PART 1:THE BIG BAMBOOZLE_911 & THE 'WAR' ON TERROR

THE BIG BAMBOOZLE
911 & THE 'WAR' ON TERROR
BY PHILIP MARSHALL


“One of the saddest lessons in history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.” – Carl Sagan

About The Author
 

Philip Marshall, a veteran airline captain and former government “special activities” contract pilot, has authored three books on Top Secret America, a group presently conducting business as the United States Intelligence Community. 

Beginning with his role in the 1980's as a Learjet captain first as part of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting on Pablo Escobar, and later in the covert arming of the Nicaraguan Contras, Marshall has studied and written 30-years worth of covert government special activities and the revolving door of Wall Street tricksters, media moguls, and their well funded politicians. 

Marshall is the leading aviation expert on the September 11th attack, as well as a masterful storyteller. The Big Bamboozle (2012) is his second work to focus on the flight training and preparation of 9/11 hijackers’ after False Flag 911 was published in 2008. His first book, Lakefront Airport (2003) was a novel based on his experience as a government contract pilot during the Iran/Contra operation. 

Philip Marshall began his 20-year career as an airline pilot in 1985, flying first with Eastern Airlines and then with United. He holds captain ratings on the Boeing 727, 737, 747, 757 and 767. 

Born and raised in New Orleans, Marshall currently resides in California.[He did before he and his entire family was murdered DC] 

Introduction 

By now, we’ve all been told many times over the historic importance of the attacks of September 11, 2001. They changed us. They altered the course of history. 

This is undeniably true. 

And yet for many of us, 9/11 exists in a sort of fog, or maybe it would be better to say a mist, of assertions, assumptions, wild speculations and incomplete explanations. There is so much we don’t know about that day, and the months leading up to it, and the years since. 

In the pages that follow, the confusing elements of 9/11 will begin to clear. Unfortunately, they yield a sum even more tragic and terrible than most could have suspected—and far too consequential to ignore. 

Beginning with reports by veteran federal investigators, we see that for eighteen months preceding 9/11, Saudi intelligence agents harbored and supported the 9/11 hijackers in every conceivable fashion. We will see how the operation was funded, how their handlers led the hijackers to flight training on Boeing airliners in the Arizona desert, and how they devised an air attack that defeated the world’s most sophisticated defense system. 

These discoveries by FBI field agents were exposed during the first official investigation into 9/11, a Congressional Joint Inquiry that was conducted back in 2002. This committee also discovered and reported direct financial and logistical support from top Saudi officials to the 9/11 hijackers while they trained in Florida, California and Arizona. 

So what happened to the report? 

According to the Inquiry’s chairman, their final report met a fierce cover up and a blatant obstruction of justice from the Bush Intelligence Community. The “indisputable” evidence about the Saudis in the Top Secret version was simply redacted from the declassified version. 

Among a host of explosive discoveries, the investigators found buried in the Bureau’s files urgent dispatches from FBI field agents to Washington throughout the spring and summer of 2001, reporting that a group of Saudis had traveled to the Arizona desert and warning that an “inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest” were engaged in flight training. One agent reported “an effort to establish a cadre of individuals in civil aviation who would conduct future terrorist activity.” But apparently, no one at FBI Headquarters was interested in stopping the plot. 

Meanwhile, another group of federal investigators reported to the Inquiry that a Saudi prince with long and intimate ties to U.S. President George W. Bush directly funded the 9/11 hijackers and that the hijackers’ handlers in the U.S. “had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia.” These findings led the inquiry’s chairman to state, “There was a ‘direct line’ between the 9/11 hijackers and the government of Saudi Arabia.” 

As we follow the hijackers to the desert for flight training, we see that another unit of the Bush Intelligence Community began setting up a decoy, emphasizing in “Top Secret” reports to Washington, a frightening menace posed by some super-terrorist named Osama bin Laden. They sent a dozen reports up to the president’s advisers, called P.D.B's, presidential daily briefings, that would serve as proof that Osama bin Laden was planning some sort of attack. But when we check these reports, all we find is hearsay, and nothing else, to support these claims. Then, as we will see, in the vulnerable hours immediately after 9/11, while America staggered in a state of profound shock, Bush Intelligence “officials” began pointing in unison to this ready-made evildoer. 

The barrage of false media reports were so convincing that America forgot our system of justice. In our haste, our rush to judgement, America was led to believe in torture, extrajudicial executions, media trials and military tribunals. 

But in a closer examination of this supposed super-terrorist and his organization, all we find are relatively crude bombings and decapitations of hostages. The suggestion that Osama bin Laden, single handedly or through his lieutenants, had leaped from car bombs to a total defeat of all elements of United States national security, with an air raid based on a coordinated midair hijacking of four airliners, is preposterous. As we will see from a complete analysis of the hijackers’ tactical plan, it is not remotely possible. 

In a methodical breakdown of the attack using official reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (N.T.S.B), radar recordings from the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A) and recovered data from the black boxes, we understand the intensive preparation, intricate execution and impressive skill needed to accomplish the 9/11 mission. The big surprise for everyone who receives their “news” from the six media conglomerates is that this evidence takes us not to some shady terrorist group, but again, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: funding, logistical support, tactical planners, Boeing airliners, Boeing flight instructors. It’s all here, and it doesn’t end here. [I am under the impression, they threw out the lie of no black boxes recovered, which would be a first DC]

As we focus on the most capable of suspects, we find and examine a series of documents, published in the late 1990's by top financial supporters and Cabinet members of the future Bush Administration. Each of these documents conclude with a plea for an American military invasion into the Middle East. Suspiciously, one paper in particular outlined a war plan that mirrors what has actually transpired. The authors, who name Dick Cheney as their inspirational leader, wrote of an intention to transform America after a hypothetical future attack described as “a new Pearl Harbor.” In their “New American Century” the United States’ military-intelligence establishment would come to the fore with an aggressive overseas agenda. 

