CIA destroyed the interrogation tapes to hide the truth about 9/11

[stymo1]

House Judiciary witness: Destroyed CIA tapes are 'ultimate cover-up'

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Witness_tells_House_Judiciary_destroyed_tapes_1220.html

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Thursday December 20, 2007







DOJ representative is no-show at hearing

The CIA's official explanation for destroying at least two videotapes depicting severe interrogation techniques "fails the straight-face test," an expert witness told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

In a hearing focused on the Justice Department's role in the tapes' destruction and the legality of torture tactics, George Washington University Law School professor Stephen Saltzburg heavily rebuked CIA reasoning that the decision was made in part to protect the identify of interrogators.

"The rationale for destroying the tapes to protect the identity of the interrogators is almost as embarrassing as the destruction itself," said Saltzburg, who is also general counsel for the National Institute of Military Justice. He said that the tapes could easily have been modified to obscure the faces of those involved, and that regardless, the CIA keeps a written record of which officers interrogated detainees.

"And so the explanation for destruction fails the straight-face test," he said. "The only plausible explanation, I believe, is that the CIA wanted to assure that those tapes would never be seen by any judicial tribunal -- not even a military commission -- and they would never be seen by a committee of Congress."

Continued Saltzburg, "With [the CIA tapes] gone, we have the ultimate cover-up. The indisputable evidence no longer exists, and memories will undoubtedly differ about what happened."

He also chided Congress for not choosing to rein in CIA practices.

"It's vitally important for this Congress to recognize that it's part of the interrogation process," he said. "This Congress decided not to restrict the CIA, at least not explicitly. And it decided not to confine the CIA to interrogation techniques that are contained in the Army Field Manual."

A representative from the Justice Department was invited to testify before the committee, but was not present at the hearing.

Another hearing witness, former CIA general counsel and DOJ prosecutor John Radsan, was pressed by committee member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) as to whether interrogators resorting to torture could be prosecuted criminally if a legal definition of the practice could be agreed upon.

"If the tapes clearly depict torture," said Scott,"let's kind of think who could be guilty of a criminal offense."

Responded Radsan, "If we agree that the conduct on those tapes [is torture], that person who did the conduct is guilty...that's for sure." He offered the same analysis for those authorizing torture.

In statements before witnesses were called, Democratic committee members also admonished the White House for its alleged role, as reported by the New York Times, in participating in discussions about the tapes with the CIA.

"It is important that we investigate these allegations carefully," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), "because if true, we may be facing the possibility of a dangerous and criminal abuse of powers at the highest levels of our government."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) called on the US to take a moral stand on the issue of torture , and said the country should separate itself from other nations engaging in the practice.

"This government has to be based on truth and transparency, and it certainly must be based on security, the protection of America," she said. "But the United States does not make those practices of violating the law, violating the Constitution, violating the international convention on torture -- it must not make that the norm...therefore we must not draw to the practices of foreign dictators, but we must stand alone as a beacon of light shining around the world to ensure the principles of freedom and equality and justice reign strong in this nation."

[jimd3100]

These interrogation tapes are not the only tapes the CIA has witheld from the 9/11 commission. And BTW, I think everyone involved knows it. They witheld the "laughing hijackers" tape from the commission too. Want some proof?
Well the laughing hijackers tape was revealed to the world on Sept 30, 2006 by Yosri Fouda(who worked previously for AL jeezra and received "AL qaida" tapes there)..who at the time described his source as "a previously tested channel"..he later even ADMITTED that it came from US Intelligence.......

U.S. intelligence sources tell CNN, they have aware of the tape for years, even unsuccessfully tried to have it lip-read. It's assumed U.S. authorities found it in Afghanistan in late 2001, but never released it.

YOSRI FOUDA, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: And I wonder why, because it would have been benefited everyone
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/01/cnr.04.html

Well, if the government had the so called suicide tape of M atta And Ziad Jarrah since 2001, why did they not turn it over to the 9/11 commission? The answer is very clear...so they could release it anonymously to the reporter who breaks the stories of Al Ciaduh tapes. That is after all exactly what happened. And frankly they didn't have these tapes since 2001. They always had them. They Made them. The other part of this tape is a bin laden speech on Jan 8 2000 that is very obviously a surveillance tape.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15082633/
I've watched the tape myself, and it focuses on the crowd and zooms in on individuals and frames them for a few seconds then pans for another..it's pretty obvious, and I doubt that the mujihaden in Afghanistan that they've labled Al Qaida were doing surveillance on themselves. And then there is the road to Guantanamo, a true story of 3 guys that were in Guantanamo, and gave their story..part of their story is the Government used this tape of a bin laden rally on Jan 8 2000 as the surveillance tape that it always was...you can see it at the 1:15 mark'
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-599098805530677622&q=road+to+guantanamo&total=136&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

So what does all this mean? It means the CIA witheld lots of tapes from the 9/11 commission and other departments, and everyone knows it and is OK with it. The rest is all an act.

[Dig]

CIA misled 9/11 commission over tapes: report
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=6f829ab5-d0ed-4f94-bf79-6f667f6ea435&&Headline='CIA+misled+9%2f11+commission+over+tapes'
Agence France-Presse Washington, December 22, 2007   

The CIA obstructed the work of an official US commission investigating the September 11 attacks by withholding tapes of interrogations of Al-Qaeda operatives, according to former panel members quoted by the New York Times on Saturday. A review of documents by former members of the blue-ribbon 9/11 commission revealed the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of Al-Qaeda operatives but were never notified of the tapes, the Times reported. The review of the commission's correspondence with the Central Intelligence Agency came after the agency earlier this month revealed it had destroyed videotapes in 2005 showing harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members. The review, written up in a memo prepared by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 commission, said that "further investigation is needed" to resolve whether the CIA's failure to hand over the tapes violated federal law. The memorandum does not assert that withholding the tapes was illegal but states that federal law penalizes anyone who "knowingly and willfully" withholds or "covers up" a "material fact" from a federal inquiry or makes "any materially false statement" to investigators, the Times said. The revelation will pile more pressure on President George W. Bush's administration, already under fire over the affair by human rights groups and lawmakers who allege it has tried to cover-up proof of torture. A spokesman for the CIA told the Times the agency had been prepared to give the 9/11 commission the tapes, but that panel staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield was quoted as saying that the agency had gone to "great lengths" to satisfy the panel's requests, and that commission members had been provided with detailed information from interrogations of detainees.

The two chairs of the commission, former Democratic lawmaker Lee Hamilton and former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, told the Times the review showed the CIA had actively tried to obstruct the panel's work. Kean said the panel would give the memorandum to federal officials and lawmakers in Congress who are investigating the destruction of the tapes. "I don't know whether that's illegal or not, but it's certainly wrong," Kean was quoted as saying. Hamilton said the CIA "clearly obstructed" the panel's probe. According to the memo obtained by the Times and posted on its website, the commission was interested in interrogations of Al-Qaeda members because it was trying to reconstruct the events leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York and Washington. The commission made initial general requests for intelligence information from interrogations, including the two detainees on the videotapes, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, said the memorandum. It followed up with more requests for "very detailed information" about the context of the interrogations, the credibility of statements from detainees, the quality of language translation and other issues.  "The commission was dissatisfied with the answers it received to these questions," the memorandum said. None of the officials who communicated with the panel ever revealed the existence of the videotapes, it said.
________________________________________
9/11 Commission Chairmen Believe CIA Impeded Inquiry by Withholding Interrogation Tapes
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317995,00.html
Saturday, December 22, 2007

The two chairmen of the Sept. 11 commission said they believe the CIA deliberately impeded the panel's inquiry by withholding interrogation tapes of Al Qaeda suspects, The New York Times reported Saturday. The Times reported that the commission made repeated requests in 2003 and 2004 for documents and information about Al Qaeda interrogations from the CIA and were told the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything the panel requested. But a review was conducted in early December after the disclosure that the CIA two years ago had destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of suspected terrorists, and chairmen Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean told The Times it seemed the agency made a conscious decision to obstruct their inquiry. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield on Saturday issued a statement saying that "the CIA went to great lengths to meet the requests of the 9/11 commission and provided the commission with a wealth of information. "Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active," Mansfield said. "As Director [Michael] Hayden pointed out in his December 6th statement, the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries." A CIA official told the Times that the agency was prepared to hand over the videotapes, but that the commission never specifically asked for interrogation videos. The Times reported that the panel's former executive director Philip D. Zelikow concluded in a seven-page memorandum that "further investigation is needed" to determine if the CIA violated federal law by withholding the videos.
_______________________________________
9/11 Panel Joins Probe of Destroyed CIA Tapes
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_911_Panel_Joins_Probe_of_Destroyed_CIA_Tapes_12112.html
By Diane Smith  10:24, December 22nd 2007



According to the U.S. panel investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks, the CIA had deliberately withheld tapes of supposed torture of terrorism suspects to obstruct the panel’s work, the New York Times wrote in its Saturday edition. Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, the leading chairmen of the panel, were the ones to comment on the issue for the New York Times. The two declared that the CIA had disposed of hundreds of hours of recordings of CIA investigators using "enhanced" investigation techniques such as waterboarding.  The latest revelation on the CIA disposal of the tapes has triggered investigations by the justice department, Congress and from within the CIA, and also provoked members of the September 11 commission to review the top secret documents and communications supplied by the CIA during their probe, the Times said.

Philip Zelikow, the panel's former executive director, said he prepared a memorandum on the review according to which the panel had sought complete documents, reports and information linked to the interrogation process. Zelikow had been assured by the CIA that it had "produced or made available for review" everything that had been requested.  Panel chairman Lee Hamilton declared to the Times that the CIA had "clearly obstructed" the commission's investigation. The other top chairman of the panel said he would submit Zelikow's review to federal prosecutors and congressional investigators responsible with the destruction of the tapes issue. The lawyers hired by the Guantanamo detainees said on Friday to federal judge Henry H Kennedy Jr. that this issue shows the Bush administration is ready to destroy evidence of possible torture or illegal interrogation methods.  "Until these inquiries are complete, until the oversights' finished, I will be rendering no opinion from the podium," Bush said. "Let's wait and see what the facts are," the president added. The destroyed tapes illustrated the 2002 interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and another top al-Qaeda member. At that point in time, Zubaydah was the most important capture of an al-Qaeda figure following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
_______________________________

[Biffa]

We all know that the 911 Commission was completely inadequate. Even if one looks at it from a neutral perspective, the commission was ‘set up to fail’ according to commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton because they where not given enough time, money and as you have shown they where not co-operated with and deliberately lied to by the CIA.

