Bush was told of Qaeda steps - Pre-9/11 secret memo released

Boston Globe ^ | April 11, 2004 | Charlie Savage

[teletech]

I can't find the words to describe how much I despise the Democratic Party.

How do you fight these liberal lies from the DemocRAT party when they have the press in their pocket and have successfully dumbed down America to the point that people swallow their lies? How, I ask, do we fight against such pure EVIL?

[L.N. Smithee]

The article says that the PDB was entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" when, in fact, as you can see on Drudge Report, Osama's name was misspelled "Bin Ladin."

Who would like to bet dollars to donuts that if Bush had authored a memo that misspelled "Bin Laden" that not only wouldn't media accounts correct his spelling, they would have found ways to question his intelligence or his awareness of current events?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

[Just mythoughts]

"How do you fight these liberal lies from the DemocRAT party when they have the press in their pocket and have successfully dumbed down America to the point that people swallow their lies? How, I ask, do we fight against such pure EVIL?"


The enemy within are sure giving the "terrorists" a run for their money in the "EVIL" department.

Sure makes sense why these lying crooked liberals have gone to such extremes to recreate a "vietnam syndrome" around their inability to keep Saddam in power.

[teletech]

The enemy within are sure giving the "terrorists" a run for their money in the "EVIL" department.

Sure makes sense why these lying crooked liberals have gone to such extremes to recreate a "vietnam syndrome" around their inability to keep Saddam in power.

May God deliver us from the EVIL in our midst. HE is the only one that can.

[Just mythoughts]

"May God deliver us from the EVIL in our midst. HE is the only one that can."


Yes indeed, it is our Heavenly Father that will deliver us from this "evil", as we that hear his voice stand against the "evil".

and Thanks be to Him that sent us the instruction of what will be and what is required to receive His protection. The majority has never been on the side of what is "right", and there is nothing new under the sun. I suppose it is the separating of the "wheat" from the chaff.

[jazzlite]

I truly wish someone at Fox would do an indepth reminder to Americans of what was being said and done to our President in the days prior to 9/11. I maintain that if President Bush and Dr. Rice had taken any kind of hostile action to protect us in those days, the Liberals and the ACLU would have had a field day as they destroyed him. He would have been charged with God only knows what and I am sure attempts to remove him from office would have ensued.

[faithincowboys]

If I were Team Bush, I would see if the Congress was briefed on the contents of this memo before 9-11.

Also, Kerry was on the intel community for much of the 90s-- info they received and Kerry's corresponding attempts to underfund counter-terrorism efforts isinteresting.

There is much for the White House to do to combat this, but they seem not to have the will to do it.

Why is the Gore Commission on Aviation not brought up by Team Bush every waking moment. I just don't get it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The book that sunk John Kerry***Despite a nearly incessant number of television interviews and gabfest appearances by Richard Clarke, a disgruntled political operative who worked in U.S. counterintelligence, American support for President Bush has soared. Clarke's public outcries against the president have been compromised, in part, because of accusations that he's a partisan who gives generous political contributions only to Democrats.

Clarke had a much-watched and much-ballyhooed appearance denouncing President Bush as incompetent in front of the 9/11 Commission. Americans were unmoved. If anything, the Demos' attack-dog strategy is backfiring.

Most Americans simply don't believe Clarke. In fact, according to a Rasmussen Poll, only 39 percent think he's being altruistic.

The survey found, in addition, that "half of America's voters (50 percent) believe that Richard Clarke is making his accusations about the President either to sell his book or to help John Kerry's campaign. Just 39 percent believe Clarke is merely a concerned citizen telling the truth about what he saw."

Clarke has brazenly admitted he didn't even vote for his boss, George W. Bush. (He chose Gore.) So, apparently, he didn't like his boss even before he began working for him. That just goes to show you the thanks Bush got when, trying to be bipartisan, he kept on many of the holdovers from the Clinton administration.

What's more amazing is how Clarke insulted U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice by suggesting that her facial gestures and body language indicated she didn't know what al Qaeda was. If a Republican had been caught suggesting, never mind actually making, such an obviously racial and misogynist remark to any high-level black, female White House official, you could be sure he or she would be branded a racist and run out of town. Women's groups and civil rights groups would all be protesting in unison until the Republican perpetrator was tarred and feathered. But Democratic operatives viciously criticizing a black, Republican woman can get a pass. In fact, they can get all the TV face time they need or could ever want. They get feted and celebrated and have toasts in their honor in the salons of the Upper East Side. ***

[WhiteyAppleseed]

I post this letter, authored by Stephen Dresch and Angela Clemente at post #111 on the PDB thread. Dresch was a former state representative (Republican) in Michigan and now runs some sort of investigative service.

