Fw: The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui: FBI refused to investigate man charged in September 11 attacks

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 The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui: FBI refused to investigate man
 charged in September 11 attacks
 By Patrick Martin
 5 January 2002
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 The case of Zacarias Moussaoui raises many questions about the conduct of
 the FBI and other US intelligence agencies in the period leading up the
 September 11. It is the clearest example of the almost inexplicable refusal
 on the part of these agencies to take any action that could have prevented
 the bloodiest terrorist attack in American history.

 Moussaoui was arraigned January 3 on six counts of conspiracy to commit
 murder and terrorism in the September 11 attacks. A French-born man of
 Moroccan Arab descent, Moussaoui refused "in the name of Allah" to make a
 plea, and a plea of not guilty was entered for him at the request of his
 public defender.

 The 30-minute hearing in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia
 concluded with US District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema setting a trial date
for
 next October, despite defense protests that this would put jury selection
 around the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and
 Pentagon.

 Defense lawyers suggested they would seek a change of venue from
Alexandria,
 only a few miles from the Pentagon where 189 people were killed when a
 hijacked American Airlines jet slammed into the building on September 11.
 Brinkema indicated that she was not inclined to grant a change of venue,
 saying that a fair jury could be found in northern Virginia.

 Four of the six charges against Moussaoui carry the death penalty, although
 he was arrested a month before the September 11 attacks and therefore could
 not have played any active role in the mass murder. Prosecutors have until
 March 29 to announce whether they will seek death sentences. Moussaoui
would
 be the first French citizen to face the death penalty in the United States
 since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976.


 FBI refusal to act

 Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota August 16 after officials of a flight
 school, the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, a suburb of
 Minneapolis, tipped off the FBI that he was seeking flight training on a
 Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

 His conduct aroused suspicion: his attitude was belligerent, he was evasive
 about his personal background, he declined to speak French with an
 instructor who knew the language, and he paid the $6,300 fee in cash. He
 insisted on training to fly a jumbo jet despite an obvious lack of skill
 even with small planes. The prospective student reportedly did not want to
 learn how to take off or land, only how to steer the jet while it was in
the
 air.

 The instructor and a vice president of the flight school briefed two
 Democratic congressmen from the Minneapolis area in November about their
 repeated efforts to get the FBI to take an interest in Moussaoui's conduct.
 Their accounts were first reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, then in
 the New York Times December 22.

 The vice president of the flight school, who briefed Minnesota Congressmen
 James Oberstar and Martin Sabo, said it took four to six phone calls to the
 FBI to find an agent who would help. The instructor became so frustrated by
 the lack of response that he gave a prescient warning to the FBI that "a
747
 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb."


 Investigation blocked in Washington

 Moussaoui was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on
 charges of violating the terms of his visa. Local FBI investigators in
 Minneapolis immediately viewed Moussaoui as a terrorist suspect and sought
 authorization for a special counterintelligence surveillance warrant to
 search the hard drive of his home computer. This was rejected by
 higher-level officials in Washington, who claimed there was insufficient
 evidence to meet the legal requirements for the warrant.

 FBI agents tracked Moussaoui's movements to the Airman Flight School in
 Norman, Oklahoma, where he logged 57 hours of flight time earlier in 2001
 but was never allowed to fly on his own because of his poor skills. This
 alone should have set off alarm bells, since a confessed Al Qaeda
operative,
 Abdul Hakim Murad, had trained at the same school, as part of preparations
 for a suicide hijack attack on CIA headquarters. Murad testified about
these
 plans in the 1996 trial of Ramzi Ahmed Yusef, the principal organizer of
the
 1993 World Trade Center car-bombing.

 Several of the September 11 hijackers had either enrolled in or visited the
 Oklahoma flight school, as a more thorough investigation determined in the
 aftermath of the suicide hijackings.

 On August 26, FBI headquarters was notified by French intelligence that
 Moussaoui had ties to the Al Qaeda organization and Osama bin Laden. Even
 this report did not spur the agency to action. A special counterterrorism
 panel of the FBI and CIA reviewed the information against him, but
concluded
 there was insufficient evidence that he represented any threat, despite his
 refusal to answer questions and the French allegations. Moussaoui was not
 even transferred from INS detention to FBI custody until after September
11.

 The French warning arrived on the day after the first two suicide hijackers
 purchased their one-way, first class tickets for flights on September 11.
 More tickets were purchased on August 26, 27, 28 and 29, while the FBI was
 refusing to pursue a more intensive investigation into Moussaoui or search
 his computer.

 The New York Times commented December 22 that the Moussaoui case "raised
new
 questions about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies
 did not prevent the hijackings."

 FBI officials responded indirectly to this criticism, flatly denying the
 account of the warning given by the flight school personnel. "The notion of
 flying a plane into a building or using it as a bomb never came up," one
 senior official to the Washington Post January 2. "It was a straight
 hijacking scenario that they were worried about."

 This issue is of critical importance, and the flight school instructor,
 unlike the FBI, has absolutely no reason to lie. In the wake of September
 11, FBI Director Robert Mueller flatly declared that the FBI had no
 indication that terrorists were seeking to use hijacked airliners as flying
 bombs. His assurances were accepted uncritically by the American media. The
 account given by the flight school shows that these assurances were lies.

>
A security stand-down
>
 The Moussaoui case is only one of a number of indications that the US
 government had ample warning that a major terrorist operation was under way
 in the United States and yet did nothing to preempt or block it.

 * The governments of at least four countries-Russia, Germany, Israel and
 Egypt-gave Washington specific warnings of terrorist attacks in the United
 States involving the use of hijacked airplanes as weapons, in the months
 leading up to September 11.

 * The US government itself had multiple indications of the danger of
suicide
 hijackings, based on its own investigations into other terrorist attacks
 attributed to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network.

 * The US government was monitoring the electronic communications of bin
 Laden and his associates during the extensive period of advance planning
 which preceded the September 11 attack.

 * Several of the September 11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, the
 alleged ringleader, were under direct surveillance by US agencies as
 suspected terrorists during 2000 and 2001.Yet they were allowed to travel
 freely into and out of the US and eventually carry out their plans.

 September 11 took place amid a virtual stand-down of the security forces
 which permits no innocent explanation. The circumstances of the terrorist
 attacks deserve the most serious and conscientious investigation. Both the
 Bush administration and the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have
 rejected any such probe, suggesting that to question the role of the FBI,
 CIA and other intelligence agencies is unpatriotic.

 But the facts which are known so far point to the conclusion that officials
 at the highest levels of the US government knew that a major terrorist
 attack was under way and made no serious effort to prevent it. The
political
 motive can be inferred: they permitted an attack to go forward-whether they
 knew its full dimensions or not-in order to provide the necessary pretext
 for carrying out a right-wing agenda of military intervention abroad and
 attacks on democratic rights at home.