Missed Calls: Is the NSA lying about its failure to prevent 9/11? (James Bamford)

[nationalize the fed]

53. From his blog

...Prince Turki and Prince Bandar have more connections to Arabic-speaking Boeing flight instructors than anyone else in the world. The means and opportunity to slip the hijackers into Pinal Airpark or other facilities for training were theirs. The motive was a world-changing event. The Saudis would benefit greatly not only from the targeting of al-Qaeda but from an American invasion of Iraq, one that they had begged for after the first Gulf War. Dick Cheney would guarantee Prince Bandar that America was going to invade Iraq months before anyone informed the United States Congress....snip

At the same time, from several old Iran-Contra sources I began hearing about a hush-hush airport used by the government contractor and mercenary outfit Blackwater, to train covert, special operations flight crews. I soon learned that major flight training had been conducted in the middle of the night with military and civilian airplanes in top-secret fashion. Blackwater is one of several operators that use the very airport I had run across — Pinal Airpark, a secluded desert facility near the town of Marana, Arizona, and near the former home of Saudi Arabian pilot Hani Hanjour, the hijacker pilot of American 77. I discovered that over 80 perfectly airworthy commercial airliners are scattered around the airport and heavily guarded by a mercenary army with covert Saudi ties. The opportunities are perfect to “borrow” a Boeing for unlimited and undocumented air training in the dedicated practice range over the desert. The means and the opportunity to slip hijackers in for training were all in place.

Investigative author Jeremy Scahill had also discovered Pinal and written extensively about it in his 2007 book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He traced Pinal’s four-decade history of clandestine paramilitary activity, from Vietnam and the famous opium cargo outfit dubbed Air America to today’s government contracts in the “War on Terror,” such as the so-called Torture Taxi flights to U.S.-run detention facilities in Afghanistan. Scahill reports that these untraceable contracts govern operation of Blackwater’s fleet of Casa 212 cargo planes that frequent Pinal. He reports that Blackwater’s president Gary Jackson has been bold in bragging that Blackwater’s “black” contracts are so secret, he could not tell one federal agency about Blackwater’s work with another.

“Air Blackwater,” previously known as Aviation Worldwide Services, formed in early 2001, just when the 911 hijackers were in the final stages of training. Public statements said they were to provide “military training operations and aviation transport” for the U.S. government. AWS was then acquired by Blackwater in 2003, as the Iraqi occupation was getting under way. Gary Jackson announced that the new aviation department “complements our strategic goal of providing a ‘one stop’ solution for all of our customer’s security and tactical training needs.” “Tactical training,” of course, raises a red flag. Evergreen International, an aviation company whose board includes the former head of the CIA’s air operations, has taken over management of Pinal while the government doles out no-bid, untraceable “black” contracts to Blackwater, Aero Contractors, International Air Response, Evergreen, SA Incorporated and a host of others...snip
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