Killtown's

9/11 coincidences and oddities page!

(and other note worthy tidbits.)

Pre 2001 • 2001 • 9/11 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006

Last updated:  07/28/2008

(Use the Wayback Machine for expired links.)

• January 2001 - Former President Bill Clinton told President George W. Bush about the threat al-Qaida posed, but the Bush Administration ignored the warning.

"US President George W. Bush was told by Bill Clinton about the threat al-Qaida posed months before the September 11 attacks - but ignored the warning.
Mr Clinton this week revealed he told Mr Bush in January 2001 that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida posed the biggest threats to the US. The warning was issued during a meeting between the outgoing and incoming presidents.
President Clinton also passed on a plan for a pre-emptive attack on bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan, but the Bush administration sat on it for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president.
The plan, for special forces troops to be sent after bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration.
Mr Clinton said Mr Bush failed to heed his warning because he thought Iraq was a greater threat to US security.
"I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden," Mr Clinton said.
Mr Clinton said his inability to convince Mr Bush was "one of the two or three of the biggest disappointments that I had".
He said Iraq ranked well down the list of security concerns at the time.
First was al-Qaida, then absence of a Middle-East peace agreement, followed by weapons of mass destruction. "I would have started with India and Pakistan, then North Korea, and then Iraq after that," he said.
The Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan was approved by the Bush administration only a week before the September 11 attacks, according to a report in Time magazine.
A discussion of the plan took place on September 4. In preceding months, the proposal was shuffled through the bureaucracy by an administration distrustful of anything to do with Mr Clinton.
In August 2001, Attorney-General John Ashcroft turned down FBI requests for $50 million for the agency's counter-terrorist program.
The Clinton plan to take the counter-terrorist battle to al-Qaida was drafted after the attack on the warship the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
Mr Clinton's terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, presented it to senior officials that December, but it was agreed the decision should be taken by the new administration.
Mr Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were told of the al-Qaida threat in meetings with Mr Clinton's outgoing team.
The plan called for the attack on bin Laden, a freeze on al-Qaida assets, and aid to stamp out remaining terrorists cells." - Herald Sun (10/19/03)

• January 20, 2001 - George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are sworn in as the 43rd President and Vice President of the United States.

Biography of President George W. Bush

"George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2001..."

Career and Public Service
* Owner, oil and gas business
* Partner, Texas Rangers Baseball Team
* Governor of Texas" - White House

Biography of Vice President Richard B. Cheney

Career and Public Service
* White House Chief of Staff to President Ford
* U.S. Congressman, Wyoming
* Secretary of Defense
* Chief Executive Officer of the Halliburton Company
* Vice President of the United States - White House

(See also:  March 21, 1989 - Cheney becomes the 17th US Secretary of Defense; October 1, 1995 - Dick Cheney becomes CEO of Halliburton)

• January 20, 2001 - Donald H. Rumsfeld becomes the U.S. Secretary of Defense for the second time in his career, the only person to do so in history.

"Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001. Before assuming his present post, the former Navy pilot had also served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, U.S. Congressman and chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.
Secretary Rumsfeld had directed the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001." - DoD

Past U.S. Secretaries of Defense - DoD

(See also:  November 20, 1975 - Rumsfeld becomes the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense)

• January 25, 2001 - Frank A. De Martini, Manager of WTC Construction and Project Management, says in a documentary, World Trade Center - A Modern Marvel, that the WTC twin towers were designed to withstand a crash from a fully loaded Boeing 707, the largest aircraft at the time, and believes it could sustain multiple hits from jetliners, comparing it to poking a pencil through mosquito netting.

"The building was designed to have a fully loaded [Boeing] 707 crash into it.  That was the largest plane at the time.  I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting.  It really does nothing to the screen netting." [Video clip:  Prison Planet, Free Press International; From: 9-11: The Greatest Lie Ever Sold]

World Trade Center - A Modern Marvel 1973-2001

"If the World Trade Center wasn't the most famous building in the world, it must be now it its absence. The History Channel produced World Trade Center: A Modern Marvel before the tragic events of September 11th and the tone of the documentary shows the kind of jaunty, happy-go-lucky attitude of many of these cable shows.

Watching World Trade Center: A Modern Marvel I started to feel my blood boil. When Frank A. DeMartini, manager of WTC Construction and Property Management brags about the powerful, ingenious air conditioning system that pumped water from the Hudson through a huge cooling system, you become aware that not only is that feat of engineering no more, but neither is DeMartini, who perished in the attack.

