Good, but with a few major changes. Rossini was drinking club soda instead of the expensive cabernets he quaffed when I first knew him as a high-flying FBI official in Washington a decade ago, when he was a special assistant to the bureau’s chief spokesman, John Miller (now with the New York City Police Department). “I’ve cut back,” he said. “Feeling good.”

But when I ask him how he’s really doing, the light in his eyes dims. “Well, you know, I still miss the job,” he said, shaking his head. A boneheaded move—showing confidential FBI documents to his actress-flame Linda Fiorentino, who said she was researching a script about L.A. wiretapper extraordinaire Anthony Pellicano—cost him his career in 2008 and nearly landed him in jail.

“What’s past is past,” he said. But not all of it. He quickly told me of an encounter the day before on a street in Yonkers, where he keeps an apartment. He’d run into a close family friend who’d lost relatives at the World Trade Center on 9/11. “Mark,” she told him, “you’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”

“She says that every time I see her,” he said, his mouth turning down. But now, at 53, six years out of the bureau, he’s making a determined effort to do just that—to close some of the gaping holes in the official 9/11 narrative, which blames the attacks on a vague “intelligence failure.”

Rossini is well placed to do just that. He’s been at the center of one of the enduring mysteries of 9/11: Why the CIA refused to share information with the FBI (or any other agency) about the arrival of at least two well-known Al-Qaeda operatives in the United States in 2000, even though the spy agency had been tracking them closely for years.

That the CIA did block him and Doug Miller, a fellow FBI agent assigned to the “Alec Station,” the cover name for CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, from notifying bureau headquarters about the terrorists has been told before, most notably in a 2009 Nova documentary on PBS, “The Spy Factory.” Rossini and Miller related how they learned earlier from the CIA that one of the terrorists (and future hijacker), Khalid al-Mihdhar, had multi-entry visas on a Saudi passport to enter the United States. When Miller drafted a report for FBI headquarters, a CIA manager in the top-secret unit told him to hold off. Incredulous, Miller and Rossini had to back down. The station’s rules prohibited them from talking to anyone outside their top-secret group.

All these years later, Rossini still regrets complying with that command. If he had disobeyed the gag order, the nearly 3,000 Americans slaughtered on 9/11 would probably still be alive. “This is the pain that never escapes me, that haunts me each and every day of my life,” he wrote in the draft of a book he shared with me. “I feel like I failed, even though I know it was the system and the intelligence community on the whole that failed.”

The various commissions and internal agency reviews that examined the “intelligence failure” of 9/11 blamed institutional habits and personal rivalries among CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) officials for preventing them from sharing information. Out of those reviews came the creation of a new directorate of national intelligence, which stripped the CIA of its coordinating authority. But blaming “the system” sidesteps the issue of why one CIA officer in particular, Michael Anne Casey, ordered Rossini’s cohort, Miller, not to alert the FBI about al-Mihdhar. Or why the CIA’s Alec Station bosses failed to alert the FBI—or any other law enforcement agency—about the arrival of Nawaf al-Hazmi, another key Al-Qaeda operative (and future hijacker) the agency had been tracking to and from a terrorist summit in Malaysia.

Because Casey remains undercover at the CIA, Rossini does not name her in his unfinished manuscript. But he wrote, “When I confronted this person…she told me that ‘this was not a matter for the FBI. The next al-Qaeda attack is going to happen in Southeast Asia and their visas for America are just a diversion. You are not to tell the FBI about it. When and if we want the FBI to know about it, we will.’”

Rossini recalled going to Miller’s cubicle right after his conversation with Casey. “He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.… We were both stunned and could not understand why the FBI was not going to be told about this.”

It remains a mystery. None of the post-9/11 investigating bodies were able to get to the bottom of it, in part because Rossini and Miller, who continued to work at Alec Station after the attacks, didn’t tell anyone what happened there. When congressional investigators came sniffing around, they kept their mouths shut.

CONTINUED

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Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis’ activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.

“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

His former Senate colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that “significant questions remain unanswered” about the role of Saudi institutions. “Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued,” Mr. Kerrey said.

Their affidavits, which were filed on Friday and have not previously been disclosed, are part of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that has wound its way through federal courts since 2002. An appellate court, reversing an earlier decision, said in November that foreign nations were not immune to lawsuits under certain terrorism claims, clearing the way for parts of the Saudi case to be reheard in United States District Court in Manhattan.

