Former CIA official [Cofer Black]: 9/11 could not be averted

Oh, really- how would you know, Mr. Black?

Black gave the briefing to Tenet that prompted this meeting, among other things:
July 10, 2001: CIA Director Gives Urgent Warning to White House of Imminent, Multiple, Simultaneous Al-Qaeda Attacks, Possibly Within US
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a071001tenetwarnsrice#a071001tenetwarnsrice

Profile: Cofer Black
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=cofer_black

U.S. and Allied Intelligence Services Had Penetrated The Very Highest Levels of Al Qaeda Prior to 9/11 by George Washington
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2008/03/us-and-allied-intelligence-services-had.html

Former CIA official: 9/11 could not be averted By PAMELA HESS – 2 hours ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jAspTsYA50EJNgfFynB9fCjYDcxQD93L89601

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top former CIA official said the intelligence agency had more than 100 Afghans acting as spies before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but told a magazine in a rare interview that nothing could have averted the attacks.

Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, said that looking back, he can't think of a thing "we could have done that would have changed anything." Black, a top executive with Blackwater Worldwide, the security firm, made the comment in an interview published in November issue of Men's Journal.

Black told the magazine that the Taliban was ousted in 10 weeks with just "300 Army special forces and 110 CIA officers" — a statement that ignores the more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and foreign troops that joined the battle in November. But he acknowledges that victory was temporary.

"It was not as effectively followed up as we would have liked, as U.S. military resources were redirected toward Iraq," he said.

He contrasts the capture of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal in Sudan in 1994 and arrest by the French government with the failure to capture al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden so far.

"The CIA played a key role in locating (Carlos) and identifying him, and had comprehensive knowledge of him to facilitate a rendition," Black said. "If there had been a similar warrant for Osama bin Laden's arrest, a similar type of scenario could have been developed."

He said that bin Laden's capture would have a "detrimental effect on al-Qaida." But it will not be a catastrophic defeat for the terrorist organization.

"Someone will rise to take his place, and we will have to deal with it," he said.

Why should we trust Cofer Black?

We have a simple question that hasn't been honestly answered in seven years:

Why did CIA sit on intel related to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar? That appears to be the key to 9/11. Whatever their involvement (hijackers or some sort of double agents), protecting them seemed to ensure 9/11 would take place. We recently had FBI agents Miller and Rossini state that CIA ordered them to withhold this intel from the FBI.

Has a single journalist with access to intel agents pressed them on this question?

Black is nuts

The CIA deliberately withheld information about the hijackers from the FBI and did so repeatedly, even when one of the hijackers they were protecting blew up the Cole. If they had not done so, the FBI would have prevented the plot.

The comment about no warrant is ludicrous. There was a warrant for bin Laden's arrest from Libya issued in 1998:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a041598interpol#a041598in...

Bin Laden was first indicted in the US in June 1998:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a060898indictment&scale=0...

He was indicted by the US again later that year:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a110498indictment&scale=0...

Clinton also authorised the CIA to kill him, but CIA management withheld this authorisation from the chief of its bin Laden unit:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=alate98moredirectives&sca...
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a122698ciadoesntgetit&sca...

I don't know if Black was involved in the withholding of information, but he's either involved in the cover-up or incredibly stupid.

The thing about 100 CIA assets in Afghanistan is not new. It was in Tenet's book in early 2007.

Robert Baer on NPR with Terry Gross last week

http://www.radiodujour.com/mp3/ishedead.mp3

"Of course Bin Laden is dead"

Robert Baer, former CIA middle east operative, is played by George Clooney in Syrianna which is based on a book by Baer.

I think a great bridge for the sleeping masses is to point out things that should be news but aren't reported. I then ask them to research "Operation Mockingbird" at google. I also point out that I was reading and learning about the so-called sub prime mortgage problem years ago.

Ok Cofer...

If you want to play that game...

9/11 Commissioner Tom Kean said 9/11 was preventable, and didn't have to happen. Richard Clarke said that 9/11 might have been prevented. Louis Freeh said 9/11 could have been prevented.

Cofer, do you happen to have a copy of the documentation used during your 7/10/2001 presentation to Condoleezza Rice? We'd really like to see it.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Your question about...

... Black's documentation made me laugh.

But seriously, it wasn't Black who was the main briefer that day it was...
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=rich_b._1

Here's the event:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a071001tenetwarnsrice&sca...

I wonder what the two pieces of information mentioned at the meeting that predicted a "stunning turn of events" were? Could one of them be this?
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=complete_911_timeline_226...
That would certainly make a lot of sense.

There was recently a revelation about Rich B's deputy, Tom Wilshire, saying he deliberately blocked notification to the FBI about Almihdhar's visa. This was one of several events when such information was denied to the FBI and Wilshire was not the only one who withheld it. I would be literally amazed if Rich B was not one of his co-conspirators (because he also withheld information, because of what he knew before 9/11) , which makes me strongly suspect that he was not telling his superiors, including Black, Tenet and Rice, what was really going on.

Have you ever debated someone?


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

I am sure

and all the McManiacs will be singing overtures to this "CIA insight".