Forensic Intelligence International, LLC
the Kauth house, 318 Cooper Avenue, Hancock, Michigan
49930; 906-370-9993
706-294-9993 (mobile), 603-452-8208 (fax & voice mail), sdresch@forensic-intelligence.org

Monday, April 5, 2004 Urgent & Confidential

Thomas H. Kean, Chairman
Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chairman
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407
Re: Pre-September 2001 FBI and Dept. of Justice Intelligence on Terrorism (R. Yousef)

Dear Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton:

Our monitoring of the Commission’s hearings indicates that significant intelligence concerning the terrorist threat to the United States obtained between 1996 and early 2001 by various components of the U.S. Department of Justice has not been provided to the Commission.

This intelligence was provided to agents of the New York office of the FBI and senior prosecutors with the offices of the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York by an informant, Gregory Scarpa, Jr., who developed a close personal relationship with Ramzi Ahmed Yousef while Yousef and Scarpa were incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York in 1996 and 1997, with supplemental information provided in 2000 by Scarpa to an official of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons after he was transferred to the Administrative Maximum Security (ADMAX) Penitentiary in Florence Colorado, to which Yousef had already been transferred and where both currently remain. In early 2001 another inmate of Florence ADMAX attempted to transmit much of the information developed by Scarpa to the director of the FBI, the President of the United States and the Attorney General.1

We first became aware of this intelligence when, for purposes entirely unrelated to terrorism, we met with Scarpa at Florence ADMAX in March 2003. In the course of these meetings Scarpa provided to us his contemporaneous (1996-97) handwritten notes of his conversations with Yousef and his terrorist codefendants2 and copies of FBI Forms 302 (informant reports) recounting the information which he had provided to agents of the FBI.3

1 We cannot, of course, confirm that these mailings, made by Gerard Van Hoorelbeke, in fact left the prison or reached their intended recipients. Van Hoorelbeke remains incarcerated at Florence ADMAX (Reg. No. 10376-029).

2 Scarpa reported conversations with Yousef and with Yousef’s codefendants, Wali Khan Amin Shah, Abdul Hakim Murad and Eyad Ismoil. Many of these conversations referenced a person identified by the terrorists as “Bojinga,” whom we believe to be Osama Bin Laden.

3 During his incarceration at the MCC, Scarpa was regularly debriefed by an agent of the FBI who, using the alias “Susan Schwartz,” posed as a paralegal employed by Scarpa’s attorney, Larry J. Silverman. In addition to these reports, Scarpa, utilizing a mini-camera provided by the warden of the MCC, provided the FBI with photographs of documents (“kites”) which Yousef shared with him. Also, with the assistance of Scarpa (acting on behalf of the FBI) Yousef was able to make telephone calls, monitored by the FBI, to active (unincarcerated) members of his terrorist networks via a “patch-through” phone accessed from MCC. FI2

- 2 -

The intelligence provided by Scarpa included specific threats to U.S. airlines, the identification of countries (e.g., England) through which terrorists were entering the United States and testing U.S. security procedures, instructions for smuggling explosive chemicals and detonators (including hiding these in the heels of shoes), and formulas for explosives and for the production of phosgene and mustard gases. Yousef revealed to Scarpa his strong interest in obtaining blank U.S. passports which “his people would only use for one trip to board the planes to be hijacked.” Further intelligence laid out a plan to videotape the killings of hijacking victims, with distribution of these tapes to the media.4

One very serious missed opportunity to disrupt a terrorist network here in the United States prior to September 11, 2001, involved Yousef’s agreement to meeting in New York between Scarpa’s associates (who would have been disguised FBI agents) and four active (unincarcerated) terrorists. This meeting never took place because the cognizant FBI agents and assistant U.S. attorneys refused to agree to Yousef’s demand that $3,000 be provided to the terrorists.

It should be noted that Scarpa provided this assistance to the FBI at considerable risk not only to himself but also to members of his family, whose address he was compelled to provide to Yousef to enhance his credibility.

