"Members of the congressional committees investigating the pre-Sept. 11 warnings said yesterday that there is far more damaging information that has not yet been disclosed about the government's knowledge of and inaction over events leading up to Sept. 11. 'We've just scratched the surface,' said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), ranking Republican member of the Senate intelligence committee." [Washington Post, 5/17/02]

With stuff like this small sampling, below, in the public realm, I imagine it would be very interesting to know what Sen. Shelby and his colleagues are seeing and hearing behind closed doors.

late January, 2001: The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who are living in Falls Church, VA - right next to CIA headquarters. This follows previous orders dating back to 1996, frustrating efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [BBC, 11/6/01] FTW

July 10, 2001: FBI Agent Ken Williams in Arizona sends a memorandum warning about suspicious activities involving a group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Arizona. The memorandum specifically suggests that bin Laden's followers might be trying to infiltrate the civil-aviation system as pilots, security guards or other personnel, and recommends a national program to track suspicious flight-school students. The memo is sent to the counterterrorism division at FBI headquarters in Washington and to two field offices, including the counterterrorism section in New York, which has had long experience in al-Qaeda investigations. The memo is ignored in all three places. [New York Times, 5/20/02, Fortune, 5/22/02] FT

July 26, 2001: CBS News reports that Attorney General Ashcroft has stopped flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. But "neither the FBI nor the Justice Department ... would identify [to CBS] what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it." [CBS, 7/26/01] FTW

late July, 2001: David Schippers, noted conservative Chicago lawyer and the House Judiciary Committee's chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial, later claims that lower-echelon FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota contact him around this time and tell him that a terrorist attack is going to occur in lower Manhattan. According to Schippers, the agents had been developing extensive information on the planned attack for many months. However, the FBI command pull them off the terrorist investigation and threaten them with prosecution under the National Security Act if they go public with the information. As a result, they go to Schippers in hopes of prompting someone influential to persuade the government to take action. Schippers tries to pass the information on to high government officials but his efforts apparently are ignored. Partly in conjunction with Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm, he is now representing at least ten FBI agents in a suit against the US government in an attempt to have their testimony subpoenaed, which would enable them to legally tell what they know without going to jail. [Judicial Watch, 11/14/01, Alex Jones Show, 10/10/01, World Net Daily, 10/21/01,

August, 2001: The French magazine Maximale and the Moroccan newspaper al-Ittihad al-Ichtiraki later simultaneously report that a Moroccan agent named Hassan Dabou had penetrated al-Qaeda to the point of getting close to bin Laden by this time. Dabou claims he learns that bin Laden is "very disappointed" that the 1993 bombing had not toppled the WTC, and plans "large scale operations in New York in the summer or fall of 2001." Dabou is called to the US to report this information directly, and in so doing blows his cover, losing his ability to gather more intelligence. The International Herald Tribune later calls the story "not proved beyond a doubt" but intriguing, and asks the CIA to confirm or deny, which it has not done. [Agence France Presse, 11/22/01, International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, London Times, 6/12/02] FTW

early September, 2001: According to a detailed 13-page memo written by Minneapolis FBI legal officer Coleen Rowley, a single Supervisory Special Agent in Washington expends extra effort to thwart the field office's investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, in one case rewriting Rowley's affidavit for a search warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop. Rowley's memo uses terms like "deliberately sabotage," "block," "omitted," "downplayed," "glossed over," "mischaracterize," "improper political reasons," "deliberately thwarting," "deliberately further undercut," "suppressed," and "not completely honest." The superiors acted so strangely that some agents in the Minneapolis office openly joked that these higher-ups "had to be spies or moles ... working for Osama bin Laden." Rowley later ironically notes that the Supervisory Special Agents who had committed these deliberate actions were promoted after 9/11. [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/28/02, see an edited version of the memo here: Time, 5/21/02] FTW

early September, 2001: An FBI internal document, based upon field notes from Minnesota field agents, discloses that these agents had been investigating and had questioned the "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. The field notes specifically speculate that Moussaoui might crash an airliner into the WTC. The agents have no knowledge of similar frustrations in the FBI office in Phoenix. One news story states that agents are in "a frenzy," absolutely convinced that he is "going to do something with a plane," but FBI higher ups don't seem interested. [Newsweek, 5/20/02] FTW

Yet, incredibly...

Supposedly, on 9/11, there are only 4 fighters on ready status in the Northeastern US, and only 14 fighters on ready status in the entire US. [BBC, 8/29/02]

And on Black Tuesday itself, DC's channel 8 was reportedly broadcasting that Flight 77 was heading toward the nation's capital, yet ...

After 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman will say to the press, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's event, anyone would have expected anything like that here." [Newsday, 9/23/01] FTW

But...

Judge went further down this path in describing a march he organized in the late-1990s. The march, "A Day Without The Pentagon," was to end at the Pentagon, and Judge had to negotiate the physical movements of the marchers with, among others, Pentagon security. Judge was shown the absolute limit the marchers would be allowed to go to, explaining that the building was on "Delta Alert," the highest state of alert due to the constant threat of attack, especially by airplanes being flown into the building. Security explained that the threat was so serious the marchers' own safety required they be kept at a specific point on the grounds. Judge observed radar installed on the Pentagon roof, as well as anti-aircraft batteries on the grounds.

my comments in italics and my emphasis

(Full article for the preceding paragraph here)

sp

ps. It is unlikely I will read, let alone respond to the posts of anyone here who does not have the maturity and good judgement to refrain from using foul language in their remarks to me. You know who you are.