Did the CIA keep mum about two 9/11 hijackers because it tried and failed to recruit them? Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, authors of ‘The Eleventh Day,' on whether there’s any truth behind ex-Bush official Richard Clarke’s claim.
Daily Beast, 12 April 2011
EXTRACT
At the heart of the suggestion that the agency intentionally withheld information was the discovery by the Justice Department’s inspector-general of a draft cable—one that was prepared but never sent—by an FBI agent on attachment to the CIA’s bin Laden unit.
The CIA’s “screw-up” explanation of its lamentable failure to act remains at best unconvincing, at worst indicative that it conceals a very different, secret scenario.
The story continues to develop. This “house arrest” thing popped up when the US was beating on the Talibs to hand him over in Kandahar in 2001, then some faux intel from Brad Thor about Mullah Omar being under “house arrest” in Karachi and then now this. Sounds very familiar. Two fiction authors in the intel field being played for reasons unknown. My jury is out on how much I want to believe Raelynn. There are some holes you can drive a truck through in flaws in logic but some ideas could be untangled to pick up a few new truths. Kinda like the blind man and the elephant.
Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden (not to deny the effectiveness of waterboarding, but it’s just not applicable in this case.) Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect the approximately $25 million reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program.
The informant was a walk-in. The ISI officer came forward to claim the substantial reward and to broker US citizenship for his family.
The real story of how the US found bin Laden raises some key questions, namely:
Why did the Saudis pay the Pakistanis to keep bin Laden?
Why did the Pakistani's cooperate?
Did the ISI run the safe house itself or did it use a third party?
How permeable was the safe house?
A key to understanding why Saudi Arabia would finance bin Laden's hideout is clarifying what the Saudis were actually paying for. Bin Laden was esentially being kept under house arrest.
WASHINGTON — American counterterrorism officials are increasingly concerned that the most dangerous regional arm of Al Qaeda is trying to produce the lethal poison ricin, to be packed around small explosives for attacks against the United States.
. . . . . .
But senior American officials say they are tracking the possibility of a threat very closely, given the Yemeni affiliate’s proven ability to devise plots, including some thwarted only at the last minute: a bomb sewn into the underwear of a Nigerian man aboard a commercial jetliner to Detroit in December 2009, and printer cartridges packed with powerful explosives in cargo bound for Chicago 10 months later.
Phi Beta Iota: The insular insanity of the US Government continues. We note with interest that the NYT does not qualify either of the two preceeding plots, both of which are very likely to have been Israeli false flag operations to keep the “terror” myth alive, neither of which was properly investigated. We are right back in the 1970's, and repeat below what Daniel Elsberg said then to Henry Kissinger:
The danger is, you’ll become like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours” [because of your blind faith in the value of your narrow and often incorrect secret information].
Washington: The Pentagon's top intelligence official has ordered the Air Force to set up a new intelligence unit to analyze the behavior of foreign-based commercial aircraft and integrate intelligence from the combatant commanders as the planes move through American airspace.
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers has tasked Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to hand pick a chief for the new intelligence cell.
While USD(I) will be the “focal point in DoD for intelligence on foreign civil aviation-related entities associated with illicit activities or posing a threat to the United States, its allies or its interests,” the Air Force will handle day-to-day operations through the Civil Aviation Intelligence Analysis Center, according to a July 29 memo from Vickers.
The new defense chief says intelligence uncovered in the Bin Laden raid showed that 10 years of U.S. operations against the terror network had left it with fewer than two dozen key operatives. Panetta is visiting Afghanistan for the first time as defense secretary.
Phi Beta Iota: Panetta had so much potential at CIA, and failed to rise to the possibilities. Now at Defense there would be no more sublime illustration of lunacy than this. As we recall, Al Qaeda started in 1988 with fewer than two dozen key operatives. Four trillion borrowed dollars later, this is the best he has to offer as a success story? The US military is bad for real business.
Phi Beta Iota: We asked Col Stu Herrington, USA (Ret), Army counterintelligence officer/interrogator with successful interrogation experience in three wars, what he thought of the matter of General Patraeus opening the door on torture, and here is what he thinks–we have to concur.
The CIA base in the Persian Gulf came up in several conversations over the week-end, along with the “nominal” subordination or transfer of JSOG to the CIA.
This is clearly an Executive move to sidestep the War Powers Act.
This means that the military-industrial complex is in charge of our “national security” apparatus and policy, we now have four wars, and we are certain to have seven in the near term, adding Somalia, Yemen, and Iran as well as Syria while scuttling out of Afghanistan.
Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Robert Gates spent the week-end telling obvious lies and strong mischaracterizations about every topic he addressed. The US Executive is out of control and detrimental to the Constitutional health of the Republic. Impeachment is called for now–and could explain the timing of Gates/ departure.
