An open letter to members of the press
I can't understand why our President, his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, Condi Rice, the press, our Senators and Representatives persist in insisting so often in the last 48 hours that "no one could have imagined that terrorists would hijack commercial planes to use as missiles to attack key US government buildings"
Any high level intelligence agent or member of the NSA or intelligence committee who listened to, or read mainstream press reports (much less intelligence briefings) going back to 1995 would know that this is exactly what these groups had already been planning (or attempted to carry out) for years. It takes no imagination whatsoever to make the assumption that this threat (from the #1 terrorist in the world) was clearly on the radar screen of the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA as is evidenced by the following mainstream reports and the fact that some level of warnings were reportedly passed on to the FAA and airlines. Given these reports are openly available to the public, one can imagine how much more detail or further intelligence might have been in the hands of agencies, who funded with billions of dollars annually, are charged with protecting the American people (and with connecting dots)
So, naturally I am shocked and angered at this apparent deception or deflection especially in light of the following reports catalogued and sketched out here:
1) Fox News, March 5, 2002: "US law enforcement authorities knew as early as 1995 that Middle Eastern men were training at American flight schools and had discussed crashing planes into federal buildings, according to documents and interviews with American and Filipino authorities."
As I'm sure you know this information came out during questioning of Ramsey Yousef by Filipino authorities in 1995 and during his trial for the 1993 WTC bombing.
2) A 1999 government report prepared for Clinton which identified the possible threat posed by hijacked commercial craft used to attack American targets. Details of this report have surfaced in the past 24 hours and I don't have further details as yet.
3) And last year in Italy because of a perceived threat provided by intelligence, authorities in Italy at the G8 meeting established a protective anti-aircraft missile shield to protect against an aerial assault by hijacked craft. This would certainly mean Dr. Rice, our VP, the secret service and perhaps the CIA could certainly imagine such a scenario (or had specific intelligence) otherwise why the defensive measures?
A related question, and perhaps a more damning question must be asked:
Why did the missile batteries on top of the WTC and at the Pentagon not respond to the second and third aircrafts as they approached their targets? These 'specificity of method' warnings and intelligence would surely have led our national security and intelligence apparatus to be sure such defences would be on the ready. Would they not?
For that matter why did our Air National Defenses fail to scramble jets (6 minute to take-off response capable) until it was too late, especially in light of purported warnings given following intelligence gathered last summer and shared with the President in the August 6 briefing?
4) The foiled Paris hijacking in which plans were discovered that the terrorists had intended to crash the plane they had hijacked into the Eiffel Tower. It is significant to note that it was the French authorities who warned US authorities that Moussaoui had terrorist links.
5) Then of course a few years back most of us can recall the small private plane that was crashed into the White House.
6) The report in Germany's Frankfurt daily, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published Sept 14 that said the German intelligence, the BND, warned both the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [see attached document pulled off a Washington Post site to follow in another email]
7) The report in the Russian paper, Izvestia, on Sept 12 that reported that Russian intelligence had warned the US Government that as many as 25 suicide pilots were training for missions involving the crashing of airliners into important targets.
Important note: please see Greg Palast (BBC, The Guardian) reporting of how complaints by officials in the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia about VISAs being issued to questionable chararcters was received.
And in the next leg of this ongoing investigation I suggest also referencing Greg's report of how the Bush Administration/State Dept. has foiled or blocked investigation by the FBI into Bin Laden and Saudi links to OBL and global terrorism.
These are questions and observations this patriotic American is going to continue to offer into the mix until they are properly answered and thoroughly responded to by the media, our representatives in the House and Senate, members of the National Security Council (especially the Counter-terrorism Sub Group (CSG).
These parties are paid to protect the American people, why did our air defenses fail in an environment of heightened threat by the world's #1 terrorist? Why was the FISA search warrant request denied in the Moussaoui case? How is it that the agencies we pay billions to connect the dots didn't connect the dots? Where does the buck stop? And who will be held accountable to set an example for what will not be tolerated in the future?
I will not rest until we get answers and until we learn all the extenuating circumstances, 'missed opportunities' etc. which led to the attacks of September 11th. Am I insinuating something here? That perhaps we will have more incriminating revelations in the future? You bet I am...and so are millions of Americans across this country!
I call on the major corporate media to do a responsible job in covering this unfolding investigation and ask respectfully that you, as a member of the media, do that now. I disagree with the Vice-president. I think that the quicker and more thoroughly we drill down into the issues surrounding 9-11 and demand answers and accountability the safer we will be in the coming months! If we don't the same problems and negligent parties could fail to prevent the next attack which everyone is so quick to agree is inevitable? Is this capitulation and resignation to such a threat any way to advance our safety?
So many questions that begged to be answered...
So many issues that have yet to be fully addressed in this 9-11 investigation...
Now is the time to answer these questions and address these entirely legitimate issues. I hope for all our sake you will rise to this call.
Most sincerely,
Kyle F. Hence
Copyright � Kyle Hence 2002. For fair use only
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HEN205A.html
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