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

The post The Inside Information That Could Have Stopped 9/11 appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The report, released by a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees in December 2002, contains 28 redacted pages that family members and victims say would shed new light on the hijackings. At the time the report was released, the Bush administration classified the material, but numerous sources reported it dealt with the Saudis.

“Flight 93 was supposed to have hit the Capitol Dome,” imposing a special obligation on Congress to get to the bottom of the matter, said Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham was one of the passengers who rushed the cockpit, thwarting that part of the attack. The plane crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash in Shanksville, including the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudis.

The small group was joined at a press conference at the Cannon House office building attended by Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who are calling for passage of a House resolution requesting that the Obama administration make the information public.

“This is the beginning of a long process,” Jones said. “I do not believe that we as a nation will be strong unless we reveal what the 28 pages say.”

The Saudi government for years has been embroiled in litigation filed by victims, their families and insurers that suffered billions in losses at ground zero accusing the kingdom of providing financial support to Islamist charities that in turn funded al-Qaida.

One of the suits, filed by the Philadelphia firm of Cozen O’Connor, alleges the Saudis continued their support even after they were warned in the late 1990s by a delegation of senior U.S. officials of the link between the charities and terrorists.

The lawsuit, filed in 2003, has taken a long and winding road through the federal court system. In 2005, federal District Judge Richard Conway Casey granted the request of the Saudi government and an affiliated charity, the Saudi High Commission for the Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to be removed as defendants.

Casey ruled then that the charities were too far removed from the government to establish responsibility.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld Casey’s ruling in 2008, but on different grounds. It found that under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, suits alleging a foreign government’s involvement in terrorism can only go forward with what amounted to a sign off by the U.S. State Department. And in the case of Saudi Arabia, there had been none.

But in a surprising development, the 2nd Circuit reversed itself in December, effectively reinstating Saudi Arabia as a defendant. The court said it decided to change course because it allowed a related lawsuit to go forward on similar grounds.

Jones and Lynch introduced the resolution late last year calling on the Obama administration to make public the redacted 28 pages. At the time, Jones described the redacted material, which he had read, as “shocking.”

The 9/11 victims have gotten key support from former Sen. Bob Graham, D., Fla., who was co-chair of the joint investigation and who was one of the first on Capitol Hill to accuse the Saudi government of involvement in the attacks. Graham also provided a sworn statement in the Cozen lawsuit alleging that an obscure Saudi national who provided assistance to two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar, likely was working for the Saudi government. Graham said that Omar Al-Bayoumi was “acting at the direction of elements of the Saudi government” when he helped Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar find an apartment in San Diego and provided them financial assistance before the hijackings.

The post Renewed Effort To Declassify Key Portion Of 9/11 Report appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Graham would not disclose the content of the documents, which are marked “Secret,” but said the information they contain is at odds with the FBI’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota.

“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said.

“One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.”

Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question – one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan Joint Inquiry, which Democrat Graham co-chaired, released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety—on President George W. Bush’s instructions.

Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who had participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected.”

Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk.

LICENSE PLATES TIED TO HIJACKERS

The FBI-led investigation a decade ago focused on Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who moved out of their home in the upscale, gated community of Prestancia and left the country in the weeks before 9/11. The couple, who had lived there since about 1995, left behind three cars and numerous personal belongings such as furnishings, clothes, medicine and food, according to law enforcement records. A concerned neighbor contacted the FBI.

Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer – speaking on condition of anonymity – and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich.

The home was owned by Mrs. Al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, nephew of King Fahd and a noted racehorse owner. Prince Fahd died in July 2001.

Al-Hijji, who now lives and works in London, this month called 9/11 “a crime against the USA and all humankind” and said he was “saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.” He also said it was “not true” that Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers visited him at his Sarasota home.

The FBI backs up al-Hijji. After initially declining to comment, the Bureau confirmed that it did investigate but said it found nothing sinister. Agents, however, have refused to answer reporters’ specific questions about its investigation or its findings about the Prestancia gate records.

The FBI reiterated its position in a February 7 letter that denied a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from its Sarasota probe. The denial said their release “could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

“At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote records section chief David M. Hardy.

Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, the ex-Broward resident and suspected al Qaeda operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

In 2003, the FBI asked Sarasota lawyer Scott McKay, who was involved in the sale of the property, to convince al-Hijji’s father-in-law, Ghazzawi, to return to the U.S. to sign documents. The ploy, intended to get Ghazzawi back for questioning, failed when Ghazzawi instead signed the sale documents at the American consulate in Beirut.