We have identified the following officials as having been directly involved with Scarpa in his role as an informant, as summarized in the attached “Scarpa-Yousef Intelligence Timeline”:5

New York Office of the FBI
. Susan Schwartz (alias)
. Pat White
. James Kallstrom

U.S. Attorneys’ Offices
. AUSA Michael Garcia (EDNY)
. AUSA Patrick Fitzgerald (EDNY)
. AUSA Valerie Caproni (EDNY)
. U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White (SDNY)

Metropolitan Correctional Center (New York)
. Warden R.M. Reish

Administrative Maximum Secuity Penitentiary, Florence, Colorado
. Mr. Manly (SIS)

4 Scarpa’s intelligence anticipates “shoe bomber” Richard Reed, the authorization for the 9/11 attacks given by Yousef's uncle, Kahlid Shaikh Mohammed, Mohammed Atta’s and Al Qaeda’s English connections, the single-use passports employed to board the airplanes hijacked on 9/11, and the videotaped death in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

5 The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York was initially informed of Scarpa’s contacts with Yousef at the MCC and his willingness to serve as an informant by his attorney, Larry J. Silverman (46 Trinity Place, New York 10006; 212-425-1616), who remained informed of Scarpa’s activities on behalf of the government.

- 3 -

Although the information provided by Scarpa appears to have been fully documented, especially in Forms 302 prepared by the New York office of the FBI, we do not know if this information was disseminated to other agencies with responsibility for the prevention of terrorist attacks on the United States.

We understand that AUSA Patrick Fitzgerald (EDNY), in a later (sealed) court filing, attested to the credibility, accuracy and value of the terrorism intelligence provided by Scarpa. However, at the time of Scarpa’s sentencing AUSA Valerie Caproni denigrated Scarpa’s credibility as an informant. Apparently, Scarpa’s credibility was perceived to pose a threat in the context of serious questions which had been raised concerning the informant relationship of Scarpa’s father, Gregory Scarpa, Sr., with FBI Supervisory Special Agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, the revelation of which might place in jeopardy a number of convictions secured by the office of the U.S. Attorney (EDNY). This latter matter, entirely unrelated to terrorism, remains a subject of continuing, independent investigation.

We strongly advise that the Commission fully examine the terrorism intelligence secured by the government through the informant services of Gregory Scarpa, Jr., and assess the extent to which it was appropriately utilized to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States.

Respectfully submitted,
Angela Clemente
Stephen P. Dresch, Ph.D.
Santrea_143.2@juno.com 706-294-9993

Principal witness: Gregory Scarpa, Jr. Reg. No. 10099-050
ADX Florence
P.O. Box 8500
5880 State Highway 67 South
Florence, Colorado 81226
719-784-9464
Attachment: Scarpa-Yousef Intelligence Timeline

End.

The timeline is seven pages long.

Info can be seen at:

http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/fen/index.htm

Once at the above link, click on lower left link.

http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/spd.htm

[Diogenesis]

Boston Globe, Al Jazerra - No difference at all.

[johnny7]

The BS networks, the NYTimes, Washington Post and the LATime's souls belong to the left and are dedicated to the downfall of the Bush Administration. Their contempt for the Republican party and all-out hatred of conservatives in general, have made them the darlings of our Islamic enemies.

This can not stand... a country divided like this can not stand. There can be no rational dialoque with swine like this!

[WhiteyAppleseed]

Fox News Rebecca Gomez jusr read some information that was included in the "Intelligence Timeline" that was attached to the letter that was sent to the 911 commission by Dresch.
I wonder if Gorelick will suppress this information?

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Sent the following "feedback" to the Boston Globe:

Nice try with your story about the PDB. Trouble is, the entire memo has been published elsewhere and too many people know what it says. Therefore, your efforts to attack the President and Dr. Rice’s credibility by parsing the memo and destroying the context will fail.

This whole 9/11 commission has degenerated into a partisan farce. I know you are doing your best for your side but this article won’t help much.

In 1946 the Republicans tried to besmirch the memory of FDR with their Pearl Harbor “investigation”. They leaked important intelligence, did real harm to our national security and accomplished nothing of substance in their efforts o prove that “FDR knew”. Almost fifty years later the Democrats are doing the same thing.

Regards,