Added to this, there is the clear partisanship of commission Executive Director Phillip Zelikow. Again, even from a neutral perspective, Zelikow, had previously written a book with Condoleeza Rice. Rice has questions to answer, because she was given warnings by CIA Director George Tenet prior to 911, of the most urgent and grave kind, that Rice chose to ignore.

For me the most clear case of culpability can be pinned on the FBI. Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley blew the whistle in a memo she sent to the FBI Director. Agents in Minneapolis had the strongest cause to suspect Zacarias Moussouri, but where consistently and deliberately hampered in their investigation by FBI directors, so the ’20-20 hindsight’ argument can be shown to be entirely false. Rowley realized the danger, despite not being privy to other information such as the ‘Phoenix Communication’ that FBI directors would have known about. I have just started a thread on this in the ‘Total Cover Up of 9/11 Truth’ forum on the main page.

[HEX]

Am I supposed to be suprised by this? lol

[Dig]

Am I supposed to be suprised by this? lol

You are supposed to be surprised that the MSM is actually covering this story.

I know I am.  It actually allows the 911 truth movement a foot in the door that has been glued shut for a few years since this evil commission closed their doors.

[Mr Grinch]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/22/national/main3642051.shtml

CIA: We Did Cooperate With 9/11 Commission
Agency Rebukes Suggestion It Was Not Forthcoming With Info About Interrogations

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2007

Man Behind CIA Tape Disposal

There's a chill in Washington over the CIA tape case. David Martin reports the decision to destroy videotapes of the interrogations of two terror suspects apparently can be traced to one official at the agency. | Share

(AP) The CIA on Saturday rebutted suggestions the spy agency was uncooperative and hid from the Sept. 11 commission the videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists, saying it waited until the panel went out of business before destroying the material now in question.

The destruction in late 2005 of the videotapes of two al Qaeda suspects has upset a federal judge and riled the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has promised an investigation. The Justice Department also is trying to find out what happened and whether any laws were broken.

A recent memo by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, suggests the CIA was less than forthcoming when asked for documents and other information from the panel, which investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The CIA disputed that characterization and suggested the panel should have requested interrogation videotapes specifically if it wanted them.

"The notion that the CIA wasn't cooperative or forthcoming with the 9/11 commission is just plain wrong. It is utterly without foundation," spokesman Mark Mansfield said Saturday. "The CIA's cooperation and assistance is what enabled the 9/11 commission to reconstruct the plot in their very comprehensive report."

In a statement e-mailed separately Saturday, Mansfield suggested the commission should have been specific about wanting videotapes.

Fast Fact

The CIA said the 9/11 commission could have specifically requested interrogation videotapes. But the commission's executive director said the existence of such tapes was never made known.
"Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active," he said. Mansfield, citing similar comments this month by CIA Director Michael Hayden, added that "the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries."

Zelikow's seven-page memo, dated Dec. 13, reviews the commission's requests for information from the CIA.

It cites a Jan. 26, 2004, meeting of commission members and administration officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, at which the government offered to present written questions to the detainees and relay their answers back to the commission.

"None of the government officials in any of these 2004 meetings alluded to the existence of recordings of interrogations or any further information in the government's possession that was relevant to the commission's requests," Zelikow wrote.

Near the end of the commission's work, and in response to a request by the commission to all agencies, John McLaughlin, then the deputy CIA director, confirmed on June 29, 2004, that the CIA had "taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control responsive" to the commission's formal requests and "has produced or made available for review" all such documents, the memo said.

The existence of Zelikow's memo was first reported by The New York Times.

[jimd3100]

You are supposed to be surprised that the MSM is actually covering this story.

I know I am.  It actually allows the 911 truth movement a foot in the door that has been glued shut for a few years since this evil commission closed their doors.

AHHH....but why is the MSM covering this story? To put the proper spin on it of course! MSM:"The CIA destroyed the tapes because it showed torture." Thats the spin. It's a lie! A Smokescreen! Guess what? Everyone knows they torture. They were even told they had the authority. MSM:"uhhhh....OH, they destroyed the tapes because ..um..because they didn't want the interrogators to be identified". I'm not even going to respond to that, let's just say, I've seen scum on the show Cops on video that I couldn't identify. No...they wont tell you the REAL reason these tapes were destroyed. But I will.
Guess why they torture? To get information. What information did they get? THATS WHY THEY WERE DESTROYED. It's what is on the tapes. They were kept from the commission and they were destroyed, because of the information the person gave on tape. Now do you really think that if MR Al Qaida Abu Zubaydah gave testimony on tape that the President of the United States Mr George W Bush, helped the people who carried out 9/11 escape justice that they would not destroy it? Of course they would. That is what is on the tape. You see 9/11 was carried out by mossad, US Intelligence, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistani Intelligence. And Zubadah spills the beans.
From:

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

<<<Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, told in a gripping narrative that reads like a techno-thriller, did not just take down one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives but also unexpectedly provided what one U.S. investigator told Posner was "the Rosetta stone of 9/11 ... the details of what (Zubaydah) claimed was his 'work' for senior Saudi and Pakistani officials." <<>>Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk,<<<>>>>he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's<<<>>>When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle<<<>>>Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds<<<>>>Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."<<<>>>Those three Saudi princes all perished within days of one another. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed was felled by a heart attack at age 43. One day later Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41, was killed in what was called a high-speed car accident. The last member of the trio, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, officially "died of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh one week later. And seven months after that, Mushaf Ali Mir, by then Pakistan's Air Marshal, perished in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly North-West Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.>>>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now let's take a closer look at the first Saudi official Zubadah claims is his boss and gives the phone number out as proof. It is Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who BTW is the leader of the group of Saudi Arabians that President George W Bush let escape from the U.S. as the 9/11 terrorist attacks were over. Remember the flights of the Bin laden family and Saudi Arabians that flew out of the U.S. when the rest of us unwashed couldn't fly?..Abu Zubaydahs' boss was the leader of them and he said that on tape. BYE BYE TAPE. Here is the FBI report of the Saudi flights that Bin Laden himself may have chartered according to the report and there on page 11/224 is the man Zubadah fingered as his boss and who they describe as the leader of this group, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%202.pdf
No..they don't want you to know this..and as further proof here is the memo Philip Zelikow sent just a few days(Dec 13 2007) and on page 6 states...

Late in its investigation, reacting to press allegations that Abu Zubaydah had
referred to a Saudi prince in his interrogations, the Commission asked “what
information does the CIA have” about whether such assertions were made in
Zubaydah’s interrogations. (CIA Question for the Record No. 3, dated May
20, 2004). We knew the CIA believed this was untrue but we asked the
question formally to get any relevant information for the record. We cannot
find a record of a CIA response.source:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf

The reason the tapes were destroyed is not because it shows torture, it's because of what we've been saying all along. 9/11 was an inside job. Bin Laden is Saudi Intelligence. 9/11 was carried out by the intelligence agencies of the NWO. It's on tape! Of course it will be destroyed!

[Dig]

they wont tell you the REAL reason these tapes were destroyed. But I will.

Duly noted, thanks....

Report on 9/11 Suggests a Role By Saudi Spies
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E3DB133EF931A3575BC0A9659C8B63
By JAMES RISEN AND DAVID JOHNSTON  Published: August 2, 2003 New York Times

The classified part of a Congressional report on the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, says that two Saudi citizens who had at least indirect links with two hijackers were probably Saudi intelligence agents and may have reported to Saudi government officials, according to people who have seen the report.  These findings, according to several people who have read the report, help to explain why the classified part of the report has become so politically charged, causing strains between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Senior Saudi officials have denied any links between their government and the attacks and have asked that the section be declassified, but President Bush has refused.

People familiar with the report and who spoke on condition of not being named said that the two Saudi citizens, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, operated in a complex web of financial relationships with officials of the Saudi government. The sections that focus on them draw connections between the two men, two hijackers, and Saudi officials.  The report urges further investigation of the two men and their contacts with the hijackers, because of unresolved questions about their relationship and whether they had any involvement in the 9/11 plot.  The edited 28-page section of the report, produced by a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees, also says that a Muslim cleric in San Diego was a central figure in a support network that aided the same two hijackers. Most connections drawn in the report between the men, Saudi intelligence and the attacks are circumstantial, several people who have read the report said.  The unclassified parts of the report also suggest a connection between Mr. al-Bayoumi and Saudi intelligence. The report says that ''one of the F.B.I.'s best sources in San Diego informed the F.B.I. that he thought that al-Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer.'' The report also says that ''despite the fact that he was a student, al-Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia.''  The joint inquiry's investigation of Mr. al-Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan centered on their activities three years ago when they were living in San Diego. The report concluded that the two men were crucial to understanding the events leading up to the plot, largely because of Mr. al-Bayoumi's extensive contacts with two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, after they settled in San Diego in early 2000. There is no definitive evidence that Mr. Bassnan knew the hijackers, but the report describes him as a close associate of Mr. al-Bayoumi.

One unresolved issue in the classified part of the report concerned Mr. Bassnan's visit to Houston after the attacks. While Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met with President Bush, Mr. Bassnan met with a Saudi in his entourage, according to the report. It is not known what they discussed.  In San Diego, Mr. al-Bayoumi was employed by a contractor to the Saudi civil aviation authority, and received payments authorized by a Saudi official. But Congressional officials believe he was a ''ghost employee'' of the contractor who did no actual work. The payments authorized by the Saudi official increased significantly after Mr. al-Bayoumi came in contact with the two hijackers in early 2000, the classified part of the report states.  According to the unclassified parts of the report, Mr. al-Bayoumi first befriended Mr. al-Mihdhar and Mr. al-Hazmi in January 2000 when they arrived in Los Angeles from Bangkok, after attending a meeting in Malaysia with other operatives of al Qaeda. The two men stayed in Mr. al-Bayoumi's apartment for several days. He helped them find their own apartment, paid their first month's rent and security deposit, and threw a party to help them get settled in the local Arabic community.  Law enforcement officials have said, though, that Mr. Almidhar repaid Mr. al-Bayoumi and added that there was no evidence Mr. al-Bayoumi or Mr. Bassnan ever provided any other money to Mr. Almidhar or Mr. Hazmi. That point, the officials said, helps to explain why Mr. al-Bayoumi has not been accused of any crime, like providing material support to terrorists.

Law enforcement officials have played down the significance of the connection between Mr. al-Bayoumi and the two hijackers, saying there is no evidence that Mr. al-Bayoumi knew of the 9/11 plot. They dismissed the tone of the report, which they say portrays the possible links between the plot and Saudi Arabian officials as clearer and more direct than is actually known.  F.B.I. and C.I.A. officials have also said that they are not certain why Mr. al-Bayoumi was in San Diego, and that they are not certain of his exact relationship with the Saudi government. Some officials said that even if he was not a professional Saudi intelligence officer, he may have had some informal role. It is possible, they believe, that he was assigned to monitor the activities of Saudi students and other expatriates in the United States.

