9/11: Criminal Incompetence and Ass-Covering by the Bush Administration

Posted on by WashingtonsBlog

14 Facts Which Show Criminal Negligence and Ass-Covering

On this eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, we would like to take a look back at what went wrong.

While the Bush administration tried to make its response to 9/11 its crowning achievement, the truth is that they acted with criminal incompetence and ass-covering.

(1) The U.S. is at least partly responsible for creating Al Qaeda.  For example, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser admitted on CNN that we organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of “Al Qaeda” in the 1970s to fight the Soviets.

Professor of strategy at the Naval War College and former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer John R. Schindler documents, the U.S. supported Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda terrorists in Bosnia.

(2) The chair of the 9/11 Commission said that the attack was preventable.  It is thoroughly-documented that an attack such as 9/11 was entirely foreseeable.  Specifically, Al Qaeda flying planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was something which American military and intelligence services – and our allies – .

(3) U.S. intelligence services have repeatedly infiltrated Al Qaeda and related groups, but then idiotically failed to stop them.  For example – as the New York Times, CBS News and others reported – the FBI informant involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center begged the FBI to substitute fake bomb power for real explosives, but his FBI handler moronically let real explosives be used.

Similarly – as reported by Newsweek, the New York Times and others – an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to 2 of the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the U.S., but then stupidly failed to stop them.

Indeed, former counter-terrorism boss Richard Clarke theorizes that top CIA brass tried to recruit the hijackers and turn them to our side, but were unsuccessful. And – when they realized had failed – they covered up their tracks so that the FBI would not investigate their illegal CIA activities , “malfeasance and misfeasance”, on U.S. soil.

In other words, our intelligence services’ attempts to infiltrate and work with people inside of terrorist cells was horribly botched; and they did a horrible job of stopping terrorist attacks once they were set in motion.

(4) Dick Cheney was in charge of all of America’s counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. See this Department of State announcement and this CNN article.  As such, at least part of the blame for failing to stop the attacks is on his shoulders.

(5) The Energy Task Force chaired by Dick Cheney prior to 9/11 collected maps of Iraqi oil, Saudi and United Arab Emerates fields and potential suitors for that oil. And you might have heard that the oil bigs attended the Task Force meetings.

According to the New Yorker – a secret document written by the National Security Council (NSC) on February 3, 2001 directed NSC staff to cooperate fully with  the Energy Task Force as it considered the “melding” of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy:

“The review of operational policies towards rogue states,” such as Iraq, and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields”.

It is difficult to brush off Cheney’s Energy Task Force’s examination of arab oil maps as a harmless comparison of American energy policy with known oil reserves because the NSC explicitly linked the Task Force, oil, and regime change.

The above-linked New Yorker article quotes a former senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the NSC said:

If this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans.

See also this essay.

Is that why idiot Cheney – the guy in charge of all terror protection efforts before and on 9/11 – failed to effectively respond to 9/11 with normal air defense?  Was he too busy pining over Iraqi oil maps to pay any attention?

(6)  The military – under the idiot Vice President’s command that day – didn’t scramble enough fighter jets, and then scrambled jets far over the Atlantic Ocean, in what Senator Mark Dayton called:

The most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that I’ve ever, under those extreme circumstances, witnessed in the public sector.

Cheney – and the other people in charge of anti-terror response that day – screwed up big time.

But just like the bank CEOs who are rewarded for causing the financial crisis by being given bailouts and subsidies and breaks, the military and intelligence officials who dropped the ball that day have been promoted. As Time reported:

They have basically promoted the exact same people who have presided over the … failure,” says a former Justice Department official, “and those individuals took the same thinking with them.

As the Washington Post reported, no one from the  CIA, FBI or NSA has been reprimanded, punished, or fired for the events of 9/11.

The same is true for the military personnel on watch that day. For example, General Myers, who was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 11th, was quickly confirmed as Chairman two weeks later. General Ralph Eberhart, Commander in Chief of NORAD at the time of the attack, was promoted to head the new “Northern Command” a year after the attack.

