Thread by @housetrotter

rereading kevin fenton’s “disconnecting dots,” probably *the* book on cia/nsa/fbi coverup of al qaeda activities between the embassy bombings in 1998 and 9/11 ipgbook.com/disconnecting-…

the nsa was intercepting calls to al qaeda’s yemen hub for at least 2 years by the time of the 98 embassy bombings. in the days leading up to the attack, one of the bombers made several calls to this hub. the nsa certainly intercepted these calls. why didn’t they raise the alarm?

my favorite topic: the (alleged) hijackers’ visas. the applications clearly should have been rejected, and the person who issued almost half of them gave false reports regarding the approval process. nonetheless she remained at her post and later was on the board of the afsa.

the jeddah consulate, where most of the 9/11 hijackers’ visas were issued, also served the same purpose during the 1980s, providing visas to mujahideen fighters. (great series of articles by someone who worked st the consulate here: whowhatwhy.org/2015/09/09/vis…)

there are parallels here to the issuance of 6 seperate visas by cia agents to omar abdul-rahman, a leading member of the brooklyn al qaeda cell. he also served an important role in US operations in bosnia (about which you can read here: apjjf.org/2013/11/29/Pet…)

in the lead up to an al qaeda summit in malaysia in jan 2000, the CIA’s bin laden issue station (alec station) obtained information that khalid almidhar had obtained a us visa, and it was set to expire soon, indicating that he planned to visit the us soon

steve rossini and doug miller, two FBI agents detailed to the alec station, recognized how important this was and tried to pass it to fbi hq. they were blocked from doing this by the alec station’s deputy director, cia officer tom wilshire

had the fbi known that almidhar planned to enter the us, they would have been able to surveil him in san diego, and likely 9/11 would not have happened. for some reason, wilshire and alec station chief richard blee could not allow this to happen

as an aside, only great investigating by kevin fenton gave us richard blee’s name. as one of the key criminals in the 9/11 conspiracy, blee is important. any reporter could have figured this out, but it took a practical nobody with no institutional support but a lot of motivation

more background on blee: he had been cia director george tenet's executive assistant (i.e. fixer), who handpicked him to run the alec station.

books.google.com/books?id=32D4I…

after 9/11, he was made chief of station in kabul, probably the premier cia station in the immediate post-9/11 world. interesting way to treat the man responsible for the massive "intelligence failures" that led to 9/11. apjjf.org/2012/10/12/Pet…

despite the fact that wilshire himself had blocked the transmission of information about almihdhar’s us visa to the fbi, when questioned by the congressional inquiry he told them “something apparently was dropped somewhere and we don’t know where that was”

almihdhar was traveling to malaysia for a summit that was being chaired by khalid sheikh mohammed. the cia had supposedly been trying to arrest him, but when presented the chance in malaysia, they, for some inexplicable reason, decided not to

though the CIA later claimed it “lost” alhazmi and almihdhar sometime between kuala lumpur and san diego, a handwritten note from steven cambone, top rumsfeld aide, written in the hours immediately following the attack, indicates the CIA had been monitoring them

this is corroborated by other statements the CIA made in early 2000, while alhazmi and almihdhar were already in the US

prince bandar, saudi ambassador to the us on 9/11, said that the hijackers were being monitored in the us, presumably by the GID. claims that the GID and CIA weren’t sharing info is probably true officially, but there was likely off the books info sharing vanityfair.com/news/2011/08/9…

while alhazmi and almihdhar were in the US, the NSA traced calls between them and the yemen hub that they had under surveillance since 1998. the NSA did occasionally pass information about the contents of the calls, but withheld that the (soon to be) hijackers were in san diego

the CIA has been passing some of this information to the FBI, but cut it off in early 2001. another instance where, had information not been withheld, the plot likely would have been stopped

al qaeda’s yemen hub, which had been under nsa surveillance since at least 1998, was the operations center for the uss cole bombing in october 2000. if the cole attack was anything like the 98 embassy bombing, there must have been dozens of calls in and out of the hub.

incredibly, nsa director hayden claimed after the attack that the nsa hadn’t missed anything, that despite monitoring every communication in and out of the operations center that al qaeda used to plan and execute the attack, they had not intercepted any relevant communications

after the cole bombing in late 2000, the fbi assigned ali soufan to investigate. he discovered independently through his own investigation that his key suspects had been at an al qaeda summit in early 2000. he requested info from the CIA, but they again withheld it.

had the CIA told soufan about the malaysia meeting, it would have led him directly to alhazmi and almihdhar, and the FBI would have been able to surveil both in san diego. another instance where CIA protection allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur.

another curious incident shows how the CIA was more than willing to share certain information, but seemed determined to protect alhazmi and almihdhar.

after the cole bombing, the fbi used an al qaeda informant to identify khalid bin attash, one of the key planners of the bombing. the cia became concerned that the fbi might identify alhazmi and almihdhar through this informant, and so developed a ruse to find out what he knew

the CIA pretended that they believed khallad bin attash and khalid al mihdhar were the same person. this provided them an excuse to have a CIA officer show the informant photos of almihdhar and alhazmi to see if he knew who they were.

likely to their relief, the CIA discovered that the informant didn’t know either of them, and thus was unlikely to blow their cover to the FBI. however, in the process they created another problem for themselves: the informant placed bin attash at the malaysia summit

this was a major problem for the CIA. bin attash was the prime suspect in the FBI’s cole bombing investigation, and if he had been at the summit, it would bring the summit, and therefore alhazmi and almihdhar, into the FBI’s investigation. this was not acceptable to the CIA

the CIA withheld this information from the FBI, lied about withholding it, and then created a paper trail that would give them plausible deniability. had the CIA watchlisted any of these people at this time, it’s likely that the FBI would have found them in the US before 9/11

on 5/15/01, yet another instance where wilshire reviewed information about the soon-to-be 9/11 hijackers, had the option to inform the FBI or take some other action, and again declined to

following this review, wilshire seemed to understand that the other officer with whom he had reviewed the files might raise the alarm, so to stave this off, he initiated another review himself (of information he himself had already seen and blocked)

all that turned up in this months long review in the summer of 2001 were files that wilshire already had, but had declined to give to the individual doing the review

on august 21, the reviewer (gillespie) finally turned up an earlier cable that showed alhazmi and almihdhar were planning to enter the us. this date is significant, as it coincides with when the 9/11 hijackers picked the 9/11 date, something other intel agencies may have known

this would seem to indicate that the alec station turned over the information to the FBI at essentially the last possible moment, when it would have already been clear to other foreign intel agencies, and possibly the FBI itself. i.e., they were covering their asses

fenton takes these facts and comes to the very clear conclusion that somebody inside the CIA wanted the 9/11 attacks to happen

following this incident, wilshire engineered yet another ruse to try and find out what FBI cole bombing investigators knew about alhazmi and almihdhar (during which he, yet again, withheld what he knew about both men)

finished the book a while ago, just gonna gotta go through my notes and pull out the last few important bits. i’ll finish this, just been a little busy with a baby lately.