User:Corleonebrother/Culpability

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Contents 1 Culpability 1.1 United States 2 Blocked Investigations 3 Financing the attacks 4 Other alleged responsibility 4.1 "Inside job" theories 4.2 Pakistan 4.3 Israel 4.4 Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family 4.5 Iraq 5 References 5.1 References

[edit] Culpability

[edit] United States

See also: 9/11 conspiracy theories

The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had been "not well served" by the FBI and CIA prior to 9/11. ^[1] It also explained that the military response protocols were unsuited for the nature of the attack, and identified operational failures in the emergency response.

Intelligence Failures

Immediately following the attacks, the Bush Administration stated that "nobody in our government at least, and I don't the think the prior government, could envisage flying air planes into buildings" (George Bush) and that no-one "could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile" (Condoleeza Rice). An Air Force general called the attack "something we had never seen before, something we had never even thought of." FBI Director Robert Mueller announced "there were no warning signs that I'm aware of."^[2]

Some mainstream media reports have conflicted with these statements, claiming that the FBI and CIA knew of the threat of planes being used as missiles as early as 1995, following the foiling of the Bojinka Plot. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that:

The FBI had advance indications of plans to hijack U.S. airliners and use them as weapons, but neither acted on them nor distributed the intelligence to local police agencies. From the moment of the September 11th attacks, high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists’ method of operation surprised them. Many stick to that story. Actually, elements of the hijacking plan were known to the FBI as early as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, might have uncovered the plot.”

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement often cite other evidence suggesting that the method of flying planes into buildings was known by U.S. officials:^[3]

• In 1994, there were three examples of failed attempts to deliberately crash planes into buildings, including one where a lone pilot crashed a small plane into the lawn of the White House.^[4]
• The Bojinka Plot was a foiled large-scale al Qaeda terrorist attack to blow up eleven airliners and their passengers as they flew from Asia to America, due to take place in January 1995.
• The 2000 edition of the FAA’s annual report on Criminal Acts Against Aviation said that although Osama bin Laden ‘is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so,’ adding, ‘Bin Laden’s anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.’”
• In July 2001 at the G8 summit in Genoa, anti-aircraft missile batteries were installed following a report that terrorists would try to crash a plane to kill George Bush and other world leaders.^[5]
• On the morning of September 11, 2001, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating U.S. reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles from Dulles airport.

The 9/11 Commission Report stated that "the 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise. Islamic extremists had given plenty of warnings that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers."^[6] During the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings about an imminent al Qaeda attack; according to George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, "the system was blinking red."^[7] The warnings varied in their level of detail and specificity, but included the following:^[8]

• January 2001 - A five page summary French intelligence report entitled “Hijacking of an Airplane by Radical Islamists” details tactical discussions since early 2000 between bin Laden, Chechen rebels, and the Taliban about a hijacking against US airlines.
• March 2001 - Italian intelligence warns of an al Qaeda plot in the United States involving a massive strike involving aircraft, based on their wiretap of al Qaeda cell in Milan.
• June 2001 - German intelligence warns the CIA that Middle Eastern militants are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols, which stand out.”
• July 2001 - Jordanian intelligence told US officials that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on American soil.
• July 2001 - Taliban Foreign Minister tries to warn the US and UN of huge imminent attack inside the United States.
• July 2001 - Egyptian intelligence warns the CIA that 20 al Qaeda jihadists are in the United States, and that four of them were receiving flight training.
• August 2001 - According to Moroccan and French newspapers, an intelligence agent reported al Qaeda were planning large-scale operations in New York for the summer or fall of 2001, and was asked to go to Washington to report this information directly.
• August 2001 - Russian President Vladimir Putin warns the US that suicide pilots are training for attacks on US targets.
• August 2001 - The Israeli Mossad gives the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and say that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future.
• August 2001 - The UK is warned three times of an imminent al Qaeda attack in the United States, the third specifying multiple airplane hijackings. According to the Sunday Herald, the report is passed on to President Bush a short time later.
• September 2001 - Egyptian intelligence warns American officials that al Qaeda is in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US.

