March 31st, 2003
Dear Representative Blumenauer,
September 11th was a watershed event in American history. It has shaped our domestic security, eroded our civil liberties, and literally sent us to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet there has been very little serious examination of the lapses and failures that allowed this attack to be carried out successfully. And the more you look into it, the more improbable it looks. Glaring questions emerge:
1. Mainstream news sources report that no fewer than 12 nations tried to warn the U.S. with specific and credible information. The sources range from the Taliban’s former minister to Jordanian intelligence to a Morrocan Al-Qaeda mole, as well as British, Egyptian, Russian, French, and Russian sources. Some of these were specific enough to name the operation (“Big Wedding”). Israeli Mossad agents were sent to Washington in August 2001 to deliver a warning that an attack was imminent; there is evidence that Mossad agents were in fact monitoring the terrorists. Yet, in late summer 2001 threat warnings were removed, and no special precautions were issued to airlines... except, of course, key government officials shunned commercial aircraft and fighter jets were rumored to be protecting the president in Crawford.
2. The response of the government on 9-11 is laughable. There are amazing, improbably lapses, and standard emergency procedure is completely ignored as hijacked planes begin to show up on radars and control towers become aware of the situation. Norad is not notified until well into the unfolding catastrophe, and fighter jets that could have shot down the second WTC jet were found not have even used half their top speed. Flight 77 is hundreds of miles off-course, headed for Washington after two other planes have been used as missiles, and yet it flies unmolested for 40 minutes before hitting the Pentagon. In 2000, fighter jets were scrambled 129 times, so clearly the operational rules had been understood for some time; the most publicly visible occasion was when golfer Payne Stewart’s private plane deviated from flight plan, and fighter jets were on the scene in 10 minutes.
3. Many people knew of the impending disaster, if one judges by the highly unusual trading patterns of the airlines involved in the days before September 11th. It has been reported that there were thousands of put options submitted the week before, which ought to be very traceable, yet no investigation has revealed who tried to profit from criminal foreknowledge.
4. There is ample evidence that investigations that should have uncovered the plot were either cut off or ignored. CIA Director Tenet’s testimony last fall revealed that the CIA had mounted a major surveillance operation in Malaysia in 2000 which two of the attackers attended; their names were known, and yet they entered the U.S. muliple times afterwards without incident. His testimony also suggested that the CIA and FBI had a “human intelligence asset” within Al-Qaeda. There are the reports from field agents in Phoenix and Minnesota that were blocked. FBI agent John O’Neill, who was perhaps the FBI’s most tenacious agent on foreign terrorism, was conveniently shifted out of the FBI just when it needed him most.
5. Perhaps most disturbing has been the response of the Bush administration to an investigation of September 11th. How do I count the lies and obstructions? It has been claimed that no one could have foreseen the use of missiles... yet this possibility was mentioned in open court in the first World Trade Center bombing, a plot of this type was uncovered in the Pacific in the late 90’s (Project Bojingka), and the Pentagon emergency team had trained for precisely this scenario in May of 2001. Then it was claimed that no investigation was necessary, though much lesser events have had much greater public scrutiny. The whole history of the commision has been one of obstruction, underfunding, and cover-up. Even now, the timeline has been compressed and the funding insufficient so as to make its work either useless or impossible. The White House has tried to steer the commision away from what happened, and instead concentrate on the future. The current head of this investigation, Thomas Kean, is a man with proven business connections that lead back to the bin Laden family, hardly someone to inspire confidence in a rigorous investigation. Three thousand people died, and this is the best we can do?!?
I could go on, and on, but I will sum up with two words: it stinks. Right now the war is obliterating everything else, but there are many in America who are questioning what our government knew, and when they knew it. I was motivated to write this letter after someone sitting with me after church asked, tentatively, “Hey, do you think it is possible that there is more to 9-11 than we have been allowed to see?” I said, “Lady, you bet.” I want to see air traffic controllers, Norad commanders, jet fighter pilots, FBI bureau heads, stock brokers, intelligence agents, and a whole flock of others sitting in a courtroom and giving sworn deposition about what happened, when, and why on that awful day nearly two years ago. I want every warning traced down: who got it, what did they do with it? I want every stock transaction examined for whom it leads to. I want transcripts of Norad radio transmissions read in open court.
It is shameful that we have not had this investigation already, and it is shameful that we are in danger of never knowing the truth about the most important disaster in the last half century. I stand with the victims’ families in demanding an unflinching, thorough investigation of how our country’s defenses failed in the moment when we needed them most. I refuse to accept that unlikely coincidence was compounded by incompetence and inattention.
Kurt
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