Investigators said that the role of the Muslim cleric who the report says served as a ''spiritual adviser'' to the two hijackers is central to an understanding of what happened in San Diego. The cleric is not named in the declassified section of the report, but officials identified him as Anwar Aulaqi. He is said to have held meetings with the two hijackers, and when he moved to Falls Church, Va., in 2001, the two hijackers moved as well and began to attend the mosque with which the cleric was now associated. Officials said that the report made clear that the cleric's role needs to be investigated further.  Today, 46 Democratic senators asked that the deleted material be released, saying the national security issues Mr. Bush cited as the reason the material was classified could be addressed by careful editing. Republicans, including Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, a former Intelligence Committee chairman, have also called for its release.  Several Congressional officials familiar with the report say that only a small part of the classified section dealing with the specifics of F.B.I. counterintelligence and counterterrorism activities should remain classified. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said, ''Keeping this material classified only strengthens the theory that some in the U.S. government are hellbent on covering up for the Saudis.''  National Security Council officials are leading an interagency delegation to Saudi Arabia this weekend to discuss with Saudi officials investigations into the financing of terrorism. The Americans may also ask Saudi permission to interview Mr. al-Bayoumi, who is reportedly now in Saudi Arabia, officials said.  After 9/11, Mr. al-Bayoumi was briefly interviewed in Britain, but has never returned to the United States to face in-depth questioning.

[Dig]

Did the Saudis know about 9/11?
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/10/18/saudis/index.html
By Mark Follman

A new book claims that Saudi princes and a Pakistani official knew Osama bin Laden would strike America that day. But some critics say the whole story could be a neoconservative fabrication.

Oct 18, 2003 | When U.S. and Pakistani special forces raided a house on the outskirts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002, and successfully nabbed top al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, the mood at CIA headquarters was upbeat. Langley watched the early morning raid via satellite, and once a Pakistani intelligence officer and some quick voiceprints confirmed Zubaydah's identity, the CIA knew it had captured one of its most sought-after adversaries, a figure who could potentially reveal the full story of the 9/11 terrorist plot. Shot several times in the raid, Zubaydah was given enough medical treatment to ensure his survival and hauled away for questioning. According to a new book, what Zubaydah said -- after being subjected to highly controversial interrogation methods -- stunned intelligence officials.

In his book "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11," Gerald Posner makes an explosive allegation: Top figures in the Saudi and Pakistani governments had been directly assisting Osama bin Laden for years and knew al-Qaida was going to strike America on Sept. 11. Posner cites two unnamed U.S. government sources, both of whom he asserts are "in a position to know," who he said gave him separate, corroborating reports. One source is from the CIA and the other is a senior Bush administration official "inside the executive branch," he told Salon in an interview.  According to Posner's account, four Saudi princes and the head of Pakistan's air force were deeply involved with Osama bin Laden for years, some of them meeting with him well after al-Qaida began its terror attacks on U.S. targets overseas in the mid-1990s. The fact that some of the figures were so highly placed makes it hard to dismiss the possibility, if the allegations are true, that the heads of the Saudi and Pakistani governments signed off on the policy.  Saudi, Pakistani and U.S. government officials (the latter off the record) have dismissed the story as false. Zubaydah himself subsequently recanted his claims, saying he lied to avoid torture, according to Posner. But Posner thinks the allegations are credible -- not least because four of the five supposed conspirators died under strange circumstances -- and believes the U.S. wants to downplay them for an obvious reason: They're too hot to handle, painting as they do two crucial allies as working hand-in-hand with America's Public Enemy No. 1.

But several intelligence analysts and experts on Saudi Arabia doubt the story's authenticity. While acknowledging that Saudi Arabia has supported fiery proponents of militant Islam and took an early see-no-evil approach to bin Laden, they say it would be highly unlikely that top members of the Saudi royal family would be so deeply involved with a global terrorist organization -- one that seeks to destroy the Saudi regime itself as part of a worldwide jihad against infidels and their allies. They also point to contradictory evidence drawn from separate classified intelligence reports. And some are suspicious of Posner's unnamed sources -- suspicions they say have been heightened by the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq invasion. Indeed, one analyst suggests the Zubaydah charges could be part of a disinformation campaign launched by neoconservatives who believe that the U.S. should decisively break with Saudi Arabia, which they regard as a corrupt, terrorist-supporting state.

Posner says his two sources told him that U.S. officers used highly unorthodox, coercive methods -- what many would label torture -- to interrogate Zubaydah. For three days they manipulated his medical treatment, withholding full access to painkillers, using a quick "on-and-off" narcotic and giving him sodium pentothal (popularly called "truth serum") to extract information. When Zubaydah didn't talk, they set up a so-called false flag operation, transporting him to a secret location in Afghanistan mocked up to look like a Saudi Arabian jail. Fear of the Saudis' harsh interrogation techniques might make Zubaydah talk, they reasoned.  On March 8, 2003, the New York Times published an account similar to Posner's of the methods used on Zubaydah, also citing unnamed "American officials" as the source. But to date, only Posner has reported what Zubaydah allegedly said.

According to Posner's account, two Arab-American special forces personnel posed as Saudis and took over the questioning of Zubaydah at the secret location in Afghanistan. CIA officials observing from another room watched Zubaydah's reaction with amazement: He was visibly relieved to be in "Saudi" hands, and started talking. He named three Saudi princes, recited their private phone numbers, and told his interrogators to call one prince, saying, "He will tell you what to do." That man was King Fahd's nephew Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a London publishing magnate and horse racing aficionado whose thoroughbred War Emblem won the 2002 Kentucky Derby. Zubaydah made clear he was under the protection -- and direction -- of the princes. During the questioning, Zubaydah also fingered Pakistani air force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, suspected to have close ties with some of the most pro-Islamist elements within Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI.  Zubaydah's "Saudi" interrogators later pressed him on his story, writes Posner, telling Zubaydah that Prince Ahmed had "credibly denied any knowledge of him" and that "he would be executed for disparaging the reputation of a member of the royal family." At that point Zubaydah unleashed a monologue "which one [U.S.] investigator refers to as the Rosetta stone of 9/11."  Zubaydah told his interrogators that he had attended a 1996 meeting in Pakistan where Mushaf Ali Mir struck a deal with Osama bin Laden that provided al-Qaida with protection, arms and supplies. The arrangement was blessed by the Saudis, Zubaydah said. He named a fourth Saudi prince, the kingdom's then intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, as the nexus of the Saudi-Pakistani-al-Qaida axis. Zubaydah said Turki attended several meetings with bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990's, including one in Kandahar in 1998 at which Taliban members were present, where Turki pledged steady Saudi aid to al-Qaida as long as the terrorist group promised not to attack the kingdom.

Prince Turki, who is now the Saudi ambassador to London, told an Arab newspaper in September, "This information is totally false and groundless. I have had no contacts with bin Laden since 1990, and have never had contacts with al-Qaida, which is a satanic terrorist organization." He also pointed out that Saudi Arabia revoked Osama's citizenship in 1994.  According to Posner, about a month after the interrogation CIA officials, who had found no evidence to discredit the story, cautiously raised the Zubaydah information with their counterparts in Saudi and Pakistani intelligence. Here, the story line veers from le Carré to "The Godfather." Shortly after the U.S. inquiry, on July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed, age 43, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. On the way to Ahmed's funeral the next day, Prince Sultan al-Saud was killed in a single-car crash. A week later the third prince Zubaydah had fingered, Fahd al-Kabir , was found dead 55 miles east of Riyadh -- according to the Saudi royal court he'd "died of thirst" while traveling in the summer heat. Seven months later Pakistani air force chief Mir, his wife and 15 of his closest associates died in a plane crash near Islamabad. The plane had recently passed maintenance inspection, and the weather was clear. According to the Asia Times, "Reports at the time said that the pilot had been changed just minutes before takeoff."

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are key U.S. partners in the war on terror, particularly Pakistan, which aided in the capture of Zubaydah and other top al-Qaida agents after 9/11. Both countries are also vital to U.S. interests for other reasons: Saudi Arabia because of its oil and its religious and political centrality in the Arab-Muslim world, Pakistan as Afghanistan's neighbor and a member of the nuclear club. But both are highly problematic allies. Radical Islamists hold significant power in Pakistan (particularly in the ISI, and in its lawless northwestern provinces), and President Musharraf's regime must walk a fine line between placating the Americans and not enraging its citizens. The U.S. has a much longer and stronger, but also troubled, alliance with Saudi Arabia, which has promoted its hard-line Wahhabi sect of Islam around the world and spawned 15 of the 19 hijackers -- but also pumps much of the oil that drives the global economy.  Posner is careful not to unequivocally endorse Zubaydah's claims, but he believes that the fact that four of the five named officials suddenly died (with the exception of the highest ranking one, Prince Turki) is powerful evidence that his story is largely true. "Zubaydah's interrogation leaves some questions unanswered which I think will eventually be run to ground," he says. "He's recanted his story. He's said he just picked these names out of a hat to spare himself some torture. But is it possible that he picked out three Saudi princes and the head of the Pakistani air force, and then they all just had the bad luck of dying -- the three Saudis within days of each other -- after the U.S. shared the information? And from a blood clot, a car wreck, dehydration and a plane crash? I guess technically it's possible. People do win the lottery. But as I view it, it's extremely unlikely."

The fact that Prince Turki is still alive would seem to weaken the idea there was foul play behind the three other Saudi princes' deaths. But Posner speculates that the longtime intelligence chief, who was dismissed from his post just 10 days before 9/11, was untouchable: "He's the J. Edgar Hoover of Saudi Arabia. If anybody has all the goods on the highest members of the royal family -- their sex lives, their use of prostitutes when they visit Europe, etc. -- it's him."  It's also possible that Turki himself, if accusations of his close ties to al-Qaida have any merit, could be involved in a coverup of the Zubaydah interrogation.  Turki, in fact, did have friendly contacts with radical Islamist groups, including Afghan jihadis fighting the Soviets in the 1980s and later with the Taliban, over a protracted period of time. "If anyone made payments to bin Laden and al-Qaida, it would be Turki, given his connections to them through the '80s," says Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer who did extensive tours in the Mideast and Central Asia during his 21-year career and is the author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude." "Turki arranged for things like sending cars to the Taliban, and free gas for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he supported the Islamic movement in Sudan -- it was his job. But I've never seen any evidence that Turki himself was complicit in terrorism."  Another possibility is that Zubaydah's story is partly false but contains elements of truth. Posner speculates that some members of the Saudi royal family who may have once supported bin Laden later became horrified by his terrorist atrocities -- only to find themselves trapped, unable to reveal what they knew about him and his plans (perhaps including even the 9/11 plot) without implicating themselves.

