Security guard Frank Wills found a lock taped open. He removed the tape and went about his business. When he found the door retaped, he knew there was a problem and called the police. James McCord, one of the burglars, was intensely loyal to the C.I.A., and many think it was he who left a door taped at the Watergate. Either he understood the struggle between Nixon and the agency over drugs or someone instructed him to expose the Watergate burglary. Carl Shoffler, policeman who made the arrest, was close to someone in the C.I.A., voluntarily was doing another shift nearby while skipping his own birthday party. Later, two other men E. Howard Hunt, former C.I.A., and G. Gordon Liddy, former F.B.I., were indicted along with them. Liddy did have certain’special clearances from the C.I.A..” These two men, shared a White House office with a decrambled line to Langley. Kathleen Chenow, who shared the office with them left for a London vacation the next day.
Nixon angered the C.I.A. when he demanded that they play a significant role in the cover-up. He had John Dean call in General Vernon Walters, deputy director of the C.I.A., to induce the C.I.A. to seek to shut down some avenues of investigation. Dean told the general that the F.B.I. theorized that the C.I.A. was behind the bugging and said some of the prisoners might implicate the agency. Some of them were working for a C.I.A. front, the Mullen Company. Dean and Walters met twice more, with Dean trying to get the C.I.A. to provide untraceable money for the Cubans. Eventually, Hunt, who had done black ops at least since the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, was found with $200,000 hush money, but he had not given any to the Cubans. There is a C.I.A. memorandum expressing concern that Hunt was in Dallas the day John F. Kennedy was murdered. Hunt, like Nixon, had several stories about where he was that day.
Vernon Walters, on behalf of Nixon, asked Director Helms ask the C.I.A. to oprovide funds for the cover-up and to warn the F.B.I. that the break-in was a matter of national security. Director Richard Helms reported that he refused. In fact the agency asked the F.B.I. to back off looking at a Mexican source of money for the burgulars, saying it could endanger C.I.A. operations there. According to Walters, Helms told him to suggest to Gray that the investigation not go beyond the five burglars. Helms later denied this, but Walters is not known for dissembling.
Then the agency gave the F.B.I. a green light to go ahead with its investigations. Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman was sure that the president thought that the break-in was somehow tied to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He raised the matter with Helms: “The President asked me to tell you this entire affair may be connected to the Bay of Pigs, and if it opens up, the Bay of Pigs may be blown." . . . “The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this. I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs.”
Acting F.B.I. Director L. Patrick Gray called Helms to ask about the agency’s involvement, and Helms responded, "there is no C.I.A. involvement." Yet Helms asked Gray not to inverview two unnamed individuals, and Gray told his agents to proceed gingerly with regard to the C.I.A.. He also told the agents nmot to interview the Mexican lawyer who moved some of the hush money to the White House.
How all of this connected to the death of John F. Kennedy is unclear. H.R. Haldeman was certain there was a close tie and he thought that that Nixon meant this when he said the whole problem went back to the Bay of Pigs. Nixon kept bringing up the Bay of Pigs in connection with Watergate and mentioned it in relation to E. Howard Hunt.
