Killtown's

9/11 coincidences and oddities page!

(and other note worthy tidbits.)

Pre 2001 • 2001 • 9/11 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006

Last updated:  09/17/2007

(Use the WayBack Machine for expired links.)

• January 5, 2005 - Ex-FBI agent admits giving online stock traders 9/11 data.

"A former FBI agent admitted that he gave online stock traders confidential details of federal investigations, including a probe of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
One of the recipients was San Diego stock speculator Anthony Elgindy. A Justice Department task force had begun the investigation of Elgindy to determine whether anyone might have known of the terrorists' plans and profited by selling vulnerable stocks just before the attacks, Jeffrey Royer said.
Elgindy was not charged in connection with that probe, but an investigation into the ties between Elgindy and Royer led to charges against the two men of racketeering, securities fraud and other crimes. The two are on trial together in federal court in Brooklyn.
Taking the stand Monday in his defense, Royer acknowledged he had revealed the existence of FBI and SEC investigations, executives' criminal records and other sensitive information to Elgindy and associate Derrick Cleveland.
When pressed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Levine about apparent violations of FBI rules, Royer grew testy, asserting he was an independent-minded agent who had the right to decide what information to reveal.
"It's real easy for you to armchair quarterback when you don't have anything to do with the case," Royer told Levine. "Pursuant to a law-enforcement purpose, I can do anything I want with the files."
Cleveland has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and testified against Elgindy and Royer." -  San Diego Union Tribune (01/05/05)

• January 5, 2005 - Conspiracy theorists see dark forces behind tsunami disaster

"Just 11 days after Asia's tsunami catastrophe, conspiracy theorists are out in force, accusing governments of a cover-up, blaming the military for testing top-secret eco-weapons or aliens trying to correct the Earth's "wobbly" rotation.
In bars and Internet chatrooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the submarine earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments were so slow to act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slammed into their shores, killing almost 150,000.
"There's a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?" whispered designer Mark Tyler, drinking a pint of beer at a bar in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district.
"This happened exactly a year after Bam," said Tyler, referring to the earthquake in Iran which killed 30,000 on December 26 last year. "Is that a coincidence? And there was no previous seismic activity recorded in Sumatra before the quake, which is very strange," he said, nodding somberly.
After every globally shocking event -- from the bombing of Pearl Harbour to the assassination of John F Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States -- conspiracy theorists emerge with their own sinister take on events.
This time the Indian and US military are in the frame, while the governments of countries from Australia to Thailand stand accused of deliberately failing to act on warnings of the impending earthquake or the tsunamis it unleashed around Asia.
Among the more common suggestions is that eco-weapons which can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves were being tested.
The Free Internet Press, which claims to offer "uncensored news for real people", has an article saying the US military and the State Department received advanced warning of the tsunami, but did little to warn Asian countries.
America's Navy base on the Indian Ocean jungle atoll of Diego Garcia was notified and escaped unscathed, it said, asking "why were fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand not provided with the same warnings?.
"Why did the US State Department remain mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe?," author Michel Chossudovsky pondered.
The India Daily's website joined the conspiracy theorists noting, "it seems the whole world decided to fail to do anything together at the same time. Are we missing something?" - Channel News Asia/AFP (01/05/05)

• January 7, 2005 - CIA report faults top officials for pre-9/11 lapses

"A report from the CIA's independent investigator is expected to conclude officials at the highest level of the agency are to blame for pre-September 11 intelligence lapses.
The report by the CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, which is nearly complete, concludes that senior leaders should be held accountable for failing to provide adequate resources for combating terrorism, the New York Times reports in its Friday editions.
Among those who receive the most pointed criticism in a draft version are former CIA Director George Tenet and former Deputy Director of Operations Jim Pavitt, both of whom resigned last summer, the newspaper said. The report quoted current and former intelligence officials." - CNN (01/07/05)

• January 8, 2005 - Mysterious jet tied to torture flights, Is shadowy firm front for CIA?

"The first question is: Where is Leonard T. Bayard? The next question is: Who is Leonard T. Bayard? But the most important question may be: Does Leonard T. Bayard even exist?
The questions arise because the signature of a Leonard Thomas Bayard appears on the annual report of a Portland-based company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, that was filed in August with the Oregon secretary of state.
According to federal records, Bayard Foreign Marketing is the newest owner of a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V executive jet reportedly used since Sept. 11, 2001, to transport suspected Al Qaeda operatives to countries such as Egypt and Syria, where some of them claim to have later been tortured.
The Central Intelligence Agency has declined to discuss the plane. But one retired CIA officer said that he understood the Gulfstream had been operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, an interagency unit that organizes counterterrorist operations in conjunction with the CIA and military special forces.
A search of commercial databases turned up no information on Leonard Thomas Bayard: no residence address, no telephone number, no Social Security number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records--in short, none of the information commonly associated with real people.
And yet, someone signed the name Leonard T. Bayard to Bayard Foreign Marketing's annual report.
The first public mention of the Gulfstream appeared six weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, when a Pakistani newspaper reported that Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a 27-year-old microbiology student at Karachi University, had been spirited aboard the plane at Karachi's airport by Pakistani security officers in the early hours of Oct. 23, 2001.
There is no information about where Mohammed was taken. But Pakistani officials said later that Mohammed, a Yemeni national, was believed by the U.S. to belong to Al Qaeda and to have information about the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
Since Sept. 11, unnamed U.S. officials have been quoted in several publications discussing the U.S. practice of "rendition," which involves sending suspected terrorists or Al Qaeda supporters captured abroad for interrogation to countries where human rights are not traditionally respected.
The Sunday Times of London, which claimed to have obtained the plane's flight logs, reported in November that the plane was based at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. The newspaper said it had flown to at least 49 destinations outside the U.S., including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, other U.S. military bases, as well as airports in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Afghanistan, Libya and Uzbekistan.
Two days after the Sunday Times report, Premier Executive Transport sold the Gulfstream to Bayard Foreign Marketing. On Dec. 1, records show, the FAA assigned the plane yet another tail number, N44982." - Chicago Tribune (01/08/05)

• January 8, 2005 - ‘The Salvador Option’, The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq - Newsweek/MSNBC

• January 9, 2005 - Let bin Laden stay free, says ex-No. 3 CIA man A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard.

"Three years after the attack on New York's World Trade Center, the manhunt for Osama bin Laden has failed to produce the world's most wanted terrorist, and, according to the former No. 3 man at the CIA, that's just fine.
Former Central Intelligence Agency executive, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, has told the London Times that letting the al-Qaida leader run free may actually make the world a safer place.
"You can make the argument that we're better off with him (at large)," Krongard said. "Because if something happens to bin Laden, you might find a lot of people vying for his position and demonstrating how macho they are by unleashing a stream of terror."
Krongard, former head of Alex. Brown & Co., a Baltimore-based investment bank, came to the CIA in 1998 as then Director George Tenet's counsel. He was appointed executive director of the CIA in March 2001 by President Bush. Krongard, 68, stepped down six weeks ago as the agency's third most senior executive following the appointment of Porter Goss as director.
Krongard is the most senior official to date to publicly question the wisdom of capturing Osama. If his views are widely shared – and the London Times reports that other U.S. officials have privately said pinning bin Laden down on the Afghan-Pakistan border is preferable to making him a martyr or trying him – they represent a break with three years of official pronouncements about bringing him to justice.
Only this week the U.S. re-stated its desire to capture the elusive bin Laden and more than a dozen other al-Qaida figures by placing a half page ad in the Urdu daily "Jang" promising millions of dollars in rewards. "All the information would be kept secret," the U.S. Justice Department advertisement promised." - WorldNetDaily (01/09/05)

(See also:  September 6, 2001 - Put options placed on United Airlines were purchased through Bank formally ran by the No. 3 CIA man, "Buzzy" Krongard; December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies)

• January 11, 2005 - Bush nominates Whitewater scandal/Vincent Foster suicide investigator and Patriot Act co-architect Michael Chertoff  for Homeland Security Post.

