The System Was Blinking Red: The Intelligence Communities Response To The 9/11 Attacks
“We are going to be struck soon. Many Americans are going to die and it could be in the United States.” — Cofer Black speech at Department of Defense coronation on counter-terrorism (8–15–2001)
There was an aura of heightened tension that situated itself within every intelligence facility around the world in the summer of 2001. The cables warning of an imminent attack by Osama Bin Laden upon the United States came from every corner of the earth. Italy, Spain, Lebanon, Germany, Israel, France, Canada, Egypt. The information, vague, Al Qaeda led by it’s emir, Bin Laden, had a plot to conduct a massive domestic attack. But how, when?
By the Spring of 2001, Deputy Chief of Alec Station (Bin Laden Issue Station), Tom Wilshire was tasked to liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as it’s chief of counter-intelligence working directly under it’s Director, Michael Rolnice. Alec Station was the CIA virtual station dedicated to tracking down Osama Bin Laden, an idea born from David Cohen, head of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. In 2000, it was CIA Director, George Tenet, who decided to change the station’s direction, and began implementing new ideas one that concentrated on having a more personal intervention towards Afghanistan. With a new Deputy, Richard Blee, the station began instituting drones as its eyes and ears while its new CTC Deputy, Cofer Black, wanted to infiltrate Al Qaeda, and create spies to gather human intelligence (HUMINT).
Wilshire, one of the elder statesmen of the unit, was tasked by Blee to assist the FBI counter-terrorism office in Washington. Wilshire had come under “suspicion” by withholding pertinent information from the FBI back in 2000. As the station had the passports, of Khalid al-Mihdhar copied and Nawaf al-Hazmi dual entry U.S visa known. Two of the station’s officers, Mark Rossini and Doug Miller, both from the FBI office in NYC, became aware of this cable. And tried to send this information back to FBI headquarters, where the cable, drafted by Miller, was put on hold. At Tom Wilshire’s request, which fell under his closest CIA liaison officer and head of the Yemen Hub ticket, Michael Anne Casey.
Wilshire had begun informing FBI headquarters about data the CIA were made aware of regarding the travel of two men who were also USS Cole bombing conspirators. He relays this to Dina Corsi, an FBI intelligence analyst with whom Wilshire began a rapport with in Washington D.C. There were certain FBI agents from New York City and Washington D.C who were already under suspicion of the CIA withholding information about the movements of Al Qaeda operatives. Including, Steve Bongardt, a top assistant from the FBI’s top counter-intelligence unit, to Ali Soufan. Bongradt, believes the CIA had withheld information regarding the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. This notion was also echoed by John O’Neill, who was the FBI”s chief of the counter-intelligence bureau in NYC. Meanwhile Wilshire held a closed door meeting with a liaison officer from the CIA’s Counter-terrorist Center, Clark Shannon in the early afternoon hours of May 21st. Shannon gives Wilshire a timeline of events related to the USS Cole attack and they discuss Fahad al-Quso, a member of the bombing team in custody.
Wilshire wanted to connect two incidents together, the USS Cole bombing and participants of an Al Qaeda Summit Meeting which was held in Malaysia in January 2000. Was there a connection? However, the information he was compiling was being with-held, even from his FBI counter-parts in the Washington D.C office. Compiling notes and cables from Alec Station Wilshire was able to notice a glaring piece of information, both Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, were at the Summit Meeting. Wilshire would not share this information with the FBI.
The Saudi’s were closely monitoring al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi out West, in places such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Arizona. While the Israeli’s were monitoring Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah in the Eastern part of the country, in New York City, New Jersey and Florida.
Thru-ought the summer months of 2001, the CIA counter-terrorism center began receiving cables from its foreign intelligence counter-parts of Italy, Germany, Spain, Israel, Great Britain, Canada about a large scale attack happening inside the United States. The CIA’s Alec Station however was adamant about an attack somewhere in SE Asia. This is contradictory however to the cables from its own station, which showed two Al Qaeda operatives, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi already being inside the United States at this point.