The C.I.A. had many reasons to dislike Nixon and damage him. At that time, the C.I.A. was infuriated because Richard Nixon demanded all of its intelligence about its drug operations. Nixon was running what became the DEA by remote control, and for some reason wanted to use the drug agency as the nuceeus of his own intelligence agency. Ten days after the Watergate burglars were arrested, Barry Seal and some others were seized at Shreveport Regional Airport. They had a plane full of explosives ready to go to Cubans in Mexico. This temporarily shut down the major Drugs/Weapons connection with Mexico. James Miller, Seal's co-pilot, said they were completely surprised because they thought they were protected. Miller also said that Seal had been working with Carols Gambino in these transactions
The bust at Shreveport was engineered by the Customs Service, whose head, Myles Ambrose, a Nixon friend and appointee, had criminal connections particularly the Carlos Marcello family. Ambrose somehow made a deal with Tip O'Neill to facilitate the creation of the DEA. He first headed the Drug Enforcement Office, and that became the DEA. From the beginning, some C.I.A. agents were planted in the new agency. One of them was Cesario Diosdado, who had been involved in the Bay of Pigs and had worked both sides in Miami/Cuba matters. Mafioso Sam Giancana said one of the JFK shooters had been a Customs agent, and this led some to believe this was Diosdado. At any rate, Diosdado played a big role in the Shreveport action. The new DEA was known for thugish tactics, specializing in brutality, no-knock entries, and pointless beating of in innocent individuals. Nixon wanted it to become a new domestic intelligence operation. According to Brigadier General Russell S. Bowen, there were at least 100 C.I.A. people hidden in the DEA and they were used as a “White House goon squad....” After the Watergate break-in, legendary agent Lucien Conein, “Black Luigi,” moved over to the DEA and was to head its Special Operations Group, which was said to be a hit squad. Chuck Coleson later admitted that the DEA/Special Operations Group was involved in assassinations and kidnapping. Colson told Senator Lowell Weicker to look into the death of Lucien Sarti, an Italian drug trafficker in Mexico, to understand what the Special Operations Group does. This involved eliminating the Fench Connection in Mexico, which might have aided communists, with a drug operation run by Cubans tied to the C.I.A.. Many murders followed and the DEA succeeded in eliminating the Marseilles dealers and replacing them with what is roughly called the Cali Cartel. Conein once foolishly boasted of his membership in the Corsican Brotherhood, a large drug ring. He ran secret operations there from 1973 to 1984, laying the groundwork for the great increase in the drug trade in the US in the 1980s. In a sense, the drug trade in the United States was being nationalized. The justification was that some leftists were involved in the trade in Latin Ameerica, and that meant that some of the proceeds might go to Communists. That had to be prevented.
The DEA seized far fewer drugs than the Customs Bureau had and Colonel Thomas Fox, former head of counterintelligence for the DIA, noted that they did not seem to have very much information about the narcotics trade. Soon Senator Henry Jackson opened an investigation of the DEA. He found one former C.I.A. agent, now DEA, setting up a gambling haven on the Island of Abaco and other agents hanging around with Robert Vesco. Barry Seal, who was then with the C.I.A. but’sheep dipped” in DEA kept a file on Vesco, but his widow says it somehow disappeared. Some were involved with Vesco in manufacturing a machine pistol. Of course it was Nixon who got Vesco sprung from a Swiss jail, and Vesco who then hired Donald Nixon. When Frank Peroff said Vesco was moving heroin, Peroff was imprisoned. Vesco continued at his businesses.
It seems that the planes first just brought “weed” into the US. Cocaine might have been aboard, but it would be dropped off in the Bahamas, or other foreign location aqnd for the benefit of US drug dealers.
The drug running became such a large operation that Gerry Patrick Hemming and Barry Seal ran a school for smugglers in Texas. They also taught pilots how to carry out rescue operations. For the most part, they were teaching men to fly heavy twin engine planes.
When Jimmy Carter and Admiral Stanfield Turner began firing C.I.A. agents who were thought to be reckless, these people found the drug trade a good way to make a living. C.I.A. people caught moving drugs might be charged, but the cases rarely went anywhere. Their defense was that they were involved in some deep, dark intelligence missions. It was during the Carter years, that pilots like Seal began bringing in heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Prior to US involvement in Afghanistan, the country only produced opium for a few limited markets. When the US became involved, the Pakistani ISI began encouraging peasants to grow opium, and tribal leaders began opening heroin laboratories.
The Carter Administration set up a Council on Drug Abuse and tried to deal with the influx of drugs, but the C.I.A., despite Admiral Turner, stonewalled the administration and would not share information with the council.
Customs people, later DEA, were post likely involved in moving money through Mexico for Richard Nixon. Leland Briggs, then a special agent in Mexico City, once saw Myles Ambrose, Assistant Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, and John Caulfield fly into Mexico City. Caulfield, a former New York policeman, was Nixon's bagman and money launderer. This was when an untraceable $50 million was flowing from Mexico to Nixon's campaign. What else could they have been arranging? Later, George H.W. Bush arranged for $700,000 to pay off some of the Watergate people. The money passed through some Bush Texas friends, but many investigators think it ultimately came through the Mexican Connection which was temporarily shut down by the Seal arrest. In 1974, the case against Seal and the other six fell apart.