Posner has a reputation for skepticism; he has authored books debunking conspiracy theories about the Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK assassinations (he concurred with the Warren report that Oswald acted alone). He says that his anonymous sources may have regarded him, as a book writer, as a safer choice for a leak than an intelligence reporter with a major byline. "Washington is a very small town in terms of sources. If you're a Robert Novak or a Sy Hersh people know the circles you hang out in. It narrows the hunt for the leaker by a wide margin."  And Posner reiterated to Salon he has full confidence in his unnamed sources, in part because of their partisan agenda: "Both of them clearly believe this information is true and should be public because the Saudis have not been our allies for a long time and they should be out," he says. "I have no doubt from my conversations that there's a split inside the administration. The majority opinion was this story came from the mouth of a terrorist who would say anything to save his skin. It's known that Zubaydah has lied about other things. So why should this information become public now, if we aren't even sure it's correct that these [Saudi and Pakistani] government officials were involved? But there's a minority view in the administration that the Saudis are no longer an ally, and I'm convinced my sources believe the story to be true."  Posner further argues it's implausible his anonymous sources would have made the story up out of whole cloth, since they would know that U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of the Zubaydah debriefing could come forward and refute the story.  But several analysts are dubious or outright dismissive of the entire claim. "It just simply does not make sense. To have been involved in 9/11 would've been the House of Saud committing suicide," says Sandra Mackey, a Middle East scholar who's published several books on the region, including a study of Saudi Arabia. "Are there people in the House of Saud who might be connected to al-Qaida? Quite possibly. I wouldn't be surprised. But that's considerably different than saying the central leadership conspired with al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is their greatest enemy."

[Dig]

Saudi Arabia's relationship with al-Qaida is complex and has changed considerably over time. After the first Gulf War, Mackey says, the Saudis were essentially in denial: They kicked bin Laden out of the kingdom, but cut a deal with him in which they would look the other way -- and even provide financial support -- if the Saudi national would agree to leave the kingdom alone. They didn't grasp how serious a threat he posed.  Mackey says the Saudis were caught "flat-footed" by 9/11. They were shocked, and fearful their deep relationship with Washington would be damaged, but were slow to act. There was huge public sympathy for bin Laden, who was seen as a heroic militant Islamist battling the West, and the regime had no will to confront the potentially explosive Saudi street.  Finally came the May 2003 al-Qaida bombings in Riyadh, in which more Saudi civilians were killed than Americans. Mackey sees this attack as a watershed event, one that forced the Saudi rulers to realize they were in a fight for survival against militant Islam. To some degree, the serious attack on their own soil gave the Saudis the political capital to take aggressive action.  Subsequent running gun battles around the country, and the discovery of large weapons caches, have revealed a widespread al-Qaida presence in the kingdom. A number of Saudi military and police have died in these battles, and a number of al-Qaida members have been killed or captured since May. But the Saudis continue to thwart a U.S. investigation of the terrorist paper trail inside the kingdom, and have not handed over suspects or allowed U.S. authorities to interrogate them.  Gregory Gause, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the University of Vermont, says that although the Saudi ruling elite displayed a pattern of "willful ignorance" toward al-Qaida through much of the 1990s, he doesn't see any convincing evidence indicating its complicity in terrorism. He points to an attack on the Saudi Arabian National Guard office in Riyadh on Nov. 13, 1995, in which five Americans were killed. The perpetrators arrested and executed by the Saudi government, Gause says, were known to be al-Qaida sympathizers. "The top levels of the regime, including Prince Turki, would be extremely leery of any kind of political deal with al-Qaida when al-Qaida had already attacked inside the kingdom, and the al-Qaida leadership was openly calling for the overthrow of the Saudi regime."  

"If the Saudis were more deeply involved in al-Qaida [operations], I think you would expect to have seen some different behavior from the Saudi government after the East Africa embassy and USS Cole bombings," says Gause. The 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania led Turki, according to his own account, to deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban during his known 1998 meeting with the Afghan rulers, in which he demanded, unsuccessfully, that they hand bin Laden over. "If the princes were working with al-Qaida," Gause says, "I think you would've seen more direct Saudi contact with the Taliban after that, and I'm not aware of evidence of any high-level [Saudi] visitors there."  As for the Pakistani connection, Mary Anne Weaver, author of "Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan," agrees that it's quite plausible elements in the Pakistani government could have been involved with al-Qaida, given the long-standing presence of militant Islamists inside the country. But she's seen no evidence connecting Pakistan to the 9/11 plot. "I did a huge amount of interviewing for my book, and even with the people who were the most antagonistic toward the Musharraf government, nobody mentioned even the remote possibility that Pakistan had been at all complicit in Sept. 11 in a specific way. I've heard nothing about government officials knowing in advance that something was going to happen, even if they didn't know what or where."  More specifically, Weaver is dubious about the claim that Mir could have been an al-Qaida supporter. Weaver admits that several friends she knows from the country's political elite who knew Mir "very well" are perplexed by his death, but says that they had no indication he was involved in anything related to terrorism. Moreover, she says the fact that Mir was from the air force makes it less likely he was hooked up with militant Islamists in the ISI. "It's the Pakistani army that really runs the country -- the nine corps commanders, and [its security branch] the ISI. It's really a nation within the state. The air force and the navy aren't as important or influential. I've never met anybody from the ISI who hasn't been from the army."

Vince Cannistraro, the former head of the CIA's counterterrorism unit, dismisses the Zubaydah theory as part of a disinformation campaign. "My view is this didn't come from inside the [active] intelligence community, but from an administration source, a neoconservative who's promoting it, who also provided a former CIA officer for confirmation." He also says intelligence that's since come to light contradicts Zubaydah's story. "We know a great deal about the training, planning, and operational details of 9/11 now that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is in custody and is talking. He's the key person here, the person who orchestrated 9/11. Abu Zubaydah was not. I doubt Posner had access to the Zubaydah debriefing, though one of his sources probably did. But the point is, none of his sources had access to the debriefing on the person who is the key figure here." Without going into details, Cannistraro said that Mohammed's account contradicted Zubaydah's.  "I don't buy the idea that a serving case officer involved in the Zubaydah debriefing leaked this information," Cannistraro adds. "To me that would be an extraordinary act: It's too great a risk. [CIA officers] have to take polygraphs, and internal leaks are taken very seriously -- people lose their jobs, their careers. It's not like working at the Department of Agriculture -- or at the White House, apparently, where you can blow someone out of the water out of pure vindictiveness."

Cannistraro is equally dismissive of the idea that the sudden, odd deaths of the four officials indicates foul play. "Anything can be made to look [conspiratorial] when you start putting together a number of things that might otherwise be random in nature. Were these deaths [perpetrated] by an embarrassed royal family that didn't want the [Zubaydah] information to get out? That's just a little bit far-fetched," he says flatly.  Robert Baer agrees it would be possible for someone with access to classified information to smear the Saudis. "If you gave me all the al-Qaida interrogations, I could go through them if I wanted to and cherry-pick stuff that [collectively] could destroy relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S.," he says. But he doesn't believe figures inside the Bush administration would want to do so. "People I know [close to] the administration who follow this tell me that the administration is [ultimately] behind Saudi Arabia. Not because of the Bush family relations with the royal family, but because it's the pin that holds together the Gulf, and therefore our economy."  Baer believes that there could indeed be an al-Qaida-Saudi conspiracy, involving radical elements within the extended royal family. "With all the arrests there since the May 12 bombing in Riyadh, what the Saudis have learned to their dismay is that bin Laden has a lot of support in the government and the royal family. It's such a huge family, and there are a lot of princes who resent everything about the West. The Saudi [rulers] have now said openly that they're in a battle for their lives, and they know they have enemies embedded throughout the family," he says. "Call them what you will -- terrorists, Arab nationalists, crazies -- they're in the police, the army and the government."  In fact, Baer makes an assertion startlingly similar to Posner's. "My information is that [investigators there] were blown away when they started arresting all these people. They found cellphones... and [those arrested] had the numbers to call into the command center of the ministry of the interior."

Posner's charges have made little official impact, but they come at a critical -- and strained -- moment in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Ever since 9/11, there has been a growing drum roll of anger and resentment against the conservative kingdom and America's alliance with it. Pundits -- some but not all of them right-wing -- have attacked Saudi Arabia, as well as lawmakers including Sen. Bob Graham,D-Fla., and Sen. Charles Schumer,D-N.Y. The censored 9/11 report released by Congress in late July, which many suspect implicates the Saudis more deeply, has only added fuel to that fire.  Clearly trying to improve their tattered image in the U.S., the Saudi government made a major move on Friday, divulging for the first time the full extent of their cooperation with the U.S. war on terrorism since 1997. Among other favors, the Saudis, at Vice President Dick Cheney's request, facilitated the extradition of an al-Qaida member from Yemen to Jordan, where U.S. officials were able to interrogate him.  U.S. officials confirmed most of the Saudi claims, according to the Associated Press, to whom the Saudis had released the information.  The most intriguing and controversial claim, however, involved none other than the alleged key Saudi conspirator, former intelligence chief Prince Turki. Turki claimed his intelligence service warned the CIA in late 1999 and early 2000 about two al-Qaida members, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were later among the Sept. 11 hijackers. "What we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaida, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in 1997," Turki told the Associated Press.  The CIA denied receiving any such information from Saudi Arabia until after 9/11, and Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., admitted that "no documents" were sent. But Turki insisted his agency communicated the warning to the CIA, at least by word of mouth.  Saudi officials said they had not made their cooperation public previously because they were worried about hostile reaction from their citizenry and other Middle East countries.  

But anti-Saudi hard-liners are not likely to be swayed by this new Saudi campaign. Frank Gaffney, president of the right-wing Center for Security Policy in Washington, takes a hard line in assessing the range of options open to America: "You can break off diplomatic relations, you can impose economic sanctions, and you have, ultimately, the option of seizing the oil fields militarily if you have to," he told Time magazine in September. Such views are still considered unacceptable in official circles: When an analyst invited by powerful neoconservative Richard Perle gave a similar virulently anti-Saudi briefing to a Pentagon advisory group in July 2002, the Bush administration was quickly forced to distance itself. But a push to turn confrontational with the Saudi regime has gained more traction since 9/11 and with the ascension of the neoconservatives, ardent supporters of Israel who despise Saudi Arabia both for its support of radical Islamists and of militant Palestinian groups.  Indeed, almost immediately after 9/11, administration hawks including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney began openly promoting a long-held vision for reshaping the Middle East, with the war on Saddam the opening gambit. By opening Iraq's massive oil reserves to the West, America would be less dependent on the Saudis, and the new U.S. military presence in Iraq would allow U.S. troops to withdraw from Saudi Arabia -- which in fact has already largely taken place.  Analysts of all ideological stripes welcomed that withdrawal, as U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia were increasingly viewed as a dangerous political liability. (One of bin Laden's major grievances, after all, was the presence of U.S. troops on sacred Saudi Arabian soil.) And most would agree that the U.S. relationship with the Saudis needs to be reevaluated, stressing the need (as "Threatening Storm" author Kenneth Pollack did in a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times) for the U.S. to encourage the kingdom to reform its autocratic, stagnant ways.

