Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

Record­ed Feb­ru­ary 27, 2005
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Intro­duc­tion: This inter­view high­lights the work of inves­ti­ga­tor, social work­er and ex-cop Allan Dun­can and publisher/author Sander Hicks. Set­ting forth the sto­ry of counter-ter­ror sting “Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back,” the pro­gram presents the stun­ning fore­cast of the 9/11 attacks record­ed by the FBI in 1999. Appar­ent Pak­istani intel­li­gence agent R.G. Abbas (while attempt­ing to pro­cure weapon­ry for Al Qae­da and the Tal­iban) dis­closed that the World Trade Cen­ter tow­ers were “com­ing down.” Sting­man Randy Glass was “wear­ing a wire” and Abbas’ state­ment was record­ed! Nonethe­less, few news media have report­ed this. After review­ing infor­ma­tion about Home­land Secu­ri­ty Chief Michael Chertoff and his con­nec­tions to Bin Laden col­lab­o­ra­tor Dr. Magdy El-Amir, the pro­gram presents Randy Glass’ asser­tion that Abbas and his asso­ciates Diaa Moshen and Mohamed (Mike) Malik were inter­est­ed in procur­ing nuclear weapon­ry for Al Qae­da. Glass report­ed his infor­ma­tion about the impend­ing attack on the World Trade Cen­ter to Flori­da Sen­a­tor Robert Gra­ham in July of 2001. When Glass relayed his infor­ma­tion to the State Depart­ment in the sum­mer of 2001, a top aide to Col­in Pow­ell dis­closed that it was known that a plan was afoot to fly air­planes into the World Trade Cen­ter, but that Glass couldn’t dis­cuss it.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Ter­ror­ist weapons-sup­pli­er Diaa Moshen’s claim that he pos­sessed a “spe­cial pass­port” that enabled him to come and go with impuni­ty; the unusu­al­ly light treat­ment accord­ed Moshen and Mike Malik after they were appre­hend­ed as part of Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back.

Sander Hicks can be reached through Vox Pop and
Drench Kiss Media Cor­po­ra­tion
1022 Corte­ly­ou Road
Flat­bush, Brook­lyn 11218

Allan Dun­can, who lives in New Hope, PA, can be reached at: ADuncan282@aol.com

1. After dis­cus­sion of the oper­a­tional links between Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty head Michael Chertoff and Dr. Magdy El-Amir, guests Sander Hicks and Allan Dun­can fur­ther devel­oped the sto­ry of Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back. (For more about the rela­tion­ship between Chertoff and Dr. El-Amir, see FTR#’s 495, 499.) Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back was the sting oper­a­tion that revealed some of Dr. El-Amir’s links to the milieu of Osama bin Laden. That oper­a­tion fea­tured Randy Glass as the oper­a­tive pos­ing as an arms deal­er doing busi­ness with ter­ror­ists. In relat­ing the sto­ry of Randy Glass, Allan and Sander set forth a chill­ing account of a meet­ing that took place in July of 1999 at the Tribeca Grill in Man­hat­tan. Glass (act­ing as an under­cov­er sting man for the FBI) was meet­ing with a Rhu­lum G. Abbas, an agent of the Pak­istani intel­li­gence ser­vice, the ISI.

 . . . At a din­ner in June 1999 at the Tribeca Grill, Glass was win­ing and din­ing Rhu­lum G. Abbas, a Pak­istani arms deal­er and his friends. Glass and ATF agent Dick Stoltz were pos­ing as weapons bro­kers, as part of a Fed­er­al sting oper­a­tion. The Pak­istani had close con­nec­tions to the Pak­istani intel­li­gence elite, the ISI. In fact, Glass lat­er told Date­line he believed Abbas was an ISI agent. . .

(A chap­ter of Sander Hicks’ forth­com­ing book The Big Wed­ding [e‑mailed to Mr. Emory and par­tial­ly reprint­ed here with the per­mis­sion of the author]; pp. 1–2.)