Showing posts with label DEA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DEA. Show all posts
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
What Might Israel Have Known About 9/11?
There is strong evidence that the Israelis knew about the coming 9/11 attack and gathered information on it in advance. There is no evidence they were involved in in any way whatsoever.
F.B.I. special agent Michael Dick, who worked closely with John O’Neill, was concerned about a ring of Israeli movers who were following Al Qaeda people in New York and New Jersey. These Israeli agents communicated by prepaid Verizon cell phones, so their communic tions could not be monitored. Thes agents did not communicate with American authorities. Dick encountered all sorts of bureaucratic problems in pursing this investigation. Eventually, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, ordered Dick off the case. One C.I.A. source with solid Republican credentials, told Wayne Madsen, that the movers were somehow arranging a cover for the future hihackers.
Before 9/11, the DEA discovered that Israeli “artists” were in the United States using efforts to sell art as a cover for other activities. At first, it was believed they were here in connection with an Israeli network that was marketing the mind-altering drug, Ecestacy. Then it was discovered that they were casing DEA personnel and facilities, mther kinds of federal facilities, and some F.B.I. agents. They were also following people who later turned out to be involved in the 9/11 attack on the United States. The DEA found that several of the so-called Israeli stuedents had links to Columbia and Columbians, and this supported the case that they were somehow tied to the drug trade.
Carl Cameron of FOX news did a series in 2002 on these Israeli artists. Cameron thought there were as many as 140 passing themselves off as art students. Brit Hume found that of the sixty were were eventually detained, twelve worked for one private Israeli communications firm. The artists had special cell phones that US investigative personnel could not intercept. What is interesting is that two of them came to Miami directly from Hamburg, a city where Mohammed Atta had been and where he retained many ties. Several were working for three Israeli corporations in the U.S. Some were active military and others had the skills one would expect spies to have. They knew how to run polygraph machines and were good with communications. One had been the bodyguard of the head of the Israeli army and the other was the son of a two star general. Another was a former military intelligence agent. Their cover story was that they were here to establish art studios. Some of them failed polygraph tests after 9/11. It is likely they were tracking would-be Arab terrorists. Cameron thought this was the case, but added that his sources told him they were not sharing what they knew. FOX is an odd place to find this kind of information, but the lead is worth pursuing.
There is clear evidence that high Mossadofficials came to Washington before 9/11 --some time between August 8 and 15-- to deliver a grave warning to the F.B.I. and C.I.A.. This was reported in a number of mainstream outlets after 9/11, but government sources either denied the Mossad visitors delivered a warning or said the warning was only of a very general sort. Eventually, some media outlets retracted the story. FOX News was told that pursuing it would be “career suicide.” The network dropped the matter but never offered a retraction.
Dr. Alan Aabrosky, a Jew and former director of studies at the Army War College, has hypothesized that 9/11 could not have been pulled off without the combined efforts of the C.I.A. and Mossad. He noted that the physics of the official story for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was all wrong.
A November 23, 2001 New York Times story told about 60 Israelis being detained here after 9/11. However most were expelled months before 9/11, and those still detained had been picked up at that time. Le Monde reported on March 6, 2002 that they actually numbered more than a hundred. It added that about 120 were expelled. In June, 1999, Insight magazine reported that Division Five of the F.B.I. had found Israelis tapping White House lines. Apparently, the F.B.I. was also aware of this large spy ring before 9/11. In time, the story of the Israeli art student spy ring dropped in the American press. Jane’s Intelligence Digest noted this in March , 2003: “It is rather strange that the U.S. media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks—the alleged breakup of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA.”
The art student spy ring went from house to house selling art. They seemed to show an interest in visiting DEA offices and the homes of DEA personnel. There is no doubt that they targeted DEA in these ways, and one wonders if this confirms the many reports that the Mossad supports itself by moving drugs, especially Ecstasy, from Columbia into the United States.
The Israeli agents seemed to cluster where the terrorists were and in places where drug money was being laundered. The Israelis seemed to be organized into teams of 8 to 10 agents. Often the agents were found in federal buildings and top secret military bases.. The terrorists were probably using drug money as well as the funds that were wired in to them. It is interesting that it was the DEA that first became aware of the activities of the Israeli artists and began to track them. The report showed that the Israelis often were addresses very close to where the terrorists were staying. Coincidence?
