Staff Statement number 17 is entitled “Improvising a Homeland Defense.” This reports details how the highjackers dropped off the FAA radar screen by the simple expedient of turning off the aircraft’s transponders. A transponder is a radio transmitter that tells the FAA air traffic system not only the plane’s position but also its identity and altitude. According to the report the FAA system relies primarily on transponder signals rather than primary radar that bounces a radar beam off of an aircraft.
The Statement then takes us into virtually a minute-by-minute account of the FAA’s actions and that of the military. They report that the highjackers gave the impression that this was an “ordinary” highjacking.
8:24 am - From American flight 11: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you’ll be O.K. We are returning to the airport.”
8:34 am – from American flight 11: “Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves.
8:46 am – American flight 11 hits the World Trade Center.
Elapsed time from ordinary highjacking to impact: 13 minutes.
8:51 am - United 175 changed transponder codes – refuses to answer ATC controller.
8:55 am – Controller-in-charge notifies New York Center that United 175 has been highjacked.
9:03 am – United 175 hits the World Trade Center.
Elapsed time from suspicion of highjacking to impact: 8 minutes.
This is no only fascinating reading, it underscores the incredible stupidity of those who are trying to blame the government for not reacting fast enough to prevent the destruction, like shooting the planes down. From the first hint of trouble at 8:24 am until the second plane hits the World Trade Center, we have exactly 39 minutes. From the time that American 11 hit the South Tower – signaling that this was no “typical” highjacking until the second plane hit was only 17 minutes.
It’s when the staff gets into making judgment calls that the wheels come of their credibility and their biases are exposed.
The staff dismisses the allegation, made by Czech intelligence agents that Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, thus dismissing an Iraqi connection to 9/11. Edward J. Esptein makes some excellent points about the staff’s role and its judgment.
For the original report by Epstein click
here.
Question:
In Staff Statement #16, the 9-11 Commission's staff comes to the conclusion that the alleged 2001 meeting between hijacker Atta and an Iraqi official "never occurred." In reaching that conclusion the staff says it relied on written government documents, a FBI liaison, and its own "judgment calls."
Yet, just four months earlier, CIA director Tenet,testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the same meeting, and came to a different conclusion about whether it occurred: "We can't prove that one way or another." Presumably Tenet had access to the same documents and intelligence reports as the Commission staff.
It is up to the Commission to determine whether the Staff or the CIA Director is correct. What key facts are missing in Staff Statement #16 that the Commission needs to know to make this judgment ?
Answer:
It is the business of the staff to produce evidence
for the committee members to appraise, not to make
"judgment calls" without presenting any evidentiary basis. The staff omits at least seven facts in "Staff statement #16" that the full Commission deserves to know to render its own judgment.
They are:
1) Atta made 2 prior trips to the Czech Republic in 2000 at a time he was engaged in the 9-11 plot. They were the first two trip Atta made outside of Germany after he obtained his US visa.
2) In applying for his Czech visa (BONN200005260024), Atta identified himself as a" Hamburg student."
3) An eyewitness identified Atta as the person meeting the Iraq official, Al-Ani,on the outskirts of Prague on April 9th.
4) Atta's whereabouts is unknown to the FBI on the day in question. The FBI found no witness to his whereabouts between April 4, 2001 and April 11th.
5) The FBI has not been able to determine Atta's purpose in withdrawing $8,000 in cash from his bank account on April 4th.
6) There is no chain of evidence showing that Atta himself was in possession of a cell phone on which billing records indicate calls were made from Florida on April 9th. It is possible he left the phone behind (since it did not function in Europe) and it is possible the phone was used by his roommate or others. The billing records show the whereabouts of a phone, not of Atta.
7) A surreptitious search of the Iraq Embassy (presumably conducted after the defeat of Iraq) showed, according to a Czech official, that Al-Ani had scheduled a meeting on April 8, 2001 with a"Hamburg student." The staff report makes no mention either of the appointment book or of the "Hamburg student."
Frank Gaffney, writing in Fox News, believes that the desire to deny an Iraqi connection is due to the mindset of the man who wrote the report, Douglas MacEachan.
9/11 Commission Fails to Connect Terror Dots
The 9/11 Commission’s (search) conclusion that “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States” does not augur well for the rest of the panel’s inquiry.
If the members of the commission could not connect dots that are all too obvious – or recognize their staff’s inability to do so – it seems likely that their work will fall short in other important areas as well.
[snip]
This sort of proof-by-assertion is all too familiar to those who used to confront the unwillingness of some in the U.S. intelligence community to recognize that the Soviet Union was a state sponsor of terror and a serial violator of arms control agreements. Perhaps, as the communists used to say, the similarity is “no accident.”
As it happens, the staff member who reported to 9/11 Commission members yesterday that there was no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and Al Qaeda was none other than Douglas MacEachin (search) – a man who once held senior positions at the CIA, including posts with the Office of Soviet Analysis from 1984-1989, the Arms Control Intelligence Staff for the next few years, and the job of Deputy Director for Intelligence from 1992 until 1995.
In these capacities, MacEachin appeared to colleagues to get things wrong with some regularity. For example, he was reflexively averse to conclusions that the Soviets were responsible for supporting terrorism. He reportedly rejected as “absurd” analyses that suggested Moscow was illegally developing bioweapons. And, as DDI, he forced CIA analysts to tailor their assessments to please Clinton administration policy-makers.
In short, in the old days, MacEachin refused to believe the Soviets were a threat. Now, he offers support to those who insist that Iraq was no threat. There may be a role for a "see-no-evil" sort of guy, but it should not be at the Central Intelligence Agency — and certainly not at a commission whose charter is to connect the dots, no matter where they lead.
Even as the press had a feeding-frenzy over MacEachin’s statement absolving Saddam of ties to Al Qaeda, fresh evidence of malevolent intentions toward the United States that would have made anti-American collaboration between Saddam and Al Qaeda only natural was supplied by an unlikely source: another old intelligence hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Putin, his intelligence agencies shared sensitive information with the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks and before the United States went to war with Iraq in March of 2003. According to Putin's intelligence, Saddam Hussein’s regime was crafting plans to execute terror attacks against America, both inside and outside of this country.
Thus far, Putin has not elaborated on whether Al Qaeda was also involved with these particular plans. At the very least, however, this information confirms the Bush team’s contention that Saddam dealt deeply in terror and its judgment that to leave Saddam in power would be to invite murderous attacks in the future.
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