July 10th 2001, National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was tasked to look over the White House press briefing regarding a ceremony in regards to Captain Ed W. Freeman of the U.S Army receiving the Medal of Honor, when the phone rang. On the other end was a frantic George Tenet. Tenet was already en-route to the White House for an emergency meeting. It was the only time in Tenet’s career he would not announce himself before arriving. Tenet was adamant about Rice contacting the administrations top officials from the National Security Unit, he had information which was indeed dire.
Tenet was with Alec Station chief, Richard Blee, along with Rice and Richard Clarke, the chief of National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism. Blee began the meeting with a heightened tone, almost as if he was completely taken aback by the information he was presenting. Also present was Deputy National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley. Hadley asked Blee about the nature of the information he was receiving at the CIA’s counter-terrorism center. Blee however was rather “vague” about the pertinent details, and never mentioned once that the CIA was aware of two Al Qaeda operatives inside the U.S at this point. Blee however began the meeting regarding certain threats the country faces soon.
“A warning related to Chechen leader Ibn Khattab and seven pieces of intelligence the CIA recently received indicating there would soon be a terrorist attack.
A mid-June statement by bin Laden to trainees that there would be an attack in the near future.
Information that talks about moving toward decisive acts
Late-June information saying a “big event” was forthcoming. This did not mention what “kind” of event as forthcoming or when.
Two separate bits of information collected “a few days before the meeting” in which people predicted a “stunning turn of events” in the weeks ahead. This may be a reference to intercepts of calls in Yemen, possibly involving the father-in-law of 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar.”
Intercepts, like these Blee used were from the CIA’s Alec Station which were directly coming from the Yemen Hub, a house owned by Ahmed al-Hada located in Sa’naa, Yemen. al-Hada was a close associate to Osama Bin Laden during the Afghanistan-Soviet War and had used his house as a conduit for Al Qaeda operatives to use. Clarke mentions much later to investigators that at no point during the meeting did Blee or Tenet, mention the names Khalid al-Mihdhar or Nawaf al-Hazmi, or the fact they were in the country. Blee says that the attacks will be “spectacular,” they will be designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities and interests, there may be multiple, simultaneous attacks, and they may be in the US itself.
“There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months!”
The meeting ended, however the most important details regarding al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were withheld even from the White Houses top counter-terrorism officials. By August 3rd, U.S President George Bush would take a month long vacation back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. There he would hold two meetings with George Tenet, this information was with-held from the 9/11 Commission in 2004. Tim Roemer, a commission panel member would even question whether Tenet had meetings with the president under such heightened awareness of an attack, deemed by Blee as imminent.
Tim Roemer: “You didnt see the President, once in the month of August?”
George Tenet: “He’s in Texas, and im either here or on leave for some of that time, so im not here.”
Tim Roemer: “So who’s briefing him on the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB).
George Tenet: “The briefer himself.”
This would turn out to be untrue. Tenet indeed did meet with the President twice in August, and 6 more times in the first 8 days of September. During the evening hours after Tenet’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Bill Harlow, spokesman for the agency, said CIA records showed Tenet briefed the president on national security threats once during Bush’s 27-day ranch vacation, on August 17th, and again at the White House on August 31st.
Back at the Washington D.C FBI counter-intelligence office, Tom Wilshire had finally received the cable regarding the Al Qaeda Summit meeting, and one person of interest, finding a cable regarding “Khallad”. The cable, from January 2001, discusses al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash’s presence at the summit. The connection was clear. “Khallad” was also a person of interest in the USS Cole bombing as well. Wilshire writes an e-mail to the CIA’s Counter-terrorist Center (CTC), stating, “Khallad is a major league killer, who orchestrated the Cole bombing and possibly the Africa bombings. “Khallad” was know as Walid bin Attash.