Lawyers for the Saudis, who have already moved to have the affidavits thrown out of court, declined to comment on the assertions by Mr. Graham and Mr. Kerrey. “The case is in active litigation, and I can’t say anything,” said Michael K. Kellogg, a Washington lawyer for the Saudis.

Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, who have emphatically denied any connection to the attacks in the past, did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

The Saudis are seeking to have the case dismissed in part because they say American inquiries — including those in which Mr. Graham and Mr. Kerrey took part — have essentially exonerated them. A recent court filing by the Saudis prominently cited the 9/11 Commission’s “exhaustive” final report, which “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi individuals funded” Al Qaeda.

But Mr. Kerrey and Mr. Graham said that the findings should not be seen as an exoneration and that many important questions about the Saudis’ role had never been fully examined, partly because their panels simply did not have the time or resources given their wider scope.

Terry Strada of New Vernon, N.J., whose husband died in the World Trade Center, said it was “so absurd that it’s laughable” for the Saudis to claim that the federal inquiries had exonerated them.

Unanswered questions include the work of a number of Saudi-sponsored charities with financial links to Al Qaeda, as well as the role of a Saudi citizen living in San Diego at the time of the attacks, Omar al-Bayoumi, who had ties to two of the hijackers and to Saudi officials, Mr. Graham said in his affidavit.

Still, Washington has continued to stand behind Saudi Arabia publicly, with the Justice Department joining the kingdom in trying to have the lawsuits thrown out of court on the grounds that the Saudis are protected by international immunity.

State Department officials did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday on the impact of the court declarations.

The senators’ assertions “might inject some temporary strain or awkwardness at a diplomatic level,” said Kenneth L. Wainstein, a senior national security official in the George W. Bush administration. Even so, he said, “the United States and the Saudis have developed strong counterterrorism cooperation over the last decade, and that relationship will not be undermined.”

The post Two Ex-Senators Claim Possible Saudi 9/11 Role appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Zelikow, White Burkett Miller Professor of History, will remain with the University while serving on the board, which serves as an independent source of advice to the president on the intelligence community’s effectiveness in meeting the nation’s intelligence needs, and on the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future.

“Philip is a valued colleague, exceptional scholar and highly skilled administrator with a distinguished record of service in government and academia,” said Meredith Jung-En Woo, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. “This appointment reflects his and the University’s longstanding commitment to education and public service. We’re pleased that he will be able to serve the president and our country in this important role while continuing to oversee the College’s graduate academic programs as well as our international initiatives and partnerships. His experience on the president’s advisory board will only deepen and enrich his work on behalf of the College.”

Zelikow will serve with 13 others, including former U.S. Senators David Boren and Chuck Hagel, who co-chair the board.

“I’m glad to do what I can to help,” he said.

Zelikow began his career as a trial and appellate lawyer in Texas, and is a former career diplomat whose posts overseas and in Washington include service on the National Security Council staff of President George H.W. Bush.

His books include “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed” (written with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice), “The Kennedy Tapes” (with Ernest May), and “Essence of Decision” (with Graham Allison).

In recent years, Zelikow has taken two public service leaves from academia to return full time to government service: in 2003-04 to direct the 9/11 Commission, and in 2005-07 as counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Rice. He also advises the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s program in global development and is a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Zelikow joined the College faculty in 1998 and also served as director of the Miller Center for seven years.

The post Zelikow Appointed to Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

What was the first discrepancy, or discrepancies, that moved you to begin researching the hidden history of 9/11, and how long have you been involved with it ever since?

The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that Dick Cheney and George Bush went to Tom Daschle’s office, and asked him to “limit the scope” of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. At the time I thought, “why would the President and Vice President, of all people, not want to know exactly how and why this happened, so as to make sure it could never happen again?” After 9/11, we were told repeatedly that there were no warnings, that no one had any idea that anything like that could happen. Then in May 2002, news of the August 6th, 2001 PDB entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US” was reported on. That was a “warning.” Once I saw that we were being lied to, I was “off to the races.”

If there were just three facts that discredit the official theory that you feel people must know, what would be those facts?

There were a multitude of warnings, and a lot more known about the hijackers by our Government, prior to 9/11, than the public has been led to believe. The investigations we got into 9/11, in my view, were compromised and corrupt. Especially the 9/11 Commission, which was led by Philip Zelikow. We were told that the source of the funding was “ultimately of little practical significance.” There are indications that some of the money was connected to Prince Bandar’s [of Saudi Arabia] wife. That’s significant. There are indications that some of the money came from Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh at the behest of Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed of the Pakistani ISI. That is significant.

