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http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIP207A.html US PREPARATIONS FOR WAR, US WARNINGS OF WAR, AND WARNINGS OF ATTACK WHICH THE US DIDN'T HEED US Green Berets and regular troops have gone to Uzbekistan to train and establish ties with the Uzbek military since 1996, and 30-40 Uzbek officers have come to the US for military training since 1995. At least one of these has helped US troops get settled in Uzbekistan for the current occupation. Some US soldiers have even married Uzbek women. [70] US Rangers were also training special troops in Kyrgyzstan. [71] In an unofficial meeting in Berlin in July 2001, former US officials told a former Pakistani official that the US was planning to attack Afghanistan by mid-October. British papers confirm that the Pakistani ISI relayed the threats to the Taliban. [72] Just days before September 11, Bush's national security advisors presented him with a plan for a war against al-Qaeda, including attacks on Afghanistan and other elements of the actual war. [73] By early September 2001, tens of thousands of US and allied troops, including two aircraft carrier battle groups, were converging in Egypt and the Arabian Sea -- not far west and south of Afghanistan -- for exercises [74] (of course, such "contingency plans" and exercises do not mean that a country is definitely planning to go to war, but they do mean that it intends to be prepared for a war). In 1997, the trial of one of the bombers in the previous attack on the World Trade Center revealed a plan to hijack airliners and crash them into civilian targets. In October 2000, the Pentagon held a drill to prepare for a hijacked airliner crashing into it. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the CIA that Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft" to "attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." In July 2001, FBI agents wrote a memo describing Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons, and specifically mentioning Osama bin Laden and connections to terrorism. Also in the summer of 2001, Jordanian intelligence intercepted a communication stating that a major attack using aircraft was planned in the US. The Jordanians relayed the warning to the US through two separate channels to make sure it got through. Also, the US National Security Agency intercepted conversations between an aide to Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta (the alleged lead hijacker), but didn't share the information with any other agencies. Russian intelligence warned the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been training to fly hijacked airliners. And at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italian and Egyptian officials warned that President Bush might be attacked with hijacked airplanes filled with explosives. Although US officials called these warnings "unsubstantiated," Italian security forces closed off local airspace and deployed anti-aircraft guns. [75] In July 2001 US Attorney General Ashcroft quit flying on commercial airlines due to an unspecified "threat assessment" from the FBI. [76] In August 2001 the FBI arrested an Islamic militant who was taking flying lessons and had technical manuals for Boeing aircraft. Despite confirmation from French sources that he was a key member of bin Laden's network the FBI did not subject him to special interrogation (see Agent Rowley's accusation below). That same month Russian President Putin ordered his intelligence service to warn Washington "in the strongest possible terms" of impending attacks on airports and government buildings. [77] Also, a US Office of Naval Intelligence Lieutenant, in a Canadian jail on trumped-up charges, had been trying to warn the US of terrorist attacks in the upcoming weeks, and gave a sealed note to his jailers which listed both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, among other possible targets. [78] This lieutenant had also gotten a Russian memo which specified a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania -- the state where the fourth hijacked plane crashed. He reported it to Canadian authorities at least a month before the attacks, and they notified US authorities. [79] President Bush received an intelligence briefing that bin Laden might be planning to hijack aircraft, but the White House says that they had no idea that the aircraft might be used as weapons. [80] During the week of September 9 an Iranian man made several phone calls to US police warning of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center (but was dismissed as mentally unstable). [81] Also in early September, someone called a Cayman Islands talk show several times warning of an imminent attack on the US by bin Laden. Since the Caymans are among the world leaders in money laundering, and terrorists launder a lot of money, it is reasonable for counterterror services to pay close attention to such shows. At roughly the same time, thousands of "put" options (versus a few hundred "call" options) were placed against United Airlines, American Airlines, and two reinsurance companies which are heavily invested in the World Trade Center (put options pay off very well if the stock in question goes down significantly; call options do the reverse). No large numbers of options were placed against any other airlines. [82] This is a way for terrorists to make a lot of money from their attacks, and intelligence agencies monitor such trading closely for clues to upcoming attacks. [83] The US Securities and Exchange Commission is supposedly investigating these trades, but has been silent on the issue for months. Given several warnings that terrorists might use hijacked airliners as weapons, and the Pentagon's drill using exactly that scenario, it is strange that the White House said it had no inkling of that possibility. In fact, as legislators evacuated the Capitol Building after the attacks, a member of the Armed Services Committee told a National Public Radio correspondent that "just recently the Director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack -- an imminent attack -- on the United States of this nature." [84] Conveniently, the (then) head of Pakistan's ISI was in Washington from September 4 2001 until after the attacks. He met with several US intelligence officials, and on the morning of September 11 he was in