August 16th, the FBI arrest a person of interest in Minneapolis. Zacarias Moussaoui, along with him was a person by the name of Hussein Al Attas. Their personal belongings in the hotel room would have to be searched but not without a FISA warrant, as both men were considered foreign nationals. That warrant would be denied. Causing some within the FBI field office in Minneapolis to become suspicious of their superiors. The NSA meanwhile were tallying meta-data regarding the Al Qaeda operatives affiliated with the Yemen Hub, as the NSA had tapped the phone lines and monitored the calls since 1996. Maureen Baginski, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) director reiterated to crypto-analyst William Binney who headed the NSA’s ThinThread program that she was terminating it. ThinThread, was a working prototype that claimed to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. However, NSA Director, Michael Hayden, decided to go with another program which had the backing of many, and would lend the NSA to the tune of tens of millions of dollars which didn’t have such privacy restrictions, TrailBlazer.
Jack Cloonon, a primary FBI agent from the counter-terrorism special unit, I-49, out of the NYC office, would receive a call from Dina Corsi on the late afternoon hours of August 23rd. The nature of the call was alarming. Corsi began the calls asserting to Cloonan that the CIA had discovered that two men, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, were likely inside the United States. Cloonan assigns a rookie agent to the task of finding them immediately, in Craig Donnachie. Corsi tells Donnachie that al-Mihdhar was strictly an intelligence matter and not a criminal one. The case is opened as such with very few resources behind it. Donnachie was alone to find two men who were “somewhere” in the United States. Corso would then call, Steve Bongardt, about what she told Cloonan. To which he would end up yelling to Corsi…
“If these guys are in the country, they are not going to fucking Disneyland!!”
At Phoenix FBI headquarters, an important yet ignored memo was finally beginning to make the rounds. Drafted by Ken Williams, the “Phoenix Memo” which was, advising of the “possibility of a coordinated effort by Usama Bin Ladin” to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools. Williams based his theory on the “inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest” attending such schools in Arizona. The memo was not released immediately when it was published on July 10th, and the memo was seen by at least a dozen officials of the FBI, including John O’Neill, but it was never passed to acting director Thomas Pickard. The memo was also not made aware to even senior level staff at the White House until May 2002. Minneapolis agent, Colleen Rowley, would later testify under oath in 2003, that she rebuffed the statements made by FBI Director Robert Mueller, about the FBI being made unaware of planes being hijacked while she brings up the Phoenix Memo and the subsequent information made available from Moussaoui. The 9/11 Commission, would later write in it’s final report about the timing of the Phoenix Memo, considering also that it was vague.
“As its author told investigators, the Phoenix memo was not an alert about suicide pilots. His worry was more about a Pan Am Flight 103 scenario in which explosives were placed on an aircraft.The memo’s references to aviation training were broad,including aeronautical engineering.89 If the memo had been distributed in a timely fashion and its recommendations acted on promptly, we do not believe it would have uncovered the plot. It might well, however, have sensitized the FBI so that it might have taken the Moussaoui matter more seriously the next month.”
(Page 262, Chapter: The System was Blinking Red)
Their findings about Moussaoui and information found on his laptop, after the 9/11 attacks, were much more damning in regards to the “malfeasance” shown by Minneapolis FBI.
“A maximum U.S. effort to investigate Moussaoui conceivably could have unearthed his connections to Binalshibh. Those connections might have brought investigators to the core of the 9/11 plot.The Binalshibh connection was recognized shortly after 9/11, though it was not an easy trail to find. Discovering it would have required quick and very substantial cooperation from the German government, which might well have been difficult to obtain. However, publicity about Moussaoui’s arrest and a possible hijacking threat might have derailed the plot. With time, the search for Mihdhar and Hazmi and the investigation of Moussaoui might also have led to a breakthrough that would have disrupted the plot.”