What have been some of the biggest or most intriguing revelations to surface within the past couple of years?

That the 9/11 Commission considered referring NORAD to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation because of the lies they told to the 9/11 Commission. That 9/11 Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds said Osama Bin Laden had “intimate relations” with the U.S. up until 9/11. The multitude of whistleblowers that were ignored and censored by the 9/11 Commission. There were “Government Minders” that intimidated witnesses before the 9/11 Commission, and in some cases, answered questions for witnesses. That a complete outline of the final report of the 9/11 Commission was written by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow before the 9/11 Commission’s investigation even began. That Philip Zelikow may have been taking direction from Karl Rove. That’s really off the top of my head, but there is so much more.

We’ve both talked about our respect for the film 9/11: Press for Truth. Can you talk about why that film is such an important document about the hidden history of 9/11? Would you recommend it as an introduction to people just starting to question the official theory?

When Kyle Hence told me he was working on the film, I was extremely excited. It was going to tell the story of my heroes, the Jersey Girls, and it was going to be based on the work of someone that greatly influenced me, Paul Thompson. Nothing could be better in my opinion. When Kyle told me he needed money to finish the film, within a few minutes after he told me, I asked my father to loan me the money so they could finish the film. I didn’t hesitate for a second because I knew this was going to be an important documentary. The film is clearly one of the most important documentaries of our generation. It tells the story of the cover-up from the perspective of those who lost the most that day. It completely obliterates the legitimacy of the 9/11 Commission in the first 30 minutes. It shows the basic inconsistencies in the “official account.” I have always thought this documentary was the best tool for activists. In my opinion, 9/11 activists should show this film to people before anything else if they want to be taken seriously.

Will you talk about why (if you agree with this assertion, of course) the movement to question the official theory and uncover the truth hasn’t gained more traction in America, and why it seems to have made more headway in other parts of the world?

Well, the “9/11 Truth Movement” did gain some momentum in 2005-2006. But the “media” decided to focus on the fringiest of the fringe. As a result, we weren’t taken seriously. The “media” overall, has done its best over the years to paint us as conspiracy theorists, as crazy, as unpatriotic, as terrorist sympathizers, as terrorists, as holocaust denying murderers, etc… and so on. No one wants to associate with us. The media’s campaign to tarnish anyone that questions the official account of 9/11 has been extremely successful. People are dying in the Middle East, so it would make sense for people in the Middle East to question the official account of 9/11. As far as parts of the world outside the United States that question the official account, that aren’t directly affected by America’s occupations… they probably have better media than the U.S.

We now know from various news reports that the U.S. security state has turned its attention inward to spy on American activists as well as potential foreign enemies living in the country. Homeland Security was seen monitoring a peaceful BART protest in San Francisco the other night, and they’re also likely monitoring organizers and participants involved with US Day of Rage’s upcoming occupation of Wall Street, based on a bulletin released recently. Can you talk about how 9/11 has eroded the freedoms America used to cherish, and do you think we’ve allowed the 9/11 tragedy to get the best of us? Is there hope of beating the security state and regaining our civil liberties?

Expose the 9/11 Cover-Up, and I believe that everything that happened as a result of that day, will stop, or be reversed. The occupations will end, and the majority of legislation written that takes away our civil liberties will be reversed. Peace of the Action, the group Cindy Sheehan founded that I am apart of, was spied on by the Institute Of Terrorism Research And Response. I was spied on before I committed civil disobedience at the White House for 9/11 Justice. I assume I was spied on because when I got there, a cop asked me “are you Jon Gold? Are you still planning on chaining yourself to the White House fence?” There are many examples of liberties lost since 9/11. Look at the TSA, look at the wiretapping of phones, look at free speech zones, etc… Again, expose the damn 9/11 Cover-Up.

Would you care to offer any sort of narrative regarding what you think happened on 9/11, based on the extensive research you’ve conducted over all these years?

I don’t know what happened on 9/11, or who was ultimately responsible. That’s the problem. I have an idea, but I don’t know. Everyone has theories about what happened that day. Some are ridiculous and far-fetched, and others aren’t. However, without a real criminal investigation, we just don’t know. I believe 9/11 was a crime as opposed to an act of war, and as with every crime, there are suspects for that crime. In my opinion, elements within our Government and others have MORE THAN EARNED the title of suspect for the crime of 9/11.