2. At the meet­ing, Abbas made a chill­ing dis­clo­sure: that the World Trade Cen­ter tow­ers were “com­ing down.”

The tony Tribeca Grill, owned by Robert DeNiro, was just north of the World Trade Cen­ter in 1999. Abbas boast­ed to his din­ner com­pan­ions that he wouldn’t have any prob­lem tak­ing out the entire down­town restau­rant. ‘Because it’s full of Amer­i­cans.’ Towards the end of the meal, he ges­tured out towards the Twin Tow­ers. ‘Those tow­ers are com­ing down.’ [Empha­sis added.]

(Ibid.; p. 2.)

3. Abbas’s fore­shad­ow­ing of the WTC attacks was omit­ted from NBC’s “Date­line” show. Only The Palm Beach Post car­ried the account:

Although Glass told ‘Date­line’ this sto­ry, it wasn’t broad­cast. The only media to report it was The Palm Beach Post, on Octo­ber 17, 2002: ‘In August 2001, just before Glass start­ed to serve a sev­en-month sen­tence for a $6 mil­lion jew­el­ry scam, he said he reached out to Sen. Bob Gra­ham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He said he told staffers for both law­mak­ers that a Pak­istani oper­a­tive work­ing for the Tal­iban known as R.G. Abbas made three ref­er­ences to immi­nent plans to attack the World Trade Cen­ter dur­ing the probe, which end­ed in June 2001. At one meet­ing at New York’s Tribeca Grill caught on tape, Abbas point­ed to the World Trade Cen­ter and said, ‘Those tow­ers are com­ing down,’ Glass said.’

(Idem.)

4. “ ‘Date­line’ used Glass in a fol­low-up piece five months lat­er, but still failed to men­tion the cru­cial details about Abbas. I was eager to get Randy Glass on INN World Report and go where ‘Date­line’ and Sy Hersh feared to tread. R.G. Abbas and the ISI had their paw prints all over 9/11. The Times of India and French News Agency AFP had report­ed that the head of ISI, Gen­er­al Mah­mood, wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, through Saed Sheikh, right before 9/11. But no U.S. media out­let ever report­ed this. It was com­mon knowl­edge that the ISI and the CIA have been in bed togeth­er since Afghanistan’s Mujahideen/Soviet civ­il war. (As we’ll see in a sub­se­quent chap­ter, Pak­istani intrigue and intel­li­gence cre­at­ed the Bank of Cred­it and Com­merce Inter­na­tion­al, which part­nered with the CIA to cre­ate a $20 bil­lion empire of cor­rup­tion and covert ops.)

(Ibid.; pp. 2–3.)

5. One of the oper­a­tives “stung” by Randy Glass was Egypt­ian arms deal­er Diaa Moshen, who oper­at­ed in con­junc­tion with Dr. Magdy El-Amir’s broth­er. (See FTR#’s 495, 499.)

In prepa­ra­tion for my inter­view, I had Randy overnight us copies of the ‘Date­line NBC’ shows. I was actu­al­ly pret­ty impressed. For a selec­tive net­work news show, they were pret­ty gut­sy. They played tapes Randy had made of Egypt­ian arms deal­er Diaa Moshen talk­ing like Don Cor­leone, explain­ing in ner­vous barks of laugh­ter that his friends the Pak­ista­nis were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. On sur­veil­lance video­tape, Moshen and Abbas walk into a ware­house and look at Stinger mis­siles. Glass is along­side them, play­ing the part of the wise guy to a hilt. He lat­er told me, ‘I’m an adren­a­line junkie. I love the action.’

(Ibid.; p. 3.)

6. In his dis­cus­sion with Diaa Moshen, Glass elicit­ed a dis­clo­sure that Moshen pos­sessed a spe­cial pass­port that enabled him to come and go as he pleased inter­na­tion­al­ly.

Diaa Moshen, accord­ing to Glass, was a ‘lunatic capa­ble of killing any­body any­time any­where, peri­od. And he has, like, Man­son type fol­low­ers. Believe me, you have no idea. I’ve met them, I know.’ Moshen is kind of an evil celebri­ty in his native Egypt, being a for­mer mem­ber of the Egypt­ian Nation­al Soc­cer Team. On ‘Date­line’, Glass asks him, ‘How do you trav­el to all of these places with­out com­ing up on the radar screen of the CIA or oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies in the world? This doesn’t make sense to me.’ Moshen explained that he enjoyed own­ing a ‘spe­cial pass­port. . . . I enter any fuck­ing coun­try and be pro­tect­ed.’