But for the U.S. to attempt to destabilize the Saudi regime as part of a broader endgame of U.S. hegemony in the region would be highly risky, experts say.  "This is all extremely serious. These people [neoconservative advocates of breaking with Saudi Arabia] are playing with not only American military security, but with our economic security," says Sandra Mackey. "It leads to the same question we're already facing with Iraq: What comes next? The Saudi regime may be a house of cards, but at least it's a house. If it topples, who's going to take over and be able to hold this region together? Some [in Washington] say, 'We'll just give the religious fundamentalists Mecca and Medina, and the only thing we really need to worry about is securing the oil-producing areas.' It's the same sort of fallacious thinking that got us into Iraq. The neoconservatives are painting a picture to look how they want it to look, rather than seeing what the reality is."  Robert Baer, while taking a darker view of Saudi complicity with al-Qaida than Mackey does, agrees with her that the neoconservative agenda is dangerous. "You do have a small group of people in Washington who would like to bring the whole Middle East crashing down, but I think they're totally irresponsible. There would be no better lesson in the law of unintended consequences. If Saudi Arabia goes down, it would take the rest of the Gulf with it. I have personal experience with the five [Mideast] families that control 60 percent of the world's oil. They're demented. They would not be able to hold on to power. As much as I despise the Saudi royal family for being arrogant, I still don't want to see them go down. It would mean tribal war, and a catastrophe of global proportions."

[Dig]

How Much Did the Bush Administration Know? Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and 9/11
http://www.counterpunch.org/ridgeway01032006.html
By JAMES RIDGEWAY January 3, 2006

In San Antonio over the weekend,Bush defended the NSA wiretap program,saying, "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again if they can," he said. "And we're going to do everything we can to stop them." To be polite about it, this is an especially weird statement coming from a President whose administration repeatedly ignored one warning after another of an imminent terrorist attack before 9/11. But in fact, it is clear the administration did know we could be attacked in any number of ways, including by turning a hijacked commercial airliner into a missile. There were at least a dozen warnings from foreign intelligence services of terrorist plans to attack, including some citing the possibility of turning a hijacked plane into a suicide missile. Explicit warnings came from British, German, Italian, Egyptian, and Jordanian intelligence, and even from Vladimir Putin. In July 2001, just two months before 9/11, there were intelligence warnings that the G-8 summit in Genoa might be attacked by "planes stuffed with explosives." Italian officials took these threats seriously enough to close the air space over Genoa and install anti-aircraft guns around the city. And Bush thought enough of them to chose to stay in a ship off the coast instead of in Genoa. Unfortunately, he thought less about the safety of ordinary Americans than he did about his own safety.

Donald Rumsfeld told the 9/11 Commission that defense against attacks on American soil was not the responsibility of the Defense Department, but a "law enforcement issue".  Yet there have been no consequences for anyone in the Bush Administration or the intelligence community. Rumsfeld should have been fired after 9/11. along with top leadership at the CIA and FBI. Instead, the intelligence agencies were rewarded with an increase in funding estimated at 30 percent, and a free hand to torture prisoners and spy on American citizens. And Rumsfeld was given what he wanted all along, which was a war with Iraq. Tenet was awarded the medal of freedom on his retirement

9/11 represented betrayal by two of America's allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Through its powerful intelligence service, Pakistan basically created the Taliban in Afghanistan, and its agents stationed around that country cooperated with Al Qaeda. It ignored the Taliban's support of Al Qaeda. There is little doubt that members of Pakistani intelligence knew that 9/11 was going to happen, including the details.But today, Pakistan is our best friend in the region, receiving a significant increase in U.S. aid. So,don't go there. The Pakistani role in all of this pales in comparison to the involvement of Saudi Arabia. Saudis are clearly the major funding source for Al Qaeda. In fact, the person who helped create Al Qaeda was Prince Turki, who at the time was the head of Saudi intelligence. He participated in the recruitment of Osama Bin Laden, along with other Islamic fundamentalists, to go to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight against the Soviets. And what were the consequences for Prince Turki? Last year he was welcomed as the new Saudi ambassador to the United States.  Thanks to the courage and quick action of flight attendants aboard Flight 11, American Airlines headquarters knew about the first hijacking no more than 10 minutes after it happened. This was before any of the other three planes had been hijacked. It was nearly 20 minutes before Flight 93 even left the ground. What would have happened if American Airlines had passed this information on, instead of keeping it to themselves.

Pilots might have been warned to secure their cockpit doors. Planes on the ground might not have taken off. Officials in New York City would have known that the first World Trade Tower crash was no accident, and they might have evacuated the other tower. How many lives could have been saved? But what were the consequences for American Airlines negligence? The official who was in charge at American Airlines headquarters that day has since been promoted to president of the airline. Along with the other carriers, American has received huge government bailouts since 9/11. And to this day, they haven't instituted the changes that are necessary to keep their passengers safe. A few months ago Steve Elson, a member of the FAA's Red Team--undercover former special operations people trained to test air security by breaking through it--traveled to Toronto where with reporters in tow, he picked the locks of all the doors in the Toronto airport.He thus easily gained access to all baggage handling facilities, ramps, walkways, cockpits and seats of idled lanes, food vending trucks, and so on. It would be a simple matter to plant a bomb on an aircraft destined for New York or Washington or LA. James Ridgeway is the author of The 5 Unanswered Questions about 9/11 (Seven Stories Press) that investigates what the 911 commission report failed to tell us.

[changedname]

So are they now pointing fingers of blame at each other? I just love it when their plans unravel and unravel they will! The light will shine in their hidden corners of darkness to reveil the truth and there is nothing they will be able to do to stop it! When push comes to shove and some feel threatened they will give up information on each other in order to try to save self!! Just watch..It will happen!

[Dig]

Policy Watch: The Saudi-Iraq connection Saudi fear of Iran
http://wpherald.com/articles/2588/1/Policy-Watch-The-Saudi-Iraq-connection/Saudi-fear-of-Iran.html
By Mark N. Katz | Published  Dec/15/2006


WASHINGTON -- In a Nov. 29 Washington Post op-ed piece, the well-connected Saudi analyst, Nawaf Obaid, warned that the Kingdom would provide aid to Iraqi Sunnis if American forces withdrew from Iraq. The Saudi Press Agency quickly issued a statement from an unnamed "official source" saying that Obaid's op-ed "does not represent any official Saudi authority." Obaid's op-ed had, in fact, stated that the opinions he expressed were "his own and do not reflect official Saudi policy." To underline the truth of that, the outgoing Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, terminated Obaid's consultancy with the Saudi Embassy.

Yet despite this public repudiation, it has subsequently become apparent that Obaid's views do reflect official Saudi policy, at least to some extent. The New York Times on Dec. 12 reported that Saudi King Abdallah told Vice President Cheney during the latter's recent visit to Riyadh that the Kingdom, "might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq." In fact, this may already be taking place informally. The Washington Post reported (also on Dec. 12) that, "Young Saudi men have joined the Sunni insurgency as foreign fighters, while there have been persistent reports that Saudi citizens have provided financial aid to the Sunni insurgency."

Why would Saudi Arabia support those forces in Iraq who have been most fiercely opposed to the American military presence there? There are two reasons. First, much of the largely Sunni Saudi public genuinely sympathizes with the Iraqi Sunnis. As Obaid noted, some of the "major Saudi tribal confederations ... have extremely close historical and communal ties with their counterparts in Iraq." Second, the Saudis fear that with America gone, Iran and its Iraqi Shiite allies will quickly come to dominate all Iraq and then be in a position to threaten Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

What exactly, though, would Saudi Arabia do if the United States left Iraq? For while it does not want Iran to dominate Iraq or Arab Sunnis there to be driven out by Arab Shiites, the Kingdom does not want to get directly involved in the fighting with its own forces.

[realitycheck101]

WOW!!!! What an AWESOME and eye opening thread.. I have not had a chance to read all of them yet as they are all very long but I will be making the time to read every word..

The information in so many of these threads and others is the reason why the NWO will be fully unveiled sooner than they wanted to be.

[jimd3100]

THATS WHY THEY WERE DESTROYED. [/b] It's what is on the tapes. They were kept from the commission and they were destroyed, because of the information the person gave on tape. Now do you really think that if MR Al Qaida Abu Zubaydah gave testimony on tape that the President of the United States Mr George W Bush, helped the people who carried out 9/11 escape justice that they would not destroy it? Of course they would. That is what is on the tape. You see 9/11 was carried out by mossad, US Intelligence, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistani Intelligence. And Zubadah spills the beans.
Now let's take a closer look at the first Saudi official Zubadah claims is his boss and gives the phone number out as proof. It is Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who BTW is the leader of the group of Saudi Arabians that President George W Bush let escape from the U.S[/bNo..they don't want you to know this..and as further proof here is the memo Philip Zelikow sent just a few days(Dec 13 2007) and on page 6 states...

Late in its investigation, reacting to press allegations that Abu Zubaydah had
referred to a Saudi prince in his interrogations, the Commission asked “what
information does the CIA have” about whether such assertions were made in
Zubaydah’s interrogations. (CIA Question for the Record No. 3, dated May
20, 2004). We knew the CIA believed this was untrue but we asked the
question formally to get any relevant information for the record. We cannot
find a record of a CIA response.source:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf

The reason the tapes were destroyed is not because it shows torture, it's because of what we've been saying all along. 9/11 was an inside job. Bin Laden is Saudi Intelligence. 9/11 was carried out by the intelligence agencies of the NWO. It's on tape! Of course it will be destroyed!

According to this article the guy that ordered the destruction of the CIA tapes is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence committee Jan 16.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3087293.ece

 I think I'll be emailing some worthless politicians to inform them it might be a good time to ask him the same thing the worthless 9/11 commission tried asking them and they responded by saying nothing and destroying the tapes. Did Abu Zubaydah, give the phone number of Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, and claim he was his boss, as books and time magazine articles have said? And if he did, then you have your proof, that our president helped the boss of the folks being tortured in Guantanamo get away, as it is a fact he was the leader of the group of Saudis that fled the country immediately after 9/11, and that order came straight from the white house.