The counterterrorism agent said Ghazzawi and al-Hijji had been on a watch list at the FBI. The agent believed that a U.S. agency involved in tracking terrorist funds had been interested in both men even before 9/11.

The FBI interviewed Al-Hijji’s wife, Anoud, and her American-born mother, Deborah Ghazzawi, when they returned to Sarasota briefly in 2003. The women denied involvement with the 9/11 terrorists, and said the couple’s 2001 return flights to Saudi Arabia had been booked well in advance.

Al-Hijji told London’s Daily Telegraph, which worked the story with Broward Bulldog, that he returned to the U.S. for two months in 2005 to study in Houston, but was not questioned by the FBI. Asked why federal agents had questioned his wife and mother-in-law, he said he had “no idea.”

GRAHAM ASKS FOR HELP

Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation.

That prompted Graham to ask the FBI for assistance in locating in the National Archives the Sarasota-related files that were allegedly turned over to Congress. Instead, after what Graham said were two months in which the FBI was “either unwilling or unable” to help find the records, the Bureau suddenly turned over two documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Graham once headed and where he still has access. It is those documents that Graham has said are inconsistent with the FBI denials.

Graham shared this development with the Obama White House, which responded by setting up a meeting between Graham and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce. Joyce told Graham he “didn’t want to talk” about the Sarasota episode. Graham was assured, however, that he would shortly be shown material that supported the FBI’s denials, and a further meeting was arranged with an FBI aide.

In December, Graham said, the scheduled meeting was abruptly canceled and he was told he would be allowed no further access to FBI information about Sarasota.

Graham said the Joint Inquiry was not the only national investigative body kept in the dark about Sarasota. He said the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have told him they also were unaware of it.

Kean, a former New Jersey governor, told Graham the Commission would have “worked it hard,” because the hypothesis that the hijackers completed the planning alone was “implausible.”

Kean did not return several phone messages seeking comment. But Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, confirmed this month that he learned nothing about the Sarasota matter while serving as vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission.

Graham sees the information now emerging about Sarasota as ominously similar to discoveries his Inquiry made in California. Leads there indicated that the first two hijackers to reach the U.S., Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received help first from a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and then from another Saudi, one of whom helped Mihdhar and Hazmi find an apartment. Multiple sources told investigators they believed the latter helpful Saudi had been a Saudi government agent.

Later, when 9/11 Commission staff gained limited access to these individuals in Saudi Arabia, the aides’ reaction was caustic. One memo described the testimony of one of them as “deceptive…inconsistent…implausible.” The testimony of another displayed an “utter lack of credibility.”

TWO HIJACKERS LIVED WITH FBI INFORMANT

Graham is troubled by what he sees as FBI headquarters’ persistent apparent effort to conceal information, including the fact that Mihdhar and Hazmi lived for months in California in the home of a paid FBI informant. Even when that emerged, the FBI denied his Inquiry access to the informant. Graham wonders if that was merely because of the Bureau’s embarrassment, or because the informant knew something that “would be even more damaging were it revealed.”

The newly surfaced FDLE documents containing Hammoud’s troubling 2004 information about al-Hijji have reinforced Graham’s concerns because they conflict with the FBI’s public statements.

Hammoud’s statement that al-Hijji introduced him to Broward’s own Saudi terror suspect, Shukrijumah, is consistent with the report that Prestancia gate logs showed Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji house – and buttresses longstanding official suspicion that he was linked to the hijackers. When Mohamed Atta visited a federal immigration office in Miami to discuss a visa problem in May 2001, a 9/11 Commission footnote reports, a man who closely resembled Shukrijumah accompanied him.

Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy.

In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis.

“This agreement serves to reinforce the strong enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”

Graham said he was taken aback by that announcement.

“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” he said. “It is more inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement. For both administrations, there was and continues to be an obligation to inform the American people through truthful information.”

The post Graham: FBI Statements Conflict with 9/11 Probe appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Security records of cars passing through a checkpoint at the Prestancia gated community indicated that Mr al-Hijji’s home, 4224 Escondito Circle, had been visited a number of times by Mohamed Atta, the leader of the

19-strong hijack team, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in 2001.

