I recently had the misfortune to read Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 by Amy Zegart. I have to say it is the very worst book I have ever read abut 9/11. It was even worse than this+one, which, as you can appreciate, is difficult, and it was way, way worse than this+one, this+one and this FBI press release. I haven’t read this one yet, and I anticipate it will be a lot, lot worse even than Zegart’s attempt, but you never know.

Basically, Zegart takes the 9/11 Commission’s no-fault thesis to the nth degree by claiming the whole thing was systemic failure and holding no individual accountable for his or her failures.

I copy/pasted the entire article to preserve it (see following the url) but the last 6 paragraphs are especially significant to 9/11 and the deep state, so I've also copy/pasted them just below - loose nuke

Another memorandum disclosed that a Defense Intelligence Agency employee said that in May 2002, in response to a Congressional inquiry, the Joint Forces Intelligence Command provided false information about its activities related to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks. The document offered few details.

The Justice Department also released other documents Wednesday from other Freedom of Information Act lawsuits related to national security policies during the Bush administration.

Among them was a letter written in 2002 by George J. Tenet, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, suggesting that a C.I.A. ban on using journalists as spies was not airtight.

December 11, 2009
Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

also see these by George Washington:
5 Reasons that Corporate Media Coverage is Pro-War
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/5-reasons-that-most-corporate-med...

A Cheaper and More Effective Military Strategy for Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/better-military-strategy-for.html

What Empires Have Said Throughout History: "One More Surge"
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/what-empires-have-said-throughout...

------
Subject article:
Little Known Facts About Afghanistan and Bin Laden - George Washington
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/did-us-fail-to-provide-evidence-o...

Evidence which has come out over the last couple of years makes it clear that top Bush administration officials knew that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction and knew that Saddam had no connection with 9/11.

It is now reasonably obvious that the Bush administration was looking for an excuse to oust Saddam, and - in the words of the Downing Street Memo - “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/blackwaters-prince-cia-role/
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001

VF exclusive: Blackwater’s Erik Prince to step down, reveals CIA role

By Raw Story
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

erikprinceblackwaterceo VF exclusive: Blackwaters Erik Prince to step down, reveals CIA role 'Power struggle' inside Blackwater over Prince's successor

Blackwater's Erik Prince was recruited as a CIA agent in the years after the 9/11 attacks, says an exclusive report at Vanity Fair that also reveals the billionaire ex-Navy SEAL plans to step down from Blackwater to teach high school.

For the past six years, Prince "appears to have led an astonishing double life," writes Adam Ciralsky. "Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s CEO and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the CIA’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into 'denied areas'—places US intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies."

Also see: CIA Foreknowledge of the Mumbai Attacks
http://www.911blogger.com/node/18691 - loose nuke

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Is-Headley-an-American-agent-wh...
Is Headley an American agent who turned rogue?
TNN 27 November 2009, 01:26am IST

NEW DELHI: It's a plot that could be straight out of the bluff-and-double-bluff worlds created by John le Carre and Frederick Forsyth. Only, it
seems to have played out in real life, to the tragic misfortune of hundreds of innocent people. The tantalising possibility that David Coleman Headley may have been a US undercover agent who turned rogue is vexing many here as American authorities keep the US-based Lashkar jihadi out of the reach of Indian investigators.

To make the tale even more dramatic, Headley may just have provided American intelligence agencies information that prevented a Lashkar attack on Mumbai in September. The theory -- and it's still a theory -- is that Headley was used to infiltrate the Lashkar, but gradually went astray under the influence of the very terrorists he was supposed to be spying upon.

Mind Your Tweets: The CIA Social Networking Surveillance System by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, October 27, 2009
Antifascist Calling... - 2009-10-24

That social networking sites and applications such as Facebook, Twitter and their competitors can facilitate communication and information sharing amongst diverse groups and individuals is by now a cliché.

It should come as no surprise then, that the secret state and the capitalist grifters whom they serve, have zeroed-in on the explosive growth of these technologies. One can be certain however, securocrats aren't tweeting their restaurant preferences or finalizing plans for after work drinks.

No, researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy as proverbial bees building a "total information" surveillance system, one that will, so they hope, provide police and security agencies with what they euphemistically call "actionable intelligence."

Build the Perfect Panopticon, Win Fabulous Prizes!

CIA paid millions of dollars to ISI since 9/11: Report
IANS 16 November 2009, 12:24pm IST

LOS ANGELES: The CIA has paid millions of dollars to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since 9/11, accounting for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency's annual budget, says a media report.