Suspiciously enough, the vice president’s former corporation was well positioned to provide massive logistical services to one hundred thousand U.S. troops for a relatively quick deployment. He also fed America a stream of false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and embellished links between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden during an urgent rush to war.

Domestically after 9/11, under the guise of fighting terrorism, a massive security sweep has swiftly and quietly put the Bush Intelligence Community in control of the FBI and two new super authorities, the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S) and the Transportation Security Agency (T.S.A). Meanwhile, elements of the Intelligence Community’s “special” propaganda unit became the exclusive pipeline of false and misleading information to the American media concerning 9/11, incessantly feeding us un-sourced reports on bin Laden and his alleged operational “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or K.S.M. 

This is the big bamboozle: Using the hysteria-inducing code words “Osama bin Laden” and “al Qaeda,” the Bush Intelligence Community has seized control of our most powerful government agencies, including the Justice and State Departments, the F.B.I, T.S.A, and D.H.S. On the seal of the United States Intelligence Community, reproduced on the cover of this book, note the circle of sixteen stars which represent sixteen government agencies they now control from the George Bush Center of Intelligence near Washington. One of the stars represents their conquest of our U.S. Treasury, which has already spent at least a trillion taxpayer dollars on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the wars that he caused and the security sweep imposed by the Patriot Act. 

In the pages that follow, we will see precisely how 9/11 changed our world and that because of our false impression of 9/11, the Bush Intelligence Community now effectively remains in control of every armed authority of our federal government and easily overpowers the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches. 

Some might call this a coup. Others may say it’s a brave new way of dealing with a changing world—a radical way of fighting a global war we just can’t be trusted to understand. Either way, you may finally be able to see through the mist of deception, the smoke and mirrors, to find our democracy, our constitution and our freedoms in great jeopardy.

1 

Holy Smoke 

The phone would not stop ringing. I tried to sleep through rings but I finally surrendered and made my way to the phone in my office. There were already fifteen messages. Only the crew schedulers at United would be so persistent, but I had just returned at midnight from a four day trip up and down the American west coast, seven times no less, from my base at Los Angeles to San Diego to Seattle, and every major airport in between. I had at least one day of rest coming. I began listening to the great urgencies of the new day. 

First message: “Dude, are you watching this? I’m at the Helmsley, it’s crazy, call me.” 

Watching what? 

Second message: “Honey it’s me, I hope you’re not flying New York this month. This is awful. Please, please call me. I love you.” 

Third message: “Hey, do you have the TV on? Please call me, I’m worried sick about you.” 

I had a houseful of visitors, all sleeping soundly as chills ran up the back of my neck, not from fear but from the love and concern in the voicemail playbacks. I scrolled through the numbers, all from the eastern and central time zones, and none from the crew desk. 

My kid sister and her young family were sleeping in the guest bedroom, visiting—my wife, my kids—I knew were there, were fine. Dawn was breaking at 6:20 as I checked the clock and felt sweet Pacific air streaming through our Santa Barbara home. What the hell is going on? 

I clicked on the television and the screen was painting a picture of thick, black smoke rising from a very familiar building. I was just in the Windows of the World restaurant a few days earlier and now a close up showed a gaping hole, five or six stories wide and long, and way up beyond the reach of water canons, an inferno, with dozens of windows blown out from each side of the north tower of World Trade Center. “Holy smoke” was all I could muster. What the hell? What does this have to do with me? Then I saw it, a Boeing 767 strafing Manhattan, down low, at a thousand feet, the dark blue and grey paint of our company. Holy smoke, it was definitely one of our planes. 

A wild stupid thought surfaced, I thought one of our pilots was trying to get a better look at the fire—as the plane disappeared behind the building and another camera angle picked up the final bank, not away from danger but straight into the south tower. The impact ignited an orange jet-fuel blast of ten thousand gallons, blowing the building to pieces as debris filled the screen. A shock wave hit my shoulders and my head jumped back in disbelief. “Holy smoke.” The chills returned, this time from head to toe. 

The phone was ringing again as I too, wondered where all my airline buds were, which ones had just died on this massive public stage, which flight attendants, which base? The replay continued and again, just like the first time, it banked into the building and damn if I didn’t jump again. It’s impossible, I thought, for a pilot, a United Airlines captain to purposely bank into death with all those souls sitting behind, all trusting his judgment. Impossible. My God. 

Who would, who could, do this? 

In stunned silence, I watched the scene unfold but was still able to find cognizance. I remembered, through a rush of shock and awe, my work over the previous ten years, the hundreds of hours at this desk, on layovers, studying the new inexorable power that had invaded America, the bull in the china shop that had already caused havoc in my career and an undercurrent of deep mistrust among our pilot association. 