Sure Trillion Dollar Space & Air Realtime Continental and GLOBAL Defenses, Multi-Layer Air-Defenses at the Pentagon, MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS FROM TOO MANY OTHER FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, War Games miroring similar strikes, Presidential Secret Service cooling it off at Booker Elementary, Chain-of-Command "MIA" as JCS arranges for subordinates to be "in-charge" on that fateful day.

And of course the clincher.

The Box-Cutters. And 19 men againt 8 PILOTS OF 4 PLANES WITH PROBABLY AT LEAST 6 OF THEM WITH PROFESSIONAL MILITARY DEADLY HAND TO HAND COMBAT TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE.

YEAH. Nobody could have prevented this.

I think Comrade Cofer Black will make a helluva of a good used car salesman. Running on CIA "Natural Hot-Air" Gas.

Ony from our "friends" from Langley.

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The CONSTITUTION is NOT going to "collapse" into pulverized dust no matter how much thermate/explosives or planes they throw at it

Cofer Black

October 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

From this report: “CB: Our assessment that morning was that “the ceiling was falling in,” an attack was imminent against U.S. interests and could very well be within the United States. There was no mystery; we fully expected to be struck, and struck hard. Director Tenet immediately recognized that things had taken a profound turn and there was a need for the upper levels of the U.S. government to appreciate this.

We’re about protecting America, not hoodwinking it.”

Then explain the following Cofer Black: Why then did you and Tenet forbid Tom Wilshire, the former head of the CIA Bin Laden unit from transferring over to the FBI the information the CIA had on Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi and the fact that these two long time al Qaeda terrorists had been at the al Qaeda planning meeting on January 5-8, 2000 with Tawfiq Bin Attash, Khallad, thought at that time by the FBI to be the mastermind of the Cole bombing.

Wilshire had sent his CTC managers, the group you headed, these requests on July 13, 2001 and again on July 23, 2001. This information would have alerted the FBI Cole investigators to these long time al Qaeda terrorists who took part in the attacks on 9/11, and would have focused their attention on finding them in time to prevent the attacks on 9/11. You knew when you forbid Wilshire from transferring this information to the FBI that Khallad had been at that meeting planning the Cole bombing with Mihdhar and Hazmi, a fact you never communicated to the FBI until after the attacks on 9/11, not even to the FBI team investigating the Cole bombing.

Cofer, with holding material information from an on going FBI criminal investigtaion into the murder of 17 US sailors is a crime. Since the attacks on 9/11 and the attack on the USS Cole were planned at the very same Kuala Lumpur meeting, by withholding the information on this meeting from the FBI you allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11. At first it might appear that you did not actually know that withholding this information would allow a huge al Qaeda attack to take place inside of the US.

But what is even more horrific is that Wilshire’s July 5, 2001 email to his CIA CTC mangers, says he is sure that the people at Kuala Lumpur were connected to the warnings of a huge al Qaeda attack and in his email on July 23, 2001 Wilshire says that he is sure that Khalid al-Mihdhar and by association Nawaf al-Hazmi will be found at the location of next big al Qaeda operation. At the time of this email you and Tenet had already told Rice and Clarke in the White House that a huge al Qaeda attack was about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans

On August 22, 2001 FBI IOS Agent Margaret Gillespie working in the CIA Bin Laden unit, a under your CTC group, found that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US and took this information to FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi, an FBI agent Wilshire had already recruited into helping him withhold the information on the Kuala Lumpur meeting from the FBI Cole investigators and criminally obstruct their investigtaion into the Cole bombing. It is clear that Wilshire was sure at that point that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in the huge al Qaeda attack that the CIA already knew about. When Gillespie had the CIA Bin Laden unit issue a world wide alert on August 23, 2001 for Mihdhar and Hazmi, this alert clearly went through out the CIA management hierarchy and right to both you and to George Tenet.

At that point not only did you know that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to carry a massive attack directed at some target inside of the US, but you had been warned that this attack would kill thousands of Americans. But not only did you, after learning this, not do anything to warn the FBI criminal investigators that could have prevented this attack, but you allowed Wilshire and Corsi to sabotage any chance that the FBI Cole investigators, including Steve Bongardt and his team, would have to investigate and find Mihdhar and Hazmi in time to stop the attacks on 9/11.

Of course you were aware that if Bongardt had continued with his investigtaion of Mihdhar, and the photos you and the CIA had been hiding from them of Khallad at the Kuala Lumpur meeting came over to the FBI, you and many people at the CIA would have been arrested for criminally obstructing the Cole bombing investigtaion. But with what you knew, there is no possible way that you were not aware that your action were going to result in the deaths of thousands of Americans, by allowing your own subordinate to sabotage the only investigtaion that could have found Mihdhar and Hazmi in time to prevent this huge al Qaeda attack. You put saving your own worthless hide from going to prison for years above saving the lives of thousands of Americans.

Cofer, in your own words, you claim that: “We’re about protecting America, not hoodwinking it.” Then Cofer Black explain why you allowed you own subordinate, Tom Wilshire on your orders, to criminally obstruct and then to shut down the only investigtaion that could have stopped this huge al Qaeda attack when you knew that this could have prevented the deaths of thousands of people in the US!

Why on earth would he want to avert 9/11!?

He's raking in millions in the global terror war.

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