SEPTEMBER 11: WHAT YOU "OUGHT NOT TO KNOW" (new Palast bombshell)

[cthrumatrix]

SEPTEMBER 11: WHAT YOU "OUGHT NOT TO KNOW"
DOCUMENT 199-I AND THE FBI'S WORDS TO CHILL THE SOUL
Friday Sep 10, 2004

by Greg Palast


On November 9, 2001, when you could still choke on the dust in the air near Ground Zero, BBC Television received a call in London from a top-level US intelligence agent. He was not happy. Shortly after George W. Bush took office, he told us reluctantly, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI, "were told to back off the Saudis."

We knew that. In the newsroom, we had a document already in hand, marked, "SECRET" across the top and "199-I" - meaning this was a national security matter.

The secret memo released agents to hunt down two members of the bin Laden family operating a "suspected terrorist organization" in the USA. It was dated September 13, 2001 -- two days too late for too many. What the memo indicates, corroborated by other sources, was that the agents had long wanted to question these characters ... but could not until after the attack. By that time, these bin Laden birds had flown their American nest.

Back to the high-level agent. I pressed him to tell me exactly which investigations were spiked. None of this interview dance was easy, requiring switching to untraceable phones. Ultimately, the insider said, "Khan Labs." At the time, our intelligence agencies were on the trail of Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove, A.Q. Khan, who built Pakistan's bomb and was selling its secrets to the Libyans. But once Bush and Condoleeza Rice's team took over, the source told us, agents were forced to let a hot trail go cold. Specifically, there were limits on tracing the Saudi money behind this "Islamic bomb."

snip

http://www.gregpalast.com

maybe we add this to the list for CBS to look into ...since we don't have free press anymore

[cthrumatrix]

1. This last paragraph sums it up....

"The 199-I memo was passed to BBC television by the gumshoes at the National Security News Service in Washington. We authenticated it, added in our own sleuthing, then gave the FBI its say, expecting the usual, "It's baloney, a fake." But we didn't get the usual response. Rather, FBI headquarters said, "There are lots of things the intelligence community knows and other people ought not to know."

snip


(same above Palast link)


for those who are MIHIP or LIHOP fans this adds a little more fuel to the fire

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. LIHOP

[jjmalonejr]

4. I've always dismissed LIHOP and MIHOP as interesting but baseless...

...although I did tend to lean a little LIHOP.

I'm leaning further and further these days.

Who knows...I may break someday.

[Dover]

3. Is this new information from Palast? I wonder why he hasn't mentioned

this before?

[Warpy]

8. This came out shortly after 9/11/01

but got absolutely no play in the mainstream press. It's been common knowledge since then that all the intelligence bureaus, but specifically the FBI, were called off investigations into terrorist cells susapected of being set up in the US. In fact, it's why the Moussaoui flight school information wasn't followed up on and why other questions about Atta and the others weren't pursued, and the lack of support was from the top down.

Whether it was an oversensitivity to the Saudis or LIHOP is anyone's guess, although Bush's and Cheney's performances on 9/11, together with the curious inactivity on the part of air defense, would seam to bear out the LIHOP theory.

What we know for certain is that something stinks, and the stench is emanating from the Bush administration.

[Poiuyt]

5. Doesn't Bob Graham's book make similar accusations?

I haven't read it, but I saw an interview with him on TV. Something about the 9/11 Commission being forbidden to investigate the Saudi connection.

[IkeWarnedUs]

6. Palast reported on this (on the BBC) on 11/6/01

Greg Palast did an interview show on the BBC's news magazine show, NewsNight (similar to our 20/20 or 60 Minutes) on November 6, 2001.

Notice that the opening post Palast says that they got the call on November 9, 2001 and they already knew about it.

One of our local (Chicago) TV anchors did a short blurb on the 10pm news that the BBC reported a connection between the Bush and binLaden families and the Carlyle Group. That night he was taken to New York and the next morning brought before the head of NBC and the head of GE and told YOU WILL NOT REPORT ON THIS STORY ANY MORE.

That's what opened my eyes and got me started on my journey to find out what else they were not telling us.

Here is Palast's 11/6/01 transcript:

---------------

Has someone been sitting on the FBI?

<snip>

PALAST:
In the eight weeks since the attacks, over 1,000 suspects and potential witnesses have been detained. Yet, just days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members of Osama Bin Laden's family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House.

Their official line is that the Bin Ladens are above suspicion - apart from Osama, the black sheep, who they say hijacked the family name. That's fortunate for the Bush family and the Saudi royal household, whose links with the Bin Ladens could otherwise prove embarrassing. But Newsnight has obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of other members of the] Bin Laden family for links to terrorist organisations before and after September 11th.

This document is marked "Secret". Case ID - 199-Eye WF 213 589. 199 is FBI code for case type. 9 would be murder. 65 would be espionage. 199 means national security. WF indicates Washington field office special agents were investigating ABL - because of it's relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, WAMY - a suspected terrorist organisation. ABL is Abdullah Bin Laden, president and treasurer of WAMY.

<snip>

The US Treasury has not frozen WAMY's assets, and when we talked to them, they insisted they are a charity. Yet, just weeks ago, Pakistan expelled WAMY operatives. And India claimed that WAMY was funding an organisation linked to bombings in Kashmir. And the Philippines military has accused WAMY of funding Muslim insurgency. The FBI did look into WAMY, but, for some reason, agents were pulled off the trail.

JOE TRENTO (AUTHOR, "SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA"):
The FBI wanted to investigate these guys. This is not something that they didn't want to do - they wanted to, they weren't permitted to.

<snip>

PALAST:
Newsnight has uncovered a long history of shadowy connections between the State Department, the CIA and the Saudis. The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah is Michael Springman.

MICHAEL SPRINGMAN:
In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General's office. I was met with silence.

<snip>

PALAST:
I showed lawyer Michael Wildes (attorney) our FBI documents. One of the Khobar Towers bombers was represented by Wildes, who thought he had useful intelligence for the US. He also represents a Saudi diplomat who defected to the USA with 14,000 documents which Wildes claims implicates Saudi citizens in financing terrorism and more. Wildes met with FBI men who told him they were not permitted to read all the documents. Nevertheless, he tried to give them to the agents.


Much, much more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

[IkeWarnedUs]

7. sorry - dupe

I didn't think it posted the first time.

[Nordic]

9. kick