Just as with the financial crisis, no one has been punished, and the people who screwed up have been allowed to fail upwards.

(7) On the day of 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney initiated Continuity of Government Plans that ended America’s constitutional form of government (at least for some undetermined period of time.)

On that same day, a national state of emergency was declared … and that state of emergency has continuously been in effect up to today. … even though U.S. military and intelligence officials say that the threat from Al Qaeda is now almost entirely non-existent.

(8) Many of the draconian “national security programs” – such as the Patriot Act, spying on Americans and indefinite detention – overtly approved after 9/11 had actually been implemented or planned before 9/11.  September 11th was used as an excuse to ramp up these programs.

These programs were approved during the Bush administration … but were never terminated by the Obama administration.  In fact, while Obama is a nicer and smarter guy than Bush, top constitutional law professors say that Obama has actually expanded these programs.

(9)  The Bush administration immediately used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to carry out decades-old neoconservative plans to implement regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa.  And see this,

(10) The Bush administration pretended that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11 …  one of the two main justifications for that war.

(11) Allegedly,  Saddam offered to leave Iraq – and the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden - in order to prevent U.S. invasion.  But the U.S. turned down the offers and invaded anyway.

We can’t get the bad guys using peaceful means, now can we?  We have a war to fight!

(12) In contrast, other governments that might actually have sponsored the attacks have been let off scot-free … and have even been given huge amounts of financial support.

(13) As the 9/11 Commission itself notes, as part of its ass-covering efforts, the Bush administration engaged in criminal obstruction of justice.

There are numerous examples of obstruction of justice into the 9/11 investigation, including:

  • The chairs of both the 9/11 Commission and the Official Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 said that Soviet-style government “minders” obstructed the investigation into 9/11 by intimidating witnesses
  • The 9/11 Commissioners concluded that officials from the Pentagon lied to the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements
  • As reported by ACLU, FireDogLake, RawStory and many others, declassified documents shows that Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

Moreover, the CIA videotaped the interrogation of 9/11 suspects, falsely told the 9/11 Commission that there were no videotapes or other records of the interrogations, and then illegally destroyed all of the tapes and transcripts of the interrogations.

9/11 Commission co-chairs Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton wrote:

Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

This is particularly disturbing because the torture methods used were specially-targeted at producing false confessions.  And according to NBC News:

  • Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured
  • At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being “tortured.”
  • One of the Commission’s main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ
  • The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves

The 9/11 Commissioners publicly expressed anger at certain cover ups and obstructions of justice:

  • The Commission’s co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”
  • The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry – said “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened“. He also said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”

And the Co-Chair of the official Congressional Inquiry Into 9/11 – and former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee – has called for a new 9/11 investigation.

(14)  The American government – like many other governments – has long spun accidents and intelligence failures as justifications for war propaganda.   Unscrupulous Americans – just like dishonest people all over the world – have long used deception as a basis for war.

Whatever the details of the screw-ups on 9/11, the Bush administration used the attacks as a justification to promote their agenda.  And – instead of changing the agenda – Obama has continued it.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/911-criminal-incompetence-and-ass-covering-by-the-bush-administration.html

 

Where are their voices now? Do they even care?

Lies, destruction of evidence, malfeasance and misfeasance, Soviet style minders, obstruction of justice! Where in the world is Eric Holder? Does he still refuse to even question those who may have had a part in the crime of 9/11 or at minimum were guilty of dereliction of duty? Is it not in his job description to prosecute criminals regardless of their status, titles or positions of importance? Is he choosing to let those "above the law" just go on about their life? Why haven't Thomas Kean, Lee Hamilton, John Farmer, Timothy Roemer, Bob Kerrey, Mark Dayton, and the FBI opened a new investigation as called for by Bob Graham, head of the Senate intelligence "?" Committee on September 12, 2011? Why hasn't the mainstream media had the courage to address the above crimes and even the obvious evidence of the destruction of building seven? They use terms like "holding them accountable" with no apparent courage to define "them" or to define accountable "for what", including the largest crime on US soil. We are paying these people to uphold the law not to protect their own. We are paying them to examine the evidence, not cover it up. Writing our congressmen is futile, but we should still go through the motions. This coming election will still be based on the monotonous questions that avoid significant issues facing the competence of those leading our country. The debate moderators could ask, for instance, what will your administration do regarding a new investigation of 9/11, the largest unsolved crime in US history? Do they really want to know? Can the American people handle the truth? These are basic questions?

