Lies, Omissions, and Cover-ups in the 9/11 Commission Report:
by Michael P. Wright
Norman, Oklahoma
December 28, 2004
FBI Agent & Whistle-Blower Coleen Rowley Did Not Testify
In September 2003, I emailed the 9/11 Commission and invited them to review my report centering on the suspicious activities of George Tenet, former U.S. Senator David Boren, and another career CIA agent named David Edger, brought to the University of Oklahoma in Norman by Boren in the summer of 2001. Boren had become OU's president in 1994.
Assembled mostly from TV news broadcasts, government documents, prominent magazines, and newspapers, the evidence I have accumulated indicates strongly that this trio worked in concert to enable the 9/11 plot to develop because they planned to overwhelm the hijackers at the last minute with a sting operation, and it blew back in their faces.
As demonstrated by the CIA's briefing to Bush on August 6, 2001, Tenet's main miscalculation was relying upon the false assumption that any airliners hijacked would be landed by the terrorists for negotiation over hostages. In such a setting, CIA commandoes could attempt to overwhelm them. A success in this endeavor could have served the ambition of Boren, who has always longed to be President of the USA. Tenet and Boren did not anticipate suicide crashes into buildings.
In early October 2003, I received a phone call from 9/11 Commission staff member John Tamm, who said he intended to review my material and then get back to me. I told him I was willing to give sworn testimony to the Commission about sensitive evidence contained in my report. I never heard from him any more.
Finding the Key to the Truth
From my review of the 9/11 Commission report, it now appears that the panelists took me quite seriously, but in the wrong way. They apparently used my work as a guideline about what they needed to conceal. If officials are covering something up, then those who seek the truth should be all the more suspicious and diligent about trying to uncover it. Whatever they are trying to conceal is the likely key to the truth.
The 9/11 Commission did not take me up on my suggestion to scrutinize the Boren-Tenet-Edger trio. One political circumstance accounting for the Commission's willingness to cover for the Boren gang is likely found in the fact that his good friend, Jim Thompson, was a member. Thompson is an attorney for American Airlines, and Boren is on AA's board of directors. David Boren is like a fat octopus with long nasty tentacles reaching in every direction.
Commission Conceals Mousaoui-Atta Meeting
There are several examples which suggest their use of my report as a guideline to what they needed to cover up. Relying on the LA Weekly and the O'Reilly show, I have highlighted the fact that Zacarias Moussaoui, while he was living in Norman, Oklahoma, had a meeting with lead hijacker Mohammed Atta during the summer of 2001, at an Oklahoma City motel.
On pages 246-247 of the Commission's final report, they discuss Moussaoui's activities during that period. They write:
"KSM also states that Moussaoui had no contact with Atta, and we are unaware of evidence contradicting this assertion."
That is a lie. They chose to ignore what was reported to the LA Weekly by the owner of the motel where the Moussaoui-Atta meeting took place. The meeting was confirmed on the O'Reilly show by Larry Johnson, former Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism ( May 11, 2002 ).
Commission Knows KSM Is a Liar
KSM stands for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an Al Qaeda member who was active in organizing the 9/11 attack. On page 215, the Commission states that they do not believe that hijackers Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar could have come to the U.S. without supportive contacts in the country. Further, they rejected KSM's statement denying that Al Qaeda had agents in southern California: "We do not credit this denial."
Why do they reject KSM on this question, but accept what he says when denying a meeting between Moussaoui and Atta? Apparently, for each encounter with a witness, they adjusted the credibility of the witness in accordance with their whitewash agenda.
Commission Report Lies to Protect Tenet from Perjury Charge
On page 262, the Commission report confirms that Tenet visited Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17. In the same paragraph they misrepresented his April testimony in order to spare him the accusation of having committed perjury. They pretended as though Tenet was suffering from impaired memory, and wrote that he "does not recall" any discussions with Bush during this period.
This was another false statement by the Commission. In fact, Tenet’s testimony indicated that he had a recollection of this period, and he explicitly denied having met with Bush. That is perjury. His denial is recorded in this BBC report. Tenet made the statement in the question-and-answer part of his testimony. Most likely, Tenet's lie was motivated by the fact that he wanted to distance himself from responsibility for the huge blunder in the August 6 memo. One day after he testified, I had called for Tenet to be charged with perjury. See my April 15 column at this webpage.
Commission Conceals Details of Hijackers' Airline Ticket Purchases
An item of huge interest in my report is the fact that a 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket was purchased from a University of Oklahoma library computer terminal. Three persons, one of whom notified the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission, told me of having seen a news report about this broadcast by Oklahoma City's KOCO-TV. The ticket was purchased for United Flight 93, by a white American male. He was most likely infiltrating Al Qaeda under CIA supervision.
In an October 2003 phone conversation, one KOCO employee confirmed that the station reported this event. To my surprise, reporter Terri Watkins later denied it. Voice recordings of communications with these women, with their conflicting claims, are here on this page, in the column dated May 18.
