NYT: Before 9/11, Warnings on Bin Laden

Before 9/11, Warnings on Bin Laden
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 9, 2005


WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - More than three years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.

The cable was one of two documents released Thursday by the National Security Archive, a research organization at George Washington University that obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act. The other was a memorandum written five days after the 2001 attacks by George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, to his top deputies, titled "We're at War."

The June 1998 cable reported to Washington that three American officials, the State Department's regional security officer, an economics officer and an aviation specialist had met Saudi officials at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh to pass along a warning based on an interview Mr. bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of Al Qaeda, had just given to ABC News.

They said he had threatened in the interview to strike in the next "few weeks" against "military passenger aircraft," mentioning surface-to-air missiles. The cable said there was "no specific information that indicates bin Laden is targeting civilian aircraft," but added, "We could not rule out that a terrorist might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian target."

Part of the Tenet memo had been reported previously in Bob Woodward's 2002 book, "Bush At War." The eight-paragraph Tenet letter was a call to arms, declaring "a worldwide war against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations" and saying that the effort would require "our absolute and total dedication."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/national/nationalspecial3/09documents.html

than anyone thought. Bussh Crime Syndicate did 9-11, make no mistake about it.

try anything to pin the blame on Clinton, but there were no attacks in the U S until after Clinton left office, and we all know from Clark's book what exaactly the bush folks did as for as terrorism...NOTHING!...

FLASH...FLASH..... Bob Woodward will be coming forth with a new book sometime in early 2006. The working title is.......
INSIDE BUSH'S ASS: An IN-DEPTH LOOK

committed against the Clinton Administration by the military (ABle Danger) and those who kept information from him and his National Security staff. The big question is, who knew when, who did they tell, and why didn't the information trickle up to the top?

If I were Woodward, I'd be shitting in my pants because he's already proven that he withholds far too much information, even from his editor.

concerning terrorism while the rest of the country was fixated on the $70 million blowjob.

the issue and was conscious of it. Bush was on vacation and oblivious to al quada during his presidency in the run up to 9/11.

the Clinton folks tried to impression upon the Bush Team how much of a threat bin Laden was when Bush took office in 2001? Of course, Bush needed a new Pearl Harbor event to accomplish his goals, so why would he want to do anything to get in bin Laden's way?

"that Al queda is going to hi-jack a few airline jets and fly them into building in NYC and Washington"

george*: to vague, come back to me when you have better information...

Please share this widely:

https://secure.reopen911.org/freedvd.php

A DECLASSIFIED US cable made public overnight shows that US officials warned Saudi counterparts more than three years before the September 11, 2001 attacks that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft. The State Department cable was not mentioned by the special commission that investigated the attacks on New York and Washington, according to National Security Archives, the non-profit research group that made the cable public.

The cable reports on a meeting between two US embassy officials in Riyadh with Saudi officials on June 16, 1998 to press for increased vigilance at the King Khalid International Airport. "We noted that while we have no specific information that indicates Bin Laden is targeting civilian aircraft, he made a threat during the June 11 ABC News interview against 'military passenger aircraft' in the next 'few weeks,"' the cable said. "Bin Laden also spoke of SAM missiles," the cable said, using the acronym for surface-to-air missiles.


It added that since attacks on US military facilities in the kingdom in 1995 and 1996, Saudi force protection measures had improved. "Consequently, we could not rule out that a terrorist might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian target," it said. After September 11, senior administration officials explained the unprecedented security failure by saying suicide attacks with civilian airliners could not have been imagined. But the cable is the latest piece of evidence that US officials had been aware of the threat to civilian airliners well before then.

National Security Archives also released a newly declassified memo from then CIA director George Tenet to his top aides after the attacks calling for a "worldwide war against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations." "Our unrelenting focus must be on bringing all of our operational, analytical, and technical capabilities to bear, not only to protect the US both here and abroad from additional terrorist acts, but also, more importantly, to neutralize and destroy al-Qaeda and its partners." The confidential memo, dated September 16, 2001, first surfaced in Bob Woodward's best-selling book "Bush at War," the National Security Archives said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17521485%255E1702,00.html

...in this book, Tom Clancy ends it by having a JAL 747 make a direct hit on the US Capitol bldg.

Unthinkable? Only by dunces....

and the bush admin flushed all the advice, recommendations, etc down the toilet.

9-11..

And one could ask if Bush has read anything in 5 years.

I remember telling my Mother in about June of 2001 that is seamed like Bush never seemed to spend any time in Washington and wondering if he his Cabal were even paying attention to what was going on and the REAL threats we face.