President Bush nominated federal judge as the new Homeland Security chief Tuesday, completing the second-term Cabinet with a former prosecutor who recently called for a new look at the tough terrorist detainee laws that he helped craft after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chertoff would replace Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who helped build the new department after the terror attacks by combining 22 existing and often competing federal agencies. Ridge, often identified with the color-coded terror alerts, plans to step down from his post Feb. 1.
Chertoff's resume includes stint as a Supreme Court clerk and as the Senate Republicans' chief counsel for the Clinton-era Whitewater investigation. He helped develop the U.S. Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the government's surveillance and detention powers.
His role in crafting that law, a measure that has become a flashpoint for critics who say it has eroded civil liberties, is expected to bring sharp questioning in Senate confirmation hearings.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday that as an architect of the act, Chertoff seemed to view the Bill of Rights "as an obstacle to national security rather than a guidebook for how to do security properly."
Chertoff's tenure at the Justice Department included high-profile cases that his criminal division either lost or that have yet to be resolved:
The collapse in Detroit of the first post-Sept. 11 prosecution of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell. The charges were thrown out because of misconduct by prosecutors.
The case of a Saudi college student in Boise, Idaho, who was acquitted for lack of evidence on charges he created an Internet network that prosecutors claimed fostered Islamic extremism and helped recruit potential terrorists.
The still-incomplete prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only U.S. defendant charged in an al-Qaida conspiracy that includes the Sept. 11 attacks.
As chief Republican counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee, Chertoff played a major role in the investigation of various allegations against then-President Clinton, including his Arkansas business dealings and the suicide of Clinton aide Vincent Foster.
Chertoff and his wife each donated $1,000 to Bush's first presidential campaign." - ABC (01/11/05)

• January 11, 2005 - Supreme Court is asked to rule on Moussaoui case

"Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui petitioned the Supreme Court yesterday, challenging the government's right to put the terrorism suspect on trial while the defense has no access to potentially favorable Al Qaeda witnesses.
The written brief questioned whether Moussaoui's constitutional rights would be violated if the defense is forced to rely on government-prepared summaries of interrogation statements from three Al Qaeda captives.
A federal appeals court has approved the use of the summaries after the government argued that more direct access to Al Qaeda leaders, or even to their classified interrogation statements, would jeopardize national security.
The lawyers said it was unconstitutional to force Moussaoui to rely on ''summaries of classified documents containing information from unnamed, unsworn government agents purporting to report unsworn, incomplete, nonverbatim accounts" of witness statements.
Moussaoui, a French citizen arrested on immigration charges shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks, was indicted in December 2001 and remains the only US defendant charged in an Al Qaeda conspiracy that includes those attacks. The defendant has acknowledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden but denies he was to have any role in the hijackings.
The lawyers said Moussaoui was denied rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment, the right of the accused to confront his accusers; the Fifth Amendment, the right not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and the Eighth Amendment, the ban on cruel and unusual punishment." - Boston Globe/ (01/11/05)

(See also: July 19, 2002 - Judge rejects Moussaoui's 'I am guilty' plea; April 19, 2005 - Report: Moussaoui Plans to Plead Guilty)

• January 11, 2005 - Robert Scheer: Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?

"Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.
"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."
Stern stuff, indeed. But consider just a few of the many questions the program poses along the way:
• If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?
• How can it be that in Britain since 9/11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?
• Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?
• Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?
Consider, for example, that neither the 9/11 commission nor any court of law has been able to directly take evidence from the key post-9/11 terror detainees held by the United States. Everything we know comes from two sides that both have a great stake in exaggerating the threat posed by Al Qaeda: the terrorists themselves and the military and intelligence agencies that have a vested interest in maintaining the facade of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy." - LA Times (01/11/05)

• January 12, 2005 - The White House says the U.S. is no longer searching for the WMD's that President Bush often pointed to as he made his case for an Iraq war.

"The White House says the United States is no longer actively searching for the weapons of mass destruction that President Bush often pointed to as he made his case for war, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer.
Chief weapon hunter Charles Duelfer is expected to make only small additions to his October report that found Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated into only hopes and dreams by the time of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, says White House spokesman Scott McClennan." - CBS (01/12/05)

(See also:  October 7, 2004 - CIA report concludes no WMD's in Iraq)

• January 12, 2005 - Secretary Tom Ridge close to lobbying firm's chairman, Company's clients won lucrative Homeland Security contracts

"As the Homeland Security Department was starting up, Secretary Tom Ridge twice stayed overnight at the Arizona home of a wealthy friend who ran a lobbying firm that was aggressively expanding its homeland security business.
The Blank Rome firm, whose chairman is former Ridge fund-raiser David Girard-diCarlo, hired two of Ridge's aides to lobby the new department, and some of the firm's clients eventually landed lucrative contracts, according to documents and interviews.
Blank Rome has lobbied Ridge's department on behalf of 29 companies, three nonprofit groups and a trade association for the software industry, according to reports the firm filed with Congress.
In a statement, the lobbying firm called Ridge and Girard-diCarlo "close personal friends for more than a decade."
Ridge and Girard-diCarlo worked together in Pennsylvania to raise more than $400,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 1999 and 2000. Before that, Girard-diCarlo helped Ridge raise money as Pennsylvania governor.
The day after the department's creation on November 25, 2002, Ridge flew to Arizona with his wife and stayed overnight for two or three days in Girard-diCarlo's gated-community home in Scottsdale, officials say. Six days before Ridge's visit, Girard-diCarlo had taken out a $3 million loan on the newly built home.
The month after the trip, the first of two Ridge's White House aides left the government and went to work for Girard-diCarlo's firm focusing on homeland security issues.
That aide, Mark Holman, has been "the closest governmental and political adviser to Secretary Tom Ridge for over 18 years," a federal contractor proclaimed in promotional material for a seminar series for which Holman was a featured speaker.
Holman, Ridge's chief of staff during his years as Pennsylvania governor, worked briefly for Girard-diCarlo's firm before Ridge brought him to the White House.
When they got to Blank Rome, Holman and the other former Ridge White House aide, Ashley Davis, started signing up new homeland security clients and lobbying Ridge's department.
Ridge made a second trip to Girard-diCarlo's Arizona home in mid-April 2003, helping to celebrate the lobbyist's wedding anniversary with 50 other couples.
In addition to the two Arizona trips, Ridge has been to Girard-diCarlo's Washington condominium on social occasions, and the two have run into each other at social events around town, Ridge's office says.
At the time of Ridge's trips to Arizona, Girard-diCarlo's firm represented Raytheon, which is on a team of companies recently awarded border protection work by Ridge's department worth up to $10 billion over the next decade.
Since early 2003, Blank Rome has lobbied Ridge's department on behalf of the technology services company BearingPoint. The department awarded a $229 million contract to the company in September.
Boeing, another Blank Rome client, says it received help from Girard-diCarlo's firm in setting up a meeting early this year with the No. 2 official at Ridge's department, Adm. James Loy.
Boeing is performing more than $1 billion worth of work for Ridge's department under a competitively bid contract awarded by the Transportation Department the year before Homeland Security was created." - CNN (01/12/05)

• January 12, 2005 - The ACLU files a brief to the D.C. Court of Appeals to reinstate the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, saying that the government is abusing the "state secrets privilege" to silence employees who expose national security blunders.

