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Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion of the 9/11/2001 attacks, this pro­gram con­sists large­ly of a col­la­tion of arti­cles from pre­vi­ous broad­casts on the sub­ject.

1. Before turn­ing to the sub­ject that com­pris­es the focal point and title of the pro­gram, the broad­cast begins with dis­cus­sion of the polit­i­cal back­ground of Hiram Tor­res, an Amer­i­can Tal­iban. (“N.J. Name Found on Tal­iban Doc­u­ment” [AP]; Dai­ly Record [Mor­ris Coun­ty, New Jer­sey]; 2/7/2002; p. A7.) A native of Perth Amboy, New Jer­sey, Tor­res was a high school vale­dic­to­ri­an who appears to have joined the Tal­iban in 1993. (Idem.) His ide­o­log­i­cal incli­na­tions and behav­ior are of more than pass­ing inter­est and are dis­turbing­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the “Islam­o­fas­cism” that Mr. Emory believes to be cen­tral to the events of Sep­tem­ber 11. “Tor­res’ unsmil­ing face stares from pages of Perth Amboy High School’s 1992 and 1993 year­books in pic­tures of the Ger­man Club, Ger­man Hon­or Soci­ety and cross-coun­try track team. . . Pen­ny Borkows­ki, who was in most of Tor­res’ high school class­es and knew him from the Ger­man club, said Tor­res would lis­ten to Hitler’s speech­es in Ger­man and recite them in the school hall­ways. ‘He went on about Jews, he went on about all minori­ties,’ Borkows­ki told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press on Wednes­day. ‘They had to be all put in one place, there was no use for them, that kind of thing.’ ” (Idem.) Tor­res may have antic­i­pat­ed his enlist­ment in the ranks of Amer­i­ca’s ene­mies. “Tor­res also refused to pose for his senior high school pic­ture, friend Sachin Tim­ba­dia told the news­pa­per, explain­ing that he ‘want­ed to keep a low pro­file in case some­thing hap­pened in the future.’ ” (Idem.)

2. High­light­ing a diver­gence of opin­ion and prac­tice between the FBI and the CIA: “The dis­cus­sion makes it clear that the FBI and the CIA had engaged in ‘a war between the police forces,’ since the Gulf War, with the FBI reproach­ing the intel­li­gence agency for its ‘too great lenien­cy with regard to its ‘Islamist part­ners.’ ” (Dol­lars for Ter­ror: The Unit­ed States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copy­right 2000 [SC]; Algo­ra Pub­lish­ing; ISBN 1–892941-06–6; pp. 365–66.) Pre­vi­ous­ly, Bin Laden’s broth­er-in-law had been giv­en a visa to enter the Unit­ed States-an occur­rence that out­raged the FBI. (Ibid.; p. 365.)

3. The pro­gram focus­es on Ali Mohamed, an Egypt­ian-born U.S. Army vet­er­an who was a dou­ble agent for Al Que­da. (“Ali Mohamed Served in the U.S. Army-And Bin Laden’s Cir­cle” by Peter Wald­man, Ger­ald F. Seib, Jer­ry Markon, and Christo­pher Coop­er; Wall Street Jour­nal; 11/26/2001; pp. A1-A6.) Orig­i­nal­ly involved with an Egypt­ian Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ist group that mur­dered Anwar Sadat, Mohamed helped train the group that bombed the World Trade Cen­ter in 1993. (Ibid.; p. A1.) Mohamed also worked for the Army at Ft. Bragg, North Car­oli­na. (Idem.) In addi­tion, it appears that he worked for the CIA against the Sovi­ets dur­ing the Afghan war of the 1980’s. (Ibid.; p. A6.) Mohamed informed for the FBI, and also worked for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rah­man, con­vict­ed in con­nec­tion with the first World Trade Cen­ter con­spir­a­cy and relat­ed events. (Idem.) (Rah­man, too, was a vet­er­an of the anti-Sovi­et Afghan war and his sons appar­ent­ly work for Bin Laden.) While work­ing as a dou­ble agent with­in U.S. intel­li­gence for Bin Laden, Mohammed planned the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa. (Idem.)

