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FBI Agent: Moussaoui Might Crash Plane Into WTC
Reuters ^ | 9/27/02 | James Vicini

Posted on 09/28/2002 3:13:13 AM PDT by Sandy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An FBI agent said in August 2001 that accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center if he was released from custody, according to a court document made public on Friday.

The document relates communications between FBI headquarters and its office in Minneapolis involving Moussaoui, who was being held in Minnesota in August 2001 on immigration violations after arousing suspicion at a flight school.

The agent said Moussaoui "might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center," prosecutors said in the document detailing what has been given to the congressional intelligence committees investigating the attacks.

Moussaoui, who was still in custody on Sept. 11 last year, later became the only person charged in the United States with conspiring in the attacks.

The prosecutors also described an FBI report concerning interviews with Moussaoui in mid-August 2001, in which FBI agents accused him of giving misleading and evasive answers.

The FBI report described how Moussaoui involved his right to a lawyer when confronted with information "that he was known to be an extremist intent on using his past and future aviation training in furtherance of a terrorist goal."

Questioning of Moussaoui then stopped.

Earlier in the questioning, Moussaoui discussed his suspicion of immigration authorities, his desire to fly a large jet aircraft, his reasons for not attending a flight school in Europe, his connections in Saudi Arabia and his recent travel to Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to the FBI report dated Aug. 18, 2001.

When asked about his travel to Pakistan, Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent, became "extremely agitated and he refused to discuss the matter further," according to the FBI report.

It says Moussaoui became angry when agents suggested to him that he did not have an adequate explanation for the large sums of money in his possession.

The FBI report said agents in Minneapolis had assessed Moussaoui as an "Islamic fundamentalist preparing for some future act in furtherance of radical fundamentalist goals" involving an aircraft.

The FBI report was turned over as part of the congressional investigation into whether the FBI and CIA had missed possible clues that could have prevented the hijacked plane attacks.

The 34-year-old Moussaoui has been charged with six counts of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks. Four of them carry the death penalty. His trial is scheduled to begin in January.

He has denied being a part of the hijacking, but admitted to being a member of al Qaeda. The United States blames Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

The judge in the Moussaoui case on Friday unsealed the document, which prosecutors filed on Sept. 19. Prosecutors had wanted clarification from the judge on what the FBI and Justice Department could disclose in the public congressional hearings.



TOPICS: Breaking News; Front Page News; News/Current Events
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1 posted on 09/28/2002 3:13:14 AM PDT by Sandy
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To: Sandy
Curious and curioser.... how come the authorities were then caught by surprise on 9-11? This is a anecdote straight out of The Twilight Zone.
2 posted on 09/28/2002 3:31:10 AM PDT by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop
Political correctness strikes again. They didn't want to hurt his feelings. He's black, you know...
3 posted on 09/28/2002 3:33:31 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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To: Sandy
It says Moussaoui became angry when agents suggested to him that he did not have an adequate explanation for the large sums of money in his possession.

Amazing that idiot has the privilege of being interrogated in the United States. If he was being questioned here in Malaysia he would be too scared sh*tless to get angry

4 posted on 09/28/2002 3:38:32 AM PDT by expatguy
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To: Sandy
In December 1994, Islamic terrorists hijacked a Air France flight. The terrorists plans were to either crash or explode the plane over Paris.

It's speculated by some that this failed attempt, (French commandos took the terrorists out), is what prompted the Islamic terrorists to start pilot training.

Here's an account of the commando raid on the hijacked plane.

GIGN at Marseilles Airport December 1994

*A side note. My ship was in Cannes, France for the Christmas holidays. Several shipmates and I were houseguests of a French Jewish family.

Our guest assured us that the terrorists would be stopped at the airport, thank goodness they were.

5 posted on 09/28/2002 4:25:47 AM PDT by csvset
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To: Sandy
If this creep if found guilty, let's change the method of execution from lethal injection, to throwing him out of a jet airliner at 35,000 feet(no parachute).

6 posted on 09/28/2002 4:35:59 AM PDT by bulldog905
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To: goldstategop
Knowing their capabilities may be different than knowing their plan. Who would they round up, and why, if they didn't know the scheme?
7 posted on 09/28/2002 4:46:51 AM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
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To: goldstategop
Curious and curioser.... how come the authorities were then caught by surprise on 9-11? This is a anecdote straight out of The Twilight Zone.

For one, they didn't know what Moussauoi was planning to do. THe statement from the FBI agent wasn't based on knowing the target was the WTC, it was just an offhand comment because the agent suspected that someone learning how to fly a plane but not being too concerned about learning how to land it was not exactly your normal sort of aspiring aviator. The agent had witnesses who told him that Moussaoui wasn't interested in learning how to land but was intent on learning how to maneuver in the air. But that's hearsay evidence with no hard proof and it's hard to use that to justify holding a guy in court. (just look at all the screaming we're getting from the civil liberties crowd over Jose Padilla, who was sent here after meeting directly with top al Qaeda planners and accepting their money, with the intent to arrange attacks on gas stations, hotels, etc., and had even ambitiously considered finding materials to construct a dirty bomb. Some of the same people griping about the FBI not knowing about 911 are out there crying for Padilla's 'rights.')

