Bush Admin let 9-11 Happen?

Ok, I know what you're thinking... this is one of the tin-foil hat diaries where all types of wild and unsubstantiated rumors are bandied about, like the idea that there were explosive planted inside the World Trade Center just to make sure it would come down and give the Bush Administration the justification it need to invade Iraq, thump the National Security drum into re-election, strip away our civil liberties and drain our treasury.

Well, you'd be wrong about everything except the explosives.

From the Associate Press.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - [Harry Samit] the
FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks.

More details of gross negligence and incompetence over the flip...

[During Samit's cross-examination Defense attorney] MacMahon displayed a communication addressed to Samit and FBI headquarters agent Mike Maltbie from a bureau agent in Paris relaying word from French intelligence that Moussaoui was "very dangerous," had been indoctrinated in radical Islamic Fundamentalism at London's Finnsbury Park mosque, was "completely devoted" to a variety of radical fundamentalism that
Osama bin Laden espoused, and had been to
Afghanistan.

The communication arrived Aug. 30, 2001. [ED. notibly after the August 8th PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S.] The Sept. 11 Commission reported that British intelligence told U.S. officials on Sept 13, 2001, that Moussaoui had attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. "Had this information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have received intense, high-level attention," the commission concluded.

Ya think?

No, actually I don't think. I think they would have ignored it just as they'd been ignoring Richard Clark's warnings for the previous 8 months.

But Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously. No one from Washington called Samit to say this intelligence altered the picture the agent had been painting since Aug. 18 in a running battle with Maltbie and Maltbie's boss, David Frasca, chief of the radical fundamentalist unit at headquarters.

They fought over Samit's desire for a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer and belongings. Maltbie and Frasca said Samit had not established a link between Moussaoui and terrorists.

Let me reiterate this point...Samit's FBI superiors wouldn't even ask a court for a warrant.... It's not that the the court wouldn't give it to them, it's not that they claimed they didn't need it - they didn't even fucking ask!.

Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the Justice Department inspector general that "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" on the part of FBI headquarters officials had prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked "a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."

The FBI's actions between Moussaoui's arrest, in Minnesota on immigration violations on Aug. 16, 2001, and Sept. 11, 2001, are crucial to his trial because prosecutors allege that Moussaoui's lies prevented the FBI from discovering the identities of 9/11 hijackers and the
Federal Aviation Administration from taking airport security steps.

But MacMahon made clear the Moussaoui's lies never fooled Samit. The agent sent a memo to FBI headquarters on Aug. 18 accusing Moussaoui of plotting international terrorism and air piracy over the United States, two of the six crimes he pleaded guilty to in 2005.

Samit further testified that he had attempted to communicate his fears via "e-mails and letters to FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI headquarters, the CIA's counterterrorism center, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, an intelligence agency not identified publicly by name in court (possibly the National Security Agency), and the FBI's Iran, Osama bin Laden, radical fundamentalist, and national security law units at headquarters."

And the response?

Bupkis. Zip. Nada. Samit was even barred from sending a letter to FAA headquaters outlining his concerns.

That's the Bush Administration for ya, always willing and able to make a bad sitaution worse.

Vyan