Decidedly, the 9/11 case is the worst of all times. Not only there are countless dimensions and connections to be aware of and that need to be stressed but in the end, there are so many threads that one has difficulty keeping the focus on what really matters. In part I, I took a look at the direct links between the reactionary religious bigotry that is encouraged in Saudi Arabia and terrorism activity in general in the years just prior to 9/11. The Saudi connection seemed to have played a major role in the engineering, crafting and carrying of the 9/11 attacks. In another post a few days earlier, I took a look at the connections between international drug cartels and the hijackers. Let me recall that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi infiltrated the Iran-Contra network involved in drug trafficking that was still in use at the time of 9/11.

This second part article will take a look rather on the flipside of part I. I will try to provide a picture of what could have gone wrong inside the U.S. to have 9/11 happened despite all the intelligence agencies, the FBI and all the capable people within the government. As a starting point, I will bring to your attention something that has made the news in the progressive sector last week but that was totally ignored, or close to that, in the mainstream press. Two young producers, Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, made an interview with Richard Clarke, NSC Chief of Counterterrorism from 1992-2001, in October 2009. They recently launched a website to publish the interview and related articles and news. The site was temporarily taken offline due to CIA legal threats. To sum things up, Richard Clarke alleges that he was kept in the dark about the presence in the U.S. of two Al-Qaeda agents, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, that would become some of the hijackers that flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. His allegations concern directly three key individuals who were within the government apparatus at the time of 9/11, George Tenet, head of the CIA, Cofer Black, head of the Counterterrorism Center of the CIA, and Richard Blee, who was made Chief of bin Laden Unit in 1999 at Alec station, a listening post in the Middle East dedicated to Al-Qaeda. To watch the interview with Clarke, you can visit their website. Continuer la lecture →