(Page 276, Chapter: The System was Blinking Red)
There were certain events which caused suspicion later on in the U.S congressional inquiries investigating the intelligence apparatuses. One particularly interesting event, would be the resignation of Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of the Saudi’s General Intelligence Directorate, and someone who has had personal dealings with Osama Bin Laden and his expulsion from the Saudi Kingdom to the Sudan back in 1992. al-Turki would also become well known to CIA CTC chief Cofer Black in the years prior. According to Richard Clarke, Cofer Black may very well have tried to get Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to become “spies” for the CIA and give them information about Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Both men while arriving in Los Angeles in January of 2000, were met by a Saudi GID operative, Omar al-Bayoumi. al-Bayoumi gave both men cash and a rented apartment in San Diego. It would later be known to the Joint House Inquiry, that al-Bayoumi and another Saudi operative, Osama Basnan, that payments made originally from Haifa bint Faisal, wife of U.S-Saudi Ambassador, and close friend to U.S President George W. Bush, went from Riggs Bank to the wife of Osama Basnan, Majeda Dweikat, to Basnan, then to al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi thru-ought 2000–2001 period. These pages would be known now as the “28 pages” from the Joint House Inquiry report which is still partly redacted to protect Saudi officials from scrutiny.
Just two days before the attacks, a call made from Northern Alliance leader Amrullah Saleh, to the CIA CTC unit. Saleh announces the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud. Massoud was currently at war with the Taliban over control of the country. With Massoud killed, the Taliban would now take Kabul, the capitol. It is rumored that the assassination came form Osama Bin Laden who would curry favor with the Taliban with Bin Laden having nowhere to go. Massoud was killed as two Al Qaeda operatives who were disguised as French reporters and tried to interview Massoud. The camera was outfitted with a bomb, as it exploded it killed both men and severely injured Massoud, who died on his way to a hospital.
September 11th 2001….after the attacks, the White House was under constant surveillance and tension. Richard Clarke was then presented the passenger lists of all 4 flights involved in the hijackings of the day. Before he was made aware of the, they were first became known to the CIA’s Customs Office of Intelligence as a staffer had hurriedly shown them to George Tenet, to which he replied in an aghast tone…
“My god….it’s all of them!”
Meanwhile a unnamed staffer would write down the damning points brought up during a meeting of the National Security Counsel held in the war room of the Pentagon.
AA77- 3 indiv have been followed
Since Millennium & Cole
1 guy is associ. of Cole bomber
2 entered U.S in early July
(2 or 3 pulled aside & interrogated)
CIA Director Tenet would hold a conference with State Department officials. In his proposal. he implored the Bush administration to grant him “exceptional authorities” with also full responsibilities into the invasion of Afghanistan. He also made a case for significant expansions of the counter-terrorism unit staff and budget. Tenet also made clear, that “illegalities” would now become official U.S policy in the region, while also proposing for an assassination list.
On September 17th, Bush sings an executive order granting the CIA what Tenet had resoundingly asked for. The directive gave the CIA the full, unreserved authority to capture or assassinate Al Qaeda operatives, as well as establishing secret prisons.
Cofer Black begins drawing up a covert-operation to be conducted by the largest contingent of CIA and Special Forces in history, “Jawbreaker” led by Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team NALT commander, Gary Schroen. Black’s instructions were simple…
“Your mission is to find al-Qa’ida, engage it, and destroy it.”
Back in Maryland, the NSA would begin building new databases to combat the telecommunications restrictions previous held before the attacks. With the dawn of a new era, the NSA would be the one agency built on establishing a new strategy to combat “terrorism”. According to Thomas Drake, a former senior executive of the NSA, an unnamed NSA analyst had given Drake a report in hard copy form about the NSA’s meta-data map which produced, in exclusive detail, about Bin Laden’s network, his cells and associated movements. An extraordinarily detailed, long term study of Al Qaeda’s activities that also identified the planning cells involved in the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. Mohamed Atta, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been known to the NSA since 2000. This information was never shared with the FBI, State Department or even the CIA.
Thomas Drake, aghast at the report, would send it immediately over to Maureen Baginsky, to which she would reply….
“ Tom, i wish you had not shown me this..”
Days after the attacks, Bush would sign off on a top secret data-mining NSA program called “Stellar Wind”.
A program which was devised as a number of highly classified intelligence activities devoted to the interception, without warrant, of certain international communications, where there was reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of Al Qaeda. It also gave the legal authority to eavesdrop on domestic calls, but also intercept domestic emails.