Oddly, the Moussaoui indictment (items 78 to 85) describes specific events of purchasing tickets for only 14 of the 19 hijackers. For Flight 93, only one purchase event is reported.
The 9/11 Commission chose to cover up the crime which took place in the OU library. On page 249, they devote only three sentences to the ticket purchases. They do not disclose any locations from which they were bought. They state that all tickets were bought between August 25 and September 5. The Moussaoui indictment does not report any ticket purchases past August 29. Why did the Commission conceal these details from the public?
The answer is that to disclose the times and locations of all 19 ticket purchases would have meant listing the one purchased from the University of Oklahoma library. To do so would have threatened to blow the lid off the grave misconduct of the Boren gang.
Commission Misleads Readers About Moussaoui Cover-up
In mid-August of 2001, al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui, who had earlier that year spent six months in Norman, was arrested in Minnesota after arousing suspicions of instructors at the International Flight Academy. While living in Norman, Moussaoui had attended flight school, met with Mohammed Atta, lived in OU dorms, worked out in the OU gym, and received cash from the Hamburg al Qaeda cell.
Minneapolis FBI agents wanted to search Moussaoui's computer in August, at least three weeks before the attack, but for peculiar reasons not adequately discussed in the Commission report, the FBI headquarters obstructed their request for a search warrant. The Commission did admit, though, that a "maximum U.S. effort to investigate Moussaoui" at that time "might have brought investigators to the core of the 9/11 plot" and possibly derailed it (p. 276). What was derailed instead was an effort which could have spared the nation the agony of 9/11.
The Subtle Language of Whitewash
The Commission report uses ambiguous and dishonest language in its discussion of Moussaoui and the Minnesota arrest. "If Moussaoui had been connected to al Qaeda," they write, "questions should have instantly arisen about a possible al Qaeda plot that involved piloting airlines" (p. 273). This language betrays the Commission's deep bias obliging them to excuse serious misconduct by high-level officials. There is no doubt about the fact that Moussaoui was "connected" to al Qaeda. Within the U.S. intelligence community, this was known in August 2001. The Commission's use of the conjunction "if" is not justified -- not even retrospectively
No Testimony from FBI Agent and Whistle-Blower Coleen Rowley
The fact that the 9/11 Commission did not receive testimony from Minneapolis FBI agent Coleen Rowley is a blatant and inexcusable outrage. In her indignant letter to the FBI director, published by Time Magazine online (May 23, 2002), Rowley wrote that within days of Moussaoui's arrest "the French Intelligence Service confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups and activities connected to Osama bin Laden."
Tenet’s CIA was telling a different story. Time magazine ( June 3, 2003 ) reported that in August 2001 the FBI asked the CIA what it knew about Moussaoui. The CIA at that time described Moussaoui as merely one having "extremist views." Additionally, the agency offered the misleading statement that information from the French "didn't say Al Qaeda or anything like that." This manipulation by the CIA assisted the FBI HQ in making the decision to deny the warrant to search Moussaoui’s computer before 9/11.
The Commission did not give Rowley a chance to highlight this important history. She was not called to testify. My website gives generous discussion to Rowley’s letter to the FBI director, Moussaoui’s activity in Oklahoma, and the CIA’s effort in assisting the FBI in obstructing the pre-9/11 investigation of him.
Commission Does Not Mention Bin Laden’s July 2001 Visit
Both LeFigaro of France and The Guardian of London reported that two months before the attack bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days of treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent. Why was Bin Laden not captured at that time? The 9/11 Commission did not explore that question. It is discussed at my website.
Commission Deletes Hussein Al-Attas From History
Numerous news organizations have reported the fact that University of Oklahoma student Hussein Al-Attas drove Moussaoui from Oklahoma to Minnesota in August 2001. This event is highlighted at my website. According to The Wall Street Journal (February 4, 2002), Moussaoui was recruiting Al-Attas to the jihad in Chechnya. For some reason, the Commission decided to conceal Al-Attas from view. On page 247 they write: "On August 10, shortly after getting the money from Binalshibh, Moussaoui left Oklahoma with a friend and drove to Minnesota."
Commission Says Little About "Heroic Passengers" of Flight 93
United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, is discussed in detail at my website. It was for this flight that the hijacker’s ticket was purchased from the OU library. A group of passengers on this flight are also given credit for organizing an attempted assault on the hijackers in order to try to reclaim the aircraft.
At my website, I give evidence from various sources demonstrating that this was no ordinary group of passengers. MSNBC describes them:
"This much we know, they were big guys: Bingham was a 6-foot-4 rugby player; Glick, also a rugby player and judo champion; Beamer was 6 foot 1 and 200 pounds, and Nacke was a 5-foot-9, 200-pound weightlifter with a 'Superman' tattoo on his shoulder."