The culmination of that research was nearly finished, and because there were so many holes in my understanding at the time, it was written as a novel based on my time flying for the spooks back in the 1980's. Even before this stunt, there was a sick feeling that America was in deep, deep trouble, that a group, this new Bush Administration, just like the old Bush Administration, was an incredibly dangerous, brazen bunch of well-connected, well-educated ideologists. They were on a power trip similar to others in world history, but as far as I knew this was the first attempt by what our founders had labeled domestic enemies to overthrow the Constitution and place America under their own absolute power. 

As a former operative in this group’s notorious covert missions, including Iran-Contra and the sting on Pablo Escobar, I recognized that this smoke rising over Manhattan might add a major piece to my large jigsaw puzzle of evidence. A picture was forming with base colors of blood red and gold. There were murders, assassinations and stacks of cash. There were Wall Street bankers, members of our Congress, lawyers, mobsters, and the keys to the United States Treasury. The central piece was Iran-Contra and my former position within an operation involving arms smuggling and huge financial transfers. There were cargo planes, a fleet of Learjets and congressional hearings. There were two major bank scandals; the savings-and-loan heist and something called BCCI. New pieces included mysterious rolling blackouts, campaign financing, the Enron Corporation and Kenny-boy Lay. There was a stolen Presidential election, Jeb Bush, Kathleen Harris and James Baker. Over there were guns, an ocean of oil, a Saudi monarchy, covert operations, biological weapons, Executive Branch officials and the world’s mightiest military. The big picture was emerging as an empire, with a confederacy of domestic enemies attempting a coup, a revolution, against the United States of America. I was nearly done, but now, with this astounding act, the upcoming book and all its research might easily, like the criminal acts I had studied, fade into obscurity. 

Before the third replay of our Boeing 767 slamming the south tower, I realized that this stunt was done for political reasons. Oil prices and gold would be affected. Stocks would crash. Airline labor, all American labor would be affected. Our military would surely be deployed. 

Shit. Of course. 

One question remained. Who in the world would they pin this on? Who had the capacity, the expertise to do something anywhere close to this? For years in the airline industry, I’d sat through many briefings on terrorist organizations that posed threats to us. Simple hijackings by holding a plastic explosive and forcing a landing were about all we could expect but this, actually flying a plane, a Boeing 767, into a Kamikaze ending was off the charts. 

As fate would have it, this stunt was executed in my area of expertise, my backyard, the intimate working space of a United 767 cockpit, a highly technical environment where every action, every word spoken and every radio transmission is recorded. 

I recall my first warm piece of knowledge on that morning: the fact that these were commercial airliners meant that almost every action in this attack would be recorded, thanks to flight data devices on each aircraft, FAA radar recordings and air traffic control transmissions. One day, I thought at the time, we would be able to piece the entire attack together to learn exactly what transpired and who was behind the insanity. Bullshit would only last so long. 

I picked up the ringing phone. “Phil? Thank God you’re home.” It was my first flight instructor, my dad, calling from New Orleans. “What the hell is going on?” I told him that I just saw it. “There’s more planes missing,” he said. 

“Holy smoke."

2 

The Tactical Plan 

The tactical plan was brilliant. In some areas, it relied on factors beyond anyone’s control. That it succeeded at all is a tribute to someone’s careful calculations, and their provision for preparation and intensive training. Significantly, for this examination, the attacks also are more complex than any terrorist group had ever attempted. 

As we break down the attack, we see a plan so intricately ingenious, and executed with such precision, that it eliminates assumptions made by U.S. Intelligence officials about the identity of the plotters – the suspects singled out from the start as the perpetrators. 

The 9/11 attack defeated the United States of America to a degree that is hard to fathom. Beginning with government agencies designed to protect the homeland, we see that the Central Intelligence Agency was defeated; the Federal Bureau of Investigation was defeated. The security measures of the Federal Aviation Administration were defeated. National security advisers, airport security and airline security were defeated. The U.S. Air Force and the missile defense system which protects the nation’s capital were rendered useless. The world’s greatest defense establishment was nullified. 

Post 9/11, the defeats continue. A suspect identified as Osama bin Laden supposedly eluded our Special Forces – Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Delta Force – for nine years at a cost of 5,000 American lives and a trillion dollars. When we supposedly “found” Osama bin Laden, unarmed, he was not captured or afforded a trial for the world to see; he was (allegedly) shot in the head in front of his family before one piece of evidence was ever heard. 

Another suspect, captured and held at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged “mastermind” of the attack, has not been afforded a trial despite an attempt by the current U.S. Attorney General and the President of the United States. Those efforts have been derailed by the fear tactics of those in the Intelligence Community who claim that our Justice Department can’t be trusted to prosecute him and our penal system is too weak to hold him. The United States of America is afraid to hold a trial. So now, too, our system of justice has been defeated. All of these defeats have been pinned on one man: Osama bin Laden. 

This is the big bamboozle.

3 

Car Bombers Did What? 

The Bush Administration quickly sold to a stunned nation that Osama bin Laden and a well organized group, something called al Qaeda, had somehow orchestrated the greatest military upset in world history. Before 9/11, al Qaeda’s most sophisticated acts of terror were crude car and truck bombings, their signature sucker punches. They were also blamed for ramming a rubber boat, crudely laced with explosives into an American destroyer parked in the Port of Yemen. Post 9/11, al Qaeda has been blamed for failed attempts by passengers aboard American airlines to ignite a shoe bomb and an underwear bomb. 

