BACKGROUND READING campaign issues: postmortem on 9/11. mrs. henry suggests you review these in preparation for white house denial of access to the 9/11 investigating commission, and also in preparation for bush running for re-election on the trifecta platform.

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http://www.unknownnews.net/0331-1.html

Testimony of Mindy Kleinberg, appearing before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, March 31, 2003

My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 years old, was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001... The need to address the failures of September 11 is more important than ever. It is an essential part of "lessons learned". As such, this commission has an extremely important task before it.

...Where was our government, its agencies, and institutions prior to and on the morning of September 11th? With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once: they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate.

The terrorist's lucky streak began the week before September 11th with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has sophisticated software programs that are used in "real-time" to watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may indicate a present or future crime. In the week prior to September 11th both the SEC and US intelligence agencies ignored one major stock market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable information with regard to the September 11th attacks.

On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks... The names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.

Why these aberrant trades were not discovered prior to 9/11? Who were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities? Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction?

With regard to the INS [Immigration & Naturalization Service], the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied. Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and unemployed males... A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances." Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect... Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times.

...When the 19 hijackers went to purchase their tickets (with cash and/or credit cards) and to receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they passed the screening process... Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers to gain access to the flight controls and carry out their suicide mission.

Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full blown hijackings... Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot.

If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian." This meant that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board."

Lucky for the terrorists none of this mattered on the morning of September 11th. Let me illustrate using just flight 11 as an example. American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 AM. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 AM. Between 8:13 and 8:20 AM, Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight... Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency. Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 AM. Tragically the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 AM — a full 32 minutes after the loss of contact with flight 11.

Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace? Flight's 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the World Trade Center.

Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C... At 9:41 AM, one hour and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why?

...On September 11th both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures. Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed. Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, MACH-1.2, they would have reached New York City and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives.

The acting Joint Chief of staff on Sept 11th was on the morning of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting. Acting Joint Chief of staff Myers stated that he saw a TV report about a plane hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane or something like that. So, he went ahead with his meeting. "Meanwhile the second World Trade Center was hit by another jet. Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. By the time he came out of the meeting the Pentagon had been hit. Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Have they been held accountable for their error? Surely this represents a breakdown of protocol.

The Secretary of Defense was at his desk doing paperwork when AA77 crashed into the Pentagon. As reported, Secretary Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went into the 'War Room'. How is it possible that the National Military Command Center, located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air traffic controllers from 8:46 AM, did not communicate to the Secretary of Defense also at the Pentagon about the other hijacked planes especially the one headed to Washington? How is that Secretary of Defense could have remained at this desk until the crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to him? Is he then supposed to go to the war room?

...On the morning of September 11, President Bush was scheduled to listen to elementary school children read. Before the President walked into the classroom NORAD had sufficient information that the plane that hit the World Trade Center was hijacked. At that time, they also had knowledge that two other commercial airliners, in the air, were also hijacked. It would seem that a national emergency was in progress... Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national emergency? When is a President supposed to be notified of everything the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? Was this Secret Service protocol?

In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that our government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to insure that these top officials are among the first to be informed — not the last. Where were these individuals who did not properly inform these top officials? Where was the breakdown in communication?

Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis? ...Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions.

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http://www.911pi.com/honneger.htm

The U.S. Government, Not the Hijackers, 'Chose' the Date of the 9-11 Attacks -- by Barbara Honegger

From the start, the Bush Administration has insisted that anything like the 'planes-as-weapons' scenario of 9-11 was 'unthinkable' before 9-11. That's a Huge Lie. On Sept. 11, 2001 they had a brand new counter-terror emergency response plan in place at the Pentagon for exactly that scenario, and had a counter-terror 'wargame' set to begin on exactly that scenario that very morning in the nation's capitol.

This brief sets forth the growing reasons to believe that the date for the attack was not 'chosen' by the hijackers at all, but that one of them learned that a counter-terror wargame/exercise simulating a scenario like the one that actually took place on 9-11 was planned for that morning, and then 'piggybacked' the "real thing" on top of it. Here are some of the critical 'burning data points':

1) Military aircraft had more than enough time - nearly three quarters of an hour -- to respond to and intercept the 9-11 Pentagon plane after all key decision makers were 100% certain the Twin Tower hits had been terrorist attacks and that Flight 77 had also been hijacked, but didn't do so 'in time'. This is beyond comprehension over the nation's capital unless some previous piece of information or mental set led them to assume the Pentagon plane could not be a terrorist vehicle, or at least confuse them as to whether it was or not. If those looking on from inside the Pentagon as 9-11 unfolded believed flight 77 was, or might be, part of a "Red Team" counter-terror exercise set for that very morning, it would explain the otherwise incompre- hensible delay, almost to the point of paralysis, in effectively scrambling interceptors.