"The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the D.C. Court of Appeals to reinstate the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, saying that the government is abusing the "state secrets privilege" to silence employees who expose national security blunders.
"The government should be applauding, not punishing, employees who risk their jobs to expose threats to our nation’s security," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "If the lower court ruling stands, many thousands of government employees will be unprotected from retaliatory dismissal, with no recourse in the courts, and others will be even less willing to risk exposing misconduct or corruption."
Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency’s translation program. She challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing suit in federal court. Last July, the district court dismissed her case when Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the so-called state secrets privilege. The ACLU is representing Edmonds in the appeal.
In the brief filed today, the ACLU sharply criticizes the government’s "radical theory" that every aspect of the Edmonds’ case involves state secrets and therefore it cannot go forward. In accepting the government’s theory, the ACLU said, the district court relied on the government’s secret evidence but denied Edmonds the opportunity to prove her case based on non-sensitive evidence. That approach, the ACLU said, "made a mockery of the adversarial process and denied Ms. Edmonds her constitutional right to a day in court."
The state secrets privilege, when properly invoked, permits the government to block disclosure of particular documents that would cause harm to national security. In the Edmonds case, the government used the privilege not just to protect particular documents but to urge dismissal of the entire case.
The government is engaged in a similar cover-up in the Edmonds case, the ACLU said. In 2002, at the request of Senate Judiciary Committee members Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the FBI provided several unclassified briefings to Members of Congress in which it confirmed many of Edmonds' allegations.
Only two weeks after the district court dismissed Edmonds’ case, FBI director Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Senator Grassley reporting that the Department of Justice Inspector General had completed a classified investigation and concluded that Edmonds’ allegations "were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services." - ACLU (01/12/05)

Sibel Edmonds, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. United States Department of Justice, et al.,

(See also:  April 26, 2004 - Bush Administration gags former Sibel Edmonds)

• January 12, 2005 - The FBI is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001.

 "If you're among the millions of Americans who took airline flights in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI probably knows about it - and possibly where you stayed, whom you traveled with, what credit card you used and even whether you ordered a kosher meal.
The bureau is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001 in its permanent investigative database, according to information obtained by a privacy group and made available to The Associated Press.
Privacy advocates say they're troubled by the possibility that the FBI could be analyzing personal information about people without their knowledge or permission.
Hofmann, though, said the FBI still had a legal responsibility to tell people that it had obtained information about them and to let them have access to it.
As part of its investigation into the terrorist attacks, the FBI asked for, and got, the records from a number of airlines shortly after Sept. 11. The FBI also got one set of data through a federal grand jury subpoena.
The privacy center in May requested records of the FBI's acquisition of the data. The bureau last week turned over 12 pages of information, much of it blanked out for security reasons.
The 12 pages do show that the bureau obtained 82.1 million passenger manifests, or lists of people who flew on planes, between January and September 2001, in addition to the 257.5 million passenger name records.
Citing privacy concerns, the FBI didn't reveal which airlines turned over the information, which airline employees turned it over and which FBI special agents got it.
The data are called passenger name records, or PNR, and can include a variety of information such as credit card numbers, travel itineraries, addresses, telephone numbers and meal requests.
David Hardy, the FBI's chief of the record/information dissemination section of the records management division, said in a legal document dated Jan. 5 that the data were being stored and combined with other information from the Sept. 11 investigation, dubbed PENTTBOMB." - Kansas City Star (01/14/05)

• January 18, 2005 - U.S. Companies Eye Trans-Afghan Pipeline - Forbes/AP (01/18/05)

• January 25, 2005 - 9/11 victim’s son asks FBI to describe his Mother's ordeal before her plane struck the WTC at Mounir el-Motassadeq's retrial.

"In harrowing exchanges before a German court, the son of a Sept. 11 victim asked an FBI agent on Tuesday to detail his mother’s ordeal in the “hellish” minutes before her plane hit New York’s World Trade Center.
“Are you able to conclude it would be akin to torture, what happened to my mother?” American Dominic Puopolo Jr. asked U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Matthew Walsh.
The exchanges came as Walsh gave a first day of testimony at the retrial of Mounir El Motassadeq, a Moroccan man accused of aiding and abetting the attacks that killed nearly 2,800 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Puopolo, a co-plaintiff with the German state prosecution, was seeking to reinforce the case against Motassadeq.
He repeatedly asked Walsh to try to describe what his mother Sonia Morales Puopolo and her fellow passengers must have experienced after hijackers led by Mohamed Atta took control of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles.
Walsh said the effects of pepper spray released by the hijackers were most severe at the front of the plane where Puopolo’s mother, a severe asthmatic, was sitting in first-class seat 3J, one row behind two of the hijackers and five rows in front of Atta.
“It was certainly what I would describe as hellish on board the plane,” Walsh said, adding two flight attendants had been stabbed and one passenger had his throat slashed.
“The plane was being flown very erratically and blood was being shed on board.” - MSNBC/Reuters (01/25/05)

(See also:  August 10, 2004 - U.S.: No testimony at Motassadeq's retrial; January 31, 2005 - Key al Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody said Motassadeq had no knowledge of the 9/11 plot)

• January 31, 2005 - A key al Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody has said Mounir el-Motassadeq had no knowledge of the 9/11 attack plot.

"A key al Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody has said a Moroccan man on trial in Germany had no knowledge of the September 11 attack plot, according to an interrogation summary.
The summary was read out Wednesday in the Hamburg courtroom where Mounir el-Motassadeq is being retried on charges in connection with the 2001 attack.
He was convicted in 2003 but the verdict was thrown out by an appeals court in March and he was freed in April.
The appeals court said the conviction was unfair because U.S.-held suspects didn't testify. As El-Motassadeq's retrial opened Tuesday, Washington pledged to provide evidence but not live testimony from the suspects.
The U.S. Justice Department faxed the German court summaries of the interrogation of two key detainees: Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Binalshibh, believed to be the Hamburg cell's contact with al Qaeda, said "the only members of the Hamburg cell were himself, Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah," according to the summary, The Associated Press reported.
Binalshibh said "the activities of the Hamburg group were not known to el Motassadeq," the summary added.
The group was "well known by a number of Arab students," but "Binalshibh said that the people in question had no knowledge and were not participants in any facet of the operative plans of September 11."
According to the summary, the Justice Department had "doubts" about some of the testimony, but the summary did not elaborate.
Binalshibh also said that while el-Motassadeq had transferred money on behalf of one of the plotters, he did not know for what purpose, Reuters reported.
Mohammed, who is believed to have masterminded the September 11 plot, told interrogators that Binalshibh had not told Motassadeq of the details for security reasons.
Binalshibh gave interrogators a list of more than a dozen names of people who he said had no knowledge of and did not take part in any aspect of the 9/11 plan. The list included Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspect being held in the United States, Reuters reported.
According to the summary, the Justice Department had "doubts" about some of the testimony, and that the persons interrogated might have withheld information.
German prosecutors have suggested Binalshibh would not be a credible witness because he might lie to protect el Motassadeq.
El-Motassadeq's lawyers are calling for the Hamburg state court to throw out the case, suggesting that any information gathered by U.S. intelligence services might have been obtained through use of torture.
U.S. authorities have said they cannot provide direct contact with suspects including Binalshibh and Mohammed for national security reasons.
But in el-Motassadeq's first trial, the U.S. government refused to allow even transcripts of interrogations to be admitted as evidence." - CNN (01/25/05)

(See also:  January 25, 2005 - 9/11 victim’s son asks FBI to describe his Mother's ordeal at Motassadeq's retrial; February 8, 2005 - A police witness says Motassadeq carried out money transactions on behalf of suicide pilot)

• January 31, 2005 - Citigroup dropped from lawsuit that charged that the diesel fuel it kept at WTC 7 was a main culprit in the destruction of the building on 9/11.