a breakfast meeting with the chairmen of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. After the attacks, he coordinated Pakistan's collaboration with the US in the war on Afghanistan. But he had been busy before that: in the weeks prior to September 11, he ordered a total of $100,000 wired to Mohammed Atta, who has been fingered by the FBI as the hijackers' ringleader. The FBI knew about this (although it is not clear exactly when they found out), and Pakistan replaced the ISI chief in a "routine reshuffling" -- but Indian press reports say that the US was behind his dismissal. [85] Despite this rather shocking link between Pakistan and the September 11 attacks, the US has continued its warm relations with Pakistan and the ISI, and this writer has found no report of further US action against the "reshuffled" intelligence chief. SUPPRESSION OF FBI INVESTIGATIONS OF AL-QAEDA Besides the White House orders to "back off" the investigation of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the obstruction which the late John O'Niell reported before his death on September 11, there are further reports of active suppression of investigations which might have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Washington attorney David Shippers represents several FBI agents in Oklahoma City and other places who say they have been prevented from proceeding in cases against Middle Eastern men involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and who had information relating to other planned attacks (including some involving airplanes) -- they say there is even a videotape, not released, showing a Middle Eastern man running away from the Murrah building along with Timothy McVeigh. They also say that eyewitnesses confirm this. [86] FBI agent Coleen Rowley claims that supervisors rewrote a warrant she had written for a search of Zacarias Moussaoui's (the al-Qaeda operative arrested in Boston referred to above) computer hard drive, resulting in the denial of the warrant. She also said that the FBI ignored a memo from an agent in Phoenix which described terrorists taking flying lessons. [87] In a press conference on May 30 2002 FBI agent Robert Wright said that his bosses "prevented," "thwarted," and "obstructed" his investigations into al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and that they "intimidated" him with "retaliation" for his efforts. Wright said that for years there had been conflicts between the intelligence and criminal investigation agencies, with the result that there had been almost no attempt to neutralize known and suspected terrorists living in the US. One reason Wright cited was that these terrorists laundered huge amounts of money through US banks which were tied to powerful US interests (this corroborates Labeviere's thesis). [88] As recently as March 2002 there has been "considerable conflict inside the U.S. government between law enforcement officials seeking to cut off funding for international terrorism and diplomatic and political officials unwilling to permit investigations that would undermine the regime in power in Saudi Arabia." In April 2002 President Bush met with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and formed (in Bush's words) a "strong personal bond" with him. Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence analyst who co-authored (with Guillaume Dasquie) "Ben Laden: La Verite Interdite" (Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, said that although "some have been shut down, most of the so-called [Islamic] charities [which, according to numerous sources, finance terrorism] controlled by Saudi families in Northern [sic] Virginia and elsewhere are still in operation. The assets of some of these organizations have been frozen, but the Saudi sponsors have not been touched and the most important work remains to be done." According to "Democrats.com," "The U.S. Department of State has confirmed that there were high level contacts between the U.S. and the Taliban prior in [sic] the spring and summer of 2001." [89] LAWSUIT ALLEGES US DELIBERATELY LET ATTACKS HAPPEN Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco lawyer and former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a class action lawsuit against top Bush Administration officials on behalf of 400 plaintiffs (members of families of 14 victims of the September 11 attacks). He says the government benefited from installing an oil-friendly puppet government in Afghanistan and has used the attacks to consolidate political power at home. Hilton says his information comes from contacts in the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and Office of Naval Intelligence. One source tells him that bin Laden died "years ago" from kidney failure, which if true means that there has been an active double taking his place for years. [90] MISTAKEN HIJACKER IDENTITIES Although (perhaps to save face), the FBI released a list of 19 people alleged to have hijacked the aircraft on September 11, there is serious doubt that they know who did it. Seven of those named have been reported alive in other parts of the world, and at least one other is reported to have died elsewhere. [91] On April 30 2002 FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted that although investigators have been able to track the accused hijackers' movements for months before the attacks, they found "no evidence of their plotting." The FBI's statements are fascinating: an official said "There was never even anything saying 'Something is planned in the United States'" -- despite the multiple warnings from foreign intelligence sources outlined above. Further, officials seem oblivious to the reports that seven of their targets are still alive -- and no reporter seems to have asked about that! The unnamed FBI official said that the lack of evidence shows that the alleged terrorists had "really taken a quantum leap in their ability to carry out an operation without all the traditional accouterments" [92] -- but another possibility is that they simply didn't do it. This leaves the question, "Who did?" -- and why is the FBI barking so noisily up such an unproductive tree? US MILITARY TRAINING OF "HIJACKERS" Five men with names matching those of alleged hijackers trained at US military bases in the 1990s. The Pentagon had said that the names were simply coincidences, although three of the men had listed