9/11 Commission, Al-Qaeda in Italy, Hijackers - 9/11 Timeline Additions for Week Ending March 30, 2008
New entries this week cover a wide variety of topics. Regarding the 9/11 Commission, members and staff were dismayed by Laurie+Mylroie's+Iraq-al-Qaeda+potboiler, as was a CIA+expert who had the misfortune to sit on the same panel as Mylroie, and the Jersey+Girls. Staffers were appalled by executive director Philip Zelikow's rewriting of a staff statement to imply Iraqi connections to al-Qaeda, and forced him to back+down. Zelikow finally accepted the lack+of+connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but Vice+President+Cheney did not.
(Sorry about this, but there seems to be a bug in the system and these first few entries aren’t available individually right now. They should be in the near future, but can now be viewed in the 9/11+Commission+Timeline anyway).
In Italy, the Algerian GIA, an organisation thoroughly penetrated by its government that laid+the+foundations for al-Qaeda in Europe, established a base in a Milan+mosque in the mid-1990s. Radicals connected to the mosque were arrested in 1998, but the prosecution+was+unsuccessful and the authorities were uninterested+in+a+potential+informer who knew about arms smuggling to the war in Bosnia. Cell members seem to have been incompetent, but were overheard discussing the entry+of+terrorists+into+the+US in early 2001.
Several of the 9/11 hijackers allegedly failed in their attempts to fight in Chechnya, are said to have worked as security staff at Kandahar+airport, and had tickets for afternoon+flights+on+9/11. Fifteen of them were profiled as high risk potential clients by a British banking compliance company, unsurprisingly because of their links+to+terrorism.
Wounded mujaheddin were treated in Londonistan, but the British government refused to extradite a member of al-Qaeda's fatwa committee on car bombing charges, and gave him asylum instead. London-based extremist Abu Hamza travelled to Bosnia and preached+in+Luton.
Following on from the BCCI additions last week, the Treasury Department read a "dynamite" report on the bank in 1985, but took+no+action, a plane crash in the same year appears to be linked to both BCCI+and+Iran-Contra, and the bank had links to the A.+Q.+Khan+network. In addition, wanted BCCI suspects were protected+in+Pakistan+and+the+UAE, and the FBI's interest in BCCI figure Ghaith Pharaon was brief.
In the wider world of terrorism finance, in the later 1980s the US and Britain were aware Middle Eastern governments were paying+off+Abu+Nidal, and a major Saudi bank was used to fund+militants, but no+action was taken against it.
A CIA officer known as Rich+B was appointed head of Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit in 1999, but had a poor relationship with the+FBI's+John+O'Neill. Neither that, nor 9/11 stopped him from being promoted to station chief in Kabul in+the+middle+of+the+battle+of+Tora+Bora.
Miscellaneous entries cover the US government's lack+of+interest in the drugs trade in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, al-Qaeda establishing its first base in Arizona in 1986, and proliferator-in-chief Jimmy Carter giving Pakistan's nuclear programme the green+light. The FBI also hired the daughter+of+a+Pakistani+spy, but fired an agent that opposed the hiring because of his support for whistleblower+Sibel+Edmonds.
Finally, CIA legend Billy Waugh drafted a plan to assassinate+bin+Laden in 1991, fought in Bosnia, and ended the debate about possible collaboration between the CIA and al-Qaeda in his autobiography with the words "I+worked+right+there+with+these+al-Qaeda+operatives."
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Nice...
Kevin.
July 9, 2003: ’Jersey Girls’ Lambast Zelikow over Author’s Testimony Linking 9/11 to Iraqi Government
While some find neoconservative author Laurie Mylroie’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission of a terrorist conspiracy between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda to be compelling (see July 9, 2003), others do not. One group that is not convinced is the so-called “Jersey Girls,” the group of widows who lost their husbands in the 9/11 attacks and then worked to force the Bush administration to create the Commission (see March 31, 2003). They lambast Commission director Philip Zelikow for allowing Mylroie to testify. “Jersey Girl” Lorie Van Auken, who has learned a great deal about Mylroie’s theories in her research, confronts Zelikow shortly after the hearings. “That took a lot of nerve putting someone like that on the panel,” she tells Zelikow. “Laurie Mylroie? This is supposed to be an investigation of September 11. This is not supposed to be a sales pitch for the Iraq war.” Van Auken later recalls “a sly smile” crossing Zelikow’s face, as he refuses to answer. “He knew exactly what he was doing,” Van Auken will say. “He was selling the war.” After the hearing, Zelikow informs the staff that he wants them to aggressively pursue the idea of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Author Philip Shenon will later write, “To some members of the staff, Zelikow seemed determined to demonstrate that whatever the evidence to the contrary, Iraq and al-Qaeda had a close relationship that justified the toppling of Saddam Hussein.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 130-134]
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?