Well, the good news is, it blows to all hell Rosie O’Donell’s studied, scientific views on the matter… From Newsday:
France’s foreign intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaida was preparing a hijacking plot likely to involve a U.S. airplane, former intelligence officials said Monday, confirming a report that also said the CIA received the warning.
Le Monde newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents on Osama bin Laden’s terror network that were drawn up by the French spy service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001. The documents included a Jan. 5, 2001, intelligence report warning that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot.
Well, that’s not really too specific—but I’m sure it’ll be enough for those who are looking to find evidence that “Bush knew,” even though we’re still talking Clinton-era here.
Still, notes AJ Strata, “Someone needs to ask Condi and Colin if they recall this little matter in their transition briefs.”
And speaking of briefs, now would be a good time to find out just what, exactly, Sandy Berger was stuffing down his.
Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, the former chief of staff for the agency’s director at the time, said he remembered the note and that it mentioned only the vague outlines of a hijacking plot—nothing that foreshadowed the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“It wasn’t about a specific airline or a specific day, it was not a precise plot,” Lorenzi told The Associated Press. “It was a note that said, ‘They are preparing a plot to hijack an airplane, and they have cited several companies.’”
The Sept. 11 commission’s report on the four hijacked flights has detailed repeated warnings about al-Qaida and its desire to attack airlines in the months before Sept. 11, 2001.
In a version declassified last September, the report shows that the Federal Aviation Administration’s intelligence unit received “nearly 200 pieces of threat-related information daily from U.S. intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, CIA, and State Department.”
The French warning, part of which was published in Le Monde, detailed initial rumblings about the plot.
In early 2000 in Kabul, Afghanistan, bin Laden met with Taliban leaders and members of armed groups from Chechnya and discussed the possibility of hijacking a plane that would take off from Frankfurt, Germany, the note said, citing Uzbek intelligence.
The note listed potential targets: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Air France and Lufthansa. The list also included a mention of “US Aero,” but it was unclear exactly what that referred to.
Two of the airlines, United and American, were targeted months later on Sept. 11.
Again, a rather general warning—and it’s not like the US was going to paralyze air travel over vague threats that a terrorist group was planning terrorist acts.
After all, that’s what they spend all day everyday doing. Being, you know, terrorists and all. And the story notes that warnings were being passed on to the FAA daily—though I wonder just how politically correct was the information that was subsequently then passed on to the airlines. That is, were they told to be on the look out for potential hijackers? Or were they given more a profile to work with?
Either way, 911 was not preventable—at least, not without the public being informed about the nature of the threat well in advance. Boxcutters are hardly the hijacking weapons of choice screeners would likely have screened for, and the standard reaction to hijackings had been, until Flight 93—after it became clear to the passengers what the hijackers intentions were—to cooperate with the terrorists.
Condi Rice testified that the nature of the threats they received were so general as to be almost worthless, from an intelligence standpoint. Now, this French document dump seems to back up her testimony.
So the question for conspiracy nuts—not to be confused with Truthers, who are more like conspiracy fruits, given to overripe mental mushiness—is this: how seriously did the Clinton administration take these threats, and what in the world caused Sandy Berger to file documents in his socks and underpants?
I don’t know where I read it, but apparently box cutters were not a part of the arsenal. It’s been a while since the subject came up, so I am remembering imperfectly, but I thought it was determined that regular knives were used.
It might even have been the 9/11 Commission Report that discusses this. I’ll have to dig around.
Yeah, let me know. But unless it was hunting knives, I still think the calculus wouldn’t have changed much.
Just thinking of the potential for paper cuts makes me cringe.
what in the world caused Sandy Berger to file documents in his socks and underpants?
Umm, purloined paper rubbing against his privates makes him tingle?
tw: theres68 “There’s 68 reasons why he would have stolen the documents and none of them have been adequately explained or investigated.”
Here’s something at Slate:
I think the point that I read before was that emphasizing the box cutters gives the government an easy target. If we just take away the box cutters, then everyone will be safe…. In the meantime, we’ve got inspectors completely missing fake (and real!) bombs being snuck (sneaked?) through, along with guns, hunting knives, etc. The TSA is a complete piece of shit, as an institution, and we’re going to see a breakdown of massive proportions sometime soon.