How do you suggest people get involved in the struggle for 9/11 accountability?

By telling the next person until we have a majority of people. We can’t do shit with the system we have.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Since today is 9/11, I’d just like to say that I hope the families that lost someone that day have the easiest day possible. I hope the responders that were down there are honored, and that the James Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act is made to include cancer for the coverage it gives.

Jon Gold (@911JusticeNow) is a prolific contributor to sites such as 9/11 Truth News, History Commons, Peace of the Action, Secrecy Kills and helped fund the film 9/11: Press for Truth.

The post Activist Spotlight: 9/11 Researcher Jon Gold appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

MP3 Interview with Lorie Van Auken [48:26]

Lorie Van Auken, the mother of two children, lost her husband Kenneth Van Auken in the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. She is one of the “Jersey Girls” who, along with Kristen Breitweiser, Mindy Kleinberg, and Patty Casazza, fought the Bush administration for a commission to investigate the attacks. Ms. Van Auken is also a member of the September 11 Advocates.

The post Lorie Van Auken Interviewed by Sibel Edmonds appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The post Publicly, Separately, Under Oath, Accountable appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

They were four women from New Jersey whose husbands were killed in the tragedy and went on to campaign for a national commission of inquiry into the attacks. In eventually winning their battle to be heard in Washington, the four transformed themselves into powerful representatives of the 9/11 victims. But now, as America gears up for the emotional 10th anniversary of the attacks, the Jersey girls seem to have embraced new lives out of the media spotlight. They will be keeping their grief private.

“I am no longer defining my life as a widow. I feel like I am not going to let myself be defined by what happened to me on 9/11. It’s healthier for me. My husband has gone and he’s not coming back,” Kristen Breitweiser, 40, told the Observer in an interview. Breitweiser said that she would spend the coming anniversary with her 12-year-old daughter. “We will take a nice walk on the beach,” she said.

Those sentiments were echoed by fellow Jersey girl Lorie Van Auken, 56, who will spend the day watching her daughter appear in a New York show. “Life goes on,” she said.

For a long time, the Jersey girls were among the most outspoken people on the attacks. Each had lost a husband in the most awful circumstances. Van Auken’s spouse, Kenneth, was a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald and called his wife to tell her he loved her after an aircraft hit.

Breitweiser’s husband, Ronald, was a senior vice-president for Fiduciary Trust International. Investigators found his wedding ring in the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Centre but not much else. Patty Casazza’s husband, John, also worked at Cantor and was just 38 when he died. The final member of the quartet was Mindy Kleinberg, whose spouse, Alan, was another Cantor worker.

The four banded together and, in the face of official intransigence, campaigned with other victims’ relatives to set up the 9/11 commission.

They later pressured it to conduct a credible investigation. The four women ended up confronting people such as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger (briefly the first commission chairman) and acting as a sort of watchdog on the process as it probed the event that took the lives of their husbands. Tom Kean, the New Jersey politician put in charge of the commission, once said: “I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them.”

Looking back, however, both Breitweiser and Van Auken believe their huge battle to get the commission up and running left too much undone. After fighting so hard to get it set up, they became some of its fiercest critics. Van Auken has spoken of too many questions going unanswered, too many redactions in the final 2004 report and its reluctance to be too critical of senior government figures. That has led some critics to say she flirts with conspiracy theories, but she insists that she just wants the truth. “It is just unanswered questions,” she said.

Breitweiser also believes their work to campaign for more openness and better security tactics in defending the US against future terrorism has failed. She fully expects another terror attack on American soil in the future. “I am sure we are going to get another terrorist attack. That will be horrible for the people who will then experience what we did. We did what we did with the commission so as to avoid people ever walking in our shoes again,” she said.

Breitweiser said she had lost all faith in America’s political system, believing it to be dominated by deep-pocketed business interests who put profit over citizens’ safety. Twice in the last few years, she said, people had urged her to stand for office. Twice she refused. “You need money to run and when you get the money you are indebted to the people or corporation that gave you it,” she said. Instead, Breitweiser now devotes herself to blogging for the Huffington Post on a wide range of issues.