No section is more difficult than the one where DeMartini explains how the building could withstand the impact of even a large aircraft. He was right; the impact didn't bring the buildings down. As Smith points out, no one took into account the insanely high temperatures from a massive jet fuel fire, a mistake that won't be made again." - DVD Talk (04/22/02)

(See also:  9/11 - Frank A. De Martini dies at the WTC)

• January 25, 2001 - Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke warns the Bush administration in a memo about the threat al Qaeda poses.

"A newly released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The memo dated January 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks on New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site Thursday.
The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, had been described during the hearings but its full contents had not been disclosed.
Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.
The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by al Qaeda.
It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.
The document was declassified April 7, 2004, one day before Rice's testimony before the September 11 commission. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive -- a private library of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The meeting on al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until September 4, 2001." - CNN (02/11/05)

January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo - National Security Archive

(See also:  February 11, 2005 - Newly released memo from Richard Clarke warned the Bush administration about al Qaeda)

• January 31, 2001 - A Treasury Department memo for Secretary Paul O'Neill contains a summary of a "military plan" for a "post-Saddam Iraq" marked secret.

"UNCLASSIFIED WITH SECRET ATTACHMENTS

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20220

JAN 31 2001

MEMORANDUM FOR SECRETARY O'NEILL

FROM:  Mark Sobel, Acting Assistant Secretary, International Affairs

SUBJECT:  Briefing for NSC Principals Meeting on Gulf Policy

DATE AND TIME:  3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m., Thursday, February 1, 2001

LOCATION:  White House Situation Room

PURPOSE:  To review the current state-of-play (including a CIA briefing on Iraq) and to examine policy questions on how to proceed.

ATTACHMENTS:

Tab C:  Executive Summary: Political-Military Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq Crisis (interagency working paper) -- SECRET" - Memo at Paperless Archives

O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

"The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.

O'Neill was the main source for "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill," by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

Suskind said O'Neill and other White House insiders gave him documents showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.
"There are memos," Suskind told the network. "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'" - CNN (01/14/04)

(See also:  January 13, 2004 - Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says President Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11)

• March 2001 - India joins the U.S. in it's anti-Taliban coalition.

"India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
Military sources in Delhi, claim that the opposition Northern Alliance's capture of the strategic town of Bamiyan, was precipitated by the four countries' collaborative effort." - Jane's Information Group (03/18/01)

(See also:  November 7, 2000 - Pakistan seeks Central Asia gas via pipeline through Afghanistan; May 2001 - U.S. gives $43 million to Afghanistan and becomes the largest donor to Afghanistan for two years in a row)

• March 4, 2001 - The Lone Gunmen's 'Pilot' episode, which depicts a U.S. government conspiracy plot to crash an electronically hijacked Boeing 727 into the WTC and blame it on foreign terrorists in order to provoke war and increase the military's budget, airs on FOX TV.

"Events further unravel to reveal that a secret government agency known as "The Overlords" is behind a plot to crash a fully loaded [727] into the World Trade Building. The Overlords plan to blame the crash on terrorists in an attempt to generate a bigger budget for military spending (of course)." - Wizard's Keep

The Sept. 11 Parallel "Nobody Noticed"
"We know the ratings for Fox's short-lived X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen were bad, but this is ridiculous. Six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — March 4, 2001, to be exact — Gunmen premiered with an episode featuring a terrorist plot to fly a commercial airliner into the World Trade Center. The climactic sequence actually shows the plane heading into one of the Twin Towers, but at the last minute, it's pulled upward and just misses the building.
Shockingly, this horrifying bit of foreshadowing was never widely reported until Thursday, when industry newsletter The Myers Report broke the story. How is it that virtually no one remembered this post 9/11? "I know! That's what I've been wondering," marvels Frank Spotnitz, who along with Vince Gilligan and John Shiban wrote the episode. "I thought, 'Nobody noticed!' I guess so few people saw the show. But it's strange too because that was the pilot and the ratings were actually quite good for [that episode], and yet, we didn't hear anything."
Myers Report columnist Ed Martin — who was tipped off about the horrific parallel by a friend — wrote that "this seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order. The final act of the Gunmen pilot, which seemingly made no impact last year, now contains some of the most deeply disturbing images ever created for an entertainment program."
"I woke up on September 11 and saw it on TV and the first thing I thought of was The Lone Gunmen," recalls Spotnitz. "But then in the weeks and months that followed, almost no one noticed the connection.
"What's disturbing about it to me is, you think as a fiction writer that if you can imagine this scenario, then the people in power in the government who are there to imagine disaster scenarios can imagine it, too."
Unlike the actual attacks, there was no suicide hijacker in the Gunmen climax; the terrorists attempted to remotely steer the plane into the skyscraper. "Now, ironically, one of the things [the government is] talking about to prevent [another 9/11] is the ability of terrorists to remotely pilot planes," Spotnitz says, "which was another element of our story. It's weird." - TV Guide (06/21/02)