The ISI also collected "tens of millions of dollars through a classified CIA programme", which pays for the capture or killing of wanted militants, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday citing current and former US officials.

An intense debate has been triggered within the US government due to "long-standing suspicions that the ISI continues to help Taliban extremists who undermine US efforts in Afghanistan and provide sanctuary to al-Qaida members in Pakistan".

But US officials have continued to make the payments as ISI's assistance is considered critical: "Almost every major terrorist plot this decade has originated in Pakistan's tribal belt, where ISI informant networks are a primary source of intelligence."

Re: "Shining a Light on the Roots of Terrorism"
http://counterpunch.org/mcgovern11162009.html

Ray,

Letting the "elephant out of the bag" on 9/11 would of course require the word "treason." You're a bright, studied guy. You know this.

Further, if your intent is to fight terrorism, as the article positions itself, then western INTELLIGENCE support for terrorism should be front and center. From Mujahadeen in 1979 to KLA in the 1990s, Jundullah and MEK today, and Alpha 66, death squads on most continents and other seedy CIA connected "terror," this is quite an omission.

Besides the Israeli question -- which is all well and good, but not the whole story by a long shot -- we have US ALLIES supporting Islamic terrorist networks.

Further, these networks could not have accomplished 9/11 or numerous other attacks without treasonous support by US leaders and their allies in the Saudi Arabian government, the Pakistani government and elsewhere. When are your readers going to see an in-depth analysis of these matters, truly the matters that bear on the issue?

http://surgeeditorials.typepad.com/surge-editorials/2009/10/why-its-impo...

10/31/2009
Why it's impossible to support the war in Afghanistan

It's been eight years since the United States invaded Afghanistan. After all these years many Americans have lost sight of the alleged purpose of our invasion - to hunt for Osamabin Laden and al Qaeda.

What has also been lost is any government inquiry whatsoever into the accuracy of the "smoking gun" evidence that the Bush Administration presented as the final justification for invading Afghanistan - the peculiar "Osama bin Laden confession video".

Released on December 13, 2001, the videotape of bin Laden and associates taking pleasure in the 9/11 attack was seen around the world - over and over again. I remember the 24 hour news channels playing the same scenes practically non-stop while the talking heads told their audiences that this was absolute proof that the United States invasion of Afghanistan a few months earlier on October 7, 2001 was the right action.

After the Carter Administration failed to secure the release of American hostages held by Iran, Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan. Following this, evidence emerged, particularly during the Iran-Contra investigations, that Republicans and CIA operatives, including George H.W. Bush, William Casey and Robert Gates, had sabotaged Carter's negotiations with the Iranians and made their own deal for hostage release. Thus, the phrase 'October Surprise' was coined. The evidence and allegations mounted and eventually caused a crisis of legitimacy, and so a 'bi-partisan' Commission was appointed to 'investigate' the matter. It was chaired by Lee Hamilton, and in January, 1993 a report was released that pretended to 'debunk' the evidence that the October Surprise operation had in fact occurred. Investigative journalist/author Robert Parry, who had investigated these things at the time, has written an account of how the Commission operated under the direction of Hamilton.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=317
The Real Intelligence Failure
By Philip Giraldi
Published 11/04/09

Most Americans believe that we are in a terrible dilemma. An increasing number are uncomfortable with the continuing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and fearful of the consequences of yet another Middle East war, this time against Iran, but most also believe that our country is threatened by dark forces that seek to destroy us and that extreme measures are justified. Few realize that fear alone is bringing about our transformation into a country driven by constant warfare to the detriment of our constitutional liberties.

Ahmed has significantly updated this article and added endnotes - loose nuke

http://www.newint.org/features/2009/10/01/blowback-extended-version/
October 2009 • Issue 426

OUR TERRORISTS: Islamic fundamentalist militants are the enemies of Israel and Western governments, right? Think again. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports.

Once upon a time, the CIA trained, financed and supported Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin networks in Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the end of the Cold War, bin Laden turned against the West and we no longer had any use for him. His persistent terrorist attacks against us for more than a decade, culminating in 9/11, provoked our own response, in the form of the ‘War on Terror’. This is the official narrative. And it’s false. Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11.

The CIA’s jihad

I (Student) found this at Truthout. It speaks of 'deep' politics -- even if in a mild way -- more clearly than usual whether in mainstream or more alternative news.

