Another "They Were Warned" Story

by Steve

Le Monde reports today that French intelligence passed along numerous reports between late 2000 and August 2001 to an American intelligence contact about possible Al Qaeda hijackings of American aircraft. And how did French intelligence know about these threats? They had infiltrated Al Qaeda.

French secret services produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001 looking at the al-Qaida threat to the United States, and knew it planned to hijack an aircraft, the French newspaper Le Monde said on Monday.

[snip]

Le Monde said the French report of January 2001 had been handed over to a CIA operative in Paris, but that no mention of it had ever been made in the official U.S. September 11 Commission, which produced its findings in July 2004.

The newspaper quoted a former senior official at France’s DGSE secret service agency as saying that, although France thought a hijack was being planned, the DGSE did not know that the plot involved flying aircraft into buildings.

Yet that is a dodge, because France, Germany, Italy, MI6, Jordan, the Mossad, and Egypt had all warned the Americans that an attack from Al Qaeda from the air was in the works. They were sufficiently convinced of an Al Qaeda threat using aircraft as weapons that they instituted a ‘no fly” zone and missile batteries around Genoa in July at the G-8 conference in Genoa, based on threats against Bush known to Britain, Egypt and other allies.

All of this information would have been sent through intelligence channels into the National Security Council for review at various stages, yet the National Security Advisor at the time said that no one could have imagined that Al Qaeda would have used aircraft as weapons, and that she had never received an analysis nor did she ask for one of this possibility. Condi did have specific warnings about hijackings by Al Qaeda, yet nothing was done to tighten up airport screening of potential and know suspects here in the United States. For this gross negligence and ineptitude, she was rewarded with a promotion.

Perhaps George Tenet will shed some light on what Condi knew and what Condi ignored when his book comes out next month.