Posted on 06/01/2002 2:30:16 AM PDT by kattracks
The FBI had a chance to infiltrate an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan months before Sept. 11, but top agents responsible for tracking terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden rejected the plan, according to a report published yesterday.
The decision by leaders of the Bin Laden unit at FBI headquarters may have wasted a golden opportunity to learn about plans for the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The news magazine said an informant told a bureau field agent months before the Sept. 11 attacks that he was invited to attend a commando training course at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
The information was relayed to a supervisor, who passed it on to FBI headquarters, where it hit a brick wall in the Bin Laden unit of the bureau's counterterrorism division.
A field office communiqué asked the Justice Department to authorize what it described as "otherwise illegal activity" the informant's participation in terrorist training sources told the magazine.
But the Bin Laden unit flatly rejected the request without even doing an "asset validation" to see whether the informant's information was on target, the sources said.
The FBI declined to comment.
It was unclear which of the bureau's 56 offices made the request or exactly when it was made.
The FBI has come under fire for ignoring warnings from field offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis about terrorist activity.
In New Jersey yesterday, the Bush administration's top prosecutor for anti-terrorism said the U.S. had plenty of evidence before Sept. 11 that a devastating terrorist attack on American soil was likely.
Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, cited nearly a decade's worth of hints that foreign terrorists were targeting Americans.
But he didn't say there was specific information that could have prevented the Sept. 11 airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In a speech to Seton Hall Law School graduates at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., Chertoff cited warning signs including the bombing of the Trade Center in 1993; a mid-1990s plan in which an Islamic radical was convicted of plotting to blow up jetliners and New York landmarks and assassinate the Pope; a death sentence pronounced on Americans by Bin Laden in the late 1990s, and the failed millennium bomb plot at Los Angeles International Airport.
Miss Marple,good morning!
Arne Fufkin, I dont think I know you, yet.
The Bush Fanily-Big-Oil-Saudi-Big-Business trail has quite a footprint right here in the FR Archives.
Long before I came here,FR was posting happily away on BCCI,Bin Mahfouz,Al-Amoudi,Bath,Harken,Arbusto,etc.
Unless they have been yanked off, just type in any of the names, and you'll find the $$$$$.
The 9/11 intelligence investigation going on in Congress right now will dredge up all these relationships.
Bring on the hearings!
"Texas governor George W. Bush's campaign to become the Republican candidate in this November's presidential ballot could shortly run into turbulence because of new information about his past. Indeed, among the figures Bush dealt with indirectly when he ran oil companies was Saudi banker Khaled Bin Mahfouz who, Intelligence Newsletter has learned, is currently under house arrest in a hospital in Taef at the behest of the American authorities. The latter are looking into contributions Mahfouz is said to have made to welfare associations close to terrorist Ussama Bin Laden. Considered as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz was recently forced to sharply reduce his stake in the National Commercial Bank, one of the biggest in the kingdom. Many in Arab financial circles see this as a harbinger of his disgrace. Mahfouz's name was linked to the scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), in which he held a 20% interest between 1986-1990. The BCCI was accused in senator John- Kerry's report of money-laundering and of financing terrorist groups and covert spy operations before it was wound up on July 5, 1991, with a $ 12 billion loss to its customers. Mahfouz was also linked to a case involving fake passports in Ireland in 1997 that forced Irish foreign minister Ray Burke to resign."
While I think Chertoff is one of the very smart guys in the administration, this is hardly news. This fascination with looking back by our anally retentive media is going to blow up on their boy-president, Bill Clinton. We have arrived at this place because of his incompetence, his self-indulging ego, and the nincompoops he surrounded himself with.
Yes, the FBI and CIA are, aren't they?
You asked for some information about motive and the Bush's. I listed the below as a start point. There's MUCH more if you'll stop with the Paranoia!
From Wallaby's "Bush Friends" thread in March, 2000------
"Texas governor George W. Bush's campaign to become the Republican candidate in this November's presidential ballot could shortly run into turbulence because of new information about his past. Indeed, among the figures Bush dealt with indirectly when he ran oil companies was Saudi banker Khaled Bin Mahfouz who, Intelligence Newsletter has learned, is currently under house arrest in a hospital in Taef at the behest of the American authorities. The latter are looking into contributions Mahfouz is said to have made to welfare associations close to terrorist Ussama Bin Laden. Considered as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz was recently forced to sharply reduce his stake in the National Commercial Bank, one of the biggest in the kingdom. Many in Arab financial circles see this as a harbinger of his disgrace. Mahfouz's name was linked to the scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), in which he held a 20% interest between 1986-1990. The BCCI was accused in senator John- Kerry's report of money-laundering and of financing terrorist groups and covert spy operations before it was wound up on July 5, 1991, with a $ 12 billion loss to its customers. Mahfouz was also linked to a case involving fake passports in Ireland in 1997 that forced Irish foreign minister Ray Burke to resign."
BTW, Mueller was doing the BCCI thing for the DOJ then.
I have a relative in the "operations" of one of the liners.
I have a relative that is an Air Force LT. Col,retired.
I have the whole web available to me, and still I am confused.
I know that I am not flying now, nor did I fly in the past,but my relys sure do.
I want pilots to have guns.
I want our air safe.
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