What Obama Is Up Against

Monday 02 November 2009

by: Russ Baker, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

The first anniversary of Barack Obama's historic election finds many of his supporters already grousing. Fair enough: Obama has been more vigorous in some areas than others. But one essential question goes unasked: How much can any president accomplish against the wishes of recalcitrant power centers within his own government?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're already spying on social media...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10378741-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&t...

Visible Technologies, a company that monitors online social activity and packages the findings for clients, has forged a "strategic partnership" with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's not-for-profit investment arm, to give the organization insight into social media.

The deal was first reported on Monday by Wired.

According to Visible Technologies, In-Q-Tel is also investing in the company through a "technology development agreement." It did not release more details than that.

However, examining Visible Technologies' work may offer insight into what In-Q-Tel has in mind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html?_r=1
C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: October 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior.

For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.

The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role.

http://pacificfreepress.com/news/1/4874-mad-media-bedfellows-amy-goodman...

The Wonderful World Of Unbalanced Media,
Is Amy A CIA Agent?, BECK BLASTS FREE PRESS
by Danny Schechter
Beckian demagogues on the Left too: New Pacifica Mishigas' attack on Amy Goodman as a CIA agent.

Goodman: Paid by CIA to cover-up 9/11 Truth?

Christopher Condon, an ally of Pacifica’s interim director Grace Aaron, last month introduced a resolution at a meeting of the Pacifica National Board’s Governance Committee targeting Democracy Now! over allegations that is is being secretly funded by the CIA.

The action, which would require every Pacifica programmer to disclose all sources of funding above $5000 and related contracts, passed the Committee and is before the Pacifica National Board, meeting in Houston this weekend, for approval.

NY judge: CIA can keep 9/11 videotape info secret

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (AP) – 4 hours ago

NEW YORK — A New York City judge says he won't order the release of hundreds of documents the CIA has refused to make public regarding the destruction of videotapes of detainee interrogations following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled Wednesday after viewing a few of nearly 600 documents related to the CIA's 2005 destruction of videotapes documenting new harsh questioning techniques.

He said a federal judge must defer to the CIA director in assessing information related to such an issue of national security.

The judge also said he probably would have ruled on the same grounds that the videotapes would not have to be released if they had not been destroyed.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union says he doesn't know if he'll appeal.

Source: Auburn Journal
Submitted: 9/18/09 03:27 PM
Url: http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/130016.html

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy's oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:

"All the [intelligence services] of America and Europeknow well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part in Iraq [and] Afghanistan."

Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.

The name of the CIA officer who ran Alec Station, the agency’s bin Laden unit, in the run-up to 9/11 can be revealed. Known by a variety of aliases in the media until now, such as “Rich” in Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, “Richard” in the 9/11 Commission report and “Rich B” in George Tenet’s At the Center of the Storm, his real name is Richard Blee.

Blee was a key figure in the pre-9/11 intelligence failures, the CIA station chief in Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora and instrumental in setting up the Bush administration’s rendition and torture policies.

I confirmed Blee’s identity in this document, notes drafted by a 9/11 Commission staffer, apparently in preparation of the drafting of the final report. The notes were found along with thousands of other 9/11 Commission files at the National Archives by History Commons contributor Erik Larson, who uploaded them to the 9/11 Document Archive at Scribd. I previously blogged other interesting aspects of the notes here and here.

Blee is mentioned several times in the 9/11 Commission’s files, but his name is always redacted, as it has been in the media until now. However, in one case the people doing the redactions let it slip past them.

Former CIA agent's eight years hunting bin Laden in Pakistani badlands

Tim Reid in Washington

Art Keller, a blond, blue-eyed CIA agent, sits inside a decrepit building deep inside al-Qaeda territory, staring at his computer screen. He is forbidden by his Pakistani minders from venturing out into the badlands of Waziristan to help to find and kill the world’s most wanted man.

He is sick and exhausted, and suffering from food poisoning. Back home in the US his father is dying of cancer. The plumbing is basic, the heat intense — the generator has failed again. He pores over cables looking for any scrap of information — an intercepted phone call, an aerial photograph — that might finally end the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The fruitless search has essentially been outsourced by the US to a network of Pashtun spies run by the Pakistani intelligence services.

Gall, hypocrisy, disinformation, war mongering

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI05Ak02.html

Middle East - Sep 5, 2009

Taliban's bombs came from US, not Iran
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - In support of the official United States assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to Iranian military assistance.