(Idem.)

7. Among the fright­en­ing dis­clo­sures con­cern­ing Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back is the alle­ga­tion that Diaa Moshen was seek­ing mate­ri­als to fab­ri­cate a nuclear weapon. Specif­i­cal­ly, Moshen was seek­ing deu­teri­um oxide (“heavy water”) in order to facil­i­tate the con­struc­tion of an atom­ic bomb.

In the August ’02 ‘Date­line’ sto­ry, Moshen and the Pak­ista­nis don’t just want anti-air­craft mis­siles, they want the hard stuff: ‘heavy water’ a.k.a. ‘sweet water.’ That would be an order for Deu­teri­um Oxide, which is water, H2O, but with scram­bled hydro­gen iso­topes. Heavy water can turn nat­ur­al ura­ni­um into plu­to­ni­um. It’s the garage way to make a ther­monu­clear bomb. You bypass hav­ing to enrich the Ura­ni­um. Heavy Water is what Nazi Ger­many was try­ing to use dur­ing World War II. And it’s the method the Pak­ista­nis want­ed to use, with Glass and Moshen’s sup­ply run.

(Idem.)

8. Despite the dire nature of the under­tak­ings in which they were involved, Moshen and his asso­ciate Mike Malik received extra­or­di­nar­i­ly lenient treat­ment: Moshen got 30 months in prison and Malik was set free. Why?!

Heavy water was ‘the deal break­er.’ Glass promised Moshen they could find some. Accord­ing to ‘Date­line,’ the deal fell apart when $32 mil­lion failed to mate­ri­al­ize from the Pak­ista­nis. Accord­ing to Glass, the $32 mil­lion was wired over, but the Feds ‘bounced it back’ in order to not ‘embar­rass’ the Pak­istani gov­ern­ment. After 9/11, Dia Moshen and cohort Mike Malik were arrest­ed. But Mike Malik walked, free on a mil­lion dol­lar bond. Ter­ror­ist nuclear weapons bro­ker Diaa Moshen got sen­tenced to a cool 30 months in prison. ‘The whole thing was a fix.’ Glass says today. . . Although cru­cial details were left on the cut­ting room floor by ‘Date­line’, their seg­ment ends with this com­ment: ‘For his part, Randy Glass says there’s a lot more on those tapes, leads the gov­ern­ment could pur­sue, peo­ple still out there only too hap­py to sup­ply weapons to the net­work of ter­ror.’

(Ibid.; pp. 3–4.)

9. Oper­a­tion Dia­mond­back sting man Randy Glass noti­fied Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham about the impend­ing attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter in July of 2001. In an online TV pro­gram, Sander Hicks inter­viewed Randy Glass and pro­vid­ed some details about Glass’s attempts at warn­ing the author­i­ties of the impend­ing attack on the World Trade Cen­ter.

SANDER HICKS: Which leads me to my next ques­tion. I know that you then, in July of 2001, con­tact­ed your Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham in Flori­da, Con­gress­man Wexler, as well as your per­son­al friend, the State Sen­a­tor there in Flori­da.

RANDY GLASS: Yes I did.

SANDER HICKS: And what was opened from those con­tacts? Those fax­es that you faxed them?

RANDY GLASS: Well, let me just—we’re skip­ping way ahead—let me just tell you that this meet­ing was in July of 1999, okay? So, I think it’s very impor­tant to note that Abbas, Malik and Moshen came to Flori­da and we had shown—when I say ‘we,’ the gov­ern­ment had set me up with an arms ware­house.

(Ibid.; p. 10.)

10. Glass opined that the ISI (Pak­istani intel­li­gence) was a major force behind both Al Qae­da and the 9/11 attacks.

SANDER HICKS: Right, because it was a sting oper­a­tion try­ing to find out who the ter­ror­ists were that want­ed to buy weapons.