their addresses as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. But the spokesman wouldn't give any biographical details of the alleged hijackers which would distinguish them from the men who trained in the US. Finally, under intense questioning, the spokesman said, "I do not have the authority to tell you who [among the alleged hijackers] attended which schools." [93] THE HISTORY OF ARRANGED PROVOCATIONS FOR US WARS The US, certainly not alone in this, has a long history of provoking or fabricating attacks on its interests, troops, or territory to "justify" military action. Historical research shows that the Boston Massacre (before there even was a US!) was an act of self-defense; the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was deliberately provoked and allowed to happen; CIA covert troops had been raiding North Vietnam in order to provoke an attack to "justify" US bombing (although the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" never actually happened); and the US (through Kuwait) provoked Saddam Hussein's invasion, and then falsely claimed that Iraqi troops were massing on the Saudi Arabian border to invade it. Further, the Joint Chiefs of Staff planned a series of staged terrorist and military acts which they would blame on Cuba to "justify" a US war on Cuba, and the Navy planned an incursion into disputed waters off North Korea in order to provoke an attack which would lead to a war there in the late 1960s. Fortunately these plans were not carried out. [94] ANTHRAX CAME FROM US GOVERNMENT LAB; FBI HAS A GOOD IDEA WHO SENT IT The anthrax which someone sent through the US mails last year "originally came from a US military laboratory," [95] and Barbara Rosenberg, director of the biological warfare division of the Federation of American Scientists, says that at least five inside experts have singled out one man as best fitting the FBI's suspect profile -- but the FBI hasn't arrested him, possibly to protect other agencies which have "a vested interest in shielding the truth." Rosenberg quotes a former US bioweapons director as saying, "I think a lot of good has come from it. From a biological or a medical standpoint, we've now five people who have died, but we've put about $6 billion in our budget." [96] TROUBLE IN THE STOCK MARKET The US stock markets were showing signs of weakness by early 2001; in fact in March Michael Ruppert predicted that the US would soon go to war in order to bolster them. [97] And on September 9, he issued an urgent bulletin warning of a monstrous bubble of inflated stock speculation which was about to burst -- leading not only to a global depression but a "'reign of terror' or mindless bloodletting." [98] And a San Diego stock trader sold off $300,000 in stocks on September 10, saying that the market would soon go down 3,000 points. He is under indictment along with a current and a former FBI agent (and two others) for insider trading; the prosecutor suspects that he knew of the upcoming attacks, but it is possible that he simply read the same signs others read. [99] Since wars mean fat contracts for companies in the military business, and the resources which come under US control after the military has wiped out the competition are available to US-based multinational corporations, war is popular among the movers and shakers of the world economy for keeping corporate cash flows up and thus preventing stocks from crashing--or at least postponing the crash for a while, giving the insiders a chance to sell off their holdings before their value dives. Ruppert predicted war in Colombia, and although Afghanistan has been "center stage" since September 11, the Bush Administration has been increasing its military aid to Colombia and asking Congress to use it for fighting "terrorists" as well as the drug trade. [100] Besides cocaine, oil is also a target in Colombia: it is Latin America's third largest producer, and increasing its output. [101] And the US and its allies are not going to leave Afghanistan soon: "counterinsurgency operations" in the area "could last beyond this summer." In May 2002 the US announced "a new level of cooperation with Pakistan," and "American Special Forces, who built relationships with anti-Taliban commanders during the first phase of the war, have been assigned to remain with those leaders as they have become provincial governors wielding control." Keeping tribal warlords from fighting amongst each other requires "a long-term American military presence in Afghanistan." While some US troops are pulling out of Afghanistan to "balance their worldwide troop commitments," a three-star general has been slated to replace the two-star general who was the commander of ground forces "to consolidate the growing international coalition forces under a single command." [102] SUMMARY A number of influential people within the US government and foreign policy establishment hold that the US must be dominant, both militarily and economically, throughout the world. Although they do not speak of overt empire, they speak of "primacy" and a "decisive arbitrating role." Some see this as a "benevolent hegemony" necessary to maintain order and economic growth in the world; others see it as a necessary defense against a world with "a lot of bad people who can do us harm." This "primacy" requires immense military forces, lots of money, and a lack of scruples. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has built up both its mobile military forces and foreign arms sales. Eurasia is a key strategic area in this global power game, and Central Asia is key to Eurasia. Since the US populace as a whole does not share this "imperial" ideology and is unwilling to pay the high economic, human, and social costs it requires (and other countries are unlikely to cooperate), proponents of US "benevolent hegemony" need threats to "justify" the needed military power and political control. We have seen the "marketing" of these "threats" in the post-Cold War maneuvering by US military and intelligence agencies (the author's "US Military Policy Since the Fall of the Soviet Union" covers this in more detail). The boom in US weapons sales served to supplement US military power with that of allies, maintain the US weapons establishment, reduce security throughout the world and create yet more markets for weapons as nations see their rivals become more powerful, and supply a