Home > Le Figaro Says CIA Let Bin Laden Slip Away in July 2001

Le Figaro Says CIA Let Bin Laden Slip Away in July 2001

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 12 September 2006
3 comments

Attack-Terrorism Secret Services USA Michael P. Wright

Michael P. Wright — Norman, Oklahoma, USA — mpwright9@aol.com

The CIA missed so many opportunities to interrupt the Al Qaeda 9/11 plot that there is much plausibility to the suspicion that its inner circle wanted the hijackings to occur. Making myself unpopular with many conspiracists, I highlight the fact that they did not expect suicide crashes into buildings. As the CIA’s memo to Bush (August 6, 2001) demonstrates, they expected any hijacked airliners to be landed for negotiation over hostages and political demands.

The memo mentioned "threat reporting" that "Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of ’Blind Shaykh’ Umar Abd Al-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists." One does not demand the release of prisoners with suicide airplane crashes into buildings and destruction of the object of negotiation. George Washington University has the document online:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB...

This memo and many other facts I have assembled suggest that Tenet, his mentor David Boren, and another top CIA agent named David Edger allowed the plot to develop because they thought they could overwhelm the hijackers with a sting operation in the end. This would have enabled Boren, a former U.S. Senator, to present himself as a national hero and pursue his lifelong dream of being elected President of the USA.

In November 2001 The Guardian of London published its account of a story reporting that two months before the attack bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days of treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent. This had earlier been told by LeFigaro. The Guardian continued:

"Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.

"The CIA chief was seen in the lift [elevator], on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards. "

Interestingly, I have never seen this information in the mainstream press of the USA. Here is the link to Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterr...

Link to Le Figaro article:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fr...

Bin Laden was likely to have found comfortable hospitality in Dubais. According to Rohan Gunaratna, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in Scotland, Al Qaeda had a cell there in 2001. The United Arab Emirates was a major center for the terror network’s financial operations. Gunaratna is the author of Inside Al Qaeda and gave testimony before the 9/11 Commission.

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You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.

— Sherlock Holmes

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CIA Agent David Edger Scowls at Le Figaro Story

In January 2002, I attended a small discussion on the University of Oklahoma campus. It was led by CIA agent Edger, who in August 2001 had been brought to OU by its president, David Boren. According to TIME, Boren and his protege George Tenet were having a "leisurely breakfast" together in a Washington hotel on the morning of the 9/11 attack.

I asked Edger, who had earlier been director of all U.S. intelligence activities in Germany, what he knew about the Le Figaro report of Bin Laden’s July 2001 presence in the American hospital in Dubais. A scowl emerged on his face as he replied, "Never heard of it." He added, "That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen." Then he disposed of the matter by quickly pointing to the next questioner. The others in the discussion group were obsequious OU students unwilling to raise any issues which might create discomfort or embarrassment.

Photos of Boren, Tenet, and Edger:

RELATED LINKS:

Click here for a video of Tenet lying about his role in arranging for one of the "missed opportunities":

http://www.cerebellum.tv/stories/No...

Here is the TIME article which Tenet disputes (use the mouse to enlarge):

http://bellaciao.org/images/time1.jpg

Click here for the summary of my comprehensive 9/11 investigation.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php...

See these for more information about Edger:

http://www.securityexpertgroup.com/...

Edger lies about his past:

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php...

Click here and follow the links for more information from my 9/11 investigation:

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php...

Forum posts

  • according to cornell law library on june 1st 2001 president george walker bush signed a presidential directive that effectively declawed NORAD from reacting to hijackings, until the president or the sec of defense, gave the ok.Up until then Norad had forced 67 planes down in 2001 for flying in restricted air spaces. we all saw what bush did when he was informed and what the secret service didnt do to a very legitimate target if they actually thought we were under attack the very essence of secret service training is to get the president out of sight when we are under attack. i dont claim to be intelligent , but i wasnt born last night either. pnac plans alone show mea culpa , its time to send in the marines to 1600 penn avenue and end this war against terror for good. bush admin are the terrorists in my opinion. this would explain why w always seems to think he knows how they think.

    • Kieth Olbermann, of Countdown on MSNBC, gave this speech last night, and it is amazing. After reading this, I am of the opinion he could very easily leave the newsdesk and enter the politcal arena with ease, and if he is consitantly like this, I could support him with great ease. He delivered this speech at Ground Zero. I know that it is long, but please, please take the time to read.

      Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
      All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.
      And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

      I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
      And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

      However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds — none of us could have predicted this.
      Five years later this space is still empty.
      Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
      Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
      Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
      Five years later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
      Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

      It is beyond shameful.

      At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field — Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
      Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

      Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won’t.
      Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing instead of doing any job at all.

      Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

      And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

      And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

      The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the
      unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
      Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
      Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
      Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.

      History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.

      Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
      The President — and those around him — did that.

      They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

      They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

      The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

      The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

      Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
      Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
      Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
      Yet what is happening this very night?

      A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
      The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
      How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you — or those around you — ever "spin" 9/11?

      Just as the terrorists have succeeded — are still succeeding — as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

      So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

      This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney’s continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

      And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
      In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car — and only his car — starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man’s lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot — but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there’s no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves."

      And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.
      "For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn."

      When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

      Who has left this hole in the ground?

      We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
      You have.

      May this country forgive you.