So as we look at the tactical plan, one might ask how any of us bought an explanation that car bombers had miraculously leaped to a coordinated aerial attack that completely defeated the world’s mightiest military. 

As we refocus on the events of 9/11 itself, from the beginning, we may realize that we were directed toward answers and explanations that were flawed from the first. So let’s start there – from the beginning. 

After recreating the attack, by using official N.T.S.B and F.A.A transcripts to synchronize with flight and voice data from the recovered black boxes, we can see that the element of surprise allowed the first wave of attack against New York to go unchallenged. But then the advantage of surprise was lost. At that point, given that this was a multi-pronged attack involving several airliners, every second of delay jeopardized the rest of the mission. 

Although time is important in any tactical plan, time – Time with a capital T – was mission critical on 9/11. The delay between the New York attacks and the strike on the Pentagon, followed by the crash of United 93 in Pennsylvania, meant that even though the tactical planners achieved spectacular successes, in strategic terms the attack experienced major flaws. These flaws go a long way toward exposing a most troubling set of conspirators. 

Almost all attention concerning 9/11 has been focused on the terrible deeds that the attack accomplished. However, it is at least as important to focus on how the attack was intended to unfold, and what it was designed to achieve. 

The conspirators chose four perfect flights to hijack. All were scheduled to depart within minutes of each other from three east coast airports. All were among the first flights of the morning, and therefore among the least likely to be delayed. Because of unpredictable taxi times at these busy airports, it would be hard to know which plane would hit its target first. But if things went just right, they might have all hit within minutes if not seconds of each other. An area of great concern for the planners was that delays of any length would jeopardize the attack. 

All four flights had very similar profiles and objectives. Each plane would be converted from a normal passenger flight to a heavily fueled, guided missile. The takeovers would be planned to transpire close to the targets, so hijackers could initiate a fairly manageable descent rate to the targets before military fighters could intercept. 

The planners chose their flights wisely. Transcontinental flights are heavily fueled and routes from the east to west coast provide predictable courses for plotting the takeover points. 

The hijackers were trained on one of the few “dual rating” combination aircraft: The Boeing Corporation purposely designed the 767 and 757 with nearly identical cockpits. Consequently, airlines like United consider training on the 757 as credit for training on the 767 and competency on the 767 converts to competency on the 757. The cockpits are so similar that airlines conduct six-week training courses for their pilots using the 757, and after a relatively short, two-day 767 “differences” course the pilot is also qualified on the heavier 767. 

The 767 outweighs the 757 by over 100,000 pounds, making the 767 a better aircraft to destroy the larger World Trade Center towers. The two 767's held around 14,000 gallons at takeoff while the two 757's held around 12,000 gallons of Jet A fuel. The 757's were strategically better to hit targets like the Pentagon, which only stands 100 feet high. The smaller 757 has increased maneuverability compared to the wide-body 767's selected for the World Trade Center targets. Basically, the aircraft selection reveals an expert in aviation matters. 

On 9/11, the initial execution went according to plan. All four airplanes were fully fueled and loaded and pushed back from their gates on schedule. American 11 pushed back from the gate at Boston at 7:50 a.m. United 175 pushed back, also from Boston, at 7:59. United 93 pushed back from Newark at 8:01 and American 77 pushed back from Dulles Airport near Washington at 8:10. 

At this point, the odds were excellent that all four planes would be airborne by 8:15 a.m., all would reach their windows for takeover by 8:40 and all would be burning inside of their targets within an hour after takeoff. By 9:11 a.m. on 9/11 Americans would be witnessing, via television screens around the nation, something that would look very much like Armageddon. 

What actually happened was horrific enough. But consider the impact of nearly simultaneous strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the destruction of the Capitol dome, which appears to have been the target assigned to United 93. This was the plan: Americans waking to fire and brimstone with the Capital Building and the Pentagon, as well as both World Trade Center towers in Manhattan all engulfed in flames. People would die horribly on live television. By the time the first images were broadcast, the attack would have been completely over. 

But that is not what happened. 

As profound as the psychological impact of 9/11 is, the trauma of what was intended to happen would have ratcheted that impact up to a level that is difficult to conceive or calculate, except to say that it would be capable of producing almost unlimited political consequences, and for a very long time. 

Had the plan gone as designed, the planners could expect a frantic but fruitless response from the U.S. defenses. By 9:11 on 9/11, Americans would be in a state of profound shock and real terror. The President of the United States would give a somber speech from an elementary school where he had been showing compassion for America’s students, reading an innocent story to 7-year-olds. It would be obvious that there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do after immediately launching waves of fighter jets from Cape Cod to Dover to Maryland to Hampton Roads only to find that the sneak attack was completed and nothing but smoke filled the skies. He would soon identify the evildoers and bravely send the American military into a new, justified era of retaliation. 

But it didn’t happen that way. 

When the tactical plan is analyzed in aviation terms, it becomes clear that two of the four pilot/hijackers executed the tactical plan to perfection. It is also abundantly clear that two did not. They did not just fail by not managing to crash United 93 into the intended target; they failed to achieve one of the most important goals of the overall mission. They failed because it is the delays, the long duration of the four hijackings, which tends to expose the identity of the real conspirators— meaning not the nominal hijackers, but the mission planners and architects. The actions, or more accurately, the inaction, of key individuals within the Executive Branch before, during and after the attacks demonstrated, at best, an inexplicable incompetence. At worst, this was just one part of a plan to replace our democracy with a shadow government that was already taking shape.