[Biffa]

AHHH....but why is the MSM covering this story? To put the proper spin on it of course! MSM:"The CIA destroyed the tapes because it showed torture." Thats the spin. It's a lie! A Smokescreen! Guess what? Everyone knows they torture. They were even told they had the authority. MSM:"uhhhh....OH, they destroyed the tapes because ..um..because they didn't want the interrogators to be identified". I'm not even going to respond to that, let's just say, I've seen scum on the show Cops on video that I couldn't identify. No...they wont tell you the REAL reason these tapes were destroyed. But I will.
Guess why they torture? To get information. What information did they get? THATS WHY THEY WERE DESTROYED. It's what is on the tapes. They were kept from the commission and they were destroyed, because of the information the person gave on tape. Now do you really think that if MR Al Qaida Abu Zubaydah gave testimony on tape that the President of the United States Mr George W Bush, helped the people who carried out 9/11 escape justice that they would not destroy it? Of course they would. That is what is on the tape. You see 9/11 was carried out by mossad, US Intelligence, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistani Intelligence. And Zubadah spills the beans.
From:

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

<<<Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, told in a gripping narrative that reads like a techno-thriller, did not just take down one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives but also unexpectedly provided what one U.S. investigator told Posner was "the Rosetta stone of 9/11 ... the details of what (Zubaydah) claimed was his 'work' for senior Saudi and Pakistani officials." <<>>Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk,<<<>>>>he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's<<<>>>When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle<<<>>>Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds<<<>>>Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."<<<>>>Those three Saudi princes all perished within days of one another. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed was felled by a heart attack at age 43. One day later Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41, was killed in what was called a high-speed car accident. The last member of the trio, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, officially "died of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh one week later. And seven months after that, Mushaf Ali Mir, by then Pakistan's Air Marshal, perished in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly North-West Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.>>>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now let's take a closer look at the first Saudi official Zubadah claims is his boss and gives the phone number out as proof. It is Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who BTW is the leader of the group of Saudi Arabians that President George W Bush let escape from the U.S. as the 9/11 terrorist attacks were over. Remember the flights of the Bin laden family and Saudi Arabians that flew out of the U.S. when the rest of us unwashed couldn't fly?..Abu Zubaydahs' boss was the leader of them and he said that on tape. BYE BYE TAPE. Here is the FBI report of the Saudi flights that Bin Laden himself may have chartered according to the report and there on page 11/224 is the man Zubadah fingered as his boss and who they describe as the leader of this group, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%202.pdf
No..they don't want you to know this..and as further proof here is the memo Philip Zelikow sent just a few days(Dec 13 2007) and on page 6 states...

Late in its investigation, reacting to press allegations that Abu Zubaydah had
referred to a Saudi prince in his interrogations, the Commission asked “what
information does the CIA have” about whether such assertions were made in
Zubaydah’s interrogations. (CIA Question for the Record No. 3, dated May
20, 2004). We knew the CIA believed this was untrue but we asked the
question formally to get any relevant information for the record. We cannot
find a record of a CIA response.source:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf

The reason the tapes were destroyed is not because it shows torture, it's because of what we've been saying all along. 9/11 was an inside job. Bin Laden is Saudi Intelligence. 9/11 was carried out by the intelligence agencies of the NWO. It's on tape! Of course it will be destroyed!

Great information. Can't believe that Zubaydah's boss 'Prince Ahmed' was actually allowed to fly home during the flight ban.

The fact that the CIA deliberately covered up the taped interrogation of Zubaydah and that they have been caught out is unbelievable, it is all coming out. Thanks to the book by Posner, (the Time link), we can appreciate the significance of this and put the pieces togeather. It just shows that people are blowing the whistle. And the information, despite the efforts to destroy it, is coming out.

I assume you have read it, but to you and everybody else, in my 'Why Afghanistan' thread, it can be seen  that there are further suspicious Al-Quaeda connections. It can be shown that Afghanistan is crucial in the imperialists Geo-Political strategy. Central Asia gas and oil reserves are immense. The pipeline consortium ( Unocal, and the Saudi, Delta Oil) was funding Al-Quaeda. 'The' driving force behind Delta Oil just happens to be one of the most important sponsors of Al-Quaeda!

Yet the disgusting farce of the 'war on terror' rumbles on.

[jimd3100]

According to this article the guy that ordered the destruction of the CIA tapes is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence committee Jan 16.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3087293.ece

 I think I'll be emailing some worthless politicians to inform them it might be a good time to ask him the same thing the worthless 9/11 commission tried asking them and they responded by saying nothing and destroying the tapes. Did Abu Zubaydah, give the phone number of Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, and claim he was his boss, as books and time magazine articles have said? And if he did, then you have your proof, that our president helped the boss of the folks being tortured in Guantanamo get away, as it is a fact he was the leader of the group of Saudis that fled the country immediately after 9/11, and that order came straight from the white house.

I've f***in had it with this regime and the mainstream media that is helping them. There is a hearing on the 16th, like I said. I've already contacted these worthless pieces of trash and told them all about these tapes and the laughing hijackers as well. Flood their freakin box. Tapes brought down Nixon, and these tapes...if a proper investigation was done could unravel the whole "war on terror" house of cards. I've already got a full time job, and now I'm trying to do the worthless MSM job for them as well. Read the article if you agree contact this committee and tell them what we know. Time is running out the hearing is the 16th. Blindside the CIA with the ATTA tape fiasco. They wont expect questions about those tapes!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jimd3100_080111_cia_hid_other_tapes_.htm

[Biffa]

A more recent update on the story by Gerald Posner, who originally revealed the connection between senior Al-Quaeda figure Abu Zubadayah and prominent Saudi royals. Posner's Time story was from back in 2003.

Regarding the latest controversy, that of the CIA being brought under scrutiny for the witholding and destruction of taped interrogations of Zubaydah, Posner wrote about this in December, when the story initially broke.

The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 911 Connection
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

Zubaydah revealed connections to a number of prominent Saudi royals. His boss Prince Ahmed, was the leader of the Saudi party that was allowed to fly home during the general flight ban after 911 (as Jimd showed). All of the Saudi's that where named have since met a variety of unfortunate and untimely fates as the linked article chronicles.

It only required a press release from the CIA director to tell the press why the tapes where destroyed for the MSM to roll over and follow the bullshit he was giving the public. Hence the unquestioning adherence to the establishment.

[jimd3100]

A more recent update on the story by Gerald Posner, who originally revealed the connection between senior Al-Quaeda figure Abu Zubadayah and prominent Saudi royals. Posner's Time story was from back in 2003.

Regarding the latest controversy, that of the CIA being brought under scrutiny for the witholding and destruction of taped interrogations of Zubaydah, Posner wrote about this in December, when the story initially broke.

The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 911 Connection
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

Zubaydah revealed connections to a number of prominent Saudi royals. His boss Prince Ahmed, was the leader of the Saudi party that was allowed to fly home during the general flight ban after 911 (as Jimd showed). All of the Saudi's that where named have since met a variety of unfortunate and untimely fates as the linked article chronicles.

It only required a press release from the CIA director to tell the press why the tapes where destroyed for the MSM to roll over and follow the bullshit he was giving the public. Hence the unquestioning adherence to the establishment.

Interesting. But I have to admit. I find it absolutely amazing that I am the only person on the planet evidently, that realizes that according to their own interrogations, the bosses of these prisoners called "al qaida"  were allowed to escape right after 9/11 by orders of the white house. Posner himself evidently doesn't know this Saudi Prince was according to the FBIs own documents was the leader of this group of Saudis to fly out of the U.S. after 9/11. It's not something I just made up, anyone can see the documents, I showed a link to them. I can't see anywhere where anybody has brought this up. I can't see anywhere, where anyone has brought up, the Atta Tapes, which prove that the US Government had tapes of the 9/11 hijackers and kept them secret, then tried (and succeeded)to fool the american public and media that Al Qaida made and released these tapes. I'm not trying to say, look how smart I am. I am extremely frustrated by this. I"ve tried getting this word out. These tapes if a real investigation was done could bring down the whole "war on terror" house of cards. But it wont happen because me and a couple of people on prisonplanet are the only ones in the world that even understand it I guess.

[jimd3100]

More proof that the destruction of the tapes has to do with what he said on them........

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/02/07/moussaoui_judge_sought_interrogation_info/2938/

Moussaoui judge sought interrogation info

Published: Feb. 7, 2008 at 2:57 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Court papers released Wednesday indicate that a U.S. judge was seeking information about a detainee depicted in CIA tapes when the tapes were destroyed.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, was not told that the CIA had videotaped questioning of Abu Zubaydah. But the documents, which were formerly classified, suggest that she was trying to get more information on Zubaydah's interrogation in late November 2005, The New York Times reported.

The CIA destroyed the tapes of two interrogations, including Zubaydah's, that month. CIA Director Michael Hayden said last year that the tapes by that time weren't relevant to any trials.

In a statement to CIA employees in December, Hayden said the tape destruction came "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries -- including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui."

In 2005, the CIA provided Brinkema with summaries of Zubaydah's interrogation and other documents without telling her about the videotape, the Times' article said.

[skeptic101]

How does someone truly believe "significant truths" were detroyed by the CIA and you just watch tv, post, work at your job--that's how your suppose to handle the truth?  Just go along with the sheep and hope they will all wakeup someday?  I really don't get this 911 is an inside job thing if all what people are doing is posting about it.

[Biffa22]

U.S. court rules Saudi Arabia immune in 9/11 case
August 15 2008.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, four princes and other Saudi entities are immune from a lawsuit filed by victims of the September 11 attacks and their families alleging they gave material support to al Qaeda, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.

The ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Casey dismissing a claim against Saudi Arabia, a Saudi charity, four princes and a Saudi banker of providing material support to al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks.

The victims and their families argued that because the defendants gave money to Muslim charities that in turn gave money to al Qaeda, they should be held responsible for helping to finance the attacks.

The appeals court found that the defendants are protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The court also noted that exceptions to the immunity rule do not apply because Saudi Arabia has not been designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.

(Reporting by Edith Honan, editing by Vicki Allen)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1448612320080815

[Triadtropz]

I think these tapes didnt fit into the KSM theory, so they were destroyed...I say the hamburg alqaeda cell were hired guns...

[Biffa22]

A congressional investigation in 2003 on the 911 attack had a large section of its report redacted. There was a congressional meeting where some of the people on the investigation team argued for an amendment to release these pages to the public. Here are a few interesting quotes from the transcript of this meeting which give us some indication of what was in those pages.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/s102803.html

(a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--
       (1) The President has prevented the release to the American
     public of 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence
     Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks
     of September 2001.
       (2) The contents of the redacted pages discuss sources of
     foreign support for some of the September 11th hijackers
     while they were in the United States.
       