If you think back, they had just passed something like 1.1 Trillion Dollars in Tax Cuts, and seemed to want to let all their buddies shake their hands and slap them on the back, so they took a bunch of "victory laps."

Under Clinton a 1998 cable said "We noted that while we have no specific information that indicates bin Laden is targeting civilian aircraft, he made a threat during the June 11 ABC News interview against 'military passenger aircraft' in the next 'few weeks,"' the cable said. And our Bush CIA says it told FAA in 1999 that "Osama bin Laden remains interested in targeting U.S. interests including on U.S. territory. He is well prepared to consider kidnappings and hijackings as well as bombings." And Clinton got a highly classified President's Daily Brief dated December 4, 1998, titled "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks." Reuters does not mention Clinton's daily war room meetings on bin Laden - I wonder why?

And of course Bush got the August 6, 2001, daily intelligence brief that said the FBI had detected "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York," and said that the FBI was conducting about 70 investigations throughout the United States that it considered were related to bin Laden. And Reuters does not mention Bush's lack of meetings on bin Laden despite Sandy Berger telling Bush bin Laden was his biggest problem - I wonder why?


http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-09T171128Z_01_DIT961222_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-WARNINGS.xml

http://tv.reuters.com/index.jsp?fr_story=07929d778ad36e409601b6c965afb9bcc88c95f4

US told Saudis about Qaeda plane threat pre-9/11

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States told Saudi Arabia more than three years before the September 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden might be targeting civilian airplanes, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.

The June 1998 cable, obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act, said the United States had no specific information that al Qaeda was planning such an attack, and did not say it might fly planes into buildings.

A copy of the cable, first reported by The New York Times on Friday, was obtained by Reuters. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals.

The cable, from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to U.S. government officials, said concerns were based on threats bin Laden had recently made against military aircraft in an interview with U.S. network ABC.<snip>

"we never imagined airplanes would be used"

you see it's easy :-)

Probably the same fake eighty percent who allegedly once supported the MonkeyKing!

some lyrics of an old song I never think of. Maybe it wasn't about a cheating spouse but the "nobody" bushites speak of.

"Working late again
I asked who with
You said, nobody
Aah, nobody
Well, your nobody called today
She hung up when I asked her name"

That nobody really gets around.

The rest could have imagined, particularly if the possibility was made evident in a top secret communique that we had read (or should have read).

because he knew that Dimson wanted an attack and would not stand in his way.

between April and September 10, 2001.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3083762

This is the earliest warning that I have seen, though.

foreknowledge.

Which is very handy when the wargames and FAA routing is being done...

http://www.madcowprod.com/mc4512004.html

... our so-called left-wingers on TV will just let it sound anti-Democrat?

And, it will sound like that, by accident of course :sarcasm:, on every channel.

Even though it clearly points to Clinton fighting terror successfully.

:dem:

We have Indira Singh.
http://tinyurl.com/8h65h
http://tinyurl.com/ctmmo

Then, we have Sibel.
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2005042520431369
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2005062112075570

Then, we have FBI investigations spiked.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html

Then, we have 50 some odd FAA warnings.
"The Federal Aviation Administration received repeated warnings in the months prior to Sept. 11, 2001, about al-Qaida and its desire to attack airlines, according to a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the terror attacks. The report by the Sept. 11 commission detailed 52 such warnings given to FAA leaders from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader, Osama bin Laden."
http://tinyurl.com/ba8gw

Then, we have Able Danger.
http://tinyurl.com/d69cd
http://tinyurl.com/bt3ka

Then, we have international warnings.
http://tinyurl.com/c3y7t
http://tinyurl.com/a8k34
http://tinyurl.com/6ulum
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53065,00.html

And the infamous PDB, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S."
Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.
http://tinyurl.com/9wv7u

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense


Nice post Bushwick Bill.

overwhelmingly convict anyone except those that work for the Bush administration, including whores, shills, pimps and Bob Woodward.


All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others ...

A long list beginning in 1994:

"June 1994: A Pentagon-commissioned report concludes that religious terrorists could hijack commercial airliners and crash them into the Pentagon or the White House December 1994: Algerian terrorists hijack an Air France jetliner, intending to crash it into the Eiffel Tower - A French SWAT team storms the grounded plane and foils the plot."

http://www.newwartimes.com/warnings.html

So much for "nobody ever expected that planes would be flown into buildings, eh?

"May, 2002: National security adviser Condoleezza Rice declares, "I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center ... All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.""

other then a nice showcase for pre 9/11 intelligence. 9/11 was an inside job all the way through.Funny how stuff like this leaks out when more and more people start asking questions and getting closer to the truth.