Before 9/11, Bush Lost His Spy Cap
Before 9-11, Bush lost his spy cap
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/055...y,71324,6.html
12/27/2005
Bush says he had to spy on the citizenry to ferret out hidden terrorists laying plans with forces abroad to strike us again. This doesn't make much sense, because Bush had been ignoring numerous warnings before 9-11. The question is, why didn't he take action to block Al Qaeda before—not after—the attacks?
Consider what the president and his subordinates ought to have known before the attack. This list borrows from compiler Paul Thompson's exhaustive 9/11 Timeline, based on news reports from around the world.
Early September 2001: The National Security Agency intercepts phone calls from Abu Zubaida, Osama bin Laden's chief of operations, to the U.S. (The content and times are still undisclosed.) Australian intelligence picks up a call from Islamic radical Mamdouh Habib from Pakistan saying something big is about to happen in the U.S. He was subsequently arrested and incarcerated at Guantánamo but let go because captors decided he had no foreknowledge of events. An Australian intelligence official claimed Habib said everyone in Kandahar and Al Qaeda camps knew something was about to happen and said, "There was a buzz."
September 9, 2001: Bin Laden phones his stepmother to say big news will come in two days and she won't be hearing from him for a while.
September 10, 2001: The NSA intercepts at least two Arabic messages. One says, "The match is about to begin." It's later translated as "the match begins tomorrow." Another says, "Tomorrow is zero hour." They were sent between someone in Saudi Arabia and someone in Afghanistan, and the NSA claims they were not translated until September 12.
On the same day, electronic intercepts connected to U.S. undercover agents who supposedly had infiltrated Al Qaeda cells in the U.S. hear messages such as "watch the news" and "tomorrow will be a great day for us." When asked months later why these messages did not lead to boosted security or warnings on September 11, officials explained them away as "needles in a haystack." These reports seem odd because the Congressional Joint Inquiry found that U.S. intelligence was not able to penetrate Al Qaeda.
With reports of these intercepts flying around, along with numerous warnings from foreign intelligence sources—all reported in the U.S. or foreign press—Bush had ample advance warning an attack was in the offing. In fact, according to 9-11 Commission staff reports, the intelligence community literally bombarded the FAA with more than 50 warnings of an Al Qaeda action before 9-11. With all this information at hand, it is hard to believe that the president could not have obtained special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, especially in light of the fact the court seldom turns down such requests.
Why then did the administration avoid FISA and launch its secret spy program, unless it was, as former NSA director Michael Hayden says, to "detect" something, which means Bush set up a dragnet or fishing expedition to investigate citizens just in case he found something that might lead to a case. The Pentagon's illegal secret Able Danger project ought to throw light on the extent to which U.S. intelligence was tracking Al Qaeda hijackers within the U.S. Officials of Able Danger are supposed to testify before the House, but it remains to be seen whether the administration will follow through with its promise to let them speak. If they are allowed to talk, they will only help to build a case against both Bill Clinton and Bush for illegal domestic spying.
In any event it should not have been too difficult for Bush to get around the prohibitions. For example, through international intelligence-sharing pacts, the U.S. could get the British to spy on American citizens inside the U.S. and then make that information accessible to the U.S. through exchange agreements. In his book Iraq Confidential, Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons investigator, relates how, when he was frozen out of information on weapons of mass destruction, he got the British to obtain the information needed from the CIA and pass it on to him.