4. One fas­ci­nat­ing detail of the dis­cus­sion con­cerns a com­ment made by Sheikh Rah­man in a con­ver­sa­tion with one of his fol­low­ers and over heard by FBI eaves­drop­pers. “‘Slow down; slow down a lit­tle bit,’ the sheik cau­tioned, whis­per­ing for fear the FBI was bug­ging his apart­ment-which it was. ‘The one who killed Kennedy was trained for three years.’ It was nev­er made clear in lat­er court tes­ti­mo­ny which assas­si­na­tion the sheik was talk­ing about.” (Idem.) It should be not­ed that both Kennedy assas­si­na­tions were sup­pos­ed­ly the work of “lone nuts” and not the result of con­spir­a­cies. Sirhan Sirhan, the pat­sy for the assas­si­na­tion of Robert Kennedy, was a Pales­tin­ian Arab (who sup­pos­ed­ly killed Kennedy because of his sup­port for Israel.) There are numer­ous evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing both Kennedy assas­si­na­tions to the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King, as well as the shoot­ing of George Wal­lace. It is Mr. Emory’s view that the exec­u­tive author­i­ty in the assas­si­na­tions was the same milieu that lay behind the 9/11 attacks.

5. Reca­pit­u­lat­ing an item dis­cussed in FTR#341, the broad­cast high­lights a park­ing tick­et received by Mohammed Atta. (“Atta Was in N.Y. as Ear­ly as June of ‘00” by Pat Mil­ton [AP]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 12/9/2001; p. 8A.) This tick­et was received in Brook­lyn in the spring of 2000, a fact that must have alert­ed the ter­ror­ist that he might be com­pro­mised. The theft of a brief­case from John O’Neill (in charge of the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Bin Laden) in the sum­mer of 2000 may have been for the pur­pose of deter­min­ing whether the FBI was mon­i­tor­ing the con­spir­a­tors.

6. Next, the pro­gram high­light­ed the theft of a brief­case con­tain­ing top-secret doc­u­ments about coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence and coun­tert­er­ror­ist 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.) In August, O’Neill left the bureau to become direc­tor of secu­ri­ty for the World Trade Cen­ter. He was killed on 9/11.

7. In a book recent­ly pub­lished in France, O’Neill stat­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tion into Bin Laden had been frus­trat­ed by Amer­i­can cor­po­rate con­nec­tions to Sau­di Ara­bia and “oil.” (“Oil Diplo­ma­cy Mud­dled U.S. Pur­suit of Bin Laden, New Book Con­tends” by Ethan Bron­ner; New York Times; 11/12/2001; p. B6.) O’Neill resigned his posi­tion at the FBI in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruc­tion, and believed the Saud­is to be deeply com­plic­it in that obstruc­tion. (Idem.) Fur­ther devel­op­ing dis­cus­sion of the French book, the pro­gram high­lights alle­ga­tions that the Tal­iban were seen as a “sta­bi­liz­ing force” in Cen­tral Asia. (“U.S. Pol­i­cy Towards the Tal­iban Influ­enced by Oil-Authors” by Julio Godoy; 11/15/2001; Inter Press Ser­vice; accessed at www.ips.org.) The book con­tends that the Bush admin­is­tra­tion was nego­ti­at­ing with the Tal­iban over a pipeline to car­ry oil from the Caspi­an Sea. (Idem.) It should be not­ed that the pro­posed pipeline was a project under­tak­en by Uno­cal (in which the elder George Bush has a stake), British Petro­le­um and the Saud­is. (Idem.) In addi­tion, the arti­cle charges that the last meet­ing between the Tal­iban and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion took place five weeks before the 9/11 attacks. (Idem.)