A classified military intelligence program known as "Able Danger" was created in October 1999 specifically targeting al Qaeda. According to statements by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and those of four others, Able Danger had identified the September 11, 2001 attack leader Mohamed Atta, and three of the 9/11 plot's other 19 hijackers, as possible members of an al Qaeda cell linked to the '93 World Trade Center bombing.^[9] In December 2006, an investigation by the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that those assertions were unfounded. It rejected as untrue "one of the most disturbing claims about the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes." Reacting to the Pentagon report, Curt Weldon (R-PA) said "The report trashes the reputations of military officers who had the courage to step forward and... describe important work they were doing to track al-Qaida prior to 9/11".

In her testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Condoleeza Rice stated that "the threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time nor place nor manner of attack. Almost all the reports focussed on al Qaeda activities outside the United States." However, on August 6th 2001, President Bush's Presidential Daily Briefing, which was entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States" warns that Bin Laden was planning to exploit his operatives' access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike:

FBI information... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country, consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attack.

Operational Failures

See also: Health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks

The 9/11 Commission Report outlined the following "opportunities that were not or could not be exploited by the organizations and systems of the time":

• not watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar, not trailing them after they traveled to Bangkok, and not informing the FBI about one future hijacker's U.S. visa or his companion's travel to the United States;
• not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar;
• not taking adequate steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmi in the United States;
• not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described as interested in flight training for the purpose of using an airplane in a terrorist attack, to the heightened indications of an attack;
• not discovering false statements on visa applications;
• not recognizing passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner;
• not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watchlists;
• not searching airline passengers identified by the computer-based CAPPS screening system; and
• not hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to prepare for the possibility of suicide hijackings.^[10]

With regard to the failures of the U.S. air defense system on the morning of the attacks, the Report explains that:

Existing protocols on 9/11 were unsuited in every respect for an attack in which hijacked planes were used as weapons. What ensued was a hurried attempt to improvise a defense by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction.^[11]

The Report explains that the emergency response was also "necessarily improvised": there were "weaknesses in preparations for disaster, failure to achieve unified incident command, and inadequate communications among responding agencies... At the Pentagon, [there were] problems of command and control."^[12]

[edit] Blocked Investigations

Various individuals within the United States intelligence community have come forward with information suggesting that their investigations into terrorist suspects were being deliberately blocked by their superiors. The intelligence community and the White House have also been accused of not responding adequately to information that may have prevented the attacks.

Shortly after the attacks, David Schippers, the chief prosecutor for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, stated that the government had been warned in 1995 about a future attack on a government building and that later he was contacted by three FBI agents who mentioned uncovering a possible terrorist attack planned for lower Manhattan.^[13][14] According to Mr. Schippers, as the agents informed their superiors, they were briefed not to pursue the issue and were threatened with prosecution. Mr. Schippers declared, "Five weeks before the September 11 tragedy, I did my best to get a hold of Attorney General John Ashcroft with my concerns." According to Mr. Schippers, Ashcroft responded that the Justice Department does not start investigations at the top. Author William Norman Grigg agrees with Mr. Schippers in his article "Did We Know What Was Coming?" According to the article, three unnamed veteran federal law enforcement agents confirmed "the information provided to Schippers was widely known within the Bureau before September 11."^[15]

According to Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, "Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship," as reported by the Miami Herald. And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees."^[16]

FBI agent and Al-Qaeda expert John P. O'Neill warned of an Al-Qaeda threat to the United States in 2000. He retired from his position in mid 2001, citing repeated blocking of his investigations of Al Qaeda by FBI officials. After his retirement from the FBI, the World Trade Center hired him as its chief of security. He started work on September 11, 2001; 9/11 rescue workers found his body in a staircase inside the south tower rubble.^[17]

In 2002, FBI agent Coleen Rowley wrote to FBI director Robert Mueller describing her experience working with Minneapolis FBI agents tracking suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui prior to the attacks.^[18]. She describes how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C. had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis Field Office, and had failed to issue a warrant to search Moussaui's computer despite having probable cause.^[19] Rowley goes on to describe her superior, Agent Marion "Spike" Bowman, as having “consistently, almost deliberately thwarted the Minneapolis FBI agents' efforts” to attain the search warrant. Senator Chuck Grassley later wrote that “If the application for the FISA warrant had gone forward, agents would have found information in Moussaoui's belongings that linked him ... to a major financier of the hijacking plot". Rowley was credited as a whistleblower and jointly awarded the TIME "Person of the Year" for 2002. Her testimony to the 9/11 Commission was omitted from their final report.