   …    (5) The Senate respects the need to keep information
     regarding intelligence sources and methods classified, but
     the Senate also recognizes that such purposes can be
     accomplished through careful selective redaction of specific
     words and passages, rather than effacing the section's
     contents entirely..

Senators Graham and Shelby, the former chair and cochair of the Intelligence Committee who directed the report are quoted saying the following: "I think they are classified for the wrong reason," the former vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told NBC's "Meet the Press." "I went back and read every one of those pages thoroughly. My judgment is 95 percent of that information should be declassified and become uncensored so the American people would know." Asked why the section was blacked out, Shelby said: "I think it might be embarrassing to international relations."

… There is also an issue not of micro but of macro importance: This
report makes a very compelling case, based on the information submitted
by the agencies themselves, that there was a foreign government which
was complicitous in the actions leading up to September 11, at least as
it relates to some of the terrorists who were present in one part of
the United States.

… My own hypothesis--and I will describe it as that--is that in fact
similar assistance was being provided to all or at least most of the
terrorists. The difference is that we happened, because of a set of
circumstances which are contained in these 28 censored pages, to have
an unusual window on a few of the terrorists. We did not have a similar
window on others. Therefore, it will take more effort to determine if
they were, in fact, receiving that assistance. That effort has, in my
judgment, been grossly insufficiently pursued.

… Those are very fundamental questions, and if the public had access to
these 28 pages, they would be demanding answers.

And there is the additional issue of whether
we are going to inadvertently grant a significant financial benefit to
a country that has been to say less than our ally in the war on terror
would be a gross understatement.

[jimd3100]

AHHH....but why is the MSM covering this story? To put the proper spin on it of course! MSM:"The CIA destroyed the tapes because it showed torture." Thats the spin. It's a lie! A Smokescreen!  What information did they get? THATS WHY THEY WERE DESTROYED. It's what is on the tapes. They were kept from the commission and they were destroyed, because of the information the person gave on tape. Now do you really think that if MR Al Qaida Abu Zubaydah gave testimony on tape that the President of the United States Mr George W Bush, helped the people who carried out 9/11 escape justice that they would not destroy it? Of course they would. That is what is on the tape. You see 9/11 was carried out by mossad, US Intelligence, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistani Intelligence. And Zubadah spills the beans.
From:

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

<<<Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, told in a gripping narrative that reads like a techno-thriller, did not just take down one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives but also unexpectedly provided what one U.S. investigator told Posner was "the Rosetta stone of 9/11 ... the details of what (Zubaydah) claimed was his 'work' for senior Saudi and Pakistani officials." <<>>Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk,<<<>>>>he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's<<<>>>When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle<<<>>>Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds<<<>>>Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."<<<>>>Those three Saudi princes all perished within days of one another. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed was felled by a heart attack at age 43. One day later Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41, was killed in what was called a high-speed car accident. The last member of the trio, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, officially "died of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh one week later. And seven months after that, Mushaf Ali Mir, by then Pakistan's Air Marshal, perished in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly North-West Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.>>>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now let's take a closer look at the first Saudi official Zubadah claims is his boss and gives the phone number out as proof. It is Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who BTW is the leader of the group of Saudi Arabians that President George W Bush let escape from the U.S. as the 9/11 terrorist attacks were over. Remember the flights of the Bin laden family and Saudi Arabians that flew out of the U.S. when the rest of us unwashed couldn't fly?..Abu Zubaydahs' boss was the leader of them and he said that on tape. BYE BYE TAPE. Here is the FBI report of the Saudi flights that Bin Laden himself may have chartered according to the report and there on page 11/224 is the man Zubadah fingered as his boss and who they describe as the leader of this group, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%202.pdf
No..they don't want you to know this..and as further proof here is the memo Philip Zelikow sent just a few days(Dec 13 2007) and on page 6 states...

Late in its investigation, reacting to press allegations that Abu Zubaydah had
referred to a Saudi prince in his interrogations, the Commission asked “what
information does the CIA have” about whether such assertions were made in
Zubaydah’s interrogations. (CIA Question for the Record No. 3, dated May
20, 2004). We knew the CIA believed this was untrue but we asked the
question formally to get any relevant information for the record. We cannot
find a record of a CIA response.source:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf

The reason the tapes were destroyed is not because it shows torture, it's because of what we've been saying all along. 9/11 was an inside job. Bin Laden is Saudi Intelligence. 9/11 was carried out by the intelligence agencies of the NWO. It's on tape! Of course it will be destroyed!

Well, according to this article, the investigation into this CIA tapes fiasco should be concluded by the end of Feb. Expect the result to be "Oh, it was all a silly misunderstanding, but some folks got chewed out pretty good!"....or some BS like that......I'd suggest going to the source of the article as it has imbedded links.

From http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/01/cia_video_destruction.html

Criminal Investigation of CIA Video Destruction is “Ongoing”
 
The destruction by Central Intelligence Agency officials of videotapes showing the interrogation of suspected terrorists is the subject of “an ongoing criminal investigation” that is expected to conclude in the near future, according to a prosecution official.

“Investigators are now in the process of scheduling interviews with the remaining witnesses to be interviewed in this investigation,” wrote John H. Durham, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in an affidavit (pdf) late last month.  “Based on the investigative accomplishments to date, we anticipate that by mid-February 2009, and no later than February 28, 2009, we will have completed the interviews.”

His remarks came in the course of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the James Madison Project for documents pertaining to the CIA videotape destruction.  The government asked for a stay of the FOIA proceedings until witness interviews are completed.  At a hearing on January 6, the request for a stay until February 28, 2009 was granted by the court, said attorney Mark S. Zaid, director of the James Madison Project.

Key details of the pending criminal investigation have been redacted from Mr. Durham’s affidavit, including the number of witnesses interviewed and the volume of documents examined to date.  But the affidavit does provide a sense of the level of activity involved, indicating that “a considerable portion of the work to be done in connection with the investigation has already been completed.”

Mr. Durham noted that “in many instances,” delays have resulted from witness requests for legal representation and the need to get witness attorneys cleared.  In some cases, the government officials involved have retired and have been “read out” of the highly compartmented intelligence programs in question, and it has taken additional time to have their credentials reinstated, he said.

A copy of the December 31, 2008 CIA motion for a stay, with Mr. Durham’s affidavit, is here.  The destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, which occurred in 2005, was reported in the New York Times on December 7, 2007.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/01/cia_video_destruction.html

[jimd3100]

This is important. "The stuff that is going to spark hot debate is Chapter 19, an account—based on Zubaydah's claims as told to Posner by "two government sources" who are unnamed but "in a position to know"—of what two countries allied to the U.S. did to build up al-Qaeda and what they knew before that September day."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

It's important because it helps explode the "myth" of Al qaeda. Who really funds it and what it's about. It also proves that Bush is a traitor. By connecting a couple of dots....

"Zubaydah... reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

Bush lied to the 9/11 commission when he told them he had nothing to do with the Saudi flights leaving the U.S. This is important because....
Here is the FBI report of the Saudi flights that Bin Laden himself may have chartered according to the report and there on page 11/224 is the man Zubadah fingered as his boss and who they describe as the leader of this group, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%202.pdf

The DOJ released an OIG report into what role the FBI played in detainee interrogations.

The 438 page report titled...A Review of the FBI's Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq    Can be found here....
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf

footnote number 4- "When the OIG investigative team was preparing for its trip to GTMO in early 2007, we asked the DOD for permission to interview several detainees, including Zubaydah. The DOD agreed, stating that our interviews would not interfere with their attempts to obtain any intelligence from the detainees, including Zubaydah.  However, the CIA Acting General Counsel objected to our interviewing Zubaydah. <<redacted-redacted-redacted>>In addition, the CIA Acting General Counsel asserted that the OIG had not persuaded him that the OIG had a "demonstrable and immediate need to interview Zubaydah at that time" given what the Acting General Counsel understood to be the OIG's "investigative mandate." In addition, the CIA Acting General Counsel asserted that Zubaydah could make false allegations against CIA employees. We believe that none of these reasons were persuasive or warranted denying us access to Zubaydah. First, neither the FBI nor the DOD objected to our access to Zubaydah at that time. In addition, neither the FBI nor the DOD stated that an OIG interview would interfere with their interviews of him. Second, at GTMO we were given access to other high value detainees. Third, we did have a demonstrable and immediate need to interview Zubaydah at that time, as well as the other detainees who we were given access to, notwithstanding the CIA Acting General Counsel's position that we had not persuaded him. Finally, the fact that Zubaydah could make false allegations against CIA employees- as could other detainees- was not in our view a legitimate reason to object to our access to him. In sum, we believe that the CIA's reasons for objecting to OIG access to Zubaydah were unwarranted, and its lack of cooperation hampered our investigation."
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf

This report only mentions interrogation techniques that the FBI witnessed and reported. And the FBI didn't see the worst as the report states......

"Our report found that after FBI agents in GTMO and other military zones were confronted with interrogators from other agencies who used more aggressive interrogation techniques than the techniques that the FBI had successfully employed for many years, the FBI decided that it would not participate in joint interrogations of detainees with other agencies in which techniques not allowed by the FBI were used."

It looks like, as much as the FBI does not want to be in this position, they are. They are in the position to confirm or deny what Posner has revealed in Time magazine and his book as Zubaydah spilling the beans on "al-qaeda" revealed here.....   http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.phptopic=19511.msg72768#msg72768
and
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

from the report...."Zubaydah had been severely wounded when he was captured, and two FBI agents were assigned to assist the CIA in obtaining intelligence from him while he was recovering from his injuries. The FBI agents conducted the initial interviews of Zubaydah, assisting in his care and developing rapport with him. However, when the CIA interrogators arrived at the site they assumed control of the interrogation. After observing the CIA use interrogation techniques that undoubtedly would not be permitted under FBI interview policies, one of the FBI agents expressed strong concerns about these techniques to senior officials in the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters."

"This agents reports led to discussion at FBI headquarters and with the DOJ and the CIA about the FBI's role in joint interrogations with other agencies. Ultimately, these discussions resulted in a determination by FBI Director Robert Mueller in approximately Augest 2002 that the FBI would not participate in joint interrogations of detainees with other agencies in which harsh or extreme techniques not allowed by the FBI would be employed."

So what did the FBI witness during the interrogations of Zubaydah? This is important as it would confirm what Posner has written based on his sources.