RANDY GLASS: Cor­rect.

SANDER HICKS: And these ter­ror­ists were linked to what groups?

RANDY GLASS: To Al Qae­da, the Tal­iban, Osama bin Laden. But basi­cal­ly if I would have to say that even the Saud­is that pulled off the 9/11 attack, if I were to say that there was a state-spon­sored orga­ni­za­tion, I would say that it was Pak­istan and their ISI, which is like our equiv­a­lent to our CIA.

(Idem.)

11. Appar­ent ISI oper­a­tive R.G. Abbas (who fore­cast the destruc­tion of the WTC tow­ers) brought Pak­istani nuclear sci­en­tif­ic per­son­nel into the attempt to obtain mate­r­i­al for a nuclear device. The Pak­istani sci­en­tist was described as an asso­ciate of Mr. Khan, the focal point of the much-pub­li­cized inter­na­tion­al nuclear smug­gling ring.

SANDER HICKS: So, which of these three guys had links to ISI?

RANDY GLASS: Mohamed Malik and Abbas. Abbas was a high-rank­ing ISI offi­cial.

SANDER HICKS: Okay. So this led you to some inside knowl­edge about 9/11, cor­rect?

RANDY GLASS: Oh, absolute­ly.

SANDER HICKS: What was your inside knowl­edge?

RANDY GLASS: Okay, the inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ued on, okay? And Abbas brought—sent—he went back to Pak­istan. He and Mohamed Malik got on a plane and flew back to Pak­istan. Malik came back. Abbas sent oth­er oper­a­tives from the ISI includ­ing one of their nuclear sci­en­tists, asso­ciate of their main nuclear sci­en­tist, Khan. He sent back one of his asso­ciates to inspect weapons-grade plu­to­ni­um to make sure that it was weapons-grade plu­to­ni­um and nuclear trig­gers. As well as oth­er sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons sys­tems. 9/11 was sup­posed to be a nuclear attack.

(Ibid.; p. 11.)

12.

SANDER HICKS: July, 2001, you knew enough about 9/11—

RANDY GLASS: Yeah.

SANDER HICKS: That you con­tact­ed Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham.
RANDY GLASS: Yes.

SANDER HICKS: I have the fax here on my desk.

RANDY GLASS: Yeah.

SANDER HICKS: We’ll show it on screen.

RANDY GLASS: Okay.

SANDER HICKS: And you knew enough about the World Trade Cen­ter being attacked that you want­ed to con­tact the Sen­a­tor at—who was on the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee and let him know.

RANDY GLASS: Cor­rect. And I did.

SANDER HICKS: What was the result of that?

RANDY GLASS: I was put in touch with one of Sen­a­tor Graham’s work­ers in his—on his staff. His name was Charles Yonts. And I spoke to Mr. Yonts about a half a dozen times. I pro­vid­ed him with all of the infor­ma­tion and mate­r­i­al that I had about air­planes being flown into the World Trade Cen­ter.

SANDER HICKS: Right. And then I know Kath­leen Wal­ters at WPTV/NBC. Chan­nel 5 in Flori­da, had a very com­bat­ive inter­view with Sen­a­tor Gra­ham.
RANDY GLASS: Cor­rect.

(Ibid.; pp. 11–12.)

13. After 9/11, Flori­da TV reporter Kath­leen Wal­ters had a testy con­fronta­tion with Sen­a­tor Gra­ham over his fore­knowl­edge of the attacks:

SANDER HICKS: She cor­nered him at a press con­fer­ence?

RANDY GLASS: Yes. This was after 9/11.

SANDER HICKS: And we’re about to see a tape of that. What can you tell use about this tape?

RANDY GLASS: Well, I can tell you that Sen­a­tor Gra­ham admit­ted to Kath­leen Wal­ters on that video that I had in fact giv­en him warn­ing before 9/11 about the attack, about air­planes being flown into the World Trade Cen­ter.

SANDER HICKS: Okay, now that’s major. So, on that tape that we’re about to see, he effec­tive­ly admits that you did, in July of 2001, know about 9/11 and noti­fied him, a U.S. Sen­a­tor of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee.

