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Washington Post
CIA Mistaken on 'High-Value' Detainee, Document Shows
An al-Qaeda associate captured by the CIA and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques said his jailers later told him they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden, according to newly released excerpts from a 2007 hearing.
"They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,' " said Abu Zubaida, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....
Intelligence, military and law enforcement sources told The Washington Post this year that officials later concluded he was a Pakistan-based "fixer" for radical Islamist ideologues, but not a formal member of al-Qaeda, much less one of its leaders.
Abu Zubaida, a nom de guerre for Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, told the 2007 panel of military officers at the detention facility in Cuba that "doctors told me that I nearly died four times" and that he endured "months of suffering and torture" on the false premise that he was an al-Qaeda leader....
Abu Zubaida, 38, was subjected 83 times to waterboarding...
The Palestinian was held at a secret CIA facility after his capture...
Originally posted by twitchythere is a growing problem on the 9-11 forum that needs to be dealt with. I can't really identify specifically when or how it started, but for the last two years or so ATS has seen an influx of a really nasty crowd of these so called 'debunkers'. People who have no interest in discussion or debate, no inclination towards research or learning new information, they are here simply to cause grief, hamper progress and obfuscate or derail threads. Whatever their motives, be it the intentional efforts of agent provacatuers, or just people who lack the decorum to demonstrate civility, they have caused a terrible weakening of the ATS fabric and a great rift in this community. They offer nothing to this forum but insults and generalizations, I'm utterly sick of it and I've decided to do something about it
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and the nation's intelligence agencies are blocking the release of sensitive information about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, delaying publication of a 900-page congressional report on how the terrorist assault happened.
Intelligence officials insist the information must be kept secret for national security reasons. But some of the information is already broadly available on the Internet or has been revealed in interim reports on the investigation, leading to charges that the administration is simply trying to avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report.
Source
In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before September 11, Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were on a top level mission in Islamabad, which was barely mentioned by the US media.
Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan's military and intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad. Amply documented, the ISI is known to support a number of Islamic terrorist organizations. (See Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) at www.cfrterrorism.org... )
According to the FBI, Indian Intelligence and several press reports, the ISI Head was instrumental in providing financial support to the 9/11 terrorists. General Mahmoud Ahmad had allegedly ordered the transfer of $100.000 to the presumed 9/11 ring-leader Mohamed Atta.
On the morning of September 11, the three lawmakers Bob Graham, Porter Goss and Jon Kyl (who were part of the Congressional delegation to Pakistan) were having breakfast on Capitol Hill with General Ahmad, the alleged "money-man" (to use the FBI expression) behind the 9/11 hijackers. Also present at this meeting were Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi and several members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. This meeting was described by one press report as a "follow-up meeting" to that held in Pakistan in late August.
When the twin towers were attacked, General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s intelligence service, was, in Senator Graham's own words, "very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States," (Stuart News Company Press Journal (Vero Beach, FL), September 12, 2001).
Bob Graham's description of the General Ahmad, contrasts with that of the Washington Post:
"On the morning of Sept. 11, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed — the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan’s intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban." (Washington Post, 18 May 2002).
Disputed information includes a well publicized warning from an FBI agent that al-Qaida supporters might be training in U.S. flight schools and the names of the president and his national security adviser as people who may have received warnings that a terrorist attack was possible before Sept. 11, one official said.
The joint inquiry, in a Sept. 24 staff report, included portions of the memo and summarized how it was handled and ignored by FBI officials. Most of the memo is on several Internet sites. Now intelligence officials want to block releasing excerpts of the memo.
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate committee during the investigation, said: "The memo should be declassified except for portions that might compromise an ongoing investigation."
The Bush administration also consistently have fought identifying top officials, including the president and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who may have received warnings in 2001 that bin Laden's network planned to hijack commercial aircraft.
As a result, the report includes vague references to "senior administration officials."
"We fought that argument (to name officials) and lost," said Goss. "There's a history in these types of reports, going back many presidencies, that you do not mention the president of the United States, period."
Goss said there was "no cover-up of vital information" and predicted the final report will include some embarrassing details but "no 'gotcha' material about any administration."
Roemer, an Indiana Democrat, said he sees a pattern of "overclassification" by an administration unwilling to disclose information and agencies that reflexively fight disclosure.
When Roemer recently tried to read transcripts of closed-door interviews from last year's probe, the Justice Department blocked him, citing possible executive privilege.
Bush officials relented after Roemer publicly complained the administration was not following its pledge of cooperation with the independent investigation.
Originally posted by Seventh
Great idea, and basically sums up a lot of what you explicitly explained via the lack of replies, keep it going .
Source
A Learjet belonging to the true owner of the Venice flight school that trained both terrorist pilots who flew into the World Trade Center was seized with more than 30 pounds of heroin onboard by Federal Agents in July of 2000 at the Orlando Executive Airport.
Authorities at the time called it the biggest seizure of heroin ever found in central Florida.
The seized plane belonged to 70-year old Wallace J. Hilliard of Naples, FL., multi-millionaire businessman, self-styled Mormon Bishop, and the newly-discovered secret owner of Huffman Aviation at the Venice Airport since its purchase in 1999, just months before terrorists began arriving in force in Southwest Florida.