The DEA report on their activities, what art they bought, etc. is incredibly detailed. It suggests that the Israeli artist spy ring was somehow involved in scouting out DEA investigations of the Ecstasy drug trade. The British and European press assumed the DEA started watching the Israelis, thinking they were peddling Ecstasy, as some claim that US authorities have farmed out this franchise in the US to Mossad. This cannot be proven, but it can be shown that Mossad has shared the drug trade in southern California with US agencies. Forward suggested the Israelis were here to spy on our common enemy, Al Qaeda. The interest in the DEA and certain military bases was probably a smoke screen. Those observing military facilities and the DEA were rounded up while others were left to complete surveillance of Al Qaeda.
The DEA and Justice Department actually started deporting the Israelis in April, 2001—before the 9/11 attack. The Israelis had a good handle on at lest four of the terrorists. When the Israelis caught up with two in Hollywood, Florida, the DEA nabbed them and they were deported. At one point the Justice Department threatened to hold “dozens” indefinitely, but in the end they were all released.
Those who deny that the Israelis were spies rely on the fact that the DEA report does not say they were spies. They also note that other Israelis were deported after 9/11 because they lacked proper papers. Finally, it is noted that the intelligence people who usually feed information to the mainstream press are denying there is any significance to the Israeli art students story.
Less than an hour after the first blast at the Trade Center, East Rutherford New Jersey police arrested five Israelis who had been in a white Chevrolet van described in an F.B.I. alert (BOLO) twenty-five minutes before. The Bergen Record offered a different time frame but the same essential information. The F.B.I. spotted them at Liberty State Park. Money, marked maps of the and multiple passports were found in the van. They were videotaping the collapse of the World Trade Center. They were seen giving themselves high fives when the first plane hit. One of them refused to take a lie detector test and subsequently failed when he did submit to one. The van belonged to Urban Moving Systems , whose owner fled to Israel two days later. In the company’s warehouse, investigators found traces of anthrax, fertilizer, and pipes. A number of computers were removed. Dominick Suter, owner of the firm, closed the business a few days after the attack and fled to Israel.
Much later, The Forward confirmed that two them were spies and that the moving company was a front. An ABC investigation revealed in 2002 that the F.B.I. assumed the agents were in the US to track terrorists. The F.B.I. quickly shut down its investigation, allegedly on orders from the White House.
There is good evidence that another Israeli surveillance team was attached to the World Trade Center plot. That might help explain why the movers were pleased with themselves. They had gotten the event on tape and may have beaten the other team. One of the movers assumed the Palestinians had done it. He told the police “We are Israelis” and that the police should be worrying about Palestinians. Maybe the observation and documentation force was separated from the agents who were tracking Al Qaeda.
In November, three of the five agents appeared on Israeli television and admitted they were there to film the attack. This makes clear that they Israelis knew the attack wass coming, and can be taken to confirm the report that Israel warn3ed the US.
Anti-Semites are quick to conclude that the Israel is behind the bombing or somehow in league with Al Qaeda. A New Jersey police official suggested the latter as did one DEA officer. A variant of this theme is that Mossad was somehow helping US intelligence stage the hit. After all, Mossad has been partner to many US black Ops in the past. But there is no evidence that Mossad took any steps to help the hijackers.
An F.B.I. special agent who suspected that the Israel art students were using and helping Al Qaeda was quickly transferred tyo the operation trying to rescue reporter Danny Pearle. When film surfaced showing one of the students using his lighter in a celebratory gesture, the F.B.I. said the person was a Palestinian. A year after the attack, DEA agents still wrote that the students may have had a connection to the terrorists. Some of the Israelis were dressed as Palestinians. The DEA investigation of the art students was tgerminated on the orders of Attorney General John Ashcroft and F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller
F.B.I. agent Michael Dick, who worked closely with John O Neill, was keeping track of employees of an Israeli moving company who were active in New York and New Jersey. These people had intelligence ties and were keeping track of Arabs. They used internet cafes and prepaid telephones, which made it difficult to monitor their communications. Cole also investigated the so-called Israeli art students before Michael Chernoff , head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, had him transferred to Pakitan.