steady stream of threats as one-time allies or clients became "rogue" states. In recent years international terrorism has replaced individual states as the primary "threat." Since the Boston Massacre, the US (or the colonies) has repeatedly deliberately provoked attacks, fabricated them, or a combination, to sway public opinion in support of war. At Pearl Harbor, this policy got thousands of people killed, including civilians (the author's "How the US Has Gotten Into Wars" covers this history in greater depth). And the anthrax which killed five people after September 11 came from a US government lab; the prime suspect is still walking around free while the US bioweapons programs have gained six billion dollars out of the deal. The global military and economic power which the US has sought demands two key elements: control of oil supplies and international crime (primarily the drug trade). The need to control oil supplies has led to a long-standing, secretive partnership between the US and Saudi Arabia, committing the former to support of a conservative monarchy which embraces a conservative strain of Islam. The Saudi monarchy is allied with the international "political Islam" network which has spawned terrorist groups around the world. Central Asia is another area which contains major oil reserves, which oil companies have been wanting to develop for years. Dominance of international financial systems (particularly money laundering conduits) is key in the criminal realm, and the revolving door between the CIA and top Wall Street firms has positioned the US intelligence community to be king of the hill. The long-standing, close, and largely hidden relationship between the US government and the Saudi royal family has maintained privileged access for the US to the largest oilfields in the Persian Gulf, and Saudi money has bolstered US financial markets. The CIA's decades of managing the drug trade around the world has also built up US financial markets, and it has created a global network of criminal clients, proxy armies, and tainted banks which are dependent on government protection. The US and Saudi Arabia, along with Pakistan, built up the Islamic Mujaheddin in Afghanistan to overthrow the socialist government there and weaken Soviet influence in Central Asia. In the process, they built up the heroin trade, making Afghanistan the source of about two-thirds of the world's supply (the author's "Guns and Drugs: The CIA's Admissions" treats CIA drug dealing in depth, and his "Where the Narcodollars Go" explains the relationship between drugs, banks, and stock markets). Osama bin Laden was a key figure in this arrangement. After the Soviet Union left, the US-Saudi-Pakistani axis arranged for the Taliban to take over almost all of Afghanistan (along with its opium trade). Islamist terrorist groups, while increasingly hostile to the US and its values, nonetheless provide vital services to the US foreign policy establishment: they are formidable clandestine warriors, they manage much of the drug and weapons trade and other criminal enterprises, they have worldwide financial networks, and they provide a highly visible threat to the West. However, as long as the upper levels of Western financial and intelligence communities can manipulate the Islamists and infiltrate their upper levels, they can remain relatively safe and take advantage of the havoc the terrorists wreak in other countries and even the US. While rank-and-file FBI and State Department agents are trying to "neutralize" the terrorists, the top-level CIA, State Department, and FBI officials continue to protect them and their financial and criminal networks, to the benefit of the large US banks and multinational corporations. The corporations also use the terrorists as guards to protect their investments in far-flung places. The US has been building military and economic ties to the former Soviet republics just north of Afghanistan for years, while maintaining its close working relationships with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and sheltering the Islamic terrorists. As early as 1997, an accused Islamic terrorist testified to plans to crash hijacked airliners into civilian targets, and in late 2000 the Pentagon rehearsed its response to just such an attack. Security forces guarded the G8 summit in Genoa from suicide pilots, but US officials say they had no idea anyone was planning attacks with airplanes. From June up to early September 2001 US authorities received at least nine warnings which have been reported in the open press. Five of these came from other intelligence agencies, three mentioned airplanes as weapons, two others mentioned flying, one mentioned airports or government buildings, three mentioned the World Trade Center, and one mentioned the Pentagon. Besides this, Attorney General Ashcroft had stopped using commercial airlines due to a threat assessment, President Bush had been briefed on the possibility of an al-Qaeda hijack, FBI reports about known al-Qaeda members and flying lessons had been quashed, and an astounding number of highly suspicious stock trades had been overlooked. The warning from Canada, which mentioned both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and correctly specified the date, originated from a US Naval Intelligence officer whom the Pentagon had disowned and the US was trying to extradite. About two months before the attacks former US diplomats put out an unofficial message that the US would attack Afghanistan in mid-October, two days before the attacks US planners finished "contingency plans" for a war on al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, and tens of thousand of US and allied troops (including two aircraft carrier battle groups) were converging in the area around Afghanistan for exercises. Since the rout of the Taliban, oil companies are signing deals for pipelines across Afghanistan and the heroin business is booming as never before (and the US has exempted the provisional Afghan government from penalties for its failure to stop drugs while that government has gutted its drug eradication agency). Considering all this, some people wonder whether there is more to the September 11 attacks than the US government is telling. -------------------------- Reference notes here <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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