Lis­ten:
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
RealAu­dio

Tak­en from Mark Antony’s eulo­gy over Cae­sar’s body in Shake­speare’s The Tragedy of Julius Cae­sar, the title is a self-evi­dent ref­er­ence to the sub­ject of the broad­cast-the ter­ror­ist blitzkrieg of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. This pro­gram, like FTR 325, was record­ed on 9/16/2001.

1. The dis­cus­sion begins with intel­li­gence ana­lysts’ con­cerns that the attack beto­kens a break­down of intel­li­gence func­tions by the Unit­ed States.  (“Spy­ing Fail­ure Wor­ries Experts” by Earl Lane [News­day]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/13/2001; p. 10A.) As men­tioned in the descrip­tion for FTR-325, Mr. Emory feels that, in fact, the intel­li­gence short­com­ings were due (in part, at least) to delib­er­ate sub­ver­sion by a fas­cist fifth col­umn with­in the U.S. intel­li­gence sys­tem.  As will be seen in lat­er broad­casts, this fifth col­umn is asso­ci­at­ed with what Mr. Emory calls the “Under­ground Reich.”

2. Next, the pro­gram high­lights appar­ent con­nec­tions between the Sep­tem­ber 11 attack and the bomb­ing of the U.S.S. Cole in Octo­ber of 2000. (“Hijack­ers Linked to Cole Attack” by Sta­cy Finz and Car­la Mar­in­uc­ci; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 9/16/2001; pp. A1-A14.)

3. Con­tin­u­ing with analy­sis of the Cole bomb­ing and evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning between the Cole attack and the Sep­tem­ber 11 assault, the pro­gram excerpts FTR 322.  That pro­gram high­light­ed the theft of a brief­case con­tain­ing top-secret doc­u­ments about coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence oper­a­tions in New York. (“FBI Ter­ror Expert Lost Track of Top-Secret Plans” by David John­ston [New York Times]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 8/9/2001; p. A8.)  The FBI expert in ques­tion, the late John O’Neill, was in charge of the Bin Laden inves­ti­ga­tion for the FBI.  The broad­cast delin­eates a dis­turb­ing aspect of the doc­u­ments stolen from O’Neill in the sum­mer of 2000.

“Offi­cials iden­ti­fied one doc­u­ment in the brief­case as a draft of the annu­al field office report for nation­al secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions in New York. The close­ly guard­ed report con­tained a descrip­tion of every coun­teres­pi­onage and coun­tert­er­ror­ism pro­gram in New York and detailed the man­pow­er for each oper­a­tion.”

(Idem.)

4. In August, O’Neill left the bureau to become direc­tor of secu­ri­ty for the World Trade Cen­ter.  (“Bin Laden’s Orga­ni­za­tion High­ly Orga­nized, Coher­ent” by Judith Miller, Ben­jamin Weis­er and Ralph Blu­men­thal [New York Times]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/16/2001; p. 8A.)  O’Neill was killed in the 9/11 attack.  (Idem.)

5. Next, the pro­gram high­lights the alle­ga­tion that there may be a ter­ror­ist mole in the White House, FBI, or CIA who pro­vid­ed spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion to the attack­ers.  (“Air Force One Is Next” by William Safire [New York Times]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/14/2001; p. 11B.)  There is a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty that Bush aide Karl Rove (who repeat­ed the alle­ga­tion for Mr. Safire) may be that mole.

6. The broad­cast then repris­es an excerpt from FTR 319, detail­ing Rove’s role in set­ting up the late J.H. Hat­field (and by exten­sion, Hat­field­’s dis­cus­sion of the Bush/Bin Laden fam­i­ly busi­ness con­nec­tions) for dis­cred­i­ta­tion.  (“How Karl Rove Tricked the Media into Trash­ing the Mes­sen­ger while Ignor­ing the Mes­sage” by Sander Hicks; Online Jour­nal; 5/23/2001; pp. 3–4.)

7. The first side of the pro­gram con­cludes with analy­sis of one of many warn­ings that U.S. intel­li­gence received pri­or to 9/11 con­cern­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a ter­ror­ist attack by the Bin Laden forces.  (“State Depart­ment Memo Warned of Ter­ror­ist Threat” by Philip Mati­er and Andrew Ross; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 9/14/2001; p. A13.)