The logs also indicated that Marwan Al-Shehhi, who crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, and Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, had visited the house.

All three men had trained to fly at Venice Airport, which is 19 miles from Sarasota.

A US counter-terrorist agent told The Daily Telegraph: “The registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s north gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers, and another Saudi suspect still at large, had visited 4224 Escondito Circle.”

The suspect was Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda operative who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.A decade after the world’s worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Mr al-Hijji is resident in London, working for the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company. Described as a career counsellor, he is based in the offices of Aramco Overseas Company UK Limited and lives in an expensive flat in central London.

In email correspondence with the Telegraph, Mr al-Hijji strongly denied any involvement in the plot, writing: “I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did. 9/11 is a crime against the USA and all humankind and I’m very saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.

“I love the USA. My kids were born there, I went to college and university there, I spent a good portion of my life there and I love it.”

Mr al-Hijji’s account is supported by the FBI, which has stated: “At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers … and there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot.’’

Bob Graham, a former US senator who, in addition to co-chairing the congressional inquiry into 9/11, was chairman of the US senate intelligence committee at the time, disputes the FBI denials. He has long believed that there was Saudi support for the 19 terrorists, 15 of whom were subjects of the kingdom. He cites two secret documents to which he has recently had access.

The first document, Graham says, is “not consistent with the public statements of the FBI that there was no connection between the 9/11 hijackers and the Saudis at the Sarasota home. Both documents indicate that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI.”

Mr al-Hijji, 38, moved with his family to Britain in 2003, setting up home in a rented four-bedroom detached house in the Southampton suburb of Totton. His stay there appears to have been uneventful.

The al-Hijjis’ abrupt departure from Sarasota aroused the suspicion of their next-door neighbour, Patrick Gallagher. He emailed the FBI within two days of 9/11 to report the disappearance of the couple and their young children.

Reports released recently by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement refer to the “suspicious manner and timing” of the family’s departure.

One document states: “In mid-August 2001 the above subjects purchased a new vehicle and renewed the registration on several other vehicles. On Aug 27 2001 a moving truck appeared and moved the subjects out of the house. Left behind were the vehicles and numerous personal belongings, including food, medicine, bills, baby clothing etc.”

The document goes on to state that Mr al-Hijji and Esam Ghazzawi, his father-in-law and the owner of the Escondito Circle house, had been “on the FBI watch list” prior to 9/11.

Mr al-Hijji described the allegations against him as “just cheap talk” and denied having abandoned his home in undue haste, explaining: “No, no, no. Absolutely not true. We were trying to secure the [Aramco] job. It was a good opportunity.”

He said his wife and children followed him out to Saudi Arabia a few weeks after he left. She and his American-born mother-in-law had been questioned by the FBI when they returned to the United States to settle the family’s affairs.

But he was not questioned when he returned to America for a two-month period in 2005.

The post London-based Oil Executive Linked to 9/11 Hijackers appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The terrorist suspects were Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who were known to have attended a highly monitored al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January of 2000. It was later discovered that the two had intentions of traveling to the US, and over 50 CIA officers were aware of when the two would-be hijackers arrived. Yet nobody in the FBI, the Department of Defense or Clarke’s office was actually informed of their arrival.

Clarke claims in the interview that it would have been impossible for Tenet not to have been aware of this information and so “there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information” with other agencies. This recent development is an important one for the family members of 9/11 victims who have long sought accountability and justice for what has been a failed investigation into the attack, with many questions remaining unresolved.

In the interview Clarke claims that Tenet followed the development of al-Qaeda in “microscopic detail” and that he and Tenet were close friends — Tenet would call him on a fairly regular basis to share even the smallest of details. “You gotta understand my relationship with [Tenet]; we were close friends, he called me several times a day, we shared the most trivial of information with each other, there was not a lack of information sharing — [the CIA] told us everything … except this,” said Clarke.

He is clearly perplexed as to why he was not informed of the presence of two al-Qaeda terrorists who had been in the US for over 12 months, and the only conclusion that Clarke has been able to reach is his theory that the CIA had tried to recruit the hijackers and convince them to leave the US. However, there are problems with this explanation. Firstly, it is illegal for the CIA to actually conduct such an operation inside the US as it contravenes the jurisdiction of the FBI. Secondly, if the operation to recruit or “flip” the hijackers had failed, then wouldn’t the hijackers have realized were being watched, panic and leave the US of their own accord?