4 

The Joint Congressional Inquiry 

It is infinitely important to go back to an investigation, conducted shortly after the attacks, where the real planners and executioners of 9/11 were clearly exposed. With all the distractions of terror and war, few Americans realize that in 2002, a Congressional Joint Inquiry was formed to investigate the 9/11 attack. The investigation was an unprecedented act by the U.S. Congress. Never before had the two permanent intelligence oversight committees, one from the House and one from the Senate, collaborated on an investigation. The Congressional Joint Inquiry was led by three veteran and dogged investigators who would find, deeply hidden in the FBI files, a troubling discovery: The hijackers had been supported, in every conceivable way, by agents of the Saudi Arabian government as they prepared for the attack. 

From the moment the hijackers arrived on U.S. soil, it is well documented that Saudi Intelligence agents, and employees of the Saudi Civil Aviation authority, provided housing, obtained drivers licenses and harbored them. After lying low as a sleeper cell throughout the year 2000, they would be led to intensive flight training in the Arizona desert in December of 2000, which leads to the first plausible explanation of the incredible flying performance demonstrated on 9/11. After submitting an 800-page report to the American public, moderate U.S. Senator Bob Graham of Florida, the co-chairman of the Inquiry, said, “There was a ‘direct line’ between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government had provided logistical and financial support to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers while they lived in Southern California.” [1] 

One might think a statement of this magnitude would draw significant media attention. It didn’t. For some odd reason, the American media wasn’t interested in the Saudi government being behind the 9/11 attack. Anytime Saudis were mentioned in the media, a great silence and a commercial break would follow. But if the Saudi government was involved in 9/11, this is a fundamental change in our understanding of the attack and the past decade of terror. This is a game changer. 

All great investigators will tell you that there are ground rules that should never be broken. Never rule anyone out. The “perfect crime” is perpetrated by people we would least expect. Following the money is another. The third is focusing on suspects that just can’t seem to tell the truth. When we consider that 9/11 was an inside job, these rules lead us to Dick Cheney. The remaining question is a big one. How many others were involved? We may never know but we know Cheney was not, could not have been acting alone. 

As you will see over and over in this book, the Bush White House has gone to great lengths to hide the Saudi execution of the attack. Led by the American Vice President, the Intelligence Community was allowed to tamper with the inquiry’s report before it was released as a declassified document. They redacted 28 pages that dealt with the Saudi involvement and crammed explosive discoveries deep in the report between long, monotonous passages. They would distract the American public with threats of further attacks, a rush to judgment, a push to war, and announce, with great fanfare, that they would form a 9/11 Commission. Meanwhile, the Vice President threatened the Inquiry and it’s staff with jail if any of the information on the Saudis was leaked. 

Senator Bob Graham, the Inquiry’s chairman, would be the first of many investigators attempting to expose the inquiry’s findings. Graham knew that many of his colleagues on the Congressional committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, shared his view that the material gathered was explosive and that they, too, felt it should be made public. But in what seemed to many of them a breach of the Constitution’s separation of powers, the White House and the FBI had muzzled them into silence. [2] 

Graham published his own book in 2004 entitled Intelligence Matters, where he described a top-heavy cover up by the Intelligence Community. Senator Graham did not mince words, writing that “the Bush White House was determined to cover up Saudi involvement in 9/11 – and that the administration had found an eager accomplice in the FBI.” [3] 

Graham wrote the incredible account of how the Vice President arranged an FBI investigation of the Inquiry while the Inquiry was investigating the FBI. [4] 

Graham chronicled that FBI Headquarters had responded aggressively to Cheney’s request that the FBI investigate the Inquiry’s staff during the investigation, interviewing dozens of members of Congress and their aides. The Bureau suggested it wanted to use polygraphs on some of the lawmakers with the threat of prosecution and jail – of being traitors in a time of war. To Graham, the entire experience seemed surreal. 

Graham outlined how Cheney led a cover up of mass proportions, describing all sorts of tricks that included leaking false information to the media and then quoting information he leaked as evidence. This United States Senator, having led an investigation into the terrorist attacks of 9/11, was now accusing the Vice President of a cover up. One might think that Senator Graham’s calling out of the Vice President would draw significant media attention. It didn’t. 

Instead of reporting on the Saudis and their connections to high-ranking members of our Executive Branch, the media repeated, time and time again, exactly what the Intelligence Community told them to sell: that it was Osama bin Laden, a super-terrorist with no army, no country, living in an Afghan cave, who supposedly defeated all American domestic defenses. Any talk to the contrary was by conspiracy kooks. Questioning the White House in these frightening times was strictly taboo and downright un-American, yet Graham and his investigators were convinced that a number of Saudi officials knew that terrorists had entered the United States beginning in 2000 in preparation for some sort of an attack. Graham believed that Saudi officials had directed spies operating in the United States to assist them. [5] 

It was an astonishing allegation, but Graham felt the facts were indisputable. The remaining question was whether any of the evidence could be made public and whether Graham could survive the efforts by the White House and Congressional Republicans to portray him as a partisan conspiracy theorist – a headline-grabbing kook. As you will see, Graham had come to believe that new FBI Director, Robert Mueller, had become a “facilitator of ineptitude of the bureau” and was “directly involved in the effort to hide the truth.”[6] 

The evidence about the Saudi links to the hijackers was dug up because of the tenaciousness of the joint committee’s staff director, Eleanor Hill, a veteran Congressional investigator who had worked for both Democrats and Republicans, and Michael Jacobsen, a former FBI lawyer and counter terrorism analyst who had joined the staff and was one of its most dogged investigators. During this 2002 Congressional investigation, Jacobsen had found the most important evidence about the Saudi connection to the hijackers buried in the files of the FBI’s field office in San Diego and at FBI Headquarters in Washington. [7] As you will see, the Vice President and “special activities” would see that this information never reached the American taxpayers who paid for the report and the investigation. 