"Citigroup Inc. cannot be held responsible for the large stocks of diesel fuel it kept at 7 World Trade Center -- fuel that an insurance company claimed was a main culprit in the destruction of the building on Sept. 11, 2001 -- a federal judge ruled Friday.
Southern District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein found that covenants in Citigroup's lease with Larry Silverstein, and an insurance company's agreement with Silverstein, bar the company from proceeding as Silverstein's subrogee against Citigroup Inc. and Citigroup Global Market Holdings Inc.
In Industrial Risk Insurers v. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 02 Civ. 7170, Industrial Risk, or IRI, claimed that several parties were responsible for the destruction of 7 World Trade Center, which sat adjacent to the twin towers that were destroyed by terrorists.
Fires from the twin towers spread to 7 World Trade Center when chunks of the collapsing buildings fell on it. Citigroup had a long-term lease for portions of its floors one through five and floors 28 through 47 for trading operations for Salomon Smith Barney.
Seeking damages of $75 million, IRI claimed that the system, including the pipes connecting two 6,000 gallon tanks of diesel fuel kept on site by Citigroup in the event of a power outage, were negligently installed and maintained, and that the ignited fuel intensified the fires and ensured the building would fall." - Law.com (01/31/05)

(See also:  Killtown's: Was the WTC 7 pulled?)

• February 2, 2005 - Neighbor says Atta seemed 'disturbed'

"Sept. 11 suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta appeared "psychologically disturbed" and acted "distant" when encountered on the street, a former neighbor testified Wednesday during the retrial of a Moroccan accused of providing logistical support for the attacks.
Indra Andrea Braun, 34, lived next door to Atta in a Hamburg suburb and said she saw defendant Mounir el Motassadeq visiting him. Atta was also visited by suicide pilots Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi and others suspected of involvement in the Sept. 11 plot, she said.
Braun was married to an Iranian Muslim and lived in an adjoining building to Atta for several years, but she said her neighbor never spoke to her.
"For me, he was psychologically disturbed. He had communication problems," she said. "I didn't find him threatening, just strange and distant."
She said she and her husband would try to provoke Atta when they saw him outside his apartment.
"My husband would often kiss me on the street," she said. "Atta was disgusted ... my husband did it just to annoy his type."
Friends and family have said Atta was intensely uncomfortable around women, even once refusing to shake a female professor's hand when she told him he had earned his degree.
Braun did not shed more light on el Motassadeq's role, saying he was only one of a group of people around Atta whom she would see in the neighborhood." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (02/02/05)

(See also:  August 16, 2002 - Germany issues the first indictment against Motassadeq for conspiracy with 9/11)

• February 2, 2005 - Ashcroft urges renewal of Patriot Act powers

"Attorney General John Ashcroft conceded Tuesday that he could have done a better job explaining the Patriot Act, though he defended the criticism he lobbed at foes of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.
"There has been a lot of discussion about the Patriot Act that really might have been avoided had it been clearly understood," he said, shouldering some blame for confusion surrounding the 2001 law that gave federal law enforcement broad new powers to investigate crime and terrorism.
In his session with reporters and a speech earlier Tuesday, Ashcroft urged Congress to renew the wiretap and other Patriot Act powers that expire at year's end.
Ashcroft, who drew an outcry in 2001 when he claimed that administration critics aided terrorists by evoking "phantoms of lost liberty," stood by those words.
"Everybody ought to raise real questions about lost liberty, but if they are just fabrications of lost liberty . . . I stand by my statement, people who do that divert us," he said.
In an hourlong sit-down with reporters, he defended the decision to bring terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui before the criminal courts rather than a military tribunal. "It's very important for us to demonstrate that we can do complex terrorism cases in the criminal-justice system," Ashcroft said." - AZCentral/Dallas Morning News (02/02/05)

(See also:  January 26, 2004 - A federal judge has declared a section of the Patriot Act unconstitutional; February 14, 2005 - Bush Urges Congress to Renew Patriot Act)

• February 6, 2005 - Alleged 9/11 hijacker, Nawaf Alhazmi, is reported to be the pilot of Flight 77 in an AP article.

"The terrorist believed to have flown a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, obtained a California driver's license without providing the required Social Security number for identification, officials are acknowledging for the first time.
Nawaf M.S. Alhazmi then used that license when he registered for the flight training that enabled him to pilot the doomed airliner." - San Luis Obispo Tribune/AP (02/06/05)

(See also:  Killtown's:  Did Flight 77 really crash into the Pentagon?)

• February 6, 2005 - Alleged Flight 77 hijacker, Nawaf Alhazmi, obtained a California driver's license by using a Social Security number bypass code.

"The terrorist believed to have flown a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, obtained a California driver's license without providing the required Social Security number for identification, officials are acknowledging for the first time.
Nawaf M.S. Alhazmi then used that license when he registered for the flight training that enabled him to pilot the doomed airliner.
Alhazmi used a loophole, since closed, in California law that allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign drivers without Social Security numbers to use a generic number in its place. Even some foreign citizens with Social Security numbers skirted the identity check required of U.S. citizens.
California was one of the first states to require that Social Security numbers be verified as part of a routine identification check when driver's licenses were issued. But a 1994 court decision required the state to also give driver's licenses to qualified applicants, such as foreign students, who had no Social Security number. Those forms were processed with the bypass code.
Alhazmi used his own name and presented other identification to get his license. But a Social Security number is the nation's standard identification number; if Alhazmi had used one for his license, he might have been easier for authorities to track.
While it was commonly known after 9/11 that Alhazmi had a California driver's license, it has not previously been reported in any detail that he obtained it using a bypass number also used by thousands of other foreign citizens, said DMV spokesman Bill Branch." - San Luis Obispo Tribune/AP (02/06/05)

• February 7, 2005 - Montreal terrorist suspect Adil Charkaoui, who has been detained in Canada for nearly two years, testifies in court for the first time and suggests that ultra-conservative Americans were behind 9/11 for economic gain and calls the attacks the "world's biggest conspiracy".

