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Agent Faults FBI on 9/11

H

hipsterdufus

I thought this was a very interesting development in the botched Zacarias Moussaoui trial. The man who arrested Moussaoui, Special Agent Harry Samit, is blaming the FBI for not following up on his requests to look harder into Moussaui. He believes that had the FBI done its job 9/11 could have been prevented.

Samit's recollections Monday were the first ground-level account of how FBI agents in Minneapolis — where Moussaoui was arrested on a visa violation 3½ weeks before the attacks — were appalled that their Washington supervisors denied their requests for search warrants in the effort to find out why the Frenchman was taking flying lessons and what role he might have in a wider plan to attack America.

"They obstructed it," a still-frustrated Samit told the jury, calling his superiors' actions a calculated management decision "that cost us the opportunity to stop the attacks."

snip

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to being a part of the Sept. 11 conspiracy. His lawyers maintain that the government had plenty of leads in the summer of 2001 that a major terrorist action was afoot, even without Moussaoui's cooperation. They point to a memo by an FBI agent in Phoenix warning of Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons, and the fact that then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was apprised of Moussaoui's arrest.

Samit testified Monday that he never knew of the Phoenix memo or of Tenet's interest in the case. He also said he was kept in the dark about the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing given to Bush during his vacation in Texas. That briefing, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," noted "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks."

"I didn't see it," Samit testified. "I did not see anything like that."


Defense lawyer Edward B. MacMahon Jr. also used his cross-examination of Samit to suggest that law enforcement officials never took such threats seriously then anyway.

Under MacMahon's daylong questioning, Samit said that officials at the FBI headquarters in Washington rejected a series of attempts to obtain a warrant to search Moussaoui's personal belongings.

Had the belongings been opened before Sept. 11, agents would have found numerous small knives, jumbo-jet pilot manuals, rosters of flight schools and other clues that might have helped them understand the Sept. 11 plot.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...1mar21,0,4983416.story?coll=la-home-headlines

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Two words..............The Wall.

And yes, that picture still makes me ill, but there is no doubt that the wall built between agencies made us vulnerable to attacks, and we should never forget that.
 
What about Able Danger? Not like this information was new. And nothing was done about it way before 9/11
 
Calm2Chaos said:
What about Able Danger? Not like this information was new. And nothing was done about it way before 9/11

Again...............The Wall!
 
Calm2Chaos said:
What about Able Danger? Not like this information was new. And nothing was done about it way before 9/11

2 different stories, although I don't disagree with you on the importance of investigating Able Danger.

We had Moussoui in custody 3 1/2 weeks before 9/11, and the FBI dropped the ball in it's failure to possibly prevent 9/11.
 
Deegan said:
Again...............The Wall!

I just love this selective memory. There were multiple chances for this plot or plan or these people or this organization to have been disrupted to the point that 9/11 would not be an issue. The problem seemed to be our horny president at the time had absolutely no desire to handle anything of this nature and kept blocking or passing it on. Why try and serve a 8 year old tomatoe and tell people it's new
 
hipsterdufus said:
2 different stories, although I don't disagree with you on the importance of investigating Able Danger.

We had Moussoui in custody 3 1/2 weeks before 9/11, and the FBI dropped the ball in it's failure to possibly prevent 9/11.

My point was Mousoui wouldn't have been a factor IMO if the able danger information was taken seriously. 9/11 would have been dirupted well in advance had the warnings been heeded
 
My point is that the Federal government, and the structuring of our intelligence agencies are to blame. I seriously doubt that the FBI, or any agency was not doing all they could to prevent the attacks of 9/11, and others. It is because of this "Wall" that they were not able to share pertenant infomation with each other, and that this is what led to the failures at this, and other agencies.
 
Deegan said:
My point is that the Federal government, and the structuring of our intelligence agencies are to blame.
I wish you luck with that. I'm going to go ahead and keep blaming the one's who planned, plotted and flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.
 
KCConservative said:
I wish you luck with that. I'm going to go ahead and keep blaming the one's who planned, plotted and flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

Really? Hey, I can dig that.

Some goofballs prefer to blame Bush or Clinton.:rofl
 
Captain America said:
Really? Hey, I can dig that.

Some goofballs prefer to blame Bush or Clinton.:rofl

Yeah, well, neither are very good plans for securing the Nation, but whatever get's you through the day I guess.;)
 
I wish you luck with that. I'm going to go ahead and keep blaming the one's who planned, plotted and flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.
or you could go with c2c and just blame clinton all the time
 
Willoughby said:
or you could go with c2c and just blame clinton all the time
Well I do wish Clinton would have taken action after the 93 WTC bombing, the USS Cole bombing, etc. OBL declared war on the U.S. in the early 90's.
 
Willoughby said:
or you could go with c2c and just blame clinton all the time


Lets get something complete straight...

1.) the people that performed this attack are ultimately responsible for everything.

2.) If your looking domesticly for answers on how this was "allowed" to happen then you need to look farther then President Bush. There was information out there that if acted upon may have very well disrupted 9/11 way before the animals boarded there planes and killed 3000 innocent civillians.

3.) Kinda like you blame President Bush or the US for everything...

Hope that helps
 
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