Strange story

Clearly, they did not leave. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar stayed and boarded American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon on 9/11. What makes the story even stranger is the fact that in early August of 2001, the CIA decided to tell lower-level FBI agents that the two hijackers were inside the US and were planning an attack. Clarke told the interviewers that Tenet and his aide, Richard Blee, could have informed the White House of the presence of the terrorists in July 2001. Tenet had actually arranged an “urgent meeting” with White House officials on the topic of terrorism, and yet amazingly, the presence of the hijackers was not mentioned. Then, on Sept. 4, 2001, another high-level meeting between the CIA and White House staff was chaired, and yet again the presence of the two terrorists was not even mentioned. Clarke stated that had the CIA informed him as late as Sept. 4 he would have been able to put out the information on the AP newswire and ensure that the FBI arrested the two men. “We would have conducted a massive sweep,” Clarke said. “We would have conducted it publicly. We would have found those assholes. There’s no doubt in my mind. Even with only a week left.”

The 9/11 Commission report stated that “it appears that no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA” about the presence of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the US. Yet, Clarke disputes this with his claim that a bungled terrorist-recruitment effort is the only possible explanation he has been able to come up with as to why he and others were not informed about the two terrorists. However, in Clarke’s 2008 book titled “Your Government Failed You,” he seems to cast apparent scrutiny on his own theory that the CIA had attempted to recruit or “flip” the hijackers, although he does not question his view that Tenet ordered CIA officers not to share information about them. In his book, Clarke sarcastically wrote, “The CIA would not try such a dangerous ploy as trying to flip al-Qaeda terrorists in the United States into becoming CIA sources because that would violate laws prohibiting CIA operations inside the United States.

The CIA would not ask Saudi intelligence to approach al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi in Los Angeles because foreign intelligence agencies are legally barred from running intelligence missions in the United States. Right?” Clarke is referring to the presence of a suspected Saudi intelligence officer, known as Omar al-Bayoumi, who was living with and closely monitoring the two hijackers while they were staying in the US. It seems strange that the head of the CIA was not aware of the presence of this man and his knowledge of the hijackers. As Clarke details in the interview with the two filmmakers, Tenet had a close relationship with members of the Saudi intelligence bureau. The same can be said of his aides, Blee and Cofer Black.

The arrival of the terrorist suspects in the US should have been a red flag in itself, especially given that they had been monitored at the al-Qaeda Malaysia summit earlier in January 2000 and that one of them was a suspect in the American embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. There had also been many warnings of a threat against the US from Osama bin Laden, and many of the hijackers were being monitored by international agencies months before the attacks.

In his book, Clarke explains how he was involved in the creation of an information exchange system to ensure that the CIA and FBI stopped keeping secrets from each other. The FBI terrorism office employed some CIA officers and the CIA’s Counter-terrorism Center also employed some FBI officers. When the two terrorist suspects turned up in Los Angeles, an FBI agent who was working at CIA headquarters asked permission to inform FBI headquarters. His request was denied by his CIA supervisor. Clarke writes that “at that point, the failure to tell the FBI went from being a sloppy oversight to being a conscious decision.”

The post Ten Years On, Details of 9/11 Cover-Up Released appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The post Kristen Breitweiser on The CIA Cover-Up appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

“Muslims did kill us on 9/11, and there is a Muslim problem in the world. If you want to walk away from that truth, I can’t stop you. But a better strategy would be for all of us to acknowledge the danger coming out of the Muslim world and work together to mitigate it.” – Bill O’Reilly

I have written on this topic a couple of times.

My basic belief is that 9/11 was not an act of war, and instead, a crime. Not a Muslim, Zionist, American, Israeli, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, Episcopalian crime. A crime.

If people who happened to be Muslim participated in the crime of 9/11, that doesn’t mean you blame everyone who is a Muslim. Just as you don’t blame everyone who is a Christian after a Christian decides to blow up an abortion clinic. You blame the individuals responsible, and not everyone from their religion, nationality, or ideology.

9/11 is being treated as a “Muslim crime” by some, and as a result, Thousands of Muslims that had nothing to do with the attacks have been slaughtered. Treating 9/11 as a crime, without the religious, national, and ideological undertones, prevents more people from being blamed and slaughtered for a crime they didn’t commit. It’s as simple as that.