Senator Graham wrote: “What Jacobsen found in searching through the FBI’s files was that two eventual hijackers had been befriended shortly after their arrival in California by a mysterious Saudi expatriate who seemed clearly to be working on behalf of some part of the Saudi government.” Of great interest is that he was on the payroll of an aviation contractor to the Saudi government. [8] After studying the flight profiles from the attack, plugging in Saudi Intelligence as the true architects of the attack solves every last mystery in regard to the slick tactical plan and the hijackers’ stunning flying performance. 

As Jacobsen and the other Congressional investigators kept digging, they found more evidence that these contacts appeared to be part of a larger network of Arab expatriates who had been tasked to help the 9/11 hijackers. One particular Saudi Intelligence agent, Omar al Bayoumi, whose income had grown dramatically in the period in which he assisted the two hijackers – almost $40,000 above his usual salary from his job with the Saudi aviation firm – was documented as the hijackers’ personal assistant. Jacobsen had found evidence that yet another Saudi living in San Diego who also appeared to work as a spy, Osama Bassan, had funneled thousands of dollars to Bayoumi.[8] 

The source of Bassan’s money was an additional shock to the Congressional investigators: Much of it had come in the form of cashier’s checks directed to his family by the wife of the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the close personal friend of the Bush family. This raised a big red flag. Prince Bandar, as you shall see in following chapters, has been involved over the past 30 years in numerous covert activities of U.S. and Saudi Intelligence. [9] 

There was another alarming surprise in the FBI files: Two of the hijackers had been in close contact in San Diego with a longtime FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh; they both lived in Shaikh’s home for a time. As you will see, incredibly, the Bush administration and FBI Headquarters blocked the Congressional investigation from interviewing the informant after Jacobsen learned his identity. [10] 

For more than 80 pages within the Inquiry’s report, there is clear evidence that the hijackers entered the United States in January 2000 and were immediately met by Saudi intelligence agents in Los Angeles, California. The Saudi agents were identified as employees of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, which explains the hijackers’ flight training on Boeing planes. [11] 

To keep the Saudi operation obscured from the public, we will see evidence that the Bush administration developed an elaborate decoy. The creation of Osama bin Laden as the Arab face of evil is well documented as premeditated. The Intelligence Community began floating his name, using rumors and disinformation tactics, about the same time that the hijackers began their final stage of flight training. After the attack, these rumors were fed to the media as absolute proof that he was behind the attacks. [12] 

Plain and simple, 9/11 was a signature Saudi Arabian Intelligence operation, repeatedly documented by federal investigators. In the Congressional Joint Inquiry report and for the remainder of this book, we consistently see an information battle between rank-and-file federal agents and executive-level positions. 

Throughout the following chapters, I have double-starred certain individuals and groups, such as FBI Headquarters**, to highlight Intelligence Community**, and Bush-Cheney White House** assets. These are operatives who take their orders from the top—not necessarily from the President, but from the George Bush Center of Intelligence**. 

For example: The FBI** countered the FBI San Diego and Phoenix findings. FBI** represents FBI Headquarters** at the Executive level while FBI represents FBI field agents in middle management. 

In these first chapters, I will present passages from the declassified version of the report of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the attacks of September 11, 2001. To identify the passages, I have introduced the evidence with TOP SECRET. By using cross outs, we know that the report has been declassified by the Intelligence Community**. 

I will end the passage with the page number of the report. I have provided a link to the entire report where you can verify that the passages were not taken out of context and encourage you to read it. As mentioned earlier, this report became a victim of “cramming” vital information deep within an 800-page report. The following examination extracts and highlights this crammed information. As you will see, there is a continuous interpretation battle between FBI field agents and the Intelligence Community** side of the FBI**, which is a Bush White House** asset. 

In aviation training, we refer to an anomaly, something that doesn’t add up, as a RED FLAG. As pilots, we are trained to identify red flags on a path to correcting a potentially dangerous situation. After the passages from the Inquiry’s report, RED FLAG is used to identify areas of concern. 

Even with all the redactions that were executed by the Intelligence Community**, we see an enormous amount of evidence that was compiled by FBI field agents around the country as they followed the 9/11 hijackers from the time they arrived in the United States on January 15, 2000, until their execution of the attacks on September 11, 2001. 