"On March 4, 2001, during Season 8 of “The X-Files,” the three spun off in a seriocomic series of their own, created by “X” producers Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, and co-starring Zuleikha Robinson (“Hidalgo”) and Stephen Snedden (“Coyote Ugly”).
Despite the concern of some fans, the pilot of “The Lone Gunmen” is indeed part of the boxed set. This would seem like a no-brainer — until you realize that the central conspiracy in the episode involved the high-tech electronic hijacking of a commercial airliner with the intent of crashing it into the World Trade Center.
Although the episode was conceived and shot in 2000 and aired six months before the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, the eerie coincidence sent shockwaves through cast and producers.
“I'll never forget that,” says Spotnitz, calling in from the set of the pilot for his remake of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” “That was such a disturbing thing. It was very upsetting. As I say in the DVD featurette, you write something like that, and you assume that if you can think of it, being a Hollywood writer, then somebody in the government has thought about it already." - Kansas City Star (03/21/05)

TV spinoff The Lone Gunmen comes to DVD with its prescient 9/11 episode
"The Lone Gunmen, the Complete Series (Fox) - Back in 2001, when The X-Files was breathing its last prime-time gasp, this oddball spinoff series hit the airwaves for 13 episodes.
The most remarkable episode... aired just a few months before 9/11 with an incredibly prescient plot about terrorists hijacking an airliner and threatening to crash it into the World Trade Center. Except, in this plot, the terrorists were a cabal within the U.S. government itself.
On the episode's commentary track, the creators themselves cannot believe the irony. They recall how, in the immediate hours after the event when it wasn't known who was responsible, they feared their story might have inspired the real terrorists." - Canada.com (03/28/05)

- The Lone Gunmen - Official website (Episode 1, "Pilot", original air date 3/04/01)

(See also:  March 20, 2000 - Filming begins on the The Lone Gunmen's 'Pilot' episode;  March 21, 2005 - Lone Gunmen co-producer hopes WTC attack wasn't 'somehow inspired' by anything they did; Killtown's: The Lone Gunmen's 'Pilot' Episode)

• April 2001 - NORAD planned to practice a scenario in which a terrorist group hijacks a plane and crashes it into the Pentagon, but it was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as being too unrealistic.

"Five months before Sept. 11, 2001, the officers responsible for defending American airspace wanted to test their ability to prevent a hijacked airliner from being crashed into the Pentagon, but the scenario was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as impractical, a Joint Chiefs spokesman confirmed yesterday.
The disclosure was made after a government watchdog group released a leaked e-mail from a former official at the North American Air Defense Command. In the message, the official told colleagues a week after the attacks that in April 2001 NORAD requested that war games run by the Joint Chiefs include an ''event having a terrorist group hijack a commercial airline . . . and fly it into the Pentagon."
Last night, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Dan Hetlage confirmed the account, saying: ''That scenario was rejected because it would have become a whole exercise in and of itself. It wasn't looked on at the time as being practicable."
The NORAD proposal is the clearest sign yet that national security officials were worried before 9/11 about terrorists using hijacked airliners as missiles, despite testimony that senior leaders, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, didn't know of such concerns.
Peter Stockton, chief investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, said yesterday he was told by the source who provided the memo that a special forces officer attached to the NORAD command at the time had first proposed the Pentagon scenario be practiced.
Concerns that terrorists might use hijacked airliners as missiles dates back to the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, when jets were placed on patrol to guard against such a threat." - Boston Globe (04/14/04)

(See also: 1996 - U.S. officials considered possibility a plane could be flown into the main stadium at Olympics in Atlanta; 1998-99 - Federal Report warned the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government buildings)

• April 2001 - The New York Port Authority granted a 99-year lease of the twin towers and four other buildings to Silverstein Properties (who already owns the WTC 7) making it the most expensive real estate transaction in New York history.