She has developed a fascination with the Middle East and the Muslim world and recently took her child on a trip to Morocco. A trip to Turkey is planned this year and she wants to go to Egypt next year to witness the aftermath of the country’s recent revolution. “There is nothing more inspiring than seeing a group of people rise up together against the powers that be when those powers are in the wrong,” she said. “It was also non-violent, and after losing my husband in the way I did, by Middle Eastern terrorists, it was amazing to see change happening without violence.”

Van Auken, too, has now developed interests that perhaps one might not expect. She, too, concentrates on her children, but also makes jewellery and has seized on a new campaigning cause: the plight of bees. After taking a course at a local university in New Jersey, Van Auken began keeping her own hives, harvesting honey and then exploring the problems that are causing bees to die out across the world. That has led her right back into campaigning, as many experts believe the bee’s problems could be linked to pollution and other human activities. A leaked internal report from the Environmental Protection Agency recently cited the risks of one chemical pesticide to bees and caused outrage.

Now Van Auken is trying to organise beekeepers to campaign for a ban on the product. “I am back in another ‘fight the government’ thing,” Van Auken laughed. But as well as giving her a cause, the bees have also given her peace of mind. “I enjoy the bees. You get to watch the colony and see what they’re doing. It fits in with my garden. It is a natural system and it makes me happy,” she said.

The Jersey Girls, it seems, may have moved on – but they haven’t lost their fighting spirit.

The post 9/11 Widows Shun Spotlight As 10th Anniversary Approaches appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

This correspondence with Matt Taibbi took place today:

Jon Gold: Being Proud of What We Are Not

Something you should read.

Matt Taibbi: You make the same mistake with me that you accuse others of making about 9/11 — lumping me in to a category of people without listening to what I am actually saying. Sibel’s essay talks about alternative-media tropes that stay away from certain topics. I have never been afraid of saying publicly that the 9/11 investigation was, like all such government commissions, full of holes. I’m not afraid of taking any unpopular position. I just think the notion that the U.S. was involved in the planning of the crimes is total horseshit. That doesn’t make me any kind of fellow traveler. It just means I think you’re all nuts.

Jon Gold: Something you should watch:

Our “Elected Officials” Are Not Gods

Putting these people on a pedastal like you’re doing. Giving them the kind of untouchable stature you are giving them, is completely and totally irrational and unjustified. You act as though people like Dick Cheney wouldn’t do such a thing. I remember when the Bush Administration edited EPA reports about the air quality down at Ground Zero, which helped to get 1000’s of 9/11 First Responders sick, and over 1000 have died already.

Let me ask you something Matt, what qualifies as suspicious behavior? Does lying about warnings for the attacks qualify? Does fighting against the family members for an investigation qualify? How about limiting the funding and time of that investigation? How about stonewalling access to documents? How about appointing someone like Philip Zelikow who should never have been anywhere near the 9/11 Commission, and as far as I’m concerned, belongs in prison, to head said Commission? How about refusing to testify publicly, under oath, and separately for Bush and Cheney? How about Dick Cheney talking about Iraq’s oil fields 5 months before 9/11 with a group of people that denied ever meeting with him before Congress? Here’s something else you should read.

We Might Be Wrong About 9/11

Last time we corresponded, you said people like me were acting childish because of our concerns. Take a look in the mirror.

Jon Gold: Here’s a challenge for you Matt since you’re “not afraid of taking any unpopular position.” Why don’t you contact Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, and Paul Thompson (if you can manage to get a hold of him), and do a report for Rolling Stone Magazine on the problems with the official account, and why it is necessary to have a real/new investigation for the event that created the “Post-9/11 World?”

Jon Gold: Are you considering it? I’m planning on posting this correspondence again unless you say otherwise.

I never heard from him.

The post Taibbi: 9/11 Commission "Full of Holes" appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Their stated purpose was to, “act as a hub between independent researchers and the government’s 9/11 Commission to finally address the “unanswered questions” from 9/11.”

As a group, they worked alongside the family members that were apart of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee. Early on, the 9/11 Commission was not putting people under oath. To remedy this, 9/11 CitizensWatch ran a campaign to shame the 9/11 Commission into doing so. They also called for the resignation of Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, alongside the family members.

Throughout the course of the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 CitizenWatch held three different press conferences that were shown on C-SPAN. Here are those press conferences:

Here is the report that was put together by 9/11 CitizensWatch and released on 9/11/2004 entitled, “A Citizens’ Critique: The 9/11 Commission Process.”

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