[edit] Financing the attacks

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the 9/11 plotters spent between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct the attack:

"al Qaeda funded the plotters. KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammad] provided his operatives with nearly all the money they needed to travel to the United States, train, and live... The U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance."^[20]

CNN and other news outlets reported in September and October 2001 that $100,000 was wired from the United Arab Emirates to lead hijacker Mohammad Atta prior to the attacks, by Ahmed Omar Saeed (Syed) Sheikh, a long time Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence asset.^[21]

The report, which was later confirmed by CNN,^[22] stated that "Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida... In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars -- believed to be excess funds from the operation -- back to Syed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11. Syed also is described as a key figure in the funding operation of al Qaeda"^[23]

The day after this report was published, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, was fired from his position.^[24] Indian news outlets reported the FBI was investigating the possibility that Gen. Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta, while most Western media outlets only reported his connections to the Taliban as the reason for his departure.^[25]

The Wall Street Journal was one of the few Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought [Gen. Mahmood Ahmed's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 [was] wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmood.^[26] The Daily Excelsior reported that:

"The FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the 'link' between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational information surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the Kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Centre. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta." ^[27]

The 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have seen no evidence that any foreign government - or foreign government official - supplied any funding."^[28]

[edit] Other alleged responsibility

There have been allegations that individuals outside al Qaeda may have been at least partly responsible for the attacks. Such allegations are often referred to as 9/11 conspiracy theories. The most prevalent of them is that 9/11 was an "inside job", meaning that individuals within the United States government either orchestrated the attacks or deliberately allowed them to take place, as a pretext for the War on Terror. While some theories, such as the Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center, assert that the events of 9/11 were substantially different to the mainstream account, others assert that there was merely deliberate negligence which allowed the attacks to succeed. Other 9/11 conspiracy theories against the United States government include claims that extreme incompetence has been deliberately overlooked or covered up.

There are also allegations that individuals within the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, may have played an important role in the attacks. There are also claims that other intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks. The theory that such foreign individuals outside of al Qaeda were involved is often part of larger "inside job" theories, although it has been asserted that, while al Qaeda deserve most of the responsibility, the alleged role played by Pakistan, Israel or Saudi Arabia was deliberately overlooked by the official investigation for political reasons.

Many 9/11 opinion polls have also found that a significant minority of the American public believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible.

[edit] "Inside job" theories

Main article: 9/11 conspiracy theories

The motives given for the claim that individuals within the United States government either orchestrated the attacks or deliberately allowed them to take place, are many and varied.^[29] The 9/11 attacks have been compared to Pearl Harbor for the way they galvanised the American and western public into supporting a war: in this case the War on Terror, described by President Bush on the day after the attacks as "a monumental struggle of Good versus Evil".^[30] A desire to launch this kind of war was expressed by neoconservatives, who described their goal as "American global hegemony". The Project for a New American Century was set up to persue this goal. In a 2000 paper entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses, the PNAC recognised that the transformation of the military they called for would be slow, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor."^[31]

Other benefits gained from the War on Terror by American individuals have been cited to explain their possible motivations for complicity in either the attacks themselves, or the perceived cover-up.^[32] These include increased corporate profits for the oil, weapons, security, insurance, defense contracting and other industries, increased budgets for the military, intelligence and security agencies, and increased centralization and power for the Federal government and the Federal Reserve System.

The reluctance of the United States government to answer questions about 9/11 led to the formation of the 9/11 Truth Movement, many members of which believe that 9/11 was an inside job. They are highly critical of the mainstream news media for failing to hold officials to account, and for ignoring or occasionally misrepresenting, the evidence they cite for their belief. A number of 9/11 opinion polls have shown that a significant minority of the American public believe that 9/11 may have been an inside job, and that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the mainstream account of events. In 2006, Time Magazine reported that the 9/11 Truth Movement "is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."^[33]

[edit] Pakistan

Based on CNN and other news outlet reports from September and October 2001 about who financed the attacks, it has been claimed that General Mahmood Ahmed, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, was responsible. After Mahmood was fired on 7 October, 2001, the Times of India reported that US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that he had authorised the $100,000 that was wired to hijacker Mohammed Atta by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.^[34]

