http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/atta-a10.shtml
Why were the terrorists shielded? US military intelligence identified four 9/11 hijackers in 2000 By Patrick Martin
10 August 2005
A top-secret military intelligence unit identified four of the 9/11 suicide hijackers as Al Qaeda operatives, including two of the pilots, more than a year before the September 11 terrorist attacks, a front-page report in the New York Times revealed Tuesday.
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The Times report confirms once again the analysis the WSWS made within four months of 9/11 (“Was the US government alerted to September 11 attack?”). We charged then, and reiterate now, that the least plausible explanation of the September 11 tragedy is the official version: that terrorists entered the United States, obtained training at US flight schools and organized the simultaneous hijacking of four airliners, without any agency of the American government having the slightest idea what they were doing.
This new revelation only reinforces the suspicion that the tragedy of 9/11 was not the result of an “intelligence failure” or an inability to “connect the dots.” High-level officials in the state apparatus took affirmative action to protect the Al Qaeda operatives and allow them to prepare a terrorist attack. Whether they knew the full extent of what Atta and his confederates would do on September 11 can be debated, but there is no question that a terrorist outrage within the United States served the political purposes of the Bush administration.
The new right-wing government desperately needed a Pearl Harbor-style event to shift public opinion and create the conditions where it could press forward with plans—already well prepared before 9/11—for military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, the two largest sources for oil and gas. Bush, Cheney & Co. ruthlessly exploited 9/11 as an all-purpose justification for right-wing policies at home as well, from tax cuts for the super-rich to unprecedented attacks on democratic rights.
In response to the Times report, it is necessary to demand answers to basic questions about September 11:
* Why were known Al Qaeda members permitted to enter the United States and carry out their plans?
* Who made the decisions which facilitated the work of the terrorists and why have they not been held responsible?
* Why have the facts about September 11 been covered up, not only by the White House and the intelligence agencies, but by congressional Democrats and the American media?
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