Of all the complaints about the Bush Administration, the complete lack of accountability and workability with DHS and the TSA, in particular, hold the most water for me. If they’re not going to do the job right, get the fuck out of the way, and let the airlines do it. El Al does a spectacular job, and they’re the ones who are primarily responsible for security on their flights–not the Israeli government, not some nebulous world organization.
Oy. I’m off on a rant. Thanks Jeff!
There’s always going to be a problem in that the challenge is for human beings to prevent being outsmarted by other human beings at a 100% rate. Even in the immediate post 9/11 paranoia, Richard Reid found a way to get explosives on a plane that we hadn’t thought of. If that dumb son of a bitch had brought a Bic lighter instead of a book of matches, those 100+ people on that flight would be dead. Then there’s the “mix your own liquid bomb on the plane” plot, which they figured on doing before we figured on stopping them.
The TSA is going to stop the obvious, but a clever, determined attacker will find a way to attack. The saving grace we have is the knowledge of what’s likely to happen when your plane gets hijacked/attacked, and the fact that we know compliance with the terrorist is not a survivable option.
El Al can do what it does because it has a much smaller passenger load, and the fact that it is a private actor. If the TSA did what El Al does, the ensuing screaming about civil rights would make you think that the Patriot Act was an American love letter. Keep inj mind that the minute you try to hijack an El Al plane, they shoot you dead and ask questions later. But even at El Al, there is no such thing as an unbeatable security system.
How much you want to bet that this story mysteriously isn’t reported – just like Feinstein’s leaving of a certain committee – especially if it does indeed reflect poorly upon Clinton & can hurt Hillary?
Regarding box cutters there was at least one box-cutter recovered from Flight 93, which was entered into evidence at the Moussaoui trial. I have also seen some utility knives that I believe came from the same flight. The initial report of box cutters came from Barbara Olsen, aboard Flight 77. However, there are some reports of a gun on Flight 11, and Flight 93 passengers reported seeing a bomb (which was apparently a fake). Some reports also mention “plastic” knives which appears to be a misnomer; apparently these were ceramic knives of great sharpness and durability.
Pat: There are actually plastic knives (made of hard plastics like ABS or Zytel, often with fiberglass reinforcement); not so great for slicing, but excellent for the stabbity.
Now, the ones in question from the reports might well have been ceramic-bladed, but there’s no inherent reason a report of a plastic knife couldn’t be correct.
I hope some 9-11 Truthers come over here and start barking insanity at everyone.
Screw Loose Change cited this post today.
Yeah that doesn’t really help much. Granted, greater scrutiny should have been paid to terrorists before 9/11, and I and others have taken President Bush – and every president before him back to Johnson – to task for that. But this isn’t previous knowledge of 9/1. It’s just information that terrorists planned on highjacking planes. Not exactly a shocking new development, since they’d been doing it for three decades.
I’m shocked. SHOCKED!
You are telling me that there was a french memo on Jan. 5 2001 warning us of the Al Qaeda hijack plot?
That means that Clinton had 15 whole days to deal with the threat and did NOTHING!
Because of these wasted 15 days, Bush was left with a mere eight months to deal with the threat!!!
Clearly Clinton is to blame.
What, you mean Clinton had months and years to deal with Rwanda, North Korea, al-Qaeda (which he later claimed to have given highest priority) and he did NOTHING? I’m totally, totally shocked. I mean, given Clinton’s record of security and foreign affairs triumphs like, uh, well, er there was — no, but then how about ???? er uhm, YOU KNOW!! All those Clinton triumphs, damnit!! You’d know about them if only they hadn’t been suppressed by the Clinton-hating MSM. /leftistloony
You know, I’m a contractor and I used to work for a door company that did a lot of work at the Atlanta airport. One day, in July of 2001 I got a call from a guy we did a lot of work for at the terminal(s). He wouldn’t give me any detail, but he took me to dozens of doors down in the baggage area (Where they load the planes) and told me to get to work pronto and just send the bills. He didn’t know why but this had suddenly become the biggest item on their agenda and there was a panic going on about security. The funny part? Well, we had to redo all of our ID badges for access at the damned place which took oh, about 6 weeks. Unbeleivable. I gotta tell ya, on September the 15th, they were’nt so worried about those doors or ID badges anymore.