"A Moroccan-born Montrealer detained for nearly two years on suspicion of being a terrorist testified for the first time yesterday, suggesting ultra-conservative Americans may have been responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"I'm not an expert but from what I read, some guy living in a cave doesn't have the means to plan an attack against the most powerful nation in the world," Adil Charkaoui said when Federal Court Justice Simon Noël asked who was responsible for the attacks.
"It could've been (Osama) bin Laden," Charkaoui said. "But maybe it was done by ultra-conservatives in the United States for economic gain.
"It was the world's biggest conspiracy."
Charkaoui denied at his bail hearing that he was a terrorist and vowed to abide by any conditions imposed by the judge.
Many household names, including filmmaker Denys Arcand, have posted about $50,000 bail for Charkaoui, who is being held under a controversial provision of the Immigration Act known as a security certificate.
Most of the evidence against him is seen only by the government and the judge.
The judge doesn't have to determine whether Charkaoui is indeed a terrorist, just whether the two ministers who signed the certificate had reasonable cause to do so.
If Noël decides they did, Charkaoui faces deportation to Morocco, where the federal government has already said he faces possible torture.
There is no chance for an appeal." - Toronto Star/Canadian Press (02/08/05)

• February 8, 2005 - A police witness says Mounir al-Motassadeq carried out money transactions on behalf of one of the suicide pilots.

"Mounir al-Motassadeq, the Moroccan on trial in Hamburg as an accused accomplice in the 11 September terror attacks, carried out money transactions on behalf of one of the suicide pilots, a police witness said on Tuesday.
Motassadeq had power of attorney for Marwan al-Shehhi who was believed to have been at the controls of the hijacked plane which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center in 2001, the court was told.
The Federal Police Department witness said Motassadeq carried out several transactions on behalf of al-Shehhi.
These included one in September 2000 when Motassadeq transferred DEM 5,000 (EUR 2556.50) from al-Shehhi's account at the Dresdner Bank in Hamburg to an account belonging to Ramzi bin al- Shibh, who is thought to have organised the 9/11 attacks.
In several cases there was a "time proximity" between money taken from al-Shehhi's account and money arriving on Motassadeq's account, the investigator said." - Expatica (02/08/05)

(See also:  January 31, 2005 - Key al Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody said Motassadeq had no knowledge of the 9/11 plot; August 16, 2002 - Germany issues the first indictment against Motassadeq for conspiracy with 9/11)

• February 9, 2005 - Court to decide access to NYC's 9/11 emergency tapes.

"The state's highest court heard arguments Wednesday in a two-year struggle over access to a trove of city transcripts and tape recordings from Sept. 11, 2001.
At issue before the Court of Appeals is access to tapes of 911 calls, Fire Department dispatches and transcripts of interviews with hundreds of firefighters who responded on the day of the attack.
The New York Times filed the lawsuit after the city declined to release the items. The paper was later joined by relatives of civilians and firefighters who died at the World Trade Center.
In fighting the suit the city has cited privacy issues, concern over the emotions of the grieving and the ongoing terror prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia.
Judge Albert Rosenblatt pressed the plaintiff to "give us an example of a privacy interest. Otherwise there is no standard."
"The burden of proof is on the city," Norman Siegel, a lawyer representing the families, said, adding that the city did not consult "a single family member" before refusing to release the items.
John Hogrogian, a lawyer for the city, did not deny that.
About two dozen relatives of Sept. 11 victims journeyed to Albany to attend the hearing.
"If the city has someone who was against releasing the tapes we should have heard from them," said Russell Mercer, the stepfather of firefighter Scott Kopytko, 33, who died on Sept. 11." - Newsday (02/09/05)

• February 9, 2005 - A previously undisclosed report completed by the 9/11 Commission last August, more than two months before the '04 Presidential election, reports that FAA chiefs received 52 warnings in the six months before 9/11 about attacks from Bin Laden and al-Qaida including some that mentioned airline hijackings and suicide attacks.

"In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.
"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."
The report, like previous commission documents, finds no evidence that the government had specific warning of a domestic attack and says that the aviation industry considered the hijacking threat to be more worrisome overseas.
"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the F.A.A.'s own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990's and into the new century," the report said.
In its previous findings, including a final report last July that became a best-selling book, the 9/11 commission detailed the harrowing events aboard the four hijacked flights that crashed on Sept. 11 and the communications problems between civil aviation and military officials that hampered the response. But the new report goes further in revealing the scope and depth of intelligence collected by federal aviation officials about the threat of a terrorist attack.
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."
Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.
Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.
The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in the San Diego area, the report said.
Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer," the report said.
Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator at the time, told the commission "that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," the report said. But several other senior agency officials "were basically unaware of the threat," as were senior airline operations officials and veteran pilots, the report said.
The classified version of the commission report quotes extensively from circulars prepared by the F.A.A. about the threat of terrorism, but many of those references have been blacked out in the declassified version, officials said.
Several former commissioners and staff members said they were upset and disappointed by the administration's refusal to release the full report publicly." - New York Times (02/10/05)

"Federal aviation officials received dozens of warnings before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, including some that mentioned airline hijackings or suicide attacks, The New York Times reported.
In its Thursday editions, the Times said a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the suicide airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon detailed 52 warnings given to leaders of the Federal Aviation Administration from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader.
Information in this report was available to members of the 9/11 commission when they issued their public report last summer. That report itself contained criticisms of FAA operations." - ABC (02/10/05)

• February 10, 2005 - Critics Want Full Report of 9/11 Panel

"The Bush administration came under pressure on Thursday to make public the full classified version of a report from the 9/11 commission that is critical of the government's failure to heed aviation threats before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Former members of the commission, victims' families, open-government advocates and a leading Democrat called on the administration to release the entire report on aviation problems surrounding the attacks.
The commission completed the report in August, and commission members said the administration blocked their efforts to release the report.
The administration delivered a declassified version of the report to the National Archives two weeks ago with numerous deletions of material it considered too sensitive for the public to see.
Commissioners from the 9/11 panel said they believed that the entire report should be public.
Administration officials said declassifying the report had been slowed by the fact that the commission no longer existed and that it was unclear who was authorized to work on the declassification.
The commission said several members and staff members who maintained security clearances were in a position to work on the declassification.
In a letter on Thursday, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, asked that the report be made public and called for a Congressional hearing into whether the administration had "misused the classification process" to withhold it.
The letter, responding to an article on Thursday in The New York Times reporting the existence of the commission report, questioned whether the administration had kept the report secret for political reasons "until after the November elections."
Administration officials denied that." - New York Times (02/11/05)

• February 10, 2005 - Families outraged over FAA 9/11 warnings

"Expressing outrage Thursday, family members of 9/11 victims called on the federal government to probe why it didn't act on intelligence warning of terrorist hijackings in the months before the World Trade Center was destroyed.
"The fact of the matter is these warnings were out there and nobody did anything about it," said Bill Doyle of Staten Island, who lost his son Joseph Doyle at the trade center. "My biggest concern is how high up did this get into the administration.
"There were people who testified at the 9/11 hearings that there were no warnings, but now we know there were. We need another investigation into the failures of 9/11. Obviously, someone at the FAA should be held accountable." Doyle said he received 253 e-mails yesterday from victim's families expressing anger over the declassified report.
Attorney Sanford Rubenstein, who represents families in a 9/11-related federal lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, said the families were hoping something good could come from the declassified information.
"It is clear that what the victims hope is what comes out of this information will prevent another 9/11," Rubinstein said. City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.(D-Astoria), said, "It was outrageous that no action was taken by the FAA." "How much more specific than the word hijack before the FAA increases security?" said Vallone." - Newsday (02/10/05)

• February 11, 2005 - Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers confirm there were four wargames on 9/11 from a question asked by Rep. Cynthia McKinney at the FY06 defense budget hearing at the Capitol.

"Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld in House Hearing on FY06 Dept. of Defense Budget
Chairman Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and witnesses Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and JCS Chairman General Richard Myers hold a House Hearing on the FY 2006 Budget for the Department of Defense and Military Services.
3/11/2005: WASHINGTON, DC: 2 hr. 5 min.