This first passage describes the initial meeting between the hijackers and a Saudi Intelligence agent at a Los Angeles restaurant: 

TOP SECRET 

On January 15, 2000, following an important meeting of al-Qaida operatives in Malaysia, (future 9/11) hijackers al-Hazmi and al Mihdhar arrived in Los Angeles where they remained for approximately two-and-a-half weeks. At one point, they met Omar al-Bayoumi. A person the FBI interviewed after September 11 says that he was with al-Bayoumi when the latter met (9/11 hijackers) al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. This person says that al-Bayoumi invited him to travel to Los Angeles, explaining that he had business at the Saudi Consulate. When they arrived at the consulate, Bayoumi met with someone behind closed doors. Bayoumi and the person with whom he traveled to Los Angeles went to a restaurant, where they met (9/11 hijackers) al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar after he heard them speaking Arabic, and he invited them to move to San Diego. Bayoumi returned to San Diego after leaving the restaurant, and alHazmi and al Mihdhar arrived in San Diego shortly thereafter.” (page 172) 

RED FLAG – The Saudi Intelligence agent, Omar al Bayoumi, went directly from the Saudi Consulate to a meeting with the hijackers. In the next passage, he will be identified as an employee of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, and will remain in constant contact with the hijackers throughout their preparation. 

TOP SECRET 

According to an individual interviewed by the FBI, Bayoumi’s salary from his employer, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, was approved by (Saudi Aviation Minister) Hamid al-Rashid. 

Despite the fact that he was a student, Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia. For example, an FBI source identified Bayoumi as the person who delivered $400,000 from Saudi Arabia for the Kurdish mosque in San Diego. One of the FBI’s best sources in San Diego informed the FBI that he thought that Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia or another foreign power. (Page 175) 

RED FLAG – Unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia answers virtually all later questions in regard to hijacker funding. 

This following cable demonstrates the division within the FBI between headquarters** and the field offices. As we have seen, the Inquiry’s chairman said that FBI Director Robert Mueller**, appointed by George W. Bush just a week before the attack, was directly involved in hiding the truth. Several times in this report we see FBI used, but again, there is a subtle but distinct difference between FBI Headquarters**, which is a Bush White House operation**, and FBI field agents, who represent a skilled group of investigators. In the following cable, we see that FBI Headquarters** was concerned that FBI field agents might discover the hijackers, and warned them to keep these potential discoveries away from law enforcement. 

TOP SECRET 

From FBI Headquarters**: 

If al-Mihdhar is located, the interview must be conducted by an intel [intelligence] agent**. A criminal agent CAN NOT be present at the interview. This case, in its entirety, is based on intel. If at such time as information is developed indicating the existence of a substantial federal crime, that information will be passed over the wall according to the proper procedures and turned over for follow-up criminal investigation. 

From the New York agent: Whatever happened to this – someday someone will die – and wall or not – the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’ Let’s hope the (FBI’s) National Security Law Unit (NSLU)** will stand behind their decision (about the ‘wall’) then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, is getting the most ‘protection.’ (page 153) 

RED FLAG – This cable gives the impression that headquarters doesn’t know where the eventual hijacker (al-Mihdhar) is, but just four pages later, on page 157, we see that he’s had “numerous contacts” with an FBI **– Intelligence Community** asset: 

TOP SECRET 

Two September 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, lived in San Diego, California, beginning in February 2000. Mihdhar left San Diego in June 2000, while Hazmi remained until December 2000, when he moved to Arizona. 

During the time they were in San Diego, these two hijackers had numerous contacts with a long-time FBI counter terrorism informant**. A third hijacker, Hani Hanjour (the pilot/hijacker on the plane that hit the Pentagon), may have had more limited contact with this individual in December 2000. 

CIA** and FBI Headquarters** had information tying [Saudi hijackers] Mihdhar and Hazmi to al-Qaida as early as January 2000 and later received information that they were in the United States. The San Diego field office received none of this information before September 11.(page 158) 

RED FLAG – We see that the Intelligence Community** knew the hijackers were in the San Diego area, but never informed the San Diego field office. 

In the next passage, we find evidence that this informant was actually working for the Intelligence Community**. Naturally, the Joint Inquiry wanted to speak with this FBI informant** who had “numerous contacts” with the 9/11 hijackers. Who the informant** was working for might be answered by another question: Who is protecting him? On page 158, we start to learn. 

TOP SECRET 

An FBI written response to the Joint Inquiry acknowledges questions about the informant’s credibility, but the administration** and the FBI** have objected to the Joint Inquiry’s request to interview the informant and have refused to serve a committee subpoena and notice of deposition on the informant. As suggested by the FBI, the Joint Inquiry submitted written interrogatories for response by the informant. Through an attorney, the informant declined to respond and indicated that, if subpoenaed, the informant would require a grant of immunity prior to testifying. Thus, this section has been prepared without access to the informant and in reliance on FBI documents, interviews of FBI personnel** , and FBI** representations about the informant. (Page 158) 

RED FLAG – The Administration** refused to serve a committee subpoena on a man who had numerous meetings with the 9/11 hijackers. They even refused to submit written questions that the FBI field office had requested. An attorney demands immunity for the informant, and the U.S. Congressional Inquiry is stopped in its tracks. 

So, for the next several pages of the report, we get the informant’s story through an Intelligence Community agent** described as “the informant’s FBI handler**.” As you can see, his testimony has many holes which contradict the FBI field agents’ version. 

TOP SECRET 

When the San Diego office realized that the informant** had numerous contacts with the two hijackers (of the Pentagon attack plane), FBI personnel became suspicious that the informant may have been involved in the plot. 

The FBI handling agent** attributed inconsistencies in the informant’s reporting to the informant’s personality.