But the Taliban commander's claim is contradicted by evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban themselves that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

One of the biggest pieces of news in the last couple of weeks has been the release of the CIA inspector general's report into the usefulness, or rather lack thereof of its torture techniques. It has been practically everywhere, but one thing that has been lost is that there were a whole bunch of supporting documents released from the inspector general’s investigation. One of these caught my eye in particular.

It is a memorandum drafted by an inspector general employee about a 16 July 2003 interview of a female CIA officer who appears to be very involved in the agency’s rendition and torture programme.

The officer said the agency judged the success of the programme by "the quality of the information" detainees provide. The report adds:

A document recently found in the National Archives shows that the CIA station in Yemen knew that al-Qaeda leader and USS Cole bombing mastermind Khallad+bin+Attash had attended the organisation’s Kuala+Lumpur+summit. However, other information proves that the Yemen station never communicated this to the FBI, even though it was working closely with FBI investigators into the Cole bombing. This raises questions as to why the CIA station in Yemen failed to pass this information on and whether this failure was part of a wider agreement to withhold information from the bureau.

How a Detainee Became An Asset
Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding

By Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 29, 2009

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials."

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

Please read my article entitled, "A "Working Relationship To Fund, Train, And Use Terrorists For Terrorist Activities?" Also, here's a small collection of articles I've collected with regards to the below article. - Jon

Source: www.dawn.com

Tuesday, 25 Aug, 2009 | 09:34 PM PST |

ZAHEDAN: A top Sunni rebel who is awaiting execution in Iran said on Tuesday that his militant group received orders from the United States to launch terror attacks in the Islamic republic.

Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of shadowy Jundallah (Soldiers of God) group leader Abdolmalek Rigi, told reporters his brother was an Al-Qaeda point man in Iran six years ago but that later the group broke off ties with him.

Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions
A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/213188

PHOTOS
A Torture Timeline
For hundreds of years, atrocities have been committed in the name of empire-building, religion or national security

By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 21, 2009 | Updated: 6:58 p.m. ET Aug 21, 2009
A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.

I have found a photograph of Tom+Wilshire, the CIA officer involved in pretty much all the pre-9/11 intelligence failings. It is here. I don't reproduce it here for reasons of copyright, although I guess I could claim fair use. The photo was taken when he testified to Congress about the al-Qaeda threat in late 2001.

I have to say he looks a lot older than I thought he was, but I guess people never seem the way you imagine them.

I also read a lot of articles about the testimony and found the transcript. They all refer to him as Tom Wilshere (with two "e"s), so perhaps this is the correct spelling of his name and the one we use is wrong. We got the spelling from Lawrence Wright, who mentioned Wilshire in his 2006 Pullitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower and a New Yorker article that accompanied the book, but was focused on FBI agent Ali+Soufan.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/guantanamo/story/1179756.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

U.S. military defense lawyers for accused 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh cannot learn what interrogation techniques CIA agents used on the Yemeni before he was moved to Guantánamo to be tried as a terrorist, an Army judge has ruled.

Bin al Shibh, 37, is one of five men charged in a complex death penalty prosecution by military commission currently under review by the Obama administration. He allegedly helped organize the Hamburg, Germany, cell of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers before the suicide mission that killed 2,974 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

But his lawyers say he suffers a ``delusional disorder,'' and hallucinations in his cell at Guantánamo may leave him neither sane enough to act as his own attorney nor to stand trial. Prison camp doctors treat him with psychotropic drugs.

Army Col. Stephen Henley, the military judge on the case, has scheduled a competency hearing for mid-September.

"US 'waterboarding' row rekindled"
BBC, July 13, 2009

Fresh claims have emerged that a key al-Qaeda suspect was waterboarded before the Bush government lawyers issued written authorisation to do so.

A former CIA agent has told the BBC that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded by the CIA in May or June 2002.

The date was provided by former CIA agent John Kiriakou. The practice was sanctioned in written memos by Bush administration lawyers in August 2002.

The CIA says waterboarding did not take place before August 2002.

Officials have refused to tell the BBC when it did occur.

Legal memos

Mr Kiriakou led the CIA team that captured Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan on 28 March 2002, and was the first to speak to the badly injured captive before returning to the US.

There he monitored the internal communications that came in (cable traffic) on Abu Zubaydah's interrogation at a secret CIA prison from the organisation's headquarters in Virginia.