We have been told repeatedly by people like Bill O’Reilly that “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” The 9/11 Report dedicates many pages to Muslims and Islam. The hijackers’ religious beliefs are mentioned as well. Hani Hanjour is described as a “rigorously observant Muslim.” Mohammad Atta as “religious, but not fanatically so. This would change…” Ramzi Binalshibh thought, “the highest duty of every Muslim was to pursue jihad, and that the highest honor was to die during the jihad.” Marwan al Shehhi had an “evolution toward Islamic fundamentalism.” Ziad Jarrah, “started living more strictly according to the Koran. He read brochures in Arabic about jihad, held forth to friends on the subject of holy war, and professed disaffection with his previous life and a desire not to leave the world “in a natural way.”

As it turns out, there is reason to believe that the individuals we are told were the hijackers, were not strict Muslims at all.

The following are some entries from www.historycommons.org that suggest this:

(1998): Two Saudi 9/11 Hijackers Nonreligious and Drink Alcohol
According to the 9/11 Commission, two of the alleged Saudi 9/11 hijackers, Satam Al Suqami and Salem Alhazmi, appear “unconcerned with religion and, contrary to Islamic law, [are] known to drink alcohol.” In addition, they both have minor criminal offence records. However, Salem Alhazmi’s father will later remember that Salem “stopped drinking and started attending mosque regularly three months before he disappeared.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 232-3, 524]

July-December 2000: Some at Flight School Find Ziad Jarrah an Unlikely Terrorist, Though Accounts Conflict
According to some accounts, while he is taking lessons at Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah appears an unlikely terrorist. Arne Kruithof, the school’s owner, later says Jarrah is “not just nice, but he had qualities you look for in a dear friend, someone you trust.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 92] He will tell the 9/11 Commission that Jarrah is “polite and easy to deal with,” and does not show “any hostility to the United States or to the West.” [9/11 Commission, 4/12/2004] Kruithof says Jarrah “would even offer to put out the trash cans at night, which no one else did,” and later remembers him “bringing me a six-pack of beer at home when I hurt my knee one time and sitting for hours on my sofa chatting.” Unlike other Middle Eastern students, Jarrah never seems uncomfortable or disapproving of the school’s receptionists, who wear skimpy skirts and tiny t-shirts. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] Furthermore, Jarrah drinks alcohol, having one or two beers, “but not three.” According to Kruithof, who later insists Jarrah’s demeanor was “not faked,” the school’s “entire staff does not believe that he had bad intentions,” and Jarrah “was a friend to all of us.” However, fellow flight student Thorsten Biermann, who rooms with Jarrah for six weeks, describes him as “introverted, a loner, he kept his distance.” Biermann will describe one occasion flying with Jarrah on a round-trip to Fort Lauderdale where, on the return, Jarrah insisted on both flying and manning the radio, and twice ignored Biermann’s pleas to refuel when the weather worsened. Biermann says: “I decided I did not want to fly with him anymore, and everyone I knew who flew with him felt the same way. It was as if he needed control.” Biermann will also say that Jarrah avoids pork and, contrary to what Kruithof claims, does not drink alcohol, even when they go to bars together. [New York Times, 9/23/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92]

(Mid-July – December 2000): Atta and Alshehhi Frequent Venice Bars and Drink Alcohol
While attending flight school in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000), Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi regularly visit a couple of local bars. Most nights, after flying classes, they drink beer at the Outlook. They are observed there as being well dressed and well spoken. Atta comes across as cold and unfriendly, and is disapproving of the presence of women servers behind the bar. Bartender Lizsa Lehman will later say that, after the 9/11 attacks, “I remember thinking that [Atta] was capable of everything they had said was done.” In contrast, Alshehhi is “friendly and jovial and… always eager to interact with bartenders and patrons.” Lehman later says, “I, to this day, have trouble seeing [Alshehhi] doing it [i.e., participating in 9/11].” [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006] Atta and several friends are also regulars at the 44th Aero Squadron bar. The group drinks Bud Light, talks quietly, and stays sober. The bar’s owner, Ken Schortzmann, says Atta has “a fanny pack with a big roll of cash in it,” and comments, “I never had any problems with them…. They… didn’t drink heavily or flirt with the waitresses, like some of the other flight students.” While he regularly goes to these bars during this period, Atta never visits any of the three mosques in Southwest Florida, and avoids contact with local Muslims. [Newsweek, 9/24/2001; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/28/2001] Interestingly, other witnesses later describe Atta as possibly doing drugs as well. The owner of a unit of apartments where Atta reportedly lived with some other Middle Eastern men in late 2000 (see (Mid-July 2000 – Early January 2001)) says these men smoked a strange tobacco, which smelled like marijuana. [Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001] Atta may also be a heavy smoker, as he is reported to spend his time “chain smoking,” when later living in Coral Springs. [Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002]