According to the Washington Post, on the morning of September 11, Porter Goss and Bob Graham were having breakfast with General Mahmood in Washington.^[35] The following two days, Mahmood met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Senator Joseph Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. An agreement on Pakistan's collaboration in the new "War on Terrorism" was negotiated between Mahmood and Armitage.^{[36][37][38][39]} General Mahmood then lead a six-member delegation to the Afghan city of Kandahar in order to hold crisis talks with the Taliban leadership, supposedly in an attempt to persuade them to hand over Osama bin Laden.^[40]

[edit] Israel

See 9/11 advance-knowledge debate#Israel.

[edit] Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family

There have been claims that investigations into al Qaeda were deliberately blocked via high-level interference from Washington. Some of these claims also extend to other groups outside al Qaeda, in particular individuals from Saudi Arabia. In June 2001, a "high-placed member of a US intelligence agency" told BBC reporter Greg Palast that "after the [2000] elections, the agencies were told to "back off" investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals".^[41]

In May 2002, former FBI Agent Robert Wright delivered a tearful press conference apologizing to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. He described how his superiors intentionally obstructed his investigation into Al-Qaeda financing.^[42][43] Agent Wright would later tell ABC's Brian Ross that "September 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit," specifically referring to the Bureau's hindering of his investigation into Yassin al-Qadi (al Kadi), who Ross described as a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman with extensive financial ties in Chicago.^[44] One month after the attacks, the US government officially identified al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden's primary financiers, through his Muwafaq Foundation, and they declared him to be a global terrorist.^[45][46] A former FBI Counter Terrorism Agent commented that for someone like al-Qadi to be involved in 9/11 is "of grave concern."^[47]

The movie Fahrenheit 9/11 alleges strong business connections between the Bush family and the bin Laden family. It relates how Salem bin Laden invested heavily in Arbusto Energy, a company run by George W. Bush, through his friend James R. Bath.^[48] Several members of the Bush family are investors in the Carlyle Group, a defense contractor and investment fund with numerous interests in the Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and connections to the Saudi Binladen Group, run by former Bush administration Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.^[49] On September 10, 2001, former President George H.W. Bush and several members of his cabinet had been present at a Carlyle Group business conference with Shafig bin Laden, a half-brother of Osama bin Laden, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel located several miles from the Pentagon. The conference was continuing with the remaining cabinet members and Bin Laden's brother at the time of the Pentagon attack.^[50][51] George H.W. Bush remained an advisor to the Carlyle Group for two years after the attacks.

The New York Times reported that members of the bin Laden family were driven or flown under Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington from where they left the country on a private charter plane when airports reopened three days after the attacks.^[52] The 9/11 commission later concluded that "the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights" and that the exodus was approved by special advisor Richard Clarke after a request by Saudi Arabia who feared for the safety of their nationals. On June 20, 2007 the public interest group Judicial Watch released FBI documents that it says suggested that Osama bin Laden himself may have chartered one of the flights. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton accused the FBI of conducting a "slapdash" investigation of the flights.^[53]

[edit] Iraq

Further information: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda

Immediately after the attacks, rumors began that Iraq could have played a role. The state-run Iraqi media praised the attacks but denied that Iraq was responsible.

On June 29, 2005 Robin Hayes, a Republican Congressman from North Carolina and vice chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism at that time, stated "evidence is clear" that "Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11". Senator John McCain reacting to the Congressman's statement said "I haven't seen compelling evidence of that"^[54] The 9/11 Commission Report stated that there is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States. In September 2006, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that "there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had prewar ties to Al Qaeda and one of the terror organization’s most notorious members, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" and that there was no evidence of any Iraqi support of al-Qaeda or foreknowledge of the September 11th attacks.^[55]

Despite this, a number of 9/11 opinion polls have shown that a significant minority of the American public believe that Saddam was "personally involved". NewsMax.com reported that people within and outside the U.S. government believed that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein conspired in the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City Bombing.^[56] The theory extended from the one advanced by investigative journalist Jayna Davis in her book The Third Terrorist linking Hussein to the Oklahoma City Bombing. It was discussed in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.^[57]

[edit] References

[edit] References