This is not the case. Last May, for instance, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center ... that they would use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
Wrong. Someone could have predicted it. Based on the information available to the government, the U.S. should have been expecting it.
Nearly a decade earlier, the Pentagon commissioned a $150,000 study to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to destroy national landmarks. A draft of the report was circulated through the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In 1994, a pilot crashed a small plane on the White House grounds. That same year, Muslim fanatics hijacked an Air France plane with the idea of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower.
In 1995, Philippine authorities discovered "Project Bojinka," a plot by Islamic terrorists to blow up 11 airliners in a single day or crash them into civilian targets in the U.S. Targets mentioned were the CIA headquarters, the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower and the White House.
In 1997, "Project Bojinka" was in the news again during the trial of Ramsi Youssef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. FBI agents testified in court that "the plan targeted not only the CIA but other U.S. government buildings in Washington, including the Pentagon."
In 1999, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress prepared a report for U.S. intelligence agencies called "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism." It stated: "Suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaida's martyrdom battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House." In the spring and summer of 2001, intelligence agencies flooded the government with warnings of possible terrorist attacks by al-Qaida, and other groups, against U.S. targets – including commercial aircraft. In response, the Federal Aviation Administration issued four information circulars to the industry between June 22 and July 31.
Frank also wrote:-
"and it is stretching things to the breaking point to assume that one or more of the murderous, fanatic shit heads who run this country, knew that some 3,000 would die, and said, go ahead, it will all work to our benefit..."
Actually, the government has hatched such a plot in the past. In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
>From: frank scott <frank at marin.cc.ca.us>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: who knew what, and what did they know?
>Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:04:09 -0800
>
>"Did they know about an impending attack but
>were nevertheless unable to foil it - or did they know about an
>impending
>attack - but opportunistically 'let it happen', in a scenario similar to
>
>that described by Stinnet re Pearl Harbor."
>
>even if some people in government knew that there would be a terrorist
>attack, that doesn't mean that they knew exactly what would
>happen...please...I "knew", as many others, and feared (still do), as
>many others, that we would not and could not get away with our wretched
>behavior for much longer, and not face some really violent events here
>at home...but I never imagined the scale of the event, and the dimwits
>in government unintelligence who "knew" aren't likely to have, either...
>
>my fear was , and still is, an suv packed with explosives driven into a
>shopping mall by a suicide bomber, or a knap-sack carrying entrant to
>any public space, or some such....hardly anybody could have foreseen
>what happened on 911, except for those who did it, and those who planned
>it, and it is stretching things to the breaking point to assume that one
>or more of the murderous, fanatic shit heads who run this country, knew
>that some 3,000 would die, and said, go ahead, it will all work to our
>benefit...
>
>that it did so, after the fact, does not mean that they planned it or
>knew it or sanctioned it, before the fact... but it does mean that we
>are all pretty fucking helpless, so far, to do anything substantial
>about it...except maybe rejoice over saddam's capture, or complain about
>the menace of demonstrations organized by answer, or question, or
>whatever...
>
>fs
>
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