2) For the above to be the case, an actual counter-terrorist simulation/wargame/exercise had to have been planned for that very morning, 9-11. More specifically, it would have had to have been a counter-terrorist wargame involving the same or a very similar scenario as what actually began to take place - i.e. a plane or planes crashing into a building or buildings in the Washington, D.C. area.

3) The above, in fact, did happen. On Aug. 22, 2002 Associated Press ran the following story (version carried in AirDisaster.com): "Top US Intelligence Agency was to simulate plane crash into gov't bldg. on September 11, 2001. U.S. intgelli- gence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. Full story at: http://www.airdisaster.com/news/0802/22/news.shtml

4) After reading the above article about NRO's planned 9-11 exercise on a scenario similar to what actually happened that morning, I was certain that the 'revelation' was a 'partial hangout' - i.e. that other federal agencies in the D.C. area, both military and civilian, also had 'wargames' on the plane-into-building scenario scheduled for the morning of 9-11.

5) A search of the Washington Post and New York Times for the week after 9-11 revealed the following amazing facts, which require the context provided by 3) and 4) above to be meaningful:

The Washington Post reported on 9/16/01 that the original pilot of Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, former F-4 fighter pilot Charles Burlingame had, in his last Navy job developing anti-terror strategies for the Navy before retiring to fly for American Airlines, drafted the Pentagon's emergency response plan in case it was hit by a civilian airliner. Also that, on the morning of 9-11, Pentagon medic Matt Rosenberg was in the health clinic on Corridor 8 "grateful for an uninterrupted hour in which he could study a new medical emergency disaster plan based on the unlikely scenario of an airplane crashing into the Pentagon." Clearly, the disaster plan Rosenberg was reading just before Burlingame's plane hit the Navy Command Center was part of the very plan Burlingame himself had put together.

Precisely what the above means in the context of the counter- terror 'wargame' planned for that very morning with the full knowledge of key personnel in the military and CIA (NRO, the one agency which, so far, has acknowledged having a plane-into-bldg. simulation on 9-11 is staffed by military and CIA personnel) is not yet clear, but one thing is certain. It is absolutely and completely beyond coincidence.

6) With this new context, we can now see why the leak of the exact wording (not the fact of, which had already been reported in the Washington Times two weeks after 9-11) of a Sept. 10, 2001 NSA intercept so worried and infuriated Vice President Cheney that he demanded an FBI investigation of members of the House and Senate Intel Committee Joint 9-11 investigation to determine who might have leaked it. That key intercept between the leader of the the 9-11 hijackers, Mohammad Atta, and the 'mastermind' of the 9-11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, said:

"The Match is about to begin. Tomorrow (i.e. 9-11) is zero hour." "Match", of course, is what you would expect if the speaker were referring to his discovery of the date that the U.S. Gov't had selected to conduct its counter-terror simulation/exercise on the scenario of plane(s) crashing into gov't buildings - one that was about to turn very real when the terrorists 'piggybacked' their long-planned plot onto it.

On 9-10-02, Knight Ridder reported that U.S. intelligence officials now believe that in that critical "Match" call, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave Atta coded approval for the four teams of hijackers to proceed. On the contrary, given the new context in which this all finally begins to make sense, Atta was merely communicating to his boss, or visa versa, the date that the U.S. gov't exercise was to take place. Bin al Shibh, Atta, and Mohammad didn't 'choose the date'. The U.S. Government did.

This also explains the choice of date for the attack, which was the date chosen for the 'emergency' preparedness exercise. 9-11 is U.S. abbreviation for 'emergency', and that's precisely the kind of code name the military and intel communities like to give their 'exercises'. Islamic radicals, rather, choose significant anniversary dates for their attacks - such as Aug. 7 for the twin bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa. To bin Laden and his followers, Aug. 7 is their "Pearl Harbor" anniversary - the day U.S. troops, then under orders from first President Bush's Secretary of Defense Cheney, landed in Saudi Arabia following Saddam Hussein's Aug. 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait. I've checked ten years of back papers: Sept. 11 is not among the 'anniversary' dates for radical Islamicists. They didn't choose it. (President Bush is also keenly aware of Aug. 7 as the key 'anniversary' date in bin Laden's mind -- that's why he requested the one brief he was given before 9-11 on possible terror attacks on the U.S. mainland, held at his Texas ranch, the day before -- Aug. 6, 2001).