The frustrated agent, knowing Moussaoui was uncooperative, knowing he was an intense Islamic originally from from Algeria via France, was obviously going to be inclined to believe the eyewitnesses, and so this agent had good reason to supect that this guy was planning on either hijacking a flight and forcing a the pilot to fly wherever Moussaoui wanted, or worse, would hijack the plane and crash it somewhere. The agent just got 'lucky' when he referred to Moussaoui flying a plane into the WTC. He knew something was up but he did not know where or when, and with civilliberties being what they are, Moussaoui couldn't pressured for additional information and certainly couldn't be tortured. Heck, they can't even do that to him NOW, after 911. The bleeding hearts would scream.

In all probability Moussaoui was probably going to be involved in a second wave of attacks or a wholly different flight against another target, since Atta and Al-Shehhi were the pilots for the WTC and since there already were pilots for the other two aircraft. While often called the "20th hijacker," Moussaoui was something more sinister... he was the 21st hijacker, the planned PILOT, of a FIFTH plane. The 20th 9/11 hijacker was a guy who was stuck in Europe and unable to get a visa- a thug whose job was to control the passengers and crew of the fourth plane. Ultimately the hijackers decided they didn't need the extra thug and went without.

Moussaoui, having flight training, wasn't needed on the fourth plane, which already had a pilot. Instead, he was being trained for a fifth plane and he's been keeping his mouth shut because his particular 'crew,' as far as he knows, is still at large in the US. So Moussaoui would need a fifth target, and that obviously wasn't the WTC.

The fifth target is unknown, at least to us. And Moussaoui still isn't talking.

8 posted on 09/28/2002 4:56:25 AM PDT by piasa
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To: piasa
The fifth target is unknown, at least to us. And Moussaoui still isn't talking

I wonder if it would have been the Sears Tower.

9 posted on 09/28/2002 5:14:33 AM PDT by syriacus
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To: piasa
Thank you for that analysis. I've been thinking that, but didn't know how to say it.
10 posted on 09/28/2002 5:19:48 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: piasa
You are very perceptive! Now figure out what the "watermelon" is, referred to in the emails of the latest bunch of ragheads arrested.

A container of an ugly bio-warfare substance, a nuke?
11 posted on 09/28/2002 5:20:18 AM PDT by Howie
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To: syriacus
Unlikely, I'd say, simply because it's not a national icon like the World Trade Center.

Take this test: Try to envision the Sears Tower in your mind. Now, pretend it's before 9/11 and remember how you would have envisioned the WTC. Obviously now it's not a fair contest at all, but my point is that even before 9/11, you know what the WTC looks like, but not the Sears Tower.

I would suggest that the White House or the Capitol would be more likely targets, whichever one was not targeted by Flight 93.

D
12 posted on 09/28/2002 5:33:05 AM PDT by daviddennis
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To: Sandy
It's going to take a generation to de-Clinton-ize all the Executive Branch agencies. The American marrow has been deeply damaged by 8 years of Clinton.
13 posted on 09/28/2002 5:36:37 AM PDT by Consort
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To: goldstategop
" how come the authorities were then caught by surprise on 9-11? This is a anecdote straight out of The Twilight Zone. "

Because this isn't Star Trek Voyager and the "authorities" are not linked together in a Borg matrix sharing thoughts, genius.

14 posted on 09/28/2002 7:56:44 AM PDT by elfman2
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To: goldstategop
Curious and curioser.... how come the authorities were then caught by surprise on 9-11?

Islam is a Religion of Peace. The agent was probably a Southerner. Everyone who is not a Politically Incorrect Neanderthal knows that every Southerner is a liar and a racist. The agent was an Arab-hating racial profiler. If Moussaoui did or said anything suspicios, it was only a joke unless his lawyer claims he never did or said anything at all. America is filled with Arab-haters in a frenzy of paranoia. The Liberals would squeal like stuck pigs if any action were taken before a terrorist actually did fly an aircraft into the WTC. You're an Arab-hating racist for even bringing the subject up.......

There.

Did I forget anything?

15 posted on 09/28/2002 9:12:49 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: Sandy
The United States blames Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

The United States blames al qaeda? They don't write that al qaeda is responsible for the attacks, but that we blame the attacks on them. Interesting...and typical.

16 posted on 09/28/2002 11:05:57 AM PDT by dubyagee
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To: The Great Satan
Political correctness strikes again. They didn't want to hurt his feelings. He's black, you know...

Yes, as the wonderful Nelson Mandela has told us...dark-skinned sephardic Jews are "white" butlight-skinned Saddham Hussein is black, and is therefore "oppressed".

What a communist imbicile. It will be most entertaining to see what nonsense emerges from his brain unfiltered (what he REALLY thinks) as he progresses into senility.

17 posted on 09/28/2002 12:28:24 PM PDT by montag813
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To: syriacus
The fifth target is unknown, at least to us. And Moussaoui still isn't talking I wonder if it would have been the Sears Tower.

It would have to be something that "controls" America.
The WTC was our economy. The Pentagon was our military might. The Whitehouse was our form of government.
It would have to be important enough, in their minds, to bring America to it's knees in chaos.

18 posted on 09/28/2002 1:47:49 PM PDT by concerned about politics
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To: syriacus
The fifth target is unknown, at least to us. And Moussaoui still isn't talking I wonder if it would have been the Sears Tower.

Maybe one plane for the congress, and the other for the White House. That would make 5. Economy (took 2 planes), military (1), law (1), and a "regime change" (1), or no leader to lead the people through the chaos. Maybe?
These guys were camel humpers. They may not have realized a free republic is not the same as a dictatorship, and our information and social structure is not made of a few buildings, a presidential camel, and one dictator.

19 posted on 09/28/2002 2:03:10 PM PDT by concerned about politics
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20 posted on 09/28/2002 10:13:26 PM PDT by Mo1
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