I meant to add:

Thank you to 911 blogger, ae911truth, Washington's blog, Kevin Ryan, Richard Gage, Paul Craig Roberts and all those who care enough to fight the criticism in order to get to the truth. Yes, we can handle the truth. Those who can't , better wake up. Handle it now. Later may well be ugly and we may not have the power to overcome evil.

Where is Eric Holder?

Eric Holder is too busy pursuing Bradley Manning and Julian Assange - for proposing and offering democratic transparency.

He sat behind Assange's Lawyer Jennifer Robinson in the Bradly Manning court room. Robinson asked him if he was going after Assange and his reply was very dodgy. Look it up.

Those who used to look up to the US as an upholder of international law, justice, democracy and freedom of speech - no longer do so.

the hard, sad part is that

the hard, sad part is that this type of great article doesn't make it to the general public---unless we copy main points and distribute on bulletin boards, telephone poles, letters to editor, radio call in shows, put good books and 'experts speak out' movies in libraries, distribute aestuff .... it's a slow way to go, but seemingly the only way. daily conversations ( i always link the powerful work of kevin ryan) with and handouts to those 'not in the know' are the necessary means, but oh so difficult.

i know i'm a pain in the neck/probably spam to most of my email list/friends. keep creatively thinking. put good website links on all the mail/bills you send out. write 'your' public radio/tv stations telling them of cptv's courage and that you'd rather donate to them out of state than your own absent their courageous turn to cover 911 truth fairly. politely, factually respond to/bring up conversation at any comment section at salon, huffpo, etc with a possible connection to subject at hand.

any word from the colorado visibility project (after their fantastic public presentation via colorado public tv!!) whether they can summon a presence at the free press media reform conference?? deadlines for submission of table ideas is sept 10.

these self proclaimed 'progressives', such as the peace movement's unac (united national antiwar coalition), and the phony 'alternative press' need the confrontation (gentle/persuasive?) and realization that they are failing to deal with the most important 'issue' of the century. their cowardly, ignorant (sadly uninformed?)and smugly superior attitude toward the 'conspiracy theorists' needs to be exposed for the corporate/power controlled complicity it is.

while saying this, i remember it is kevin ryan's demeanor, and richard gage's, that i most admire and try to emulate.

actions

a great example is wayne coste's successful 'coup' at the unac peace conference in stamford where he succeeded in showing the eso dvd to around 50 (?) folks not formerly informed, and confronted many more of the 500 conference attendees as they passed his informative 'bootleg' hallway display, with the problem of censorship by the peace movement. perhaps next year they'll allow us a table. similarly, his ''let the architects in" campaign in providence was a greatly inspiring action.

wow, even if 9/11 was not an inside job

Bush, Cheney & Co. really need their asses kicked. However, we know it was and they deserve to be hanged for high treason and then dragged behind a bus for a thousand miles.

Where Are the Sleeper Cells?

NYPD has been spying on Muslims with the help of the CIA in NYC and surrounding states and found nothing. What happened to the sleeper cells? Hell, they couldn't find anything in Jersey City home of the Blind Sheikh. Surely there would be something, anything, even a sick and ailing terrorist who couldn't get away or some dupe that was in on something he didn't understand so thought he was safe. They found zip, nada. Wouldn't there be some old terrorist stuff lying around like papers or hard drives? I bet if a lot of you looked around you could find your eighth grade report card. So, the largest police force in the world along with the largest and most heavily funded intelligence service found nothing relating to terrorists, not a brother-in-law or a friend of a friend or a pen pal, nothing. So, where are the sleeper cells? And why didn't the press go: "hey wait if the Muslims are clean then maybe, just maybe........"