U.S. and Allied Intelligence Services Had Penetrated The Very Highest Levels of Al Qaeda Prior to 9/11

George Washington Blog
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

No one could have anticipated 9/11, right? While the U.S. knew about Al Qaeda, the 9/11 plotters and hijackers were still somewhat unknown and unpredictable prior to 9/11. Right?

In fact, U.S. and allied intelligence services had penetrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. For example:

• In January 2001 -- the French intelligence services gave a report to the CIA entitled "Plan to hijack an aircraft by Islamic radicals". Indeed, "foreign agents had infiltrated Osama bin Laden's network and were carefully tracking its moves" prior to 9/11. The original story from the leading French newspaper makes it clear that such infiltration went to the highest levels of Al-Qaeda's camps, and included listening to the hijackers' debates about which airlines' planes should be hijacked, and that allied intelligence services also listened into satellite phone conversations between the hijackers

• Moroccan intelligence penetrated Bin Laden's inner circle, and reported on Bin Laden's plans to the U.S.

• A longtime CIA officer says, �Egyptians, Jordanians, [and] Palestinians penetrated the bin Laden organization for us. It�s B.S. that we didn�t.� (page 143)

• Former CIA director George Tenet says that �a group of assets from a Middle Eastern service�, working for the CIA, penetrated al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan by September 2001. Bin Laden was dropping hints about the upcoming 9/11 attacks to training camp trainees in the summer of 2001, and US citizen John Walker Lindh was told details of the 9/11 attacks within weeks of joining a training camp that summer

• USA Today states: "U.S. intelligence overheard al-Qaeda operatives discussing a major pending terrorist attack in the weeks prior to Sept. 11 and had agents inside the terror group"

• Indeed, in the summer of 2001, the CIA allegedly told President Bush that the highest levels of Al-Qaeda had been penetrated

In addition, U.S. and allied intelligence services followed the hijacker's every move:

• The Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House (confirmed here by the Co-Chair of the Joint Inquiry and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham)

• The Pentagon also tracked the hijackers before 9/11

• Israel tracked the hijackers' every movement prior to the attacks, and may have sent agents to film the attack on the World Trade Centers

• And Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision" prior to the attacks. Saudi Arabia, like Israel, is a very close ally of the U.S.

Moreover, the U.S. intercepted many high-level Al Qaeda phone calls:

• The CIA and the NSA had been intercepting phone calls by the hijackers for years

• The National Security Agency and the FBI were both independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind's phone calls. The day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker "tomorrow is zero hour" and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind's phone calls. (The NSA claims that it did not translate the intercept until September 12th; however, the above-mentioned FBI translator said that she was frequently ordered to falsify dates of translations regarding 9/11)

• Shortly before 9/11, the NSA also intercepted multiple phone calls from Bin Laden's chief of operations to the United States

• Only two days before 9/11, Osama Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her "In two days, you're going to hear big news and you're not going to hear from me for a while.� US officials later told CNN that �in recent years they've been able to monitor some of bin Laden's telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded." Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother

Moreover, the financiers for Al Qaeda were not mysterious and unknown before 9/11:

• According to intelligence officials in India and the FBI, Pakistan's military chief of intelligence wired $100,000 to the lead hijacker days before 9/11 (mentioned here in an editorial round-up). It is well known that American and Pakistani intelligence service worked closely together for many years. Indeed, the above-described military chief of intelligence who wired the $100,000 to the hijacker actually met with the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on the very morning of 9/11
  

Other facts point towards penetration of the highest levels of Al Qaeda:

• 9/11 family member and "Jersey Girl" Patty Casazza was told by whistleblowers that -- before 9/11 -- the government knew the exact day, the type of attack, and the targets

• One of France's largest newspapers claims that the CIA met with Bin Laden in an American hospital in Dubai in July 2001

Whatever you might think about 9/11, it is beyond dispute that U.S. and allied intelligence services had penetrated "the highest levels" of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. Al Qaeda and the 9/11 plotters and hijackers were thoroughly known, monitored, tracked and infiltrated before 9/11.

If a domestic gang were this highly infiltrated and closely monitored by the FBI, and yet the FBI allowed the gang to commit a major crime, it would be obvious that the FBI allowed the crime to be committed. Right? Why is 9/11 any different? Indeed, Al Qaeda was arguably more higly infiltrated and monitored than any domestic gang.

Moreover, something very similar happened in 1993, when a government informant offered to stop the 1993 bombing of the world trade center by substituting fake power for real bombmaking materials, but the FBI allowed the bombing to happen anyway (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view) (see also this news report). It was supposedly Al Qaeda which carried out that attack also.