Back in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, …Gary Berntsen, Commander of all CIA forces in Eastern Afghanistan, would lead the team in the operation, Jawbreaker. By the late September weeks, he would have Bin Laden trapped in a nearby school house. Bin Laden’s convoy of several hundreds cars were almost surrounded, however there was a small escape route into the Pakistan landscape, if he decided to take advantage of it. Members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) team listened in to conversations on a captured short wave radio, the voice they heard confirmed it was Bin Laden who was cornered.
“We threw everything at him. I didn’t even know we had that many B52 or B1s, Everybody was trying to get into the fight because… he was there. I can tell you that we dropped so much munitions on this place that we actually changed the landscape. The map is different.”
An SBS special forces soldier who was on the ground told the BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Berntsen along with 800 Army Rangers were to accost the group, which would have escalated to a larger scaled conflict. However a last minute decision would cost at the apprehension. Richard Blee was tasked to replace Berntsen at the last minute, as he was to become the CIA liaison officer of Afghanistan, a highly sought out position.
Blee decided to take CIA Alec Station commander, Michael Anne Casey of Alec Station along with him. A decision not supported by the special forces unit who were close to Berntsen. Mark Rossini however had a different explanation of why Blee took Casey along with him, and it was to shield her from the Intelligence Community of Congress and interviewing her in regards to Alec Station activities. With the total stagnation of Jawbreaker, Bin Laden along with his entourage escape into the Pakistan mountains. They tell Berntsen, “No disrespect to Rich, but when you leave, we leave.” Berntsen will attribute Blee’s selection to his closeness to CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt, and will also hint that Blee strongly desired the job.
With Bin Laden escaping into Pakistan, along with his deputy of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri along side him, the major focus of the conflict in Afghanistan began to concentrate on the Helmond Province. An area known to possess the largest poppy fields in the world. Where to this very day, U.S Marine forces are said to hold court.
By November 2001, the Taliban reeling from the air strikes of the U.S Military, the Pakistan Army would end up capturing Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi as he was fleeing the Afghan conflict. He was the turned over to the FBI at Bagram Air Force Base. There FBI investigators, George Crouch and Russell Fincher begin having successful interrogations of al-Libi, in which one of the primary sources of data unbeknownst to anyone, was that of Richard Reid, who would later be apprehended on board American Airlines Flight 63 trying to light a make shift bomb in his shoe. When word of the interrogations got back to Blee, he was furious. He complains to Tenet, who in turn goes to George Bush for transfer of al-Libi to Egypt where the CIA tortures him. al-Libi has been identified as a principal source of faulty prewar intelligence regarding chemical weapons training between Iraq and al-Qaeda that was used by the Bush Administration to justify the Iraq War. al-Libi was asked why he gave such erroneous information to his handlers…..”i just wanted them to stop hurting me.”
Meanwhile the White House top officials, mainly from the Neocon faction, pushed the FBI to find “any” information to link Iraq to the September 11th terrorist attacks, to which Mueller would state he could not. They then decided to ask Tenet and the CIA about finding a link. The CIA began constructing its first secret CIA prison, located in Afghanistan….called “Colbalt”, or the “Salt Pit”. High valued detainees would be brought here for some of the more extreme methods of enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA’s top executives would begin working with the State Department and White House National Security Counsel along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia in regards to “enhanced techniques” and the information provided to interrogators.
Former U.S military psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen would be contacted by CIA officials as well as State Department representatives on consultation. Both men recommended a program, a psychological & physical torture method called, Survival Evasion Resistance & Escape (SERE). The curriculum includes survival skills, evading capture, application of the military code of conduct, and methods and techniques for escape from captivity. This program would later have major repercussions in regards to the trial of the alleged co-conspirators involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks, as much of the information collected by using the program came under the duress of long duration of abhorrent torture methods.