Todd Beamer was a member of this passenger group. In her book Let’s Roll, Flight 93 widow Lisa Beamer reports that after the hijackers took control of the plane her husband Todd expected that the aircraft would be landed. As indicated by the August 6 CIA briefing, this is exactly what Tenet and Boren expected.
Lisa Beamer reports a conversation between Lisa Jefferson, a GTE Airfone representative, and her husband. Jefferson described Todd as "calm and soft-spoken." She said that he thought the terrorists were going back to the airport and the plane would land safely, and that he didn't seem desperate. Jefferson's most revealing statement about Todd Beamer was this: "Todd was so rational and methodical about what he was doing."
At my website, I offer the suggestion that the “heroic passengers” of Flight 93 were actually trained CIA operatives serving the misguided Boren-Tenet sting operation and expected to swing into action against the hijackers when they landed the aircraft for negotiation over hostages. This would explain Todd Beamer’s calm demeanor in the face of the grave threat inflicted by the hijackers. The passenger group changed its original plan and attempted its desperate mid-air move against the hijackers only after information reached them that other planes were being crashed into buildings. The hijackers destroyed the aircraft and its passengers in response.
No details about the extraordinary qualities of these men and the calm demeanor of Todd Beamer are given by the 9/11 Commission. Their report about “the battle for Flight 93” does not even name them (pp. 10-14).
No Index or Executive Summary
The 9/11 Commission report was amateurishly deficient by not having an index or executive summary. This state of affairs is certainly not accommodating to those who would like to scrutinize it carefully.
In conclusion, the 9/11 Commission report has many flaws.
Although there is some useful information, it is fundamentally an ineffective document; however, it contains one statement which rings disturbingly true: "We see little evidence that the progress of the plot was disturbed by any government action" (p. 277).
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION POSTE BY MR. WRIGHT ON APRIL 15th --
Why Does George Tenet Have Such a Guilty Look on his Face?
CIA boss George Tenet lied to the 9/11 Commission during his April 14th testimony.
The AP reported that on that day Tenet appeared before the Commission and testified that he did not speak with President Bush in August 2001. On August 6th of that year, the CIA's report led the President to believe that if any hijackings of aircraft took place, the hijackers would land the planes, make demands, and then negotiate for release of the hostages. Obviously, this expectation was an incredible blunder, and Tenet had every interest in distancing himself from responsibility for it.
Why isn't Tenet in jail for perjury?
The next day, the news came out that the CIA disclosed that Tenet personally briefed the President in August 2001. This was reported by AFP news of France. Tenet's lie is also exposed by this White House memo of August 25, 2001. While he was conducting a tour of his Texas ranch, Bush mentioned Tenet's visit there the day before.
This is not to excuse or defend Bush, but it is clear that in 2001, he was leaving matters of national security and defense against terrorists in the hands of George Tenet, who was given all the room he needed to operate without close supervision from the commander-in-chief. On April 11, 2004, Bush insisted that in August 2001 he was satisfied that federal agents were on top of the terrorist threat.
One can fault Bush for poor judgment in allowing his old Skull and Bones pal, Oklahoma's former Senator David Boren, to talk him into keeping Tenet as CIA director in January 2001, but primary responsibility for the failure to obstruct the 9/11 attack before it happened lies in the hands of Tenet and his mentor Boren. CIA agent David Edger is also part of this gang. Earlier the chief of surveillance over the Hamburg cell of Al Qaeda, Edger was summoned to Norman by Boren in the summer of 2001, ostensibly to take a visiting professor post. Edger, who was in Chile in 1973 when Allende was being overthrown, is a specialist in infiltration and covert action. USA Today has reported that the CIA was infiltrating Al Qaeda cells.
What kind of strange brew were the three spooks cooking up? Why is Tenet so anxious? What was driving him to lie before the 9/11 Commission ? Why does he want to distance himself from responsibility for the August 6 report? Why did he have his mind set on the naive expectation that hijackers would land the aircraft for hostage negotiation?
Readers are invited to see my website for answers, details, many links, and references. Don't miss the Channel 5 recording.
UPDATE -- The Erroneous August 6 Memo Explains Why NORAD Was Slow
4/26/04
Philip Shenon of The New York Times reported on April 25, 2004, that the 9/11 Commission is expected to offer "sharp criticism" of the Pentagon's domestic air defense command (NORAD) in the panel's final report. The Commission suggests that quicker military action might have prevented the crash of a hijacked passenger jet into the Pentagon during the 9/11 attack.
The Commission seems to be forgetting the most important part of the contents of the August 6 CIA briefing, which was finally disclosed by the President in April 2004. The briefing, for which CIA boss Tenet would like to deny responsibility, embraced the expectation that any hijacked aircraft would be landed for a negotiation over hostages instead of crashed into buildings. With that erroneous information circulating in the intelligence community, why is anyone surprised that NORAD was slow to respond with military aircraft that morning?
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Here is the link to Mr. Wright's columns --
http://www.bushbusiness.com/Wright_OP.htm