February 22-25, 2001: Atta Spends Weekend in Key West on a ‘Continuous Party,’ then Bails Girlfriend out of Jail?
Some reports later suggest that around this time Mohamed Atta has an American girlfriend called Amanda Keller (see (February-April 2001)). According to Tony and Vonnie LaConca, a couple that meet Keller and her boyfriend (who they know only as “Mohamed”), the pair and another woman go on a short trip to Key West, Florida. Tony LaConca later recalls, “They were gone for three days. They didn’t sleep‚Äîit was a continuous party.” The three indulge in drugs and alcohol, all paid for by “Mohamed,” even though he does not have a job. After returning from the trip, on February 25 “Mohamed” has to bail Keller out of South County Jail, after police take her in because of an outstanding warrant over a “worthless check charge.” [Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001; Charlotte Sun, 9/11/2003] The Sarasota Herald-Tribune claims that Keller’s companion is not Mohamed Atta, but another man of Middle Eastern descent named Mohammed. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/23/2001] In 2002, Keller will say that her boyfriend was indeed Mohamed Atta, but in 2006 she retracts this claim. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006] Interestingly, other witnesses later describe Atta as frequently drinking alcohol, smoking, and possibly doing drugs (see (Mid-July – December 2000)).

May 24-August 14, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Make Several Unexplained Trips to Vegas
Several of the 9/11 hijackers make trips to Las Vegas and the west coast over the summer:

• May 24-27: Marwan Alshehhi flies to Vegas (see May 24-27, 2001);
• June 7-10: Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Vegas (see June 7-10, 2001);
• June 28-July 1: Mohamed Atta takes his first trip to Vegas, flying from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then, the next day, to Las Vegas via San Francisco with United Airlines. He stays there three nights, then returns to Boston via Denver, and flies to New York the next day;
• July 31-August 1: Waleed Alshehri flies from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then takes American Airlines flight 195 to San Francisco the next day. After spending a night at the La Quinta Inn, he returns to Miami via Las Vegas; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 1-2, 16, 18 pdf file; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 55-7 pdf file]
• August 1: Actor James Woods sees four people he will later suspect are hijackers, including individuals he believes to be Khalid Almihdhar and Hamza Alghamdi, on a transcontinental flight (see August 1, 2001). Abdulaziz Alomari is reported to try to get into the cockpit on a different flight from Vegas on the same day (see August 1, 2001);
• August 13-14: Atta, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi all fly to Vegas, possibly meeting some other hijackers there (see August 13-14, 2001).

Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar also made frequent car trips to Las Vegas from San Diego, where they lived in 2000. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 192] The reason for these trips is never definitively determined, although there will be speculation the hijackers are casing aircraft similar to those they will hijack on 9/11. The 9/11 Commission will comment, “Beyond Las Vegas’s reputation for welcoming tourists, we have seen no credible evidence explaining why… the operatives flew to or met in Law Vegas.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242, 248] After 9/11, it will be reported that the hijackers may use these cross-country flights to take pictures of airline cockpits and check out security at boarding gates. During the flights, the hijackers apparently take notes, watch the crews, and even videotape them. There are some reports that two, or perhaps more, of the hijackers sit in “jumpseats” in the pilot’s cabin, a courtesy extended by airlines to other pilots, during the surveillance flights (see Summer 2001) and on the day of 9/11 itself (see November 23, 2001). [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; Associated Press, 5/29/2002] There are reports that the hijackers drink alcohol, gamble, and frequent strip clubs while they are in Las Vegas. For example, according to a dancer named “Samantha,” Marwan Alshehhi stares up at her blankly while she “undulate[s] her hips inches from his face” and only gives her $20, although he is a “light drinker.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/2001; Newsweek, 10/15/2001]