7) We also now know why it was Vice President Cheney who was so upset that the content of the "Match" call was made public. Now, someone might figure out that it was he - having been charged by President Bush on May 8, 2001 (Time magazine) to lead a high-level task force to identify the US's vulnerabilities to domestic terrorist attack and figure out ways to fix them -- who was 'in charge' of the 'plane(s)-into-building(s)' counter-terror 'exercise' the morning of Sept. 11. That's why he was in the White House Sit Room; and why President Bush kept reading to grammar school kids in Florida long after he should have instantly broken it off to perform his emergency duties as Commander-in-Chief. The reason was that Bush 'knew' - or thought he knew - that it was 'just a game.'

8) Finally, for all of this to 'work', the bad guys had to have at least one person among them who had fooled U.S. intelligence into believing that he was 'one of us.' That person, almost certainly, is Khalid Shaikh Muhammed -- the only person about whom all information is still classified, even his name, even though reams have already been written about him in the open press. He is also the only living 9-11 operative still at large. And for good reason. Vice President Cheney, President Bush, CIA Director Tenet, CIA officer and chief of NRO's strategic gaming division for their 9-11 'plane-into-building' exercise, John Fulton, and all the others who were so stupid as to risk thousands of innocent American lives on the bet that their star 'informant', Khalid Sheikh Muhammed had really been 'turned' -- don't want him to talk about what he knows. And he knows a lot. On Sept. 10, 2002, Knight Ridder quoted a top U.N. counter-terror expert that Mohammad is probably also the only person who has all the pieces to the 9-11 puzzle. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Tenet has also classified all information about what President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condolezza Rice, and everyone else at the White House were told about Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.

9) It's time for the Joint House/Senate Intelligence Committee 9-11 investigation, and the future independent 9-11 investigation, to insist on any time, any where, on demand surprise searches of all Bush Admin. files on 9-11. This, after all, is the Administration that insisted that anything like the 'planes as weapons' scenario of 9-11 was 'unthinkable' before 9-11. Right. They had a brand new counter-terror emergency plan in place at the Pentagon for exactly that scenario, and had a counter-terror 'wargame' set to begin on exactly that scenario that very morning. Just couldn't imagine. Because putting together counter-terror exercises like the one that was to take place the morning of 9-11 in the nation's capitol was precisely the right thing to do, the fact that everyone in the Administration from the President on down has so completely lied about it shows that they have something terrible, indeed, to hide. In this brief, we've begun to discern its shape.

P.S. Prof. John Arquilla, an information warfare and Special Operations expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, told The Monterey Herald (7/18/02): "The idea of such an attack (like 9-11) was well known. It had been wargamed as a possibility in exercises before Sept. 11, 2001."

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the links to all these older articles are broken; these are cached at bushwatch.net.

http://www.bushwatch.net/attack.htm

"Texas governor George W. Bush's campaign to become the Republican candidate in this November's [2000] presidential ballot could shortly run into turbulence because of new information about his past. Indeed, among the figures Bush dealt with indirectly when he ran oil companies was Saudi banker Khaled Bin Mahfouz who, Intelligence Newsletter has learned, is currently under house arrest in a hospital in Taef at the behest of the American authorities. The latter are looking into contributions Mahfouz is said to have made to welfare associations close to terrorist Ussama Bin Laden.

Considered as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz was recently forced to sharply reduce his stake in the National Commercial Bank, one of the biggest in the kingdom. Many in Arab financial circles see this as a harbinger of his disgrace. Mahfouz's name was linked to the scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), in which he held a 20% interest between 1986-1990. The BCCI was accused in senator John- Kerry's report of money-laundering and of financing terrorist groups and covert spy operations before it was wound up on July 5, 1991, with a $ 12 billion loss to its customers. Mahfouz was also linked to a case involving fake passports in Ireland in 1997 that forced Irish foreign minister Ray Burke to resign.

In 1987 Mahfouz's representative in the U.S., Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, acquired an 11.5% stake in a company in which the Bush was a shareholder, director and adviser, Harken Energy. Bush played a central role in Harken which had acquired his previous oil business, Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, in 1986. Spectrum 7, in which Bush was boss and held 13.8%, had previously bought up the first firm Bush founded, Arbusto Energy Inc. in 1984. An American banker named Jacksen Stephens who was to also be deeply involved in the BCCI affair moved in 1987 to invest $ 25 million in Harken. The transaction took place in Geneva with the money was paid through a joint venture set up between the Union des Banques Suisses and the Geneva branch of the BCCI; the financial accord was signed by both Stephens and Bakksh.