On September 11, authorities picked up two white vans that were tied to the moving company. One appeared to be a car bomb because it was backed with explosives. It was stopped at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge. Another white van was stopped several miles north of the tunnel. It is likely that the people in the first van were to abandon it and be picked up by the people in the second while recrossing into New Jersey.
Another van with Israelis was stopped on a ramp near Route 3, which led to the Lincoln tunnel. A mystery caller had warned police about a van approaching the Holland Tunnel. There were no white vans there.
It has been confirmed that two employees of the Odigo Company , an Israeli firm near the WTC, received text messages hours before the attack warning of an “imminent attack on New York City.” The story appeared in Ha'aretz, an Israeli paper and was later confirmed by that source. This does not mean the hit was an Israeli plot; it probably means an Israeli agent was worried about some friends.
On September 4, 2001, Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. moved from the WTC to Norfolk. But they had announced the move before and they had ten employees in the building on September 11. Fortunately they escaped. Daniel Lewin, a former Mosad agent and passenger on Flight 11, was reportedly killed on the plane but reports differ on how he was killed.
Similarly, it is difficult to believe that after all this surveillance of Al Qaeda suspects that Mossad confined itself to very general warnings. That probably could have been done by relying on a few agents in Hamburg, Greater New York, and Florida. Another possibility, though very remote, is that the Mossad agents were simply inept and turned up very little.
One could not be blamed for concluding that Mossad gave the US good leads on what Al Qaeda was up to and that for some reason or other, the US did not pursue the leads. Many times in the past, Mossad has possessed very damaging information about US operations, and it is likely that the existence of such information has given Israel great influence over some US administrations. Perhaps there was not enough time to debate whether the renewed “hold” on investigating suspicious Saudis should be lifted. Perhaps there was simply more ineptitude on the part of the F.B.I.. One cannot remove the possibility that some in government saw that a terrorist attack would have political benefits, including fueling a new and aggressive program to create a new American century. The trouble with accepting the last possibility is that it makes one a conspiracy theorist. It is far better to remain a respectable journalist or academi C.I.A.n and believe Condi Rice’s pronouncements.
F.B.I. special agent Michael Dick, who worked closely with John O’Neill, was concerned about a ring of Israeli movers who were following Al Qaeda people in New York and New Jersey. These Israeli agents communicated by prepaid Verizon cell phones, so their communic tions could not be monitored. Thes agents did not communicate with American authorities. Dick encountered all sorts of bureaucratic problems in pursing this investigation. Eventually, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, ordered Dick off the case. One C.I.A. source with solid Republican credentials, told Wayne Madsen, that the movers were somehow arranging a cover for the future hihackers.
Before 9/11, the DEA discovered that Israeli “artists” were in the United States using efforts to sell art as a cover for other activities. At first, it was believed they were here in connection with an Israeli network that was marketing the mind-altering drug, Ecestacy. Then it was discovered that they were casing DEA personnel and facilities, mther kinds of federal facilities, and some F.B.I. agents. They were also following people who later turned out to be involved in the 9/11 attack on the United States. The DEA found that several of the so-called Israeli stuedents had links to Columbia and Columbians, and this supported the case that they were somehow tied to the drug trade.
Carl Cameron of FOX news did a series in 2002 on these Israeli artists. Cameron thought there were as many as 140 passing themselves off as art students. Brit Hume found that of the sixty were were eventually detained, twelve worked for one private Israeli communications firm. The artists had special cell phones that US investigative personnel could not intercept. What is interesting is that two of them came to Miami directly from Hamburg, a city where Mohammed Atta had been and where he retained many ties. Several were working for three Israeli corporations in the U.S. Some were active military and others had the skills one would expect spies to have. They knew how to run polygraph machines and were good with communications. One had been the bodyguard of the head of the Israeli army and the other was the son of a two star general. Another was a former military intelligence agent. Their cover story was that they were here to establish art studios. Some of them failed polygraph tests after 9/11. It is likely they were tracking would-be Arab terrorists. Cameron thought this was the case, but added that his sources told him they were not sharing what they knew. FOX is an odd place to find this kind of information, but the lead is worth pursuing.
