supporting steel columns.]
More importantly, it brings to light the questionable nature of the claim that somehow, a hijacker's paper passport could survive that raging inferno and catastrophic implosion — unlike the almost indestructible flight recorder — and amazingly be "discovered in the rubble at the site of the World Trade Centre". Another more troubling matter in relation to the attacks is the actual identity of the hijackers. Many of the suspects' identities have proven to be mistaken. In the FBI's official press release of September 27, the following was stated: "It should be noted that attempts to confirm the true identities of these (19) individuals are still under way."
FBI Chief Robert Mueller conceded on September 20 and September 27 that at this time, the FBI has no conclusive evidence to prove the true identities of the hijackers. He said investigators think they have identified "several" of the hijackers correctly, adding: "We have several others that are still in question."
This is actually an understatement, as some of these people are on different continents working for such airlines as Tunis Air and Saudi Arabian Airlines. Some of these men have reported that they are considering legal action against CNN and American authorities for having mentioned their names as suspects prior to the issuing of the most recent FBI lists. It should be noted that the FBI kept them on the most recently issued lists despite knowing that these individuals are still alive and were not involved in these terrorist acts in any way. The list is strewn with sentences like "Possible Saudi national", "Possible resident of." and "Believed to be a pilot". If a portion of these identities have been forged, should the possibility of them all being forged not also be considered?
The first list which the FBI issued stated that Hani Hanjour is "believed to be a pilot," but the second list published on September 27 by the FBI does not identify Hani Hanjour as being "believed to be a pilot". The other four suspected hijackers of American Airlines flight #77 which crashed into the Pentagon are also not listed as being pilots. This raises the question of who actually flew the plane into that strategic part of the Pentagon, if not Hani Hanjour? There are other discrepancies which are worthy of mention. The Arab News carried a story on September 23, wherein Muhammad Salim Al-Hamzi, father of Nawaf and Salim al-Hamzi, said the pictures of his sons distributed by the FBI were "fabricated". The pictures of his boys which the father issued the Saudian paper clearly differed from those issued by the FBI, although both showed pictures of Arab men. It would be interesting to know why the hijackers had gone to great lengths to forge identities of men who were alive and accredited as being pilots when it is known that they were only boarding the planes as civilians. Who would benefit from them being identified as being certified pilots by trade?
[The author of this article seems to accept that the hijackers were among the passengers on the planes. But the planes may have been hijacked remotely — see Home Run — with a misleading story of "Arab hijackers", in support of which there had to be Arabs on board with some training as pilots.]
It also seems as if the suspects, whoever they were, were trying to implicate some sort of Saudia Arabian collusion in the attack, judging by the large number of forged Saudi identities involved in the case.
Saeed Alghamdi, Mohald Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Waleed Alshehri and Ahmed Alnami have either been exempted from involvement in these attacks or their identities are being seriously questioned. As for others such as Amer Kamfar and Adnan and Amer Bukhari, their names have ceased being mentioned as possible suspects, one of whom had died approximately two years ago.
The official passenger manifests which the airlines have issued for all four of the airplanes do not contain one Arab name. Although the airlines might have been requested by US intelligence to omit this information in their publicized passenger lists, knowing the actual list of the passengers' names would help explain many of the aforementioned irregularities. In a September 21 BBC article entitled "The last moments of Flight 11", a brave flight attendant named Madeline Amy Sweeney made a desperate telephone call which "has provided new details of the last moments of Flight 11 before it hit the World Trade Center." Sweeney spoke of there being only four hijackers, whereas the FBI list shows that there were five. Describing what "appears to conflict with previous information", the BBC article noted that "the seat numbers she gave were different from those registered in the hijackers' names."
Indeed, the more that we learn about the list of suspected hijackers, the more mysterious things become. Perhaps nothing is more so than the actual personalities and lives of the suspects themselves. Rather than getting the idea that these people who were supposed to be religious extremists were actually devout people, one is led to believe that they were in fact more interested in partying and womanizing.
On September 13, the Associated Press reported: "Three men spewed anti-American sentiments in a bar and talked of impending bloodshed the night before the terrorist attacks."
John Kap, a Daytona Beach strip club manager "told FBI investigators the men in his bar spent $200 to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks, paying with credit cards."
"They were talking about what a bad place America is. They said 'Wait 'til tomorrow. America is going to see bloodshed,'" the owner of the strip bar was quoted as saying.