Footnote number 5--"The FBI agents' accounts of the techniques they witnessed during the interrogations of Zubaydah and other high value detainee are described in our classified full report."
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf

BTW. Does the United States torture people? And how bad is the torture if they do? The answer is yes, the United States tortures people. The United States tortures people to death. I'd say that some pretty bad torture. It's not just making people sleepy and putting panties on their head. And BTW, it's not just two people this happened to. And don't fall for the BS of "yea, but they aren't supposed to do that and if they do they get punished." The only people who get "punished" are low ranking military personnel, and CIA "contractors" but only if the contractor is an American.  CIA officials get rewarded, and protected.

From the report..."Several FBI employees told us they had heard about two detainee deaths at the military facility in Bagram, but none of the FBI employees said they had personal knowledge of these deaths. According to the Church Report, two detainees died at the Bagram facility following interrogations in which they were shackled in standing positions and kicked and beaten by military interrogators and military police." 8

Footnote number 8--"The Army's Criminal Investigative Division recommended charges against 28 soldiers in connection with these deaths. At least 15 of these soldiers have been prosecuted by the Army, and at least 6 have pleaded guilty or been convicted of assault and other crimes. Several have been acquitted."

Only low ranking soldiers get prosecuted for this stuff, or Americans "contracted" by the CIA. Not high ranking military or active CIA personnel.

from: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
"Two sources also told ABC that the techniques -- authorized for use by only a handful of trained CIA officers -- have been misapplied in at least one instance."

"The sources said that in that case a young, untrained junior officer caused the death of one detainee at a mud fort dubbed the "salt pit" that is used as a prison. They say the death occurred when the prisoner was left to stand naked throughout the harsh Afghanistan night after being doused with cold water. He died, they say, of hypothermia."

"According to the sources, a second CIA detainee died in Iraq and a third detainee died following harsh interrogation by Department of Defense personnel and contractors in Iraq. CIA sources said that in the DOD case, the interrogation was harsh, but did not involve the CIA."
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/26/2003176602

"372nd Military Police Company, Captain Donald Reese said that one night last November he saw the bloodied body of an Iraqi prisoner who had died during interrogation inside a shower stall in a prison cellblock. He said a number of officers were standing around the body, discussing what to do."

"One of them, he said, was Pappas, the prison's military intelligence chief. "I heard Colonel Pappas say, `I'm not going to go down alone for this,'" Reese testified. An autopsy the next day established the cause of death as a blood clot from trauma, he said."

"The hearing was for Specialist Sabrina Harman, 26, who appears in some of the photographs of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib showing a human pyramid of detainees. Harman also appears smiling broadly in a photograph with the dead detainee referred to in Reese's testimony. She has been charged with conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, making a false statement and assault."

"In addition to Pappas, Reese testified that among the others in the room were members of the CIA."

"Reese, whose testimony lasted several hours, said he had been told the detainee had died from "a heart attack." But, he said, the body was "bleeding from the head, nose, mouth."

"Reese testified that the detainee had died during interrogation."

"A US military policeman said in sworn testimony in April that the man had been brought to Abu Ghraib by OGA, initials for "other government agency," or the CIA."
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/26/2003176602

from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article412996.ece

"On Friday Graner, 36, was convicted of assault, battery, maltreatment, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty after a military court heard that he had brutalised prisoners for “sport” and “laughs”. Last night he was jailed for 10 years."

"Graner showed no reaction when the sentence was read out. Asked on his way to jail if he had any regrets, he replied: “Maybe you missed that there’s a war on. Bad things happen in war. Apparently I followed an illegal order.”

"This week Graner’s girlfriend and smiling accomplice, Lynndie England, faces her own court martial."

"Neither of them was responsible for any deaths of detainees."

"The Pentagon has admitted to five detainee deaths as a result of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a further 23 under investigation. These figures may be revised upwards when a report on interrogation methods from Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan and Iraq by Vice-Admiral Albert Church is released next month. Mark Danner, author of Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror, which is published in Britain next month, said the administration of George W Bush was anxious to publicise the case against Graner at the expense of others."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article412996.ece

"David Passaro (born 1966) is a former CIA contractor and U.S. Army Ranger who was charged with assault in connection with the June 21, 2003 death of Abdul Wali. Wali died in Afghanistan while in the custody of the United States government for questioning. Passaro was found guilty of one count of felony assault with a dangerous weapon and three counts of misdemeanor assault. He was sentenced to serve 8 years and 4 months in prison. Passaro is the first person connected with the CIA to have been convicted in a post-Sept. 11 abuse case."

"Wali had voluntarily turned himself in at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan on June 13, 2003 after learning that he was wanted for questioning in connections with rocket attacks against the base."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Passaro


"Manadel al-Jamadi (Arabic: مناضل الجمادي‎) was an Iraqi prisoner who was tortured to death in United States custody during interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison in November 2003."

"Associated Press correspondent Seth Hettena reported that 30 minutes after beginning his questioning of the prisoner, the CIA interrogator Mark Swanner called for guards to reposition al-Jamadi, who he believed was "playing possum" as he slouched with his arms stretched behind him. But the guards found otherwise:"

"After we found out he was dead, they were nervous," Specialist Dennis Stevanus said of the CIA interrogator and translator. "They didn't know what the hell to do."

"According to Spc. Jason Kenner, an M.P. with the 372nd Military Police Company, al-Jamadi was brought to the prison by U.S. Navy SEALs in good health; Kenner says he saw that al-Jamadi looked extensively bruised when he was brought out of the showers, dead. According to Kenner a "battle" took place among CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose of the body."

"Mark Swanner, the CIA interrogator, has faced no charges. In August 2007, Thomas Pappas, the most senior officer present during the interrogation and time of death, was granted immunity in return for his testimony at the court martial of his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manadel_al-Jamadi

"Mark Swanner is a CIA interrogator. He worked at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. A prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died during one of his interrogations while his wrists were tied behind his back."

"Swanner claims that he did not harm al-Jamadi and that the death was accidental and unexpected. He has not been charged with a crime."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Swanner

Back to the FBI report....perhaps Posners' sources for the revelations made by Zubaydah, are FBI interrogators who were there........

"Zubaydah   We investigated an allegation that an FBI agent who was assigned to assist in the CIA's interrogation of Zubaydah at a secret location participated in the use of "brutal" interrogation techniques. 10 The FBI agent was present when the CIA used techniques on Zubaydah that clearly and obviously would not be available to FBI agents for use in the United States. However, these interrogations took place in early 2002, before the FBI had determined whether its traditional policies regarding interviews would apply to overseas interrogations of terrorism suspects. The agent described these interrogations to his superiors at the FBI. At the time of the interrogation, the FBI agent was told that the other agency was in charge of the interrogation and that normal FBI procedures should not be followed. The FBI's formal policy addressing participation in joint interrogations with other agencies in overseas locations was not issued until 2 years later in May 2004."

"We also examined the FBI's internal investigation regarding an allegation that the same FBI agent disclosed classified information about this interrogation. The FBI agent's ex-fiance and a friend of hers alleged that the agent told them numerous specific details about his participation in the interrogation of a terrorism subject at an overseas location. The FBI's Inspection Division investigated the matter, and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that it was unable to determine whether information alleged to have been improperly disclosed was in fact classified or sensitive because of the vague descriptions provided by the ex-fiance and her friend."

"However, we found that the information the ex-fiance attributed to the FBI agent was detailed, specific, and accurate, and appeared to contain classified information about the Zubaydah interrogation."

footnote number 10--"As noted in footnote 4, because the CIA objected to our access to Zubaydah we were unable to fully investigate these allegations."
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf

[jimd3100]

Gee...who could have predicted this?     I'm not big on making predictions, but I think we all saw this one coming.....


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

After an exhaustive probe that lasted nearly three years, federal prosecutor John Durham concluded that he would not bring a criminal case against the CIA officers. The burning of the 92 tapes on Nov. 9, 2005, was authorized in a cable sent by Jose Rodriguez Jr., head of the agency's directorate of operations.

"This decision is stunning: There is ample evidence of a coverup regarding the destruction of the tapes,'' ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said. "The Bush administration was instructed by a court of law not to destroy evidence of torture, but that's exactly what it did.''

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said that he welcomed the news and that the agency has cooperated with Durham's investigation from the start. "We will continue, of course, to cooperate with the Department of Justice on any other aspects of the former program that it reviews,'' he said.

But a former senior CIA operations officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to comment freely, questioned the decision not to bring charges and said the tapes were not destroyed "in total innocence."

"To my understanding . . . there was a standing order from a federal judge that said not to destroy the tapes. That trumps any inside the CIA legal call," the ex-official said.


Durham's team of prosecutors and FBI agents have been exploring whether the tapes were instead destroyed in anticipation of a congressional or federal investigation, which could constitute a crime. Sources familiar with the probe described on Tuesday a relentless investigation, in which Durham brought CIA lawyers, operatives and others before a federal grand jury and probed for inconsistencies in their accounts. Some witnesses testified four or five times, sources said.

But sources have said authorities found it difficult to pinpoint the motivation for destroying the tapes, and that it was difficult to prove criminal intent.

Rodriguez, a top CIA official from 2004 to 2007, authorized the tapes' destruction and has been a key focus of the inquiry. Sources said Tuesday that he will not be charged.

Robert S. Bennett, an attorney for Rodriguez, said he is "pleased that the Justice Department has decided not to go forward against Mr. Rodriguez. This is the right decision because of the facts and the law.''

"Jose Rodriguez is an American hero, a true patriot who only wanted to protect his people and his country," Bennett said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110907059.html

I rubbed my Crystal ball......I wonder how this other "review" will turn out..

"Mar 01, 2010
WASHINGTON - The FBI sought to close the book on its long, frustrating hunt for the killer behind the 2001 anthrax letters Friday, formally ending its investigation and concluding a mentally unhinged scientist was responsible for killing five people and unnerving Americans nationwide."

"After years of false leads, no arrests and public criticism, the FBI and Justice Department said Dr. Bruce Ivins, a government researcher, acted alone."

"Ivins killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to indict him for the attacks. He had denied involvement, and his family and some friends have continued to insist he was innocent."
http://www.news1130.com/news/world/article/28509--fbi-closes-deadly-2001-anthrax-case-finding-us-government-researcher-ivins-acted-alone

"Thu Sep 16, 2010
(Reuters) - Congressional investigators plan to examine how the FBI determined that one scientist was responsible for the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, a lawmaker said."

"The National Academy of Sciences has been doing its own review of the FBI's scientific methods used to investigate the anthrax attacks. The GAO said that report is due to be finished later this year."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68F5MZ20100916

My crystal ball said The National Academy of Sciences will report that "Mistakes were made" but ultimately they will back up the FBI in any conclusion it reached in the anthrax attacks.....now if I could only use this power for predicting lottery numbers....