There is clear evidence that high Mossadofficials came to Washington before 9/11 --some time between August 8 and 15-- to deliver a grave warning to the F.B.I. and C.I.A.. This was reported in a number of mainstream outlets after 9/11, but government sources either denied the Mossad visitors delivered a warning or said the warning was only of a very general sort. Eventually, some media outlets retracted the story. FOX News was told that pursuing it would be “career suicide.” The network dropped the matter but never offered a retraction.
Dr. Alan Aabrosky, a Jew and former director of studies at the Army War College, has hypothesized that 9/11 could not have been pulled off without the combined efforts of the C.I.A. and Mossad. He noted that the physics of the official story for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was all wrong.
A November 23, 2001 New York Times story told about 60 Israelis being detained here after 9/11. However most were expelled months before 9/11, and those still detained had been picked up at that time. Le Monde reported on March 6, 2002 that they actually numbered more than a hundred. It added that about 120 were expelled. In June, 1999, Insight magazine reported that Division Five of the F.B.I. had found Israelis tapping White House lines. Apparently, the F.B.I. was also aware of this large spy ring before 9/11. In time, the story of the Israeli art student spy ring dropped in the American press. Jane’s Intelligence Digest noted this in March , 2003: “It is rather strange that the U.S. media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks—the alleged breakup of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA.”
The art student spy ring went from house to house selling art. They seemed to show an interest in visiting DEA offices and the homes of DEA personnel. There is no doubt that they targeted DEA in these ways, and one wonders if this confirms the many reports that the Mossad supports itself by moving drugs, especially Ecstasy, from Columbia into the United States.
The Israeli agents seemed to cluster where the terrorists were and in places where drug money was being laundered. The Israelis seemed to be organized into teams of 8 to 10 agents. Often the agents were found in federal buildings and top secret military bases.. The terrorists were probably using drug money as well as the funds that were wired in to them. It is interesting that it was the DEA that first became aware of the activities of the Israeli artists and began to track them. The report showed that the Israelis often were addresses very close to where the terrorists were staying. Coincidence?
The DEA report on their activities, what art they bought, etc. is incredibly detailed. It suggests that the Israeli artist spy ring was somehow involved in scouting out DEA investigations of the Ecstasy drug trade. The British and European press assumed the DEA started watching the Israelis, thinking they were peddling Ecstasy, as some claim that US authorities have farmed out this franchise in the US to Mossad. This cannot be proven, but it can be shown that Mossad has shared the drug trade in southern California with US agencies. Forward suggested the Israelis were here to spy on our common enemy, Al Qaeda. The interest in the DEA and certain military bases was probably a smoke screen. Those observing military facilities and the DEA were rounded up while others were left to complete surveillance of Al Qaeda.
The DEA and Justice Department actually started deporting the Israelis in April, 2001—before the 9/11 attack. The Israelis had a good handle on at lest four of the terrorists. When the Israelis caught up with two in Hollywood, Florida, the DEA nabbed them and they were deported. At one point the Justice Department threatened to hold “dozens” indefinitely, but in the end they were all released.
Those who deny that the Israelis were spies rely on the fact that the DEA report does not say they were spies. They also note that other Israelis were deported after 9/11 because they lacked proper papers. Finally, it is noted that the intelligence people who usually feed information to the mainstream press are denying there is any significance to the Israeli art students story.
Less than an hour after the first blast at the Trade Center, East Rutherford New Jersey police arrested five Israelis who had been in a white Chevrolet van described in an F.B.I. alert (BOLO) twenty-five minutes before. The Bergen Record offered a different time frame but the same essential information. The F.B.I. spotted them at Liberty State Park. Money, marked maps of the and multiple passports were found in the van. They were videotaping the collapse of the World Trade Center. They were seen giving themselves high fives when the first plane hit. One of them refused to take a lie detector test and subsequently failed when he did submit to one. The van belonged to Urban Moving Systems , whose owner fled to Israel two days later. In the company’s warehouse, investigators found traces of anthrax, fertilizer, and pipes. A number of computers were removed. Dominick Suter, owner of the firm, closed the business a few days after the attack and fled to Israel.
