French warned CIA of Al Qaeda hijacking plot before 9/11

French warned CIA of Al Qaeda hijacking plot before 9/11

www.freep.com

(AP) PARIS — France’s foreign intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaida was preparing a hijacking plot likely to involve a U.S. airplane, former intelligence officials said today, confirming a report that also said the CIA received the warning.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Now I could be wrong, but does this not look like propaganda to you? Why reiterate Osama Bin Laden like this? "See, Bin Laden planned it, told ya" instead of "See, the CIA knew, told ya". The report is vague, but mentiones that the CIA was indeed warned as early as Januari 2001 about Al-Qaeda planning to hijack U.S. planes. No further details given though.

With the 9/11 Truth movement divided, this seems like perfect timing for a release like this to confirm yet again that "Osama did it".

That the CIA somehow had knowledge beforehand seems irrelevant.

www.freep.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This more or less strengthens the position I hold, that being that, yes the
terrorist attacks were performed by extremest Islamic terrorists, but
powerful people knew about it before hand, and chose not to do anything
about it.


It makes much more sense to me than no one, except the terrorists
knew about the attacks before they happened, and makes a whole h*ll
of a lot more sense than the government being behind them.

[edit on 4/16/2007 by iori_komei]

What do you think about the fact that they would go as far as destroying or making sure WTC 1,2 were completely leveled?

Assuming you care to view those destructions as controlled demolotion that is. If you conclude that the three buildings could not have fallen by fire alone the way they did they must have been rigged, an operation that seems a bit out of Al Qaeda´s league?

So if an element in the Government assisted they went for it all the way, which brings out the question what else (these elements) will be capable of in the (near?) future.

Originally posted by Truth4hire

Assuming you care to view those destructions as controlled demolotion that is. If you conclude that the three buildings could not have fallen by fire alone the way they did they must have been rigged, an operation that seems a bit out of Al Qaeda´s league?

Never underestimate terrorists' ability and capacity to commit mass destruction. People always assumed that terrorists are harmless bastards.

They do train hard you know.

YOU KNOW IT IS A SLOW NEWS DAY WHEN

a revised story hits the headlines 6 years later.

www.newsmax.com...


Not the authors fault just pointing out how desperate the media is for news

Originally posted by iori_komei
This more or less trengthens the position I hold, that being that, yes the
terrorist attacks were performed by extremeist Islamic terrorists, but
powerful people knew about it before hand, and chose not to do anything
about it.
It makews much more sense to me than no on, except the terrorists
knew about the attacks before they happened, and makes a whole h*ll
of a lot more sense than the government being behind them.

Im 100% in agree'ance.
The cordite theory and all that, i feel is dubious.
The only thing certain about that day, is it ONLY happened, because the leaders felt it beneficial to let it occur.

This is just further evidence that the look on GW's face in the classrooom wasnt of shock, or dis-belief..

It was of amazement, quiet achievement...

He always doubted wether they could do it, and now, he had to act like he never knew!

`Hmm. I think it has to do with the fact that some documents pertaining to this were declassified recently:

PARIS - French secret services produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001 looking at the al-Qaida threat to the United States, and knew it planned to hijack an aircraft, the French newspaper Le Monde said on Monday.

The newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents that showed foreign agents had infiltrated Osama bin Laden’s network and were carefully tracking its moves.

Source

You are right though that similar reports came out right after 9/11 involving the FBI, including reports where FBI agents were mad because their pre-9/11 reports were basically ignored.

The recent news seems to pertain to the CIA and official documents showing an actual hijack warning given to the CIA early 2001.

Echoes of Pearl Harbor?

Surely GWB didn't do an FDR and 'let it happen' to achieve his ultimate goal?

Then again it worked the first time so ..........

The 'foreign agents' comment is intriquing - foreign to the French or to the Americans? Does that imply US/Brit/ other ECHELON countries had people inside AQ as this was being planned?

I'd love to know the truth about all this but I suspect we'll all be long dead before anything comes out that'd prove anything for certain.

I look at it as another red flag that should have raised some eybrows in the government but I can look at it in another view and say that although there was some evidence of a terrorist plot being planned, the information was to vague and the government in no way could have expected an attack on the scale that was orchestrated on 9-11. What I mean by vague is that even though there was information pointing to a possible attack it was impossible to pin point any kind of time line that the attack would take place or what by what means except that it could possibly be a highjacking.