CMK: Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
DR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
RM: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers
DH: Chairman Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

25:20
CMK: Finally Mr. Secretary, after the last Hearing, I thought that my office was promised a written response to my question regarding the four wargames on September 11th. I have not yet received that response, but would like for you to respond to the questions that I've put to you today. And then I do expect the written response to my previous question - hopefully by the end of the week.
----
RM: Okay I don't know about the promise, Congresswoman, but could you repeat the question to make sure I'm answering the right question; this is a 9/11 question.
31:25
CMK: The question was, we had four wargames going on on September 11th, and the question that I tried to pose before the Secretary had to go to lunch was whether or not the activities of the four wargames going on on September 11th actually impaired our ability to respond to the attacks.
RM: The answer to the question is no, it did not impair our response, in fact General Eberhart who was in the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command as he testified in front of the 9/11 Commission I believe - I believe he told them that it enhanced our ability to respond, given that NORAD didn't have the overall responsibility for responding to the attacks that day. That was an FAA responsibility. But they were two CPXs; there was one Department of Justice exercise that didn't have anything to do with the other three; and there was an actual operation ongoing because there was some Russian bomber activity up near Alaska. So we -
CMK: Let me ask you this, then: who was in charge of managing those wargames?
DH: General, why don't you give the best answer that you can here in a short a period of time and we'll - the gentlelady wants to get a written answer anyway, and then we can move on to other folks.
RM: The important thing to realize is that North American Aerospace Defense Command was responsible. These are command post exercises; what that means is that all the battle positions that are normally not filled are indeed filled; so it was an easy transition from an exercise into a real world situation. It actually enhanced the response; otherwise, it would take somewhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours to fill those positions, those battle stations, with the right staff officers.
CMK: Mr. Chairman, begging your indulgence, was September Eleventh declared a National Security Special Event day?
RM: I have to look back; I do not know. Do you mean after the fact, or
CMK: No. Because of the activities going on that had been scheduled at the United Nations that day.
RM: I'd have to go back and check. I don't know." - C-Span (03/11/05) [Transcription and video:  fromthewilderness.com; video:  youtube, prisonplanet.com]

(See also:  9/11 (6 am) - Military participants  in NORAD' s "Vigilant Guardian" wargame thought the first reports of the hijackings were "part of the exercise")

• February 11, 2005 - Seattle Post commentary:  Truth held hostage

"It's difficult to decide which is more outrageous -- federal aviation officials' failure to follow through on intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, that warned of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden using airliner hijackings and suicide operations, or the Bush administration's refusal to let the American public know about it before the November election.
The administration has for five months blocked public release of the full version of the 9/11 commission report, even though former commission members insist that it provides what The New York Times calls a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system that contributed to the atrocities.
This revelation perhaps would not have changed the outcome of the presidential election. But that could not have been clear to the administration in the months between the report's completion and the resolution at the polls of what was widely presumed to be a very tight race with Sen. John Kerry.
In April last year, President Bush said, "Had I any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country. ..." The 9/11 commission report apparently found that there were indeed such inklings, which should have "raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990s and into the new century."
We're left with a pretty good inkling as to why the president moved heaven and earth to keep it quiet before the election." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (02/11/05)

• February 11, 2005 - A newly released memo written by former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration about al Qaeda, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until 9/11.

"A newly released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The memo dated January 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks on New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site Thursday.
The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, had been described during the hearings but its full contents had not been disclosed.
Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.
The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by al Qaeda.
It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.
The document was declassified April 7, 2004, one day before Rice's testimony before the September 11 commission. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive -- a private library of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The meeting on al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until September 4, 2001." - CNN (02/11/05)

January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo - National Security Archive

(See also:  January 25, 2001 - Richard Clarke warns the Bush administration in a memo about the threat al Qaeda poses)

• February 13, 2005 - A 32-story Madrid skyscraper is gutted by a fire, but does not collapse and was housed mostly by Deloitte & Touche, the largest U.S. accounting firm, which also had offices destroyed in the WTC 2 building on 9/11.

"A fire described as the worst in Madrid's history ravaged a 32-story skyscraper in the Spanish capital's financial district on Sunday, causing no injuries, but the tower stayed upright despite fears of collapse.
The building, which houses the offices of U.S. accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, was completed in 1979." - ABC/Reuters (02/13/05)

"Most of it housed offices of international auditing giant Deloitte, which also lost its offices in the World Trade Centre in the 9/11 attacks." - Scotsman (02/14/05)

"A blaze in Madrid destroyed a 32- story downtown office building mostly occupied by Deloitte & Touche LLP, the largest U.S. accounting firm. Fire services haven't ruled out the possibility that the block could collapse.
New York-based Deloitte & Touche occupied 20 floors of the building, where about 1,000 employees worked, Deloitte's Madrid spokesman Gregorio Panadero said. Deloitte audits 19 of Spain's 35 largest-traded companies by market value, including Telefonica SA, Santander Central Hispano SA and Repsol YPF SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Financial information is ``safe'' because it's held on computer back-ups and the majority of Deloitte's Madrid employees can continue working tomorrow from other locations, Panadero said in an interview." - Bloomberg (02/13/05)

"WTC TENANTS LIST - 2 World Trade Center (South Tower) - Deloitte & Touche [10 floor] - September11Victims.com

(See also:  9/11 (5:20pm) - WTC 7 collapses supposedly from an internal fire; October 19, 2004 - A 56-story Venezuela skyscraper burns for over 17 hours, but does not collapse)

• February 14, 2005 - Bush Urges Congress to Renew Patriot Act As New Attorney General Is Sworn In

"President Bush on Monday urged Congress to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, the Justice Department's widely criticized anti-terrorism law.
"We must not allow the passage of time or the illusion of safety to weaken our resolve in this new war" on terrorism, Bush said at a swearing-in ceremony for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the Justice Department.
The Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, bolstered FBI surveillance and law-enforcement powers in terror cases, increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado for months, and allowed secret proceedings in immigration cases.
Civil liberties groups and privacy advocates lambasted the law because they said it undermines freedom. But Bush said the act "has been vital to our success in tracking terrorists and disrupting their plans." He noted that many key elements of the law are set to expire at the end of the year and said Congress must act quickly to renew it." - ABC (02/14/05)

(See also:  February 2, 2005 - Ashcroft urges renewal of Patriot Act powers; October 26, 2001 - Only a month and a half after 9/11, the PATRIOT ACT is signed into law)

• February 14, 2005 - National ID cards on the way? - CNET News (02/14/05)

• February 14, 2005 - Spanish prosecutors seeks 222,000 years in prison and nearly $1.17 billion in fines for 9/11 suspects.

"Spanish prosecutors are seeking a total of 222,000 years in prison and nearly $1.17 billion in fines for three suspects accused of aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The punishments are among a total of 230,000 years of prison terms sought for 24 suspects held in jail on charges of belonging to an al Qaeda unit in Spain, according to court documents filed Monday.
The prison terms correspond to all the charges, including 2,973 murders for those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, but Spanish law would limit jail sentences to a maximum of 40 years.
The suspected leader of the cell is Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, born in 1963 and also known as Abu Dahdah, who investigators believe financed and organized Islamic militants in Spain.
He and two other suspects — 32-year-old Moroccan Driss Chebli and 41-year-old Syrian Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun — are charged with aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers in their preparations for the attacks on New York and Washington.
Prosecutors seek sentences of some 74,000 years for each of the three and fines of 893 million euros.
Another high-profile suspect from the 24 due to go on trial is Tayseer Alouni, 49, a correspondent from Arabic television channel Al Jazeera who interviewed Osama bin Laden shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.
Prosecutors are seeking an eight-year term for Alouni on charges of collaborating with a terrorist organization. Alouni has repeatedly maintained his innocence." - ABC/Reuters (02/14/05)

• February 15, 2005 - Fahrenheit 9/11 had no effect, says Carlyle chief and reported its "best ever" year.