Other links between Bush and Mahfouz can be found through investments in the Carlyle Group, an American investment firm managed by a board on which former president George Bush himself sat. The younger Bush personally held shares in one of the components of the Carlyle group, the Caterair company, between 1990-94. And Carlyle today ranks as a leading contributor to Bush's electoral campaign. On Carlyle's advisory board figures the name of Sami Baarma, director of the Pakistani financial establishment Prime Commercial Bank that is based in Lahore and owned by Mafouz...." --Intelligence Online, March 2, 2000

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http://www.bushwatch.net/attack.htm

PETER ALLEN, Daily Mail, 9/24/01

"In summer 1971, Osama and Salem Bin Laden enjoyed a holiday in Sweden with some of their 55 brothers and sisters. Yet within a few years, the two teenagers' lives had taken stunningly different turns. As the world knows to its cost, Osama embraced Islamic fundamentalism and 30 years later was named the world's most wanted man. He is prime suspect in the murder of nearly 7,000 in the worst ever terrorist atrocities in the U.S. earlier this month.

Incredibly, Salem went on to become a business partner of the man who is leading the hunt for his brother. In the 1970s, he and George W Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Mr Bush's home state of Texas.

"... The brothers had recently inherited a fortune from their construction magnate father, Mohammed. He left millions to each of his 57 children by 12 wives after dying in a plane crash in 1968... Salem... put a large part of his money into business ventures, including Arbusto Energy. Mr Bush was not long out of Harvard Business School when he started the company in 1978. Salem watched it grow into a hugely successful business until his death in a microlight plane crash in Texas in 1983.

"As he built his own business empire, Salem Bin Laden had an intriguing relationship with the president-to-be. In 1978, he appointed James Bath, a close friend of Mr Bush who served with him in the Air National Guard, as his representative in Houston, Texas. It was in that year that Mr Bath invested $50,000 in Mr Bush's company, Arbusto. It was never revealed whether he was investing his own money or somebody else's. There was even speculation that the money might have been from Salem. In the same year, Mr Bath bought Houston Gulf Airport on behalf of the Saudi Arabian multimillionaire. Three years ago, Mr Bush said the $50,000 investment in Arbusto was the only financial dealing he had with Mr Bath. Last night a White House spokesman was unavailable for comment.

"...Yesterday FBI agents swooped on a Boston suburb where around 20 of the wealthy relatives of Bin Laden live. They questioned them at a condominium complex in Charlestown. Agents even began visiting nightclubs to collect credit cards of younger members of the family. Bin Laden's younger brother Mohammed, who is said to have moved back to Saudi Arabia with his wife and children several years ago, owns a ten-bedroom mansion in nearby Wayland. Another younger brother, Abdullah, is a 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School. The family has given it £2million in endowments to research Islamic law. Most of Bin Laden's family have in the past strongly denounced the 44-year-old fugitive, now living in Afghanistan. The FBI in Boston has long been aware of his extended family and began monitoring their activities after the 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The Bin Ladens still run one of the biggest construction companies in the world.

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going way back-- 1992

http://www.bushwatch.net/attack.htm

Houston Chronicle. June 4, 1992. "Federal authorities are investigating the activities of a Houston businessman -- a past investor in companies controlled by a son of President Bush -- who has been accused of illegally representing Saudi interests in the United States.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network -- known as FinCEN -- and the FBI are reviewing accusations that entrepreneur James R. Bath guided money to Houston from Saudi investors who wanted to influence U.S. policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations, sources close to the investigations say. FinCEN, a division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, investigates money laundering.

"...The federal review stems in part from court documents obtained through litigation by Bill White, a former real estate business associate of Bath . White contends the documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence U.S. policy. Such representation by Bath would require that he be registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice... White, 46, claims that Bath and the judicial system, under the veil of national security, have blackballed him professionally and financially because he has refused to keep quiet about what he regards as a conspiracy to secretly funnel Saudi dollars to the United States.

"...In sworn depositions, Bath said he represented four prominent Saudis as a trustee [one of whom was Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen] and that he would use his name on their investments. In return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in their deals. Tax documents and personal financial records show that Bath personally had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush, President Bush's eldest son. Arbusto means bush in Spanish. Bath invested $50,000 in the limited partnerships, according to the documents.

