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Edited on Sat May-16-09 12:27 PM by rschop
The Republicans have made the point many times the week that if the FBI knew a huge al Qaeda attack was about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans, and knew the names of people who had information that could prevent this attack, it would be perfectly reasonable for them to torture these people in order to prevent this attack and save these American lives.
Let me post what I am sure is a slightly different view on the ticking time bomb scenario and torture, particularly in view of former FBI Agent Ali Soufan's testimony to the Congress this past week.
There was a the ticking time bomb, in fact the ticking time bomb were the attacks on 9/11. And it turns out these attacks could have been prevented using torture, had torture been applied on the right people. It turns out that the FBI even had the names of the right people to torture, in fact in some cases even knew these people were hiding information, even information on a huge al Qaeda attack that was about to take place inside of the US.
On November 2000 FBI Agent Ali Soufan made an official request to FBI director Louis Freeh to ask he would ask the CIA and Director Tenet for any information on any al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, or on Walid bin Attash, known at that time to be the mastermind of the Cole bombing. Soufan was told that the CIA had none of the information.
But according to page 181 of the 9/11 Commission report and page 238-239 of the DOJ IG report, Freeh had been given all of this information in December 1999 by the NSA and again in January 2000 by the CIA and this information appeared in his daily briefing papers on January 4, 2000 with the full name Khalid al-Mihdhar, who was known to be traveling to an important al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000. If Soufan had tortured FBI Director Freeh he would have had all of the information he needed to prevent the attacks on 9/11. While the information Soufan obtained would have prevented the attacks on 9/11, torturing Freeh might possibly have had a deleterious effect on Soufan’s next performance review.
According to the DOJ IG report FBI IOS HQ Agent Dina Corsi told FBI Agent Steve Bongardt Ali Soufan’s assistant on the Cole bombing investigation, on August 28, 2001, that he could not take part in any investigation of Khalid al-Mihdhar or Nawaf al-Hazmi, in spite of the fact they were known to be inside of the US and were thought to be preparing to take part in massive al Qaeda attack. Had Bongardt tortured FBI HQ Agent Corsi he would have found out:
That Corsi knew the CIA had been hiding from the Cole investigators the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting that connected Attash to both Mihdhar and Hazmi and the planning of the Cole bombing at that meeting, and direct evidence that his team had the authority to investigate and search for both Mihdhar and Hazmi.
That Corsi had been working directly with CIA Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden unit Tom Wilshire who knew on August 22, 2001 that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside the US in order to take part in massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans. Not only did CIA Officer Wilshire know this but the entire CIA chain of command was aware of this information also when FBI Agent Gillespie, working at the CIA Bin laden unit, issued a worldwide alert for Mihdhar and Hazmi on August 23, 2001. See email July 23, 2001, in “Substitution for the testimony of John”, aka Tom Wilshire, at www.eventson911.com.
That when Corsi told Bongardt on August 28, 2001 his investigation of Mihdhar had to be shut down because it would require information from the NSA he was not allowed to have, she already had been given written permission by the NSA on August 27, 2001 to give this NSA information to him and his team. See NSA release of information, DE #448 at www.eventson911.com
That when Corsi told Bongardt on August 29, 2001 that the NSLU, the FBI legal unit, has ruled he could not be part of any investigation of Mihdhar, the DOJ IG investigators were told on November 7, 2002, by the attorney Corsi contacted that this was the opposite of the advice she had given to Corsi, and had in fact ruled that Bongardt could be part of any investigation of Mihdhar since the NSA information had no connection with a FISA warrant. See page 538 9/11 Commission report, footnote 81.
But Bongardt not only knew Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to carry out a horrific terrorist attack, he also knew that the argument for not allowing him to investigate and search for Mihdhar and Hazmi and find them in time to head off this attack was bogus, since he knew that the information the NSA had, had not been obtained using a FISA warrant, the only reason NSA information could be withheld temporarily from FBI criminal investigators.
It is now clear that the lives of 3000 people could have been saved with a little torture of the right people. Perhaps in addition to water boarding FBI Agent Corsi, CIA officer Wilshire and FBI Director Freeh, and even CIA Director Tenet, they could have used pliers to pull out their finger nails, after all what are a few finger nails compared to the lives of 3000.
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