8. In July, Bush select­ed Robert Mueller, a mem­ber of his father’s Jus­tice depart­ment, to be FBI direc­tor. (“S.F. Pros­e­cu­tor Mueller Picked to Lead FBI, Mend Its Image” by Zachary Coile and Bob Egelko; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 7/6/2001; pp. A1-A12.) In his work for the Bush Jus­tice Depart­ment, Mueller was less than vig­or­ous in his role over­see­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of Gen­er­al Nor­ie­ga of Pana­ma, the bomb­ing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the BCCI case. (“In the Run­ning for FBI Direc­tor” by Sta­cy Finz; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 7/1/2001; pp. A1-A6.) All three of those inves­ti­ga­tions over­lap the Iran-Con­tra inves­ti­ga­tion and the elder Bush was prin­ci­pal­ly involved in that imbroglio. Full dis­clo­sure con­cern­ing the BCCI case could lead to inves­ti­ga­tion of James R. Bath, the North Amer­i­can busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Bin Laden fam­i­ly and one of the financiers of George W.‘s first oil ven­ture.

9. The appoint­ment of Mueller as head of the FBI may have been in antic­i­pa­tion of the attacks to maneu­ver a Bush (Senior) insid­er into posi­tion at the FBI, to assure oper­a­tional secu­ri­ty and to have some­one who would not inves­ti­gate the Bush/Bin Laden busi­ness con­nec­tions.

10. Mueller has been reor­ga­niz­ing the FBI.(“FBI Direc­tor Announces Reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Bureau” [New York Times]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 12/4/2001; p. A7.) Whether this reor­ga­ni­za­tion turns out to be ben­e­fi­cial remains to be seen.

11. The pro­gram repris­es dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing alleged links between Tim­o­thy McVeigh and men of Mid­dle East­ern extrac­tion. (“Jus­tice Depart­ment Won’t Let Agent Tes­ti­fy” by James Pat­ter­son; Indi­anapo­lis Star; 11/3/2001; accessed at www.indystar.com.) Two FBI agents with infor­ma­tion cor­rob­o­rat­ing this account have been blocked from tes­ti­fy­ing at the state tri­al of Ter­ry Nichols. (Idem.)

12. In that con­text, the pro­gram sets forth the reluc­tance of the FBI to accept the help of retired agents desir­ing to assist in the inves­ti­ga­tion, all the more curi­ous in light of the fact that the Bureau’s resources are stretched thin, under the cir­cum­stances. (“FBI turns Down Hun­dreds of Ex-Agents Offer­ing Help” by Eric Licht­blau; Los Ange­les Times; 11/6/2001; p. A1.)

13. The bureau declined to pur­sue leads into Zac­cha­rias Mous­saoui, who has since been indict­ed in the attacks. (“In August, FBI Held Off on Probe of Sus­pi­cious Man” by David John­ston and Philip Shenon [New York Times]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 10/6/2001; p. 4A.)

14. In the con­text of the desta­bi­liza­tion of the FBI, it is worth not­ing that Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Ashcroft him­self has been very vocal in sup­port of an ultra-right­ist accused of plot­ting to mur­der an FBI agent and a fed­er­al wit­ness. (“Why Did Ashcroft Try to Help Dr. Sell?” by Joe Cona­son; New York Observ­er; 1/18/2001; p. 5.) Con­vict­ed of defraud­ing Med­ic­aid, Dr. Charles T. Sell alleged­ly plot­ted to mur­der the FBI agent who arrest­ed him and a fed­er­al wit­ness. (Idem.) Sell counts both Ashcroft, and the white-suprema­cist Con­ser­v­a­tive Cit­i­zens’ Coun­cil among his sup­port­ers. (Idem.) The lat­ter is an overt­ly racist and pro-fas­cist group that regards African-Amer­i­cans to be infe­ri­or, glo­ri­fies the Con­fed­er­ate States of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War. The CCC inter­faces with a num­ber of fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Nation­al Alliance. The CCC has enjoyed the sup­port of promi­nent repub­li­cans, such as Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Trent Lott. (Idem.)

15. The FBI has been encoun­ter­ing dif­fi­cul­ties abroad, as well as at home. Per­haps because of foot drag­ging and (pos­si­bly) com­plic­i­ty on the part of the Ger­mans in con­nec­tion with the inves­ti­ga­tion, FBI per­son­nel in Ger­many have been at log­ger­heads with their hosts. (“Ten­sions Erupt Between Ger­mans and FBI” by Hugh Williamson and Philip Jak­lin; Finan­cial Times; 10/16/2001; p. 5.)