Lets face it, prior to 9-11 everyone looked at the threats differently and most western nations, including the United States, received threats on a continuous basis.

I think Condoleezza Rice's testimony to the 9/11 commission better describes it :

"The terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on September 11, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al Qaeda and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans."

"The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late."

Transcript of Rice's 9/11 Statement.







[edit on 16-4-2007 by Empyrean Madness]

[edit on 16-4-2007 by Empyrean Madness]

Aw c'mon.

Your intel service picks up loads of chatter about using an aircraft, other int services report it too.

The scenario of using a hijacked plane as a bomb was well-known well before 9/11. I'm damned sure someone in the FBI etc would have considered the possibilty even without the int clues

So knowing all this no-one in the US govt etc does anything about your very, very lax airport security in place at the time??

Before you guys realised that terrorism is ugly, nasty and brutish and not some game to play on others' shores your airport security could be described as either complacent or just plain incompetent.

When I and others visited the states in the 90's we we're very shocked how poor it was, it compared very unfavourably with European procedures as we'd developed ours to deal with our many terror groups well before the US woke up. [I've personally boarded an international flight out of LAX after bypassing the scanner. I was nipping out for a cigarette every half-hour, the last time they waved me past the queue!!! That would never have happened in the UK/Europe]

It's either a complete cock-up or it's some sort of conspiracy - my money's on the self-interest / cock-up / complacency.

Ms Rice's suggestion this was completely out of the blue / never thought of is just pure BS / deflecting attention away from govt incompetence or perhaps something more sinister

What the hell you expect them to do? How would you plan to stop a hijack plane on a suicide mission. It has never happen on a scale like this before, so there is no common procedures.

Okay, so tomorrow the French tells the US we have intelligence info. that terrorist might nuke the US. What the hell do you do then?? It has never happen before. How r u going to prevent it.

Prior to 9/11 airport security was the responsibility of the airlines. They put just as much money as they could into the program, without dipping into their profits. Security screeners were paid minimum wage, and expected to be happy with it, and catch every single threat that went through the scanner. If they failed an FAA test it could mean their job, because it was a $10,000 fine to the airline responsible for that checkpoint.

Post 9/11 the gov't took over, but we still have just as many problems, because the goal was to just get federal screeners in place. The training was and still is a joke. They were so anxious to push the blame onto the private company screeners that they found ways to make them fail the test to become a federal screener, and make it appear that they were responsible for 9/11, and not the FAA or anyone else.

Yeah i heard about this news like 2 possibly 3 years ago..it's really sad c.i.a is more concerned to spy US citizens through the "echelon program" rather than taking into consideration the infos from foreign intelligence agencies.
Apparently some people say even FBi warnings have been thrown into the trash bin(!?)... crazy
i hope things have changed since this time period

I have a hard time believing this. First of all it was a lucky shot by the terrorist. They caught us with our pants pulled down around our ankles. Had people been doing their jobs that they are paid to do correctly then 911 doesnt happen. It doesnt matter if you plan for such an event for 10-20 years in advance. As long as you have incompetent employees that arnt doing their job correctly it doesnt matter how much you prepare for said event.

I find the statement "they did not expect an attack of this size and were unprepared" rather strange given the fact that NORAD under Dick Cheney´s control was training multiple scenarios on the morning of 9/11, one of which was an attack on the WTC complex and the Pentagon using hijacked commercial airliners.

Incredible? Look it up and be amazed.

Originally posted by Truth4hire
I find the statement "they did not expect an attack of this size and were unprepared" rather strange given the fact that NORAD under Dick Cheney´s control was training multiple scenarios on the morning of 9/11, one of which was an attack on the WTC complex and the Pentagon using hijacked commercial airliners.

Incredible? Look it up and be amazed.

I was referring to the incompetence of the airport screeners and airport security. Just think if those ppl had been doing their jobs? Hell those terrorist could have brought an AK-47 on board and know one would have known any better due to incompetence by the officials/employees hired to do their jobs. NORAD?.. Like I said, we were caught with our pants down. There was alot of confusion going on that day. No one knew a whole lot.

Don't get me started on the screeners. It had NOTHING to do with incompetence. The Airlines thta were responsible for the checkpoints paid minimum wage, and expected a LOT out of us. But for the record, the weapons carried on the plane that day were PERFECTLY LEGAL to carry on board, with regards to the knives, and with regards to the pepper spray one of the hardest things to find, with the x-rays we had at the time.