Hilliard was already well-known in aviation circles as the 'money man' and deep-pocketed financial backer of Rudi Dekkers, according to local aviation observers like chief flight instructor Tom Hammersly, who taught at the Venice Airport while the two flight schools there experienced a flood of Arab student pilots.
"What we heard was that he (Dekkers) had somebody in Naples backing him financially. We all knew that the money he (Dekkers) flaunted was not even his money, that he was just a 'front' man for the man who had the money," stated Hammersly in an interview in "Mohamed Atta & the Venice Flying Circus."...
At the same time their planes were flying back and forth from Venezuela with illegal cargo Hilliard's charter service was also, unbelievably, being utilized at virtually no cost––despite the fact that rentals for Lear jets can run as high as $1,800 an hour––by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Even stranger, both Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris were providing celebrity endorsements to Hilliard's operation well after the company's Lear (N351WB) had been busted by DEA agents armed with machine guns.
Originally posted by twitchy
It is interesting to note that one of the 9-11 comissioners was none other than Ben-Veniste, who defended Barry Seal, drug smuggler extraordinaire who ran coc aine into Mena AK on behalf of the famous Contras during the Bush era CIA's Iran Contra operations and was gunned down in his car with George Bush Sr. personal phone number on him. Bush actually owned Barry's plane for a while.
From the Thread...
A long time regional expert with extensive CIA ties stated publicly in March 2001 that "the CIA still has close links with the ISI," and repeated the claim to CNN in February 2002. [Times of India, 3/7/01, CNN, 2/27/02] An anonymous former senior ISI official has stated, "The biggest problem we have [in Pakistan] are the rogue elements in the intelligence agencies, especially those who at some time became involved with the CIA." [Christian Science Monitor, 2/22/02] At the very least, the ISI may know very embarrassing facts about the US. For instance, they may know a thing or two about CIA involvement in drug smuggling and/or support of bin Laden in the 1980s. [Star Tribune, 9/30/01, Atlantic Monthly, 5/96, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01, UPI, 6/14/01] Unfortunately, Daniel Pearl was killed before he could investigate the connections between the US and the ISI, and no journalist seems willing to explore such dangerous subjects since his death.
Originally posted by LaBTop
Please proceed, I'm sure many of the old posters here, are following the build-up of your highly interesting time line with utmost interest.
I surely do.
Originally posted by twitchy
Originally posted by LaBTop
Please proceed, I'm sure many of the old posters here, are following the build-up of your highly interesting time line with utmost interest.
I surely do.
I'm just glad somebody's reading it
(this is not a one line post)
Originally posted by twitchy
there is a growing problem on the 9-11 forum that needs to be dealt with. I can't really identify specifically when or how it started, but for the last two years or so ATS has seen an influx of a really nasty crowd of these so called 'debunkers'. People who have no interest in discussion or debate, no inclination towards research or learning new information, they are here simply to cause grief, hamper progress and obfuscate or derail threads. Whatever their motives, be it the intentional efforts of agent provacatuers, or just people who lack the decorum to demonstrate civility, they have caused a terrible weakening of the ATS fabric and a great rift in this community. They offer nothing to this forum but insults and generalizations, I'm utterly sick of it and I've decided to do something about it.
Originally posted by OnTheFelt
You have possibly renewed my interest to discuss 9/11 on this forum, which up until now had ceased due to the over abundance of resident trolls.
Source
Correction Appended
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14— The executive director of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has become a witness in the inquiry and has been interviewed by his own staff about his involvement in shaping the Bush administration's early counterterrorism strategy, officials said on Wednesday.
In addition, one of the 10 commissioners on the panel, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, was also interviewed this week. The unusual dual roles of the director, Philip D. Zelikow, and the commissioner, Jamie S. Gorelick, have raised fresh questions about potential conflicts of interest in the commission, which has been dogged by concerns about its independence since it was created in 2002....
Mr. Zelikow declined to be interviewed about the issue because of commission policy, Mr. Felzenberg said. Commission officials said they did not believe that his role as a witness would impede the investigation because he had removed himself from decisions or oversight involving his work on the transition team. But the general counsel is continuing to examine the terms of his recusal to determine whether it goes far enough to avoid any possible conflicts, officials said....
In addition, Ms. Gorelick, one of the 10 commissioners to whom Mr. Zelikow reports, said she had been interviewed this week about her involvement in terrorism policy. She was the top deputy in the mid-90's to Attorney General Janet Reno. Like Mr. Zelikow, she has also recused herself from dealings involving decisions in which she was involved.
Officials said Ms. Gorelick and two other commission members had also withdrawn from involvement in aviation issues because their law firms had airlines as clients. A handful of other staff members besides Mr. Zelikow have recused themselves from specific areas, as well, because of past positions.
Mr. Zelikow and Ms. Gorelick are the sole commission officials known to have been interviewed. They are also the only two commission officials with wide access to highly classified White House documents.
Originally posted by _BoneZ_
Maybe that's why ATS doesn't do anything about them. Maybe ATS has been told that these agents will post here and it's non-negotiable. We have no idea why these handful of people are still allowed to post here. But I'm at the point where I'm done using the "Alert" feature for now and all but done posting here for the time being.
Originally posted by twitchy
... we're all paranoid nut jobs who chase UFO's and Big Foots while wearing our tin foil hats to keep the man off our frequency.
...the only solution really is to prove them wrong.