"The Carlyle Group, the American private equity firm whose former Saudi links were highlighted by film-maker Michael Moore, yesterday reported its "best ever" year and said it returned $5.3bn (£2.8bn) to its investors in 2004.
The performance underlined the sheer size of Carlyle. The group withdrew either partially or completely from 71 investments and made 107 new investments. It raised $7.8bn for investment and the amount of cash it returned was more than twice the level of 2003.
Carlyle's London managing director, Robert Easton, said Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 had had no effect on the day-to-day running of the company.
"In defence we have less than 1% of our funds deployed, but it is the defence sector that gets most noise from the likes of Michael Moore," he said. "Defence is now such a small part of our business because we have grown massively in other sectors."
Within a few months of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Carlyle bought out the investment in some of its funds of a half-brother of Osama bin Laden. The group says it now has no investments in Saudi Arabia.
Former US president George Bush senior, who was shown in Moore's film meeting wealthy Saudis, retired as a Carlyle adviser in 2003. Former British prime minister John Major is still an adviser, but no longer chairman of Carlyle Europe.
Carlyle has almost $19bn under management in Asia, North America and Europe. Companies within Carlyle's portfolio are thought to employ more than 150,000 people worldwide. The industries in which it has invested most are property, telecommunications and media, aerospace, information technology, and automobiles and transport." - Guardian (02/15/05)

(See also:  October 21, 2003 - Former President and CIA Director, George H. W. Bush, retires from the Carlyle Group)

• February 16, 2005 - Secret FBI report doubts Al Qaeda can stage another 9/11-type and says it knows of no sleeper cells in the U.S.

Secret FBI Report Questions Al Qaeda Capabilities

A secret FBI report obtained by ABC News concludes that while there is no doubt al Qaeda wants to hit the United States, its capability to do so is unclear.
"...their capability to do so is unclear, particularly in regard to 'spectacular' operations. We believe al-Qa'ida's capability to launch attacks within the United States is dependent on its ability to infiltrate and maintain operatives in the United States."

And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none.
The 32-page assessment says flatly, "To date, we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the US," seemingly contradicting the "sleeper cell" description prosecutors assigned to seven men in Lackawanna, N.Y., in 2002.

It also differs from testimony given by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who warned in the past that several sleeper cells were probably in place.
"Our greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify," Mueller said at a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing in February 2003. "Finding and rooting out al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States and have had time to establish themselves is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge."
When the secret report was issued last month, on Feb. 16, Mueller testified at a hearing before the same committee that the lack of evidence concerned him. "I am concerned about what we are not seeing," he said.

But the report continues that "US recruits are hard to find and al-Qa'ida detainees have reported that US citizens can be difficult to work with, one senior detainee claimed that US citizens and others who grew up in the West, were too independent and thought they knew more about US operations than senior planners."  - ABC (03/09/05)

Secret FBI report doubts al-Qaida can stage 9/11-type strikes in US

"A secret FBI report has cast doubt on al-Qa'ida's ability to stage another "spectacular" attack in the US, three and a half years after the 9/11 suicide hijackings and a year after the Madrid bombings, the network's only other major strike in the West." - Independent UK (03/13/05) [Reprinted at:  agonist.org]

• February 16, 2005 - What We Don't Know About 9/11 Hurts Us - The Nation (02/16/05)

• February 17, 2005 - War Costs May Exceed $300 Billion - FOX News (02/17/05)

• February 18, 2005 - NY debates post-9/11 demolition - Disaster News Network (02/18/05)

• February 23, 2005 - Company's Work in Iraq Profited Bush's Uncle, William H.T. 'Bucky' Bush earned $450,000 on stock options with defense contractor ESSI.

"The Iraq war helped bring record earnings to St. Louis-based defense contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc., and new financial data show that the firm's war-related profits have trickled down to a familiar family name — Bush.
William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, uncle of the president and youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush, cashed in ESSI stock options last month with a net value of nearly half a million dollars.
"Uncle Bucky," as he is known to the president, is on the board of the company, which supplies armor and other materials to U.S. troops. The company's stock prices have soared to record heights since before the invasion, benefiting in part from contracts to rapidly refit fleets of military vehicles with extra armor.
William Bush exercised options on 8,438 shares of company stock Jan. 18, according to reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He acknowledged in an interview that the transaction was worth about $450,000.
William Bush, 66, a onetime St. Louis bank executive and head of an investment firm, joined the board in 2000, eight months before his nephew won the White House.
Some of the firm's Defense Department work has included no-bid, sole-source contracts, including a $48.8-million deal to refurbish military trailers.
Other company contracts have raised questions.
Pentagon Acting Undersecretary Michael Wynne said he had referred the contracts "that appear to have anomalies in them." Wynne and his aides would not elaborate on those anomalies. Other contracts referred for review included pacts with Accenture (formerly called Andersen Consulting), Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Company officials acknowledge the war is an economic boon to the firm.
In the conference call with analysts Tuesday, ESSI's Potthoff expressed optimism that the Bush administration's proposed $82-billion supplemental defense budget submitted last week could mean substantial additional opportunities for the company in Iraq and elsewhere.
"Personally, I could not be more happy about our company's prospects," Potthoff told stock analysts." - LA Times (02/23/05)

• February 23, 2005 - Nearly Half of NY Sept. 11 Dead Cannot Be Identified, Forensics at New York's Ground Zero Ends

"New York authorities have ended efforts to identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving the remains of nearly half the 2,749 people killed in the World Trade Center unidentified, the city's medical examiner said on Wednesday.
Some 9,720 unidentified bone and tissue fragments have been sealed and stored in case developments in technology allow for identification in the future, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
Of those killed, 42 percent remain unidentified due to difficulties in getting DNA samples from the remains.
The medical examiner's office has identified 1,585 victims, but progress has slowed to a halt on 1,161 victims. Only eight remains have been identified since September." - Reuters (02/23/05)

• February 26, 2005 - CIA blind to its shortcomings before 9/11, former spy says - SF Gate (02/26/05)

• February 28, 2005 - Judge Restricts Discovery To Speed 9/11-Related Cases - NY Lawyer (02/28/05)

• February 28, 2005 - Judge: Charge Or Release Padilla - CBS (02/28/05)

• March 1, 2005 - Turkmenistan, Afghanistan Agree on Pipeline - Forbes/AP (03/01/05)

(See also:  December 23, 2004 - Afghan President Karzai chooses ex Unocal engineer for Minister of Mines and Industries; April 13, 2005 - Afghanistan to Request Long-Term U.S. Protection)

• March 1, 2005 - Former senator discusses role on 9/11 Commission - The Daily/Univ of Washington (03/01/05)

• March 3, 2005 - Boeing shares rise back to pre-9/11 levels - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (03/03/05)

• March 3, 2005 - House Passes 9/11-Inspired Doomsday Bill - ABC (03/03/05)

• March 4, 2005 - Bush says stopping bin Laden the 'greatest challenge' - Washington Times (03/04/05)

• March 5, 2005 - Buffett says he "struck out" in 2004 - Salon (03/05/05)

• March 5, 2005 - Afghanistan opium production surges.