Furthermore, Kap said that he gave the FBI their credit card receipts, photocopied driver's licenses, a business card left by one of the suspects and most amazingly, a copy of a Koran that one of the men had left at the bar. The article mentions that the FBI requested that Kap not reveal the men's names publicly.
These facts truly boggle the mind when we consider that these suspects are supposed to be religious fanatics who are willing to die for their faith the next morning. Anybody who has the slightest acquaintance with the Islamic tradition would know that an impious Muslim, even if he were somehow to fall into the sways of lap dances and drinking, would never be so blasphemous as to bring in a Koran with him and leave it behind at a bar. These religious fanatics, had supposedly been hiding their tracks for anywhere up to five years, and in the last days before the attacks, they suddenly began doing everything they could to be noticed and remembered, leaving behind a plethora of evidence in their last days.
Things become even more astonishing and contradictory. While these men were busy collecting exorbitant bar tabs and blurting out what they had apparently kept secret for years, according to the letter which the FBI published, they were also to keep a rigorous program of worship, contemplation and preparation in what the letter calls the "Last night." We are to believe that while they were coming down from their alcoholic frenzy, they were also to "purify" their hearts by forsaking their beds, standing up "to pray throughout this night".
They are told that during this last night: "You should pray, you should fast", although it is known that Muslims start their fast at dawn and break their fast at sunset, not fasting by night and eating by day. This truly is a mysterious insertion.
"Continue to recite the Koran" and "Obey God", they are told.
In his will, Atta requests that his body be washed and buried. Was he thinking that his body would survive the impact of the attack upon the Twin Towers?
In fact, this letter is so scattered with obvious flaws that it caused the UK-based Independent's Robert Fisk to write an article entitled, "What Muslim would write: 'The time of fun and waste is gone?" In it, Fisk declares that the FBI-issued letter was, "Fearful, chilling, grotesque — but also very, very odd."
"If the handwritten, five-page document which the FBI says it found in the baggage of Mohamed Atta, the suicide bomber from Egypt, is genuine," the Middle East expert added, "then the men who murdered more than 7,000 innocent people believed in a very exclusive version of Islam — or were surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion."
The universal Islamic opening phrase of "In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate" is also written as "In the name of God, of myself, and of my family" at the beginning of the letter. Experts on Islamic studies have said that in the monotheistic tradition of Islam, this phrase is extremely erroneous and absolutely unheard of.
Fisk adds: "No Muslim — however ill-taught — would include his family in such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet Mohamed immediately after he mentioned God in the first line." Those who specialize in Islamic studies have explained that this opening line of "In the name of God" would be followed up with the invocation that God send his peace and blessings upon the Prophet Mohamed. It would read something like this: "In the name of God, and may His peace and blessings be upon Prophet Mohamed." Citing numerous deficiencies in the letter, Fisk says that it "raises more questions than it answers."
The Washington Post says the FBI found another copy of "essentially the same document" in the debris of the flight which crashed in Pennsylvania. The copy which the FBI issued was found in Mohamed Atta's luggage. [Mohamed Atta was alleged by the FBI to be the pilot of AA Flight 11 which crashed into the North Tower. Supposedly his luggage didn't make it onto the flight, which is how it allegedly came into the hands of the FBI. Curious.] If we were able to understand how a suicide hijacker would bring luggage with him on his final mission, then we might also be able to understand how he would put his final instruction letter in this bag which happened to be diverted and found by FBI authorities.
It has been reported that there was a link between the two reputedly heavy drinkers, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, and a Lebanese man by the name of Ziad Jarrah. Nonetheless, there again appears to be an incongruity between the supposed lifestyle that a religious extremist would live, and the lifestyle that Ziad Jarrah lived. His uncle, Jamal Jarrah, was quoted in a September 16 Independent article as saying, "He was so normal. His personality and his life bore no relation to the kind of things that happened. He led a very normal life. He had girlfriends, he went to nightclubs, he went dancing sometimes."
The article notes that everyone who knew Ziad had the same thing to say about him, "that Ziad was a happy, secular youth, that he never showed any interest in religion and never visited the mosque for prayers, that he liked women even if he was at times reserved and shy."