RANDY GLASS: Yes.

(Ibid.; p. 13.)

14.

KATHLEEN WALTERS: A few months before Sep­tem­ber 11, your office received infor­ma­tion from ATF infor­mant Randy Glass who was work­ing with the Ter­ror­ism Task Force and he also advised your office that ter­ror con­tentions to bring down the World Trade Cen­ter. And this was before Sep­tem­ber 11th.

SENATOR GRAHAM: [nods.]

(Idem.)

15.

KATHLEEN WALTERS: Your office tells me it for­ward­ed infor­ma­tion from Mr. Glass to the Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee and my ques­tion is, why did no one from the Com­mit­tee fol­low up with Mr. Glass to pur­sue this?

SENATOR GRAHAM: Well because we in turn gave that infor­ma­tion to the appro­pri­ate intel­li­gence agency. We are an over­sight and leg­isla­tive agency. The actu­al oper­a­tions of col­lec­tion of infor­ma­tion, inter­view­ing pos­si­ble sources is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the FBI if it’s a domes­tic mat­ter, or the CIA if it’s for­eign.

KATHLEEN WALTERS: How seri­ous were, you know, when you heard about Mr. Glass and the infor­ma­tion he had, obvi­ous­ly got a lot of expo­sure on ‘Date­line.’ How big of a con­cern did you per­son­al­ly have when you heard about this seri­ous infor­ma­tion that he had?”

(Ibid.; p. 14.)

16.

SENATOR GRAHAM: Well, I was con­cerned about that and a dozen oth­er pieces of infor­ma­tion, which were ema­nat­ing in the sum­mer of 2001. All of which we trans­mit­ted to the appro­pri­ate intel­li­gence agency. In the report that we issued this week, there were four to five pages of inci­dents where peo­ple were [indis­tinct] cred­i­ble to use com­mer­cial air­lin­ers as weapons of mass destruc­tion by fly­ing them into a build­ing. So that was not, or should have not have been a sur­prise that this was a tech­nique that had the poten­tial of mov­ing from a threat to the real­i­ty that it became on Sep­tem­ber 11th. . . .

(Idem.)

17. “Lat­er that week, I called Randy back to go over some facts so I could write a prop­er intro­duc­tion. It was the day of the broad­cast, a sun­ny Fri­day, and Randy dropped a bomb in my lap. The sto­ry he told me then made me wish there had been more time at INN. But now, in book form, the sto­ry can be unfold­ed at the care­ful pace it deserves. I had ques­tions about the fax that Randy had shown me, the July 2001 let­ters to Sen­a­tor Graham’s office, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Wexler. I asked Glass why he told Sen­a­tor Gra­ham he was grave­ly con­cerned, ‘I’ve told you repeat­ed­ly about my ter­ror­ist case—the sophis­ti­cat­ed weapons system—nuclear components—the threats of blow­ing up the World Trade Cen­ter and who knows what else. These peo­ple hate Amer­i­cans. This infor­ma­tion I’ve got­ten from the State Depart­ment about the air­planes being used. . . .’ Wait a minute. We were talk­ing about Pak­istani spy-ter­ror­ists. Since when are we talk­ing about the ‘State Depart­ment?’”

(Ibid.; pp. 15–16.)

18. In a stun­ning devel­op­ment, a State Depart­ment offi­cial con­tact­ed by Randy Glass revealed that ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment knew about the plan to fly planes into the World Trade Cen­ter.

Glass said, ‘The only infor­ma­tion that the terrorists—the guys ever talked about –was just the World Trade Cen­ter. They didn’t ever say any­thing to me or to Dick, to my knowl­edge, that air­planes were going to be used. The State Depart­ment guy told me that. In oth­er words, I called up and I bluffed him. I called up and I don’t know what they knew that I knew. I just knew that Amer­i­ca was going to be attacked. I didn’t know if it was going to be the World Trade Cen­ter or what it was going to be. These peo­ple had talked about pur­chas­ing these weapons to use against us.

(Ibid.; p. 16.)