Report: Afghan opium production surges

"More than three years after installing a pro-U.S. government, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state, a presidential report said Friday.
The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a record of more than 510,000 acres, more than triple the figure for 2003. Opium poppy is the raw material for heroin.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. military deposed the Taliban government in November 2001. President Hamid Karzai has been in charge since then with strong American backing." - USA Today (03/05/05)

(See also:  July 2000 - Taliban bans the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan)

• March 5, 2005 - Efforts to Hide Sensitive Data Pit 9/11 Concerns Against Safety - NY Times (03/05/05)

• March 6, 2005 - Bush Gave CIA Expansive Interrogation Power days after 9/11 - Reuters (03/06/05)

• March 7, 2005 - Chertoff Cousin Wrote 9/11 Propaganda For Popular Mechanics Magazine - Rense.com/American Free Press (03/07/05)

• March 7, 2005 - Hunter Thompson's Suicide Fuels Conspiracy Buzz - NY Post (03/07/05)

• March 7, 2005 - CIA Report Finds Its Officials Failed In Pre-9/11 Efforts - NY Times (03/07/05)

• March 7, 2005 - Airline ticket agent recalls encounter with 9-11 hijackers - Billings Gazette (03/07/05)

• March 7, 2005 - CIA Jets Fly the War on Terror - ABC (03/07/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Study: Post-9/11 news drove liberals toward a harder line - News@UW-Madison (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - FBI Warns of 'Special Interest' Aliens - ABC (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Baker to retire next month from Carlyle Group - NY Lawyer (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - City's 9/11 risk drops to $1.3B - NY Daily News (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Expert: Atta Long Involved With 9/11 Plot - Guardian (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Defense Wants Bush to Testify at German 9/11 Trial - ABC (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - US expert testifies at 9/11 trial - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Injured soldiers evacuated to the US never arrive during day, Pentagon has yet to offer explanation why - Salon (03/08/05)

• March 8, 2005 - Why can't the US find bin Laden? - Asia Times (03/08/05)

• March 9, 2005 - 9/11 Panel's Findings Strain German Case - Washington Post (03/09/05)

• March 9, 2005 - Bin Laden approved US attack: court - Sydney Morning Herald (03/09/05)

• March 9, 2005 - FBI shielded me from al-Qaeda kidnap plot, says Crowe - Scotsman (03/09/05)

• March 10, 2005 - Journalism Groups Seek Government Openness - ABC (03/10/05)

• March 10-16, 2005 - NORAD touts readiness - Colorado Springs Independent (03/10-16/05)

• March 13, 2005 - Post-9/11 secrecy produces some undesirable results - USA Today (03/13/05)

• March 13, 2005 - Your essential right to know - Journal Gazette/Fort Wayne (03/13/05)

• March 13, 2005 - Qaeda Ally May Target U.S. Theaters, Schools -Report - Reuters (03/13/05)

• March 13, 2005 - Al-Qaida Ability Diminishing, Agents Say - ABC (03/13/05)

• March 13, 2005 - Poll: Secrecy in Government a Problem - FOX (03/13/05)

• March 14, 2005 - 9/11 panel to hit loose ID controls - Washington Times (03/14/05)

• March 14, 2005 - FBI: Aviation Still Vulnerable - CBS (03/14/05)

• March 14, 2005 - Kerik Says He Didn't Keep Money From 9/11 Book - New York 1 (03/14/05)

• March 14, 2005 - Kerik's royalties shocker, Gets $75G for 9/11 book - NY Daily News (03/14/05)

• March 14, 2005 - Signs of Anthrax at Two Pentagon Mailrooms - ABC (03/14/05)

• March 15, 2005 - Pakistan Says Forces Nearly Hunted Down Bin Laden - ABC (03/15/05)

• March 15, 2005 - 9/11 Families Troubled by Va. Man's Flag Auction, Cancer Patient Nets $371,000 on eBay - Washington Post (03/15/05)

• March 16, 2005 - Bush to pick Wolfowitz for World Bank - CNN (03/16/05)

• March 17, 2005 - Bush administration made plans for war to oust Saddam and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks.

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

"The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas.
The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London headed by Fadhil Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel.
Mr Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Newsnight he flew to the London meeting at the request of the State Department.
Mr Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's "back-channel" to Saddam, claims that plans to sell off Iraq's oil, pushed by the US-installed Governing Council in 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and attacks on US and British occupying forces.
"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing your country, you're losing your resources to a bunch of wealthy billionaires who want to take you over and make your life miserable,'" said Mr Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.
"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, built on the premise that privatisation is coming."
Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.
Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer, the US occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003, that: "There was to be no privatisation of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved."
Ariel Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's oil fields.
He advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he called a "no-brainer" decision.
Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would agree with that statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer. It would only be thought about by someone with no brain."
New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called for creation of a state-owned oil company favoured by the US oil industry. It was completed in January 2004 under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in Texas.
Formerly US Secretary of State, Baker is now an attorney representing Exxon-Mobil and the Saudi Arabian government.
Questioned by Newsnight, Ms Jaffe said the oil industry prefers state control of Iraq's oil over a sell-off because it fears a repeat of Russia's energy privatisation. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, US oil companies were barred from bidding for the reserves.
Ms Jaffe says US oil companies are not warm to any plan that would undermine Opec and the current high oil price: "I'm not sure that if I'm the chair of an American company, and you put me on a lie detector test, I would say high oil prices are bad for me or my company."
The former Shell oil boss agrees. In Houston, he told Newsnight: "Many neo conservatives are people who have certain ideological beliefs about markets, about democracy, about this, that and the other. International oil companies, without exception, are very pragmatic commercial organizations. They don't have a theology."
A State Department spokesman told Newsnight they intended "to provide all possibilities to the Oil Ministry of Iraq and advocate none". - BBC (03/17/05)

(See also:  January 31, 2001 - Treasury Department memo contains military plan for a post-Saddam Iraq marked secret)

• March 17, 2005 - Giuliani firm's deal to advise company raises questions.

"Giuliani Partners, the security consulting firm of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, has signed a multimillion-dollar deal with a struggling Los Angeles business backed by investors with a history of securities-related charges, regulatory records show.

The marketing partnership raises the question of how much Giuliani and his firm know about Applied DNA Sciences (APDN), a fast-rising "penny stock," or a small company that trades for under $5 a share on the OTC Bulletin Board.

Giuliani's firm also stands to receive 21 million Applied shares, which would make it the largest shareholder of Applied. The shares were worth $10 million when the agreement was signed.

Two securities lawyers say it's curious that Giuliani's firm signed a marketing deal with an ailing company backed by investors with regulatory records.
Stephen Meagher, a San Francisco attorney and former federal prosecutor, says Applied's stock price has risen rapidly despite no profits or solid business record.
After Applied first disclosed the Giuliani Partners deal in an SEC filing Nov. 10, Applied's shares leaped 268%, from 65 cents to $2.39 Dec. 7. It closed at 97 cents Thursday.
"It has all the markings of something Giuliani himself would have looked into as U.S. attorney in the old days," Meagher says." - USA Today (03/17/05)

(See also:  January 2002 - Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani forms Giuliani Partners)

• March 17, 2005 - No convictions among Guantanamo suspects sent home - Reuters AlertNet (03/17/05)