"In April, the Port Authority granted a 99-year lease of the twin towers and four other buildings to Silverstein for an estimated $3.2 billion.
The deal -- which allowed Silverstein to manage the complex and collect rent -- was said by the Port Authority to be the most expensive real estate transaction in New York history." - CNN (09/12/01)

"Silverstein Properties owned 7 WTC outright. It was not part of the original six-building complex." - New York Construction News (01/14/02)

(See also:  July 2001 - Larry Silverstein signs a 99-year lease for the rest of the WTC just six weeks before the attacks; September 12, 2001 - The WTC twin towers were hated, money-losers, collapse benefited owners; Killtown's - Was the WTC 7 pulled?)

• April 23, 2001 - Fort Myer, a mile from the Pentagon, conducts a "Force Protection Exercise" to test its ability to respond to a variety of public safety incidents including terrorism.

Force protection exercise Monday

"Fort Myer and Fort McNair will conduct a Force Protection Exercise Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Fort Myer Military Community is conducting the exercise as part of an ongoing program to test its ability to respond to a variety of public safety incidents. No particular terrorist threat currently exists, and all post facilities will be open as usual, but entrance to and egress from Fort Myer and Fort McNair will be limited on exercise day." - DC Military (04/20/01)

(See also:  September 2001 - Force protection exercise at Fort Myer scheduled week after 9/11 is cancelled; September 5, 2001 - Fort Myer and McNair implement "full access control")

• April 24, 2001 - The Global Hawk makes aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean.

Robot plane flies Pacific unmanned

"A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean.
The American high-altitude Global Hawk spy plane made flew cross the ocean to Australia, defence officials confirmed.
The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state.
The 8600 mile (13840 km) flight, at an altitude of almost 12.5 miles (20 km), took 22 hours and set a world record for the furthest a robotic aircraft has flown between two points.
The Global Hawk flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images.
"The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway," said Rod Smith, the Australian Global Hawk manager.
While in Australia, the Global Hawk will fly about 12 maritime surveillance and reconnaissance missions around Australia's remote coastline.
It can fly non-stop for 36 hours and search 52,895 square miles (37,000 square km) in 24 hours.
Australia is assessing the aircraft and might buy it in future.
"Emerging systems such as the Global Hawk offer Australia great potential for surveillance, reconnaissance and ultimately the delivery of combat power," said Brendan Nelson, parliamentary secretary to the Australian defence minister.
Nelson said the Global Hawk could be used in combat to "detect, classify and monitor" targets as they approached the Australian coast." - Independent Television News (04/24/01) [Wayback]

• May 2001 -  U.S. gives $43 million to Afghanistan and becomes the largest donor to Afghanistan for two years in a row.

"Warning that Afghanistan is "on the verge of a widespread famine," Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday announced a $43 million package in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people.  The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row.
The package includes $28 million worth of wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $5 million in food commodities and $10 million in "livelihood and food security" programs, both from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Taliban religious militia, which imposes a harsh brand of Islam, captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, in 1996 and now controls an estimated 95 percent of the country.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in an effort to pressure the militia to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is accused of bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. Humanitarian aid is allowed." - CNN (04/17/01)

(See also:  March 2001 - India joins the U.S. in it's anti-Taliban coalition; June 2001 - India and Iran will "facilitate" U.S. and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban)

• May 2001 - Several of the alleged 9/11 hijackers make six trips to Las Vegas and seen in the local Strip clubs.

Agents of terror leave their mark on Sin City Las Vegas workers recall the men they can't forget

"Samantha remembers the killer settling into the crushed red velvet chair, staring blankly up at her while she undulated her hips inches from his face.
He didn't look evil, she said. Not even interesting. Certainly not like a man who would, just three months later, hijack a jet and smash it into the World Trade Center to slaughter thousands of people in a suicidal fireball.
To the 29-year-old stripper, Marwan Al-Shehhi simply looked "cheap."
"He spent about $20 for a quick dance and didn't tip more."

Samantha would have never given Al-Shehhi another thought if she hadn't seen his photo in a news article naming him as one of five Sept. 11 hijackers who stayed in Las Vegas not long before they pulled off the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.
Just why the five chose Vegas is still somewhat of a mystery, and FBI agents are knocking on doors up and down The Strip -- the casino-studded road cutting north to south -- to try to solve it.
But one thing seems clear. The self-styled warriors for Allah -- who believed their hijackings would earn them eager virgins in heaven -- engaged in some decidedly un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures in America's reputed capital of moral corrosion.