19. Pakistan’s sta­tus as an ally in the “war on ter­ror” (!) led to the State Department’s san­i­tiz­ing of any men­tion of Pak­istan or of the fact that the ter­ror­ists Glass had tar­get­ed were seek­ing nukes.

A lit­tle lat­er, I inter­rupt­ed Glass and threw him a curve­ball to see what he’d say—‘When Dick Stoltz on ‘Date­line’ says stuff like, ‘Well, gee, we real­ly thought that FBI or CIA would take over this case.’ Is it pos­si­ble that the rea­son that the CIA didn’t take over this case is because the CIA has been work­ing with Pak­istani intel­li­gence?’ Glass replied, ‘Of course. That was the whole thing. . . .the State Depart­ment was the vehi­cle that was used to shut down the case. . . So when I called the State Department—because I knew they were the ones who ordered the case shut down. . .The State Depart­ment orders the com­plaint san­i­tized, and Bar­bari­ni [anoth­er ATF agent who worked with Glass] is all pissed off because he’s the guy giv­en the job to rewrite the com­plaint and if you look—it’s a pub­lic record, you can get if off the internet—and if you look, you’ll see there’s no men­tion of Pak­istan. There’s no men­tion of us show­ing them plu­to­ni­um. There’s no men­tion that incrim­i­nates Pak­istan. I mean, Pak­istan is not in there one time. And these were all Pak­istani peo­ple who were here.

(Idem.)

20.

HICKS: Was that Chuck or was that the oth­er guy?

GLASS: The oth­er guy.

HICKS: Ahh.

(Ibid.; p. 17.)

21. “Lat­er Glass stat­ed that the State Depart­ment con­tact said, ‘Musharaf just took over and our posi­tion is that they’re a nuclear pow­er and they’ve been flex­ing their nuclear mus­cles with India and we are try­ing to pre­vent a nuclear cat­a­stro­phe. And we know about the threat, the ter­ror­ist threat, from Al Qae­da and Bin Laden fly­ing air­planes into the World Trade Cen­ter. And Musharaf has guar­an­teed us—because it’s his ISI behind it—that he can stop it if we sup­port him pub­licly.’

(Idem.)

22. “Look Randy, we know you’re a straight guy so we’re going to give you some infor­ma­tion. You can­not do two things: You can­not go to the media under any cir­cum­stance. This is—we’re play­ing in a nuclear mine­field now. Sec­ond­ly, you can’t tell the agents that you’re work­ing with now because they’re cut out of the loop. They know noth­ing.’”

(Idem.)

23. Still more indi­ca­tions that ele­ments in the State Depart­ment had fair­ly pre­cise knowl­edge about the plan to crash planes into the WTC:

GLASS: When I called the State Depart­ment, I said to them, ‘Lis­ten, I already know about the World Trade Cen­ter.’ So they assumed that I knew more than I did. And I didn’t. I didn’t know any­thing about air­planes. . . .’

HICKS: So you bluffed and you kind of pre­tend­ed you knew more than you did and then what did they tell you? GLASS: But I didn’t even have to do that. I just said what I knew. I said ‘Look. Lis­ten, I know the World Trade Cen­ter is going to be attacked.’ And then this guy said to me ‘Randy lis­ten, you can­not men­tion any of these things, espe­cial­ly air­planes being used to fly into the World Trade Cen­ter.’ And when he said that I almost fell off of my fuck­ing chair. I mean, you have no idea. I thought I was gonna wear the tape out.”

(Ibid.; p. 18.)

24. “Glass was ret­i­cent to talk too specif­i­cal­ly about the State Depart­ment high­er-up. But each time he revealed a lit­tle more. Over the course of our talks in Decem­ber, he revealed that the guy who knew about ‘planes being flown into the World Trade Cen­ter’ was one of Col­in Powell’s right-hand men. . . .”

(Ibid.; p. 19.)

25. One of the final ele­ments of dis­cus­sion con­cerned the pro­mo­tion of Dave Fras­ca, an FBI counter-ter­ror offi­cial. Despite a dubi­ous record, he was pro­mot­ed upward.