September 7, 2001: Story of Hijackers Drinking Alcohol Changes Over Time
One of the first and most frequently told stories about the hijackers is their visit to Shuckums, a sports bar in Hollywood, Florida, on this day. What is particularly interesting about this story is how it has changed over time. In the original story, first reported on September 12 [Associated Press, 9/12/2001] , Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and an unidentified man come into the restaurant already drunk. “They were wasted,” says bartender Patricia Idrissi, who directs them to a nearby Chinese restaurant. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/13/2001] Later they return and drink‚ÄîAtta orders five vodka and orange juices, while Alshehhi orders five rum and Cokes. [Time, 9/24/2001] According to manager Tony Amos, “The guy Mohamed was drunk, his voice was slurred and he had a thick accent.” Idrissi says they argue about the bill, and when she asks if there was a problem, “Mohamed said he worked for American Airlines and he could pay his bill.” [Associated Press, 9/12/2001] This story was widely reported through much of September. [New York Times, 9/13/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/15/2001; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/16/2001; Miami Herald, 9/22/2001; Newsweek, 9/24/2001; Time, 9/24/2001] However, beginning on September 15, a second story appears. [Toronto Star, 9/15/2001] This story is similar to the first, except that here, Atta is playing video games and drinking cranberry juice instead of vodka, and Alshehhi is the one who argues over the bill and pays. After some coexistence, the second story seems to have become predominant in later September. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Washington Post, 9/22/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 9/27/2001; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 11/12/2001; Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002]

Before September 11, 2001: Hijackers Drink Alcohol and Watch Strip Shows, Especially towards Eve of Attacks
A number of the hijackers apparently drink alcohol heavily in bars, sleep with prostitutes, and watch strip shows in the US in the months and especially the days leading up to 9/11.

• In late February 2001, hijacker Ziad Jarrah frequents a strip club in Jacksonville, Florida (see February 25-March 4, 2001).
• In July 2001, hijackers Hamza Alghamdi and Marwan Alshehhi make two purchases of “pornographic video and sex toys” from a Florida store (see July 4-27, 2001).
• Some hijackers, including possibly Satam Al Suqami and Waleed and Wail Alshehri, sleep with prostitutes in the days before 9/11 (see September 7-11, 2001).
• On September 10, three hijacker associates spend $200 to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks in the Pink Pony, a Daytona Beach, Florida strip club. While the hijackers had left Florida by this time, Mohamed Atta is reported to have visited the same strip club, and these men appear to have had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks (see September 10, 2001). [Boston Herald, 10/10/2001]
• Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta are seen entering the Hollywood, Florida, sports bar Shuckums already drunk. They proceed to drink even more hard alcohol there (see September 7, 2001).
• Atta and Alshehhi are seen at Sunrise 251, a bar in Palm Beach, Florida. They spend $1,000 in 45 minutes on Krug and Perrier-Jouet champagne. Atta is with a tall busty brunette in her late twenties; Alshehhi is with a shortish blonde. Both women are known locally as regular companions of high-rollers. [Daily Mail, 9/16/2001]
• A stripper at the Olympic Garden Topless Cabaret in Las Vegas, Nevada, later recalls Marwan Alshehhi being “cheap,” paying only $20 for a lap dance. [Cox News Service, 10/16/2001]
• Several hijackers reportedly patronize the Nardone’s Go-Go Bar in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They are even seen there on the weekend before 9/11. [Boston Herald, 10/10/2001; Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2001]
• Majed Moqed visits a porn shop on three occasions and rents a porn video. The mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, later says of the six hijackers who stayed there, “Nobody ever saw them at mosques, but they liked the go-go clubs.” [Newsday, 9/23/2001; Newsweek, 10/15/2001]
• Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar often frequent Cheetah’s, a nude bar in San Diego. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002]
• Marwan Alshehhi is possibly seen in the Cheetah nightclub in Pompado Beach, Florida, on July 1, 2001. Six dancers who work there later claim to have seen him. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 173 pdf file]
• Hamza Alghamdi watches a porn video on September 10. [Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2001]
• Temple University in Philadelphia professor Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub will later comment: “It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam…. People who would kill themselves for their faith would come from very strict Islamic ideology. Something here does not add up.” [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/16/2001]

So, it seems that the hijackers who may have been Muslim, weren’t as Muslim as we have been led to believe. It doesn’t matter though, because 9/11 wasn’t a Muslim crime. It was a crime.

The post 9/11 Was Not A Muslim Crime appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.