"..."George W. Bush's company, Bush Exploration Co., general partner in the limited partnerships, went through several mergers, eventually evolving into Harken Energy Corp., a suburban Dallas-based company. Bush, known informally as George Jr., is a shareholder and director of Harken, which has been granted lucrative offshore drilling rights off the coast of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. One of the top shareholders of Harken, a public company, is Saudi businessman Abdullah Taha Bakhsh. Bush said that to his knowledge, Bath 's investment was from personal funds.

"...According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after Bush was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business representative in Houston.

"According to White, Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role with Saudi Arabia since 1976. Bath has previously denied having worked for the CIA. In a sworn deposition, Bath said he was the sole director of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Ltd., a company that a court document shows is owned by Khaled bin Mahfouz. Bin Mahfouz had been a major shareholder in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a banking empire that has been accused of money laundering and of using Mideast oil money to seek ties to political leaders in several countries. Mahfouz and his family own the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia... Bath received a 5 percent interest in the companies that own and operate Houston Gulf Airport after purchasing it on behalf of Binladen in 1977. After Binladen died in 1988, his interests in the airport were taken over by Mahfouz, according to court documents. --Jerry Urban, 6/4/92

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this is from newsmagazine 'in these times', september 2001, cached at bushwatch

http://www.bushwatch.net/attack.htm

"...Those who have followed the warming of relations between the Bush administration and Kabul are asking why the Bush administration wasn't alerted to an impending attack through Taliban back-channels. According to sources close to the Taliban and Pakistan's Jamiaat-i-Islami Party--the Pakistani fundamentalist movement that nurtured and trained the Taliban--a senior Jamiaat official, Qazi Husein Ahmad, recently traveled to both London and Washington. While in Washington, he reportedly re-established ties with the Taliban's old CIA contacts from the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"Ahmad is the second Islamist radical to have been welcomed by Langley in recent months. No sooner had the Bush administration taken over than the Taliban's ambassador-at-large, Rahmatullah Hashami, sat down with senior CIA, State and Pentagon officials in a meeting arranged by Laili Helms, the Taliban's unofficial representative in the United States and niece-in-law of Richard Helms, former CIA director and U.S. ambassador to Iran.

"According to Pakistani sources, the Taliban and the Pakistani veterans of the CIA-led mujahedin war against the Soviets had been keen to rekindle old ties with the former South Asia CIA chief Richard Armitage, now Secretary of State Colin Powell's deputy, and Christina Rocca, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, who is a 15-year veteran of the CIA's Operations Directorate, a position where she also interfaced with the Islamist guerrillas. Rocca had previously met in Islamabad with Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, and his assistant, Sohail Shaheen. Armitage, however, is considered anti-Taliban because he favors restoring the elderly ousted Afghan monarch, King Zahir Shah, to power.

"Powell was reportedly upset about the re-establishment of ties with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamists, but has apparently been overruled by the dominant CIA interests in the administration. Intelligence sources point out that, for its part, the CIA wanted to re-establish contact with murky ex-mujahedin and Taliban-allied arms- and drug-smuggling fronts in Rawalpindi and Peshawar. According to one senior U.S. government source, the Taliban's greatest cheerleaders are the CIA and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The source said the CIA had always argued that bin Laden was "overblown" as a threat.

"The United States has recently tilted toward the Taliban and against the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud. The Defense Department largely supports Massoud, but the CIA and State Department argue that supporting the general would put the United States on the same side as Russia and Iran--his two major backers.

Massoud was the target of a [successful] suicide bomb assassination attempt by two bin Laden allies disguised as television journalists the day before the attack on the United States... But that did not stop Massoud's forces from launching a missile attack on Kabul Airport the night of September 11--to the delight of many Americans, many of whom were surprised it was not a U.S. military attack.

After the recovery and mourning period, Washington will go into its traditional finger-pointing mode. Then, the CIA and other Bush administration officials who have had close contact with the Taliban should be asked by Congress about the nature of their relationships with the protectors of bin Laden. For starters, CIA Director George Tenet should be asked what the United States received in return for even talking to the brutal mullahs who run Kabul. The State Department should be questioned as to why it has banned Massoud's movement from occupying the vacant Afghan Embassy in Washington even though it is recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate government of Afghanistan..." --Wayne Madsen, posted 9/23/01

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from the guardian, archived at bushwatch

http://www.bushwatch.net/attack.htm

"...It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work.

Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth.

But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him.

To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4,000,000 [people] to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world.

All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2,000,000 estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday." --Guardian, 9/15/01

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