Posted on 09/18/2001 7:24:50 PM PDT by Boyd
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Good questions, and ones that need to be answered ... soon.
OBL is smart, crafty, and cunning. He hates that the US supports the "corrupt" (his word) government and monarch in Saudi Arabia. I wouldn't put it past him to try to damage that relationship.
OTOH I'm sure Saudi has its share of people who don't care much for the US. Both possibilities need to be investigated.
As for your closing comment, I don't think five years of planning went into this attack. Especially, considering the intelligence hardware #42 gave our enemies. Alas, five years or five months, we were sitting ducks.
IMO, two reasons:
1. Unless things have changed since I last used a passport, they don't often check the validity of them. For example, I'm not sure records of all passports issued and/or reported stolen/lost are on a computer somewhere accessible by customs agents at any entry point.
2. Since Saudi Arabia is generally considered a moderate Islamic state and somewhat of a US ally, persons carrying those passports will face less scrutiny than someone from Iraq or Syria.
I don't think it's any accident that some of these guys have Saudi, Egyptian, UAE, or other Moslem nations that are more neutral or friendly to the US.
Which brings me to the last point for now: who guards their borders? How strict or lax are their immigration policies? I can easily envision a national of a state we don't care for emigrating to a state we like until they can leave with that state's passport and then come to the US with less scrutiny.
Am I right, wrong, or do I simply need to get my next hat made out of some substance besides tinfoil?
Because the holder probably used yet another passport. Perhaps, even his own. Though not necessarily...
Uh huh! More like they figured they didn't need the passports anymore and just gave them to needy terrorists, so they could complete their tasks.
Remember the car in the garage parking lot of one of the airports, where the car found had a passport in it, along with the flight training books written in Arabic.
I thought it odd to leave the passport behind. Especially since we know the terrorist was going to die in the plane anyway. We also know that there were other cells or terrorists in that area. And other areas, later picked up by the police.
I think the dead pilot left the flight manual in Arabic, and the passport in the car for one of the other terrorists in another cell to pick up and use in their next mission.
This way, you keep reusing the same passports as long as possible. It makes it look like less people are involved, and considering that the person issued the passport is dead, it confuses the issue over 'real names'.
Which is exactly what the Saudi paper is saying. Stolen, no I suspect it was given freely. If this man's passport was stolen while he was in Colorado, how did he get home? A new passport? Dandy? Just what we need anoter multi user passport!
It would be safe to assume that each of these guys had at least three separate identities that they could use, depending on the circumstances.
Plus their own...
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