Background
This
article presents the background to the 11 September 2001 attacks on America,
showing the total failure of the U.S.
government on every level to protect its citizens. It also shows
President
George W Bush and his Administration as grossly incompetent.
The
Headlines
The World Trade Centre, the highest buildings in the USA
and the quintessential symbol of U.S.
capitalism, had been attacked in 1993.
The CIA knew in 1994 of a large plot to attack U.S.
landmarks with aircraft.
The U.S.
Air force had NO armed fighter planes on 24-hour-stand-by at Andrews
Air force
Base, close to Washington.
Why not?
The first ‘hijacked plane’ call came out at 8:19 am.
U.S.
warplanes arrived in New
York
at 9:25
am.
It is simply incredulous!
Meanwhile, an unarmedU.S.
warplane flew over Washington.
It’s only form of attack was to ‘ram’ hijacked planes.
The Bush Administration did nothing against al-Qaeda until 9/11.
The next
day, Bush was ready to go to war. Secretary Rumsfeld, began talking
about
attacking Iraq,
arguing there weren’t many targets to attack in Afghanistan!
The fact that 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq
didn’t seem to matter.
If the situation weren’t so serious, we could have the plot for a
movie
about incompetence on a grand scale. But nobody would believe it!
The Story 1. The WorldTradeCenter was bombed
on February
26, 1993at 12:17 pm by Muslim
extremists.
The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef,
claimed to the New York Times the
bombing was in retaliation for American support of Israel
and oppression of the Palestinian people. On 11 December 1994, Yousef planted a bomb
on a Philippine
Airlines flight on its way to Japan.
One passenger died and ten were injured. A month later, a fire broke
out in Yousef’s
flat in Manila. The police
found evidence
of a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II and of a
complicated scheme to simultaneously bomb a dozen U.S.
airline
flights from Asia
to the United States
in one day. Philippine police captured
Yousef’s accomplice, Abdul Hakim Murad, who
revealed an even larger plot to attack U.S.
landmarks with aircraft. In 1995, the CIA issued a
'National
Intelligence Estimate' saying ‘civilian aviation will figure
prominently among
possible terrorist targets in the United
States’.
A
connection was made between the WorldTradeCenter
attack and a fingerprint of Yousef found in the bombers’ Manila
apartment. Now in Pakistan,
Yousef was betrayed for a USD 2 million bribe. Taken back to the US,
he was sentenced to 240 years in prison. In an interview Yousef warned
of a
new, international Islamic militant group that would rise up to
challenge the United States. In
1993, Osama bin Laden was suspected to
have financed the WorldTradeCenter bombing. In 1996 from
Afghanistan,
bin Laden called upon the Muslim world to wage war against Americans.
The CIA
formed a cell to follow him and al-Qaeda.
In
May 1998, Bin Laden
published an impressive 12-page declaration of war against the United
States. On 7th August, truck
bombs virtually destroyed the U.S.
embassies in Tanzania
& Kenya
with 224 people dead and over 5000 injured.
Investigations lead straight to bin Laden. A U.S.
cruise missile attack on bin Laden’s training camp failed to kill him.
Al-Qaeda members, Khalid
al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi were sent to the U.S.
for flight training. The CIA had been
following them almost two years
before 9/11 but had not given their details to the FBI or U.S.
Immigration as suspected terrorists.
In San Diego, they even
took out driver's
licences and phone book entries in their own names.
2. World Trade Centre destroyed on 11th September 2001
At 8:19 am, flight attendant
Betty Ong phoned American Airlines telling them Flight 11 had been
hijacked. The U.S.
military did not hear about the hijacking for 18 minutes. Air
traffic controllers knew at 8:24 am,
when
they heard al-Qaeda pilot, Mohamed Atta’s voice.
At 8:46 am, American
11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. The fighter jets
from
Otis Air Force Base, Cape Cod, took off 7
minutes later.
It took them 32 minutes to reach New York.
At 8:55
am, New York
Air
Traffic Control found out a second aircraft had been hijacked. The
military found
out when it crashed into the SouthTower
of the World Trade Centre at 9:03 am.
The nearest jet fighters were still 60 to 70 miles away. Officers
at the Northeast Air Defence Sector had still not heard from
FAA headquarters.
At
9:23 am, a United Airlines
flight dispatcher sent out a text warning to
his airline crews to stop cockpit intrusions. By 9:30 am United Airlines Flight 93 was in the
control of hijackers. Air
traffic controllers knew immediately of the hijacking but again,
no one advised the military. The
Federal Aviation Administration was in chaos, the only
person at FAA headquarters authorized to call in the military could
not be found! United Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania
at 10:03 am, brought down by
its
passengers. The military found out about the hijacked flight after it
had
already crashed. Apparently FAA headquarters had issued a terrorist
hijack
alert three months earlier to airlines but not to air traffic control.
The shoot-down order was never
relayed to the fighter pilots who might have carried it out. "The
idea
that the President of the United States can give an order and the Air
Force
doesn't get it, that's serious stuff," says Kean, chair of the 9/11
Commission. Only one pilot received a shoot-down order. Marc Sasseville
flew
out of Andrews Air Force Base, a few kilometers from the White House.
He got
the order directly from the Secret Service in the White House bunker
with the
Vice President. He took off in the only
jet available, which was unarmed. All he could have done was to ram
a
hijacked aircraft.It
took 140 minutes for 4300 aircraft over the
United States
to
land at the nearest airfield.
George W
Bush Bush was in Florida
at a
school when he was told of the first plane crashing into the World
Trade
Centre. He continued to speak with the children. After he was told the
second
plane had crashed into the second tower, he continued on for another
seven minutes
before doing anything. You may recall that after Cyclone Katrina hit,
the
greatest natural disaster in U.S.
history, he flew in the other direction to California.
Such ‘leadership’ qualities are unique to George W Bush!!
The afternoon of 9/11, President Bush landed in Nebraska.
Incredibly Air Force One had had communications problems and was unable
to
contact Washington! Late
in the
day, Bush returned to Washington,
found out about the intelligence failure that lead to 9/11 and put the United
States on a path to war. That day Bush
found
out the FBI had known the names of two people in America
who were in al-Qaeda, that they had been allowed to get on planes under
their
own names. Why hadn't the FBI told the transportation department they
were
looking for them?The Bush Administration did nothing
against al-Qaeda until 9/11. The next day, Bush was ready to go to war.
Secretary
Rumsfeld, began talking about attacking Iraq,
because he argued, there weren’t many targets to attack in Afghanistan.
Richard Clarke, the White House Counter-terrorism Director, couldn’t
believe
it, as there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq.
Clarke said attacking Iraq
would make it more difficult for the US
to get Muslim support, but that didn't seem to bother Rumsfeld and his
colleagues. Secretary Powell said Afghanistan
was where the attack of September 11th was launched. It was decided to
attack Afghanistan,
and then Iraq.