Much later, The Forward confirmed that two them were spies and that the moving company was a front. An ABC investigation revealed in 2002 that the F.B.I. assumed the agents were in the US to track terrorists. The F.B.I. quickly shut down its investigation, allegedly on orders from the White House.
There is good evidence that another Israeli surveillance team was attached to the World Trade Center plot. That might help explain why the movers were pleased with themselves. They had gotten the event on tape and may have beaten the other team. One of the movers assumed the Palestinians had done it. He told the police “We are Israelis” and that the police should be worrying about Palestinians. Maybe the observation and documentation force was separated from the agents who were tracking Al Qaeda.
In November, three of the five agents appeared on Israeli television and admitted they were there to film the attack. This makes clear that they Israelis knew the attack wass coming, and can be taken to confirm the report that Israel warn3ed the US.
Anti-Semites are quick to conclude that the Israel is behind the bombing or somehow in league with Al Qaeda. A New Jersey police official suggested the latter as did one DEA officer. A variant of this theme is that Mossad was somehow helping US intelligence stage the hit. After all, Mossad has been partner to many US black Ops in the past. But there is no evidence that Mossad took any steps to help the hijackers.
An F.B.I. special agent who suspected that the Israel art students were using and helping Al Qaeda was quickly transferred tyo the operation trying to rescue reporter Danny Pearle. When film surfaced showing one of the students using his lighter in a celebratory gesture, the F.B.I. said the person was a Palestinian. A year after the attack, DEA agents still wrote that the students may have had a connection to the terrorists. Some of the Israelis were dressed as Palestinians. The DEA investigation of the art students was tgerminated on the orders of Attorney General John Ashcroft and F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller
F.B.I. agent Michael Dick, who worked closely with John O Neill, was keeping track of employees of an Israeli moving company who were active in New York and New Jersey. These people had intelligence ties and were keeping track of Arabs. They used internet cafes and prepaid telephones, which made it difficult to monitor their communications. Cole also investigated the so-called Israeli art students before Michael Chernoff , head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, had him transferred to Pakitan.
On September 11, authorities picked up two white vans that were tied to the moving company. One appeared to be a car bomb because it was backed with explosives. It was stopped at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge. Another white van was stopped several miles north of the tunnel. It is likely that the people in the first van were to abandon it and be picked up by the people in the second while recrossing into New Jersey.
Another van with Israelis was stopped on a ramp near Route 3, which led to the Lincoln tunnel. A mystery caller had warned police about a van approaching the Holland Tunnel. There were no white vans there.
It has been confirmed that two employees of the Odigo Company , an Israeli firm near the WTC, received text messages hours before the attack warning of an “imminent attack on New York City.” The story appeared in Ha'aretz, an Israeli paper and was later confirmed by that source. This does not mean the hit was an Israeli plot; it probably means an Israeli agent was worried about some friends.
On September 4, 2001, Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. moved from the WTC to Norfolk. But they had announced the move before and they had ten employees in the building on September 11. Fortunately they escaped. Daniel Lewin, a former Mosad agent and passenger on Flight 11, was reportedly killed on the plane but reports differ on how he was killed.
Similarly, it is difficult to believe that after all this surveillance of Al Qaeda suspects that Mossad confined itself to very general warnings. That probably could have been done by relying on a few agents in Hamburg, Greater New York, and Florida. Another possibility, though very remote, is that the Mossad agents were simply inept and turned up very little.
One could not be blamed for concluding that Mossad gave the US good leads on what Al Qaeda was up to and that for some reason or other, the US did not pursue the leads. Many times in the past, Mossad has possessed very damaging information about US operations, and it is likely that the existence of such information has given Israel great influence over some US administrations. Perhaps there was not enough time to debate whether the renewed “hold” on investigating suspicious Saudis should be lifted. Perhaps there was simply more ineptitude on the part of the F.B.I.. One cannot remove the possibility that some in government saw that a terrorist attack would have political benefits, including fueling a new and aggressive program to create a new American century. The trouble with accepting the last possibility is that it makes one a conspiracy theorist. It is far better to remain a respectable journalist or academi C.I.A.n and believe Condi Rice’s pronouncements.
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