The fact that she played a role in that sampling was disturbing enough to Samantha, but after recognizing 23-year-old Al-Shehhi's bearded face, she had another shock coming. It turned out one of his accomplices, Mohamed Atta...stayed in the cheap Econo Lodge just a couple of blocks from the Olympic along The Strip.

In addition to Atta, 33, and Al-Shehhi, investigators are telling business owners that Nawaq Alhamzi, age unknown, Ziad Jarrahi, 26, and Hani Hanjour, 29, stayed in Las Vegas off and on between May and August. They say the group -- which chillingly included a hijacker from each of the four flights -- made at least six trips here.

However, locals and investigators are still exploring two main theories for why the radical Islamic killers gathered in a city they undoubtedly saw as a den of infidels wallowing in Western wretchedness.

The other is that the five reckoned as long as they had to meet, they might as well do it where they could gamble and indulge in the same forbidden frolics some of them reportedly found at the Pink Pony strip joint in Florida over the summer.

McCarran Airport Payless Car Rental Manager Suzanne Gerfy told The Chronicle this week that her staff had found receipts showing Jarrahi "and a few of the others" had rented cars over the summer, and they turned the receipts over to the FBI. Jarrahi -- who investigators believe piloted United Airlines Flight 93 on its fatal dive into a Pennsylvania field -- wrote he was staying at the high-rolling Circus Circus casino resort, which is on the gaudier end of The Strip than the Econo Lodge.

Clerks at a Starbucks near the University of Nevada at Las Vegas also say they served high-octane java to at least one of the killers, and a pizza joint reportedly served them slices -- with ham left off by request. Some folks at the Chapel of Love quickie-marriage emporium even swear they saw Atta driving a cab.
"True Muslims don't drink, don't gamble, don't go to strip clubs," said Dr. Osama Haikal, president of the board of directors of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada. "These things are a sin, just like what they did in New York and Washington is a sin."
If the hijackers copped a lap dance or even a watery scotch in most strict Islamic countries, they would be flogged, Haikal said -- and they would be executed for the horror they wrought. Dying doesn't mean they won't be held accountable." - San Francisco Chronicle (10/04/01)

(See also:  September 7, 2001 - Mohamed Atta seen drinking vodka and rum at a Hollywood, FL bar)

September 10, 2001 - Three men talked of impending bloodshed at FL strip club and spent on drinks and lap dances and a copy of the Quran was left at the bar)

• (Date unknown) - Several of the alleged 9/11 hijackers patronized Nardone's Go-Go Bar.

Terrorist Stag Parties

"FBI agents have also reportedly questioned the owners of Nardone's Go-Go Bar in Elizabeth, N.J. Several of the terrorists spent time in nearby Paterson and Newark and reportedly patronized the club." - Wall Street Journal (10/10/01), Boston Herald (10/10/01)

• (Date unknown) -  Alleged Flight 77 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi hang out at Cheetah's, a nude bar in San Diego near their Islamic Center.

The Plot; How terrorists hatched a simple plan to use planes as bombs.

"The one-legged man was Tawfiq bin Atash, for many years a personal aide to Osama bin Laden. With him were two men who would become Sept. 11 hijackers: Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.

Acquaintances said the pair seemed to regard their time in California almost as R&R. Alhazmi had season passes to Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. They bought a Toyota sedan and liked to make the run up to Las Vegas. In town, they hung out at Cheetah's, a nude bar near the Islamic Center.
The center itself is hardly a haven for radical Islam. It is multiethnic and promotes assimilation. All the signs in the building are in English. In 2000, a group of men showed up and passed out literature praising Bin Laden. Center officials confiscated the leaflets and told the men to leave and not come back." - LA Times (09/01/02) [Wayback Machine]

• May 4, 2001 - PNAC member Dov S. Zakheim, member and a co-author of PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses", is sworn in as the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense who was a former vice president of System Planning Corp., a defense contractor which makes remote control and flight termination products.