Live-in girlfriend for five years, nightclubs, drinking, dancing, a secular youth who didn't visit mosques for prayers and in other reports, was not interested in politics; this does not fit the image of a zealot ready to kill and die for his faith. Then again, the media has reported that his Turkish girlfriend declared that he disappeared for a while and went to Afghanistan.
In an exclusive telephone conversation which occurred in the presence of the Saudi Arabian Arab News staff's Ibrahim Awadh, a highly concerned Jamal Jarrah spoke to Ziad's Turkish girlfriend Asl, in Hamburg, Germany. Originally reported on September 21, the article asserts: "He repeatedly asked her: "Did you ever see Muhammad Atta or anyone else who appeared on the list of suspected hijackers?"
He continued: "Do you think Ziad knew anyone of them? We want a clear reply from you because we all are worried and want to know the facts," he said. But Asl was emphatic in her denials. She continued weeping: "Listen, Jamal. You know we were about to get married. Ziad was a jovial and kindhearted gentleman. I loved him with all my heart, and we were preparing to return to Lebanon for our wedding."
Asl denied agency reports that she said Ziad diasappeared mysteriously for about one-and-a-half months and that she was told he went to Afghanistan. She said with anger: "From where (do) they get all this? It is all lies. I did not speak with anyone. The police did not allow me to talk with anyone, even on the telephone. I am speaking to you now in the presence of police."
On September 20, the Telegraph reported that she is now under "witness protection."
In an interesting development, on September 18, Ha'aretz reported that five Israelis had been detained "for what the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] has described as 'puzzling behavior' following the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York". The eminent Israeli newspaper quoted one of the unnamed detainee's mothers as saying that they had been arrested approximately four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building. She added, "They thought that because he has citizenship of a European country as well as of Israel that he was working for the Mossad."
They were spotted by one of the neighbors who called the police and the FBI, because he saw them "videotaping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery." The men are "expected to be deported sometime soon", the article added. This story otherwise went unnoticed in the media, except that CNN originally reported that they were men of Middle-Eastern origin. The Telegraph reported on September 16 that the Israeli Mossad had actually "warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent."
The article noted that "two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many as 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation."
It added that, "They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement," said a senior Israeli security official.
This story has been flatly denied by the FBI. The Associated Press carried a story on September 20 in which the FBI rebuffed a similar claim which had been written in the Los Angeles Times with FBI spokesman Bill Harlow saying, "That is utter nonsense". The FBI is also being tight lipped about a story which the Washington Post reported on September 27 and also confirmed by Ha'aretz, that Odigo, a New York based instant-messaging firm with offices in Israel, had confirmed "that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks." Micha Macover, CEO of the New York based company with offices in Israel, said two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack, informed the company's management about the warnings. The management contacted the Israeli security services, which consequently brought in the FBI.
Odigo has a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact other Odigo users, although Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales and marketing, said he had not received reports of there being other recipients of the message. The company declined to reveal the exact contents of the warning.
In a front-page article which appeared only one day before the tragic attacks, The Washington Times affirmed that an official 68-page report prepared by 60 US Army officers at the US Army's School for Advanced Military Studies warned of Mossad's capability to target the United States. The report mentioned that the Israeli intelligence agency was "ruthless and cunning" and "a wildcard".
It would be interesting to know how Mossad came to learn that "large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent", as reported by Philip Jacobson in Jerusalem. As well, perhaps American investigators can clarify how Odigo could have been alerted to these attacks two hours prior to their occurrence and why the FBI have failed to publicize this crucial lead as it has done for other Middle Eastern leads.
The US's interest in military operations in Afghanistan is not something new. In fact, the US government had actually already planned to attack Afghanistan prior to September 11. On Tuesday, September 18, the BBC's George Arney reported that Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials at a Berlin UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan that America would seek military action against the Taleban by the middle of October, 2001. He was told that the wider objective would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place — possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah. A similar report was made public in India Reacts in June, prior to the attacks, in which it spoke of "US and Russian plans for 'limited military action'."
Lee Coldren, one of the American officials at the gathering, confirmed this in a September 22 article in the Guardian: "I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action." However, he pointed out that it was not an agenda item at the meeting "but was mentioned just in passing". Tom Simons and Rick Inderfurth, both of whom were present at these meetings, denied these allegations.
On September 16, Vice President Dick Cheney revealed in an interview that in the hours following the attacks, President Bush had ordered the downing of any commercial jet that endangered Washington. As well, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz noted that