////////////////////////////////redacted//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////redacted////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 

Despite these characteristics, the FBI handling agent** testified that the informant was “very credible, highly reliable, very, very credible, very useful. In the FBI handling agent’s** opinion, the informant was ‘duped’ by the hijackers and was not suspicious of them at all. (page 162) 

RED FLAG – Obviously, the Intelligence Community’s FBI handler** is selling a story that the informant** was duped while no one explains why this FBI informant** was assigned to meet frequently with the two hijackers in the first place. If the informant** wasn’t working with the San Diego office; he was from another division within the U.S. Intelligence Community**. 

TOP SECRET 

Based on Joint Inquiry interviews of San Diego FBI personnel involved with the informant before September 11 or in assessing the informant’s** credibility after the attacks and reviews of thousands of Bureau documents, several unresolved questions about the informant’s** credibility remain. Although the informant** did not recognize hijacker Hani Hanjour [the Pentagon attacking plane’s pilot] in photographs shown to the informant** by the FBI after September 11, there are indications that Hanjour was in the San Diego area with Hazmi in December 2000 and probably met the informant**. (page 163) 

RED FLAG – On page 165 we get heavy redactions from Vice President Cheney’s group**, which refused to declassify this passage (over the Inquiry chairman’s objections) contradicting the FBI handler’s** claim: 

TOP SECRET 

FBI personnel believe it’s likely that the informant** met Hanjour [Pentagon plane pilot] in December of 2000 and are unable to explain why the informant** failed to identity Hanjour.” 

The informant’s** credibility is called into question in other important ways: 

The informant** made a variety of inconsistent statements to the FBI during the course of multiple interviews. The informant** has provided the FBI with many different dates as to the informant’s** numerous contacts with Hazmi and Mihdhar and their initial contact. The FBI** acknowledged that ‘San Diego agrees with (the) Joint Inquiry … that there are significant inconsistencies’ in the informant’s** reports. 

The informant’s** statements are not consistent with information developed through investigation concerning the dates of the contacts. The FBI** concedes that the hijackers may have known the informant months earlier that the informant admitted. 

///////////////////redacted/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////redacted////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

RED FLAG – Even with these heavy redactions, we see evidence that the informant** knew the hijackers before he admitted to knowing them. And still, the Bush White House** would not allow the Inquiry to question him.

5 

The Intelligence Community 

You may be asking yourself: the Intelligence Community? What’s that? Solely because of Osama bin Laden, sixteen government agencies have gathered under an umbrella of security, presumably to prevent further attacks upon the homeland. Ten years after 9/11, we must ask, what does the Intelligence Community** not control? 

The brain behind the Intelligence Community is an incredible group of individuals. They have over a hundred years of deep roots into secret societies at Ivy League schools. They have deep roots into Wall Street banks. They were the founders of Central Intelligence. They have people everywhere, in the Justice Department, defense contractors, throughout your Congress. They, for sixteen of the last century’s final twenty years, had the keys to the United States Treasury and the Executive Branch of the United States government. They have the original social network and an unlimited supply of funding. Among a host of powerful networks where taxpayers’ earnings flow lavishly is the State Department. Another is the Department of Defense. Today, this group is a confederacy that has nearly one million people on our payroll and I hope you’re sitting down for this, 832,000 employees have Top Secret clearances in over 10,000 offices around the United States. They have control of every armed federal force. They control the FBI, CIA, DHS, TSA, DEA, the Department of Defense, the Justice Department and the United States Treasury. They have “lost” $15 trillion from the treasury. 

Yet, a vast majority of taxpayers are unaware of their existence. 

Since 9/11, because of 9/11, because of Osama bin Laden, all of these agencies fall under the control of the United States Intelligence Community. They have a sprawling headquarters just outside of Washington; the George Bush Center of Intelligence. This is the shadow authority that you are paying for and yet, you have no say in their actions. They weren’t voted in and they can’t be voted out. 

They are presently using $3.5 billion of our earnings to build a headquarters for their new secret police, near Washington, for the Department of Homeland Security**. DHS** plans to link into every county sheriff and city police office, and eventually conduct pat downs at every train and bus station in our nation. All because of Osama bin Laden. It won’t stop there. You can expect that a new mail system will be under an armed branch of D.H.S, with an inspection process similar to the current airport procedures. We are already seeing the D.H.S as the controlling force at D.M.V and at the U.S.P.S. 

Don’t look now, but the following agencies are now secured and controlled by the Intelligence Community**: 

» The Department of Homeland Security** 
» The Transportation Security Agency** 
» The Central Intelligence Agency** 
» The Federal Bureau of Investigation** 
» The Department of Justice** 
» The Department of Defense** 
» The United State Treasury** (double red flag) 
» The U. S. State Department** 
» The Drug Enforcement Agency** 
» The Department of Energy** 

A 2010 Washington Post four part series, “Top Secret America” by Dana Priest and William Arkin was able to explain much about the inner workings of the Intelligence Community**. These two journalists explored America’s shadow government, which has out-powered any other branch of the American government since and because of 9/11. But still, Priest and Arkin are still asking questions and don’t seem to know the true reasons for the new sweeping changes. The following chapter note links to the series. Take time to note the massive covert and psychological operations and the infiltration of propaganda officers** into the American news media.[1] 

Yet, there is good news. The $15 trillion they have “lost” looking for Osama bin Laden did not vanish from the face of the earth, it simply went to a place where we can’t see it. Thanks to our founding fathers, American citizens come armed with a Constitution, and are backed with judicial and penal systems. With a little focus, we can track down our missing $15 trillion. 

to be continued....next
Flight School



footnotes