Back in the United States, the Joint House Inquiry began their investigation into the intelligence community and their activities in the months leading up to the attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. The National Commission on terrorist attacks in the United States, or the 9/11 Commission also began its investigation. According to a closed door session between the 9/11 Commission and Thomas Drake, the ThinThread program under William Binney was able to identify 19 of the hijackers whom purchased airline tickets and all scheduled for the date of September 11th 2001, while also identifying many of them as Al Qaeda operatives. Drake exclaims that with this information, the NSA very well could have prevented the terrorist attacks. When the DOJ began their own inquiry, Inspector General Glenn Fine and his staffers were made aware from Alfreda Anne Bikowsky, a high ranking CIA officer from Alec Station, that the memo sent by Drake to her regarding Khalid al-Mihdhar’s US Visa was sent to the FBI. However the FBI had no recollection of her ever having any presence there or ever having received such information.
Further interviews involving the NSA and Director Michael Hayden however stopped almost suddenly. The NSA were the primary intelligence agency which had the most sensitive information regarding the Yemen Hub, where all Al Qaeda communication was received and deployed. Not inquiring further about the collection of data regarding this important area was nothing short if irresponsible. Yet the two Congressional inquiries would seemingly ignore the NSA altogether. The question is, why? With Cofer Black leaving the CTC, his replacement, Michael D’Andrea was immediately nicknamed the “Dark Prince” due to his overt pleasure of the SERE program's abundance of transparent data coming from numerous detainees. D’Andrea would get along quite well with Bikowsky who was also just as “cold-blooded” as her new CTC director. In fact when Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was captured and sent to Colbalt, she would personally witness him being waterboarded on her down time from the agency.
By 2005, Dana Priest of the Washington Post would break the story of CIA black sites operating overseas. To which the article asserts the existence of clandestine, extraterritorial, torture sites operated by the CIA worldwide. The article, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons”, would shock the global intelligence community. Priest related that the CIA held approximately 30 senior members of the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership and approximately 100 foot soldiers in their own facilities around the world. With over 750 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The revelation was damning to the CIA, as well as to the State Department who justified the torture memo headed by John Yoo who authored the so-called Torture Memos, which provided a legal rationale for the torture of detainees during the War on Terror.
Priest came under fire almost immediately after the release of the summary to which she would fire back at her detractors, who said she may have violated the countries National Security.
“Does that make sense to you? Letting the bad guys know that we can eavesdrop on them, they don’t know that? I think one of the revealing facts about the NSA wiretapping case, if you take the government on the face value, is the extent to which they are underestimating the enemy, which is not a good thing if you want to defeat the enemy.”
Sometime around the late months of 2005, the war on whistle-blowers began. Alec Station closes for good in 2007, Richard Blee retires, Michael Hayden becomes the CIA’s Director and Alfreda Anne Bikowsky becomes the deputy station chief in Baghdad. By May 2007, the Baltimore Sun runs a story on the NSA’s co-opted program, TrailBlazer. Drake has used encrypted email to correspond with Siobhan German regarding the Stellar Wind program. Just a few short weeks later, the FBI would arrest former NSA employees, William Binney, Ed Loomis and Kirk Wiebe. The NSA were worried about the Baltimore Sun and NY Times leak regarding the NSA’s programs.
Meanwhile the NY Times would later learn of the CIA destroying of interrogation tapes, Jose Rodriguez deputy director for operations and Gina Haspel, Deputy Group Chief, Counter-terrorism Center, would be behind the destruction of these tapes. It is said, the source of the leak….Michael Hayden himself. The Department of Justice would investigate the CIA destruction of these tapes and found in 2008 that no charges would be filed. Drake meanwhile is arrested on charges of violating the Espionage Act, a rare charge. However, Federal Prosecutors could only reasonable charge Drake with retention of classified information with intention to disclose. The NSA pressured the State Department to charge anyone suspect of leaking the NSA’s programs to the press. Drake would later have ten charges dropped, but the insurmountable legal fees would cost him.
The insult now lies with the citizens of the United States and the seemingly, frozen stuck, trial regarding the five men charged for the September 11th terrorist attacks. All five men..Ammar al-Baluchi, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad were all victims of torture from their CIA handlers at Black Sites. How can it legally be justified to charge them with the crimes made under such duress, considered illegal in U.S courts…..how could the CIA not know this much and comprehend the mere fact that any information made under torture cannot be admissible in any court of law…
….or did they?