8. The sec­ond half of the broad­cast begins with a look at some of the Ger­man con­nec­tions to the 9/11 attack.  Not only was Ger­many an appar­ent epi­cen­ter for the oper­a­tional ele­ments involved in the attack, but that coun­try has a his­to­ry of com­plic­i­ty in ter­ror­ist attacks against the Unit­ed States. The bomb­ing of Pan Am Flight 103 is one of the ter­ror­ist attacks with strong evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning through, or in the direc­tion of, Ger­many. (“Ger­man Offi­cials Link 3 Arab Men to Attack” by Steven Erlanger; New York Times; 9/14/2001; p. A5.)  As dis­cussed in RFA-35, Ger­man police and intel­li­gence offi­cials released Mar­wan Khree­sat, a Ger­man intel­li­gence infor­mant linked to the oper­a­tional cell that appar­ent­ly exe­cut­ed the bomb­ing. It should be not­ed that the new­ly-appoint­ed FBI direc­tor was less than vig­or­ous in his inves­ti­ga­tion of Pan Am 103, help­ing to obscure the links between that inci­dent, the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and the elder George Bush.  It has been spec­u­lat­ed that the appoint­ment of Bush insid­er Mueller to head the Bureau may have been in antic­i­pa­tion of the 9/11 attack.

9. Two of the prin­ci­pal sus­pects had enrolled in the same tech­ni­cal school in Ham­burg.  (“Search Extends to Ger­many” by Daniel Rubin; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/14/2001; p. 17A.)

10. In addi­tion to Mohammed Atta and Mar­wan al-She­hi, sus­pect hijack­er Ziad Jar­rahi net­worked with sus­pect­ed Bin Laden forces in Ger­many. (“Hijack­er­s’Ac­tiv­i­ties in Ger­many Tracked” by Daniel Rubin Toni Hein­zl; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/16/2001; p. 9A.)

11. Atta and anoth­er hijack­er learned to fly at Rudy Dekkers’ Huff­man avi­a­tion, a Ger­man-run flight school in Flori­da. (“Hijack­ers Linked to Bin Laden” by James Risen and David John­ston [New York Times]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/13/2001; p. 20A.)  It seems that the Ger­many-to-Flori­da tran­sit for the men may con­sti­tute a pos­si­ble BND con­nec­tion.

12. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the elder George Bush blamed the intel­li­gence fail­ures on Bill Clin­ton. (“Clin­ton-Era Rule Hurt Recruit­ment by CIA, Some Say” by Michael Kil­ian [Chica­go Tri­bune]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/16/2001; p. 9A.)

13. The George W. Bush admin­is­tra­tion has con­tin­ued to with­hold gov­ern­ment records from the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, includ­ing doc­u­ments about George Bush’s activ­i­ties as Vice-Pres­i­dent.  (“Rea­gan Records Held for 3rd Time” by Deb Riech­mann [AP]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 9/1/2001; p. A2.)  Some of those papers may have revealed infor­ma­tion about some of the var­i­ous mis­deeds that Bush engaged in, includ­ing the Iran-Con­tra and Iraq­gate affair.

14. Even as the Bush admin­is­tra­tion is call­ing for Amer­i­cans to ral­ly round the flag, his cronies are using the 9/11 attacks to advance his right wing agen­da, includ­ing the mis­sile shield. (“Mis­sile Shield Plan May Gain Sup­port” by Adam Cly­mer [New York Times]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/14/2001; p. 9A.)

15. Bush ally Fal­well blames the attacks on Amer­i­ca’s sup­posed spir­i­tu­al short­com­ings, sound­ing like Bin Laden him­self in his pro­nounce­ments.  (“Fal­well Says U.S. Has Lost God’s Pro­tec­tion Because of Spir­i­tu­al Voice” by Gus­tav Niebuhr [New York Times]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 9/14/2001; p. B8.)

16. The attack may also divert atten­tion away from the dis­as­trous results of the Bush bud­get pack­age, which already threat­ened bud­get deficits and which was threat­en­ing social secu­ri­ty.  Now, eco­nom­ic weak­ness can be blamed on the attacks.  (“Frag­ile U.S. Econ­o­my Is Now Put at Risk of Reces­sion” by Chris O’Brien and Michelle Quinn; San Jose Mer­cury News; 9/12/2001; p. 7A.)