"Dov S. Zakheim was sworn in as the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense on May 4, 2001. Dr. Zakheim has previously served in a number of key positions in government and private business. Most recently, he was corporate vice president of System Planning Corp., a technology, research and analysis firm based in Arlington, Va. He also served as chief executive officer of SPC International Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military and economic consulting. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to then-Governor Bush.
From 1985 until March 1987, Dr. Zakheim was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Planning and Resources in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy). In that capacity, he played an active role in the Department's system acquisition and strategic planning processes. Dr. Zakheim held a variety of other DoD posts from 1981 to 1985. Earlier, he was employed by the National Security and International Affairs Division of the Congressional Budget Office.
Dr. Zakheim has been a participant on a number of government, corporate, non-profit and charitable boards. His government service includes terms on the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad; the Task Force on Defense Reform (1997); the first Board of Visitors of the Department of Defense Overseas Regional Schools (1998); and the Defense Science Board task force on "The Impact of DoD Acquisition Policies on the Health of the Defense Industry" (2000).
A 1970 graduate of Columbia University with a bachelor's in government, Dr. Zakheim also studied at the London School of Economics. He earned his doctorate in economics and politics at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, where he was graduate fellow in programs of both the National Science Foundation and Columbia College, and then a research fellow. Dr. Zakheim has been an adjunct professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University, Columbia University and Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., where he was presidential scholar.
Dr. Zakheim has written, lectured and provided media commentary on national defense and foreign policy issues domestically and internationally. He is the author of "Flight of the Lavi: Inside a U.S.-Israeli Crisis" (Brassey's, 1996), "Congress and National Security in the Post-Cold War Era" (The Nixon Center, 1998), "Toward a Fortress Europe?" (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2000), and numerous articles and chapters in books." - DoD

- System Planning Corporation's Command Transmitter Systems (CTS) provide remote control and flight termination functions through a fully-redundant self-contained solid-state system.
- System Planning Corporation's is proud to offer the Flight Termination System (FTS), a fully redundant turnkey range safety and test system for remote control and flight termination of airborne test vehicles.

REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES
"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

Dov Zakheim, System Planning Corporation" - PNAC (Sept. 2000)

"Dr. Dov S. Zakheim is a former political and economic adviser to the United States government.  He is an ordained Orthodox Jewish rabbi...as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations." - Wikipedia

(See also:  September 2000 - PNAC advocates the build up of U.S. military, but won't think it will happen unless U.S. experiences a major catastrophic event such as a "new Pearl Harbor"; September 10, 2001 - Donald Rumsfeld announces that Pentagon has lost track of $2.3 trillion in military spending)

• May 18, 2001 - The Denver Council on Foreign Relations (DCFR) discuss in their meeting about 'The Development of Homeland Defense' that Washington and New York are the "most likely targets" of a terrorist attack, the scenario of a hijacked plane crashing into a "high-value target", and mentions that the alleged WTC '93 bomber's original plan was to blow up one WTC tower to fall into the other WTC tower, thus "collapsing both".

Homeland Defense and the Transportation Industry: The Civil Aviation and Surface Transportation Sectors
"Then came September 11, 2001, when all Americans understood what the attendants of these meetings had concluded beforehand--
In the last meeting (May 2001), participants discussed Washington and New York as the most likely targets, even discussing a scenario in which a plane is hijacked and crashed into a high-value target. In fact, this scenario had been discussed for some 40 years..." - Denver Council on Foreign Relations (12/01)

The Development of Homeland Defense: A New National Imperative
This is an interim, summary report on three regional seminar workshops on Homeland Defense held in Denver, Colorado, and sponsored by the Denver Council on Foreign Relations (DCFR) and the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS), Rocky Mountain Region, also in association with the Institute on Globalization and Security (IGLOS), University of Denver.
May 16, 2000 (Denver Country Club), November 9, 2000 (Loews Giorgio Hotel, Denver), May 18, 2001 (Denver Country Club)
4. In regard to targets of attack, an attacker can take out key centers of energy or transportation without inflicting large casualties, so perhaps numbers of casualties should not be the sole guide for US counter-terrorist and Homeland Defense efforts.
Seminar workshop participants quickly agreed that MAD is not effective today against the likes of Osama Bin Laden or other terrorists so a new doctrine of defense of the homeland is needed.
While the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York several years ago was quite shocking, it was nowhere near what its perpetrator, Achmed Ramsey Youssef, had planned. His plan reportedly was to kill 250,000 people by blowing up the one tower so it would fall into the other tower, thus collapsing both. - Denver Council on Foreign Relations (Summer 2001)

• June 2001 - India and Iran will "facilitate" U.S. and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban.

"India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.
Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of "facilitator" while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.
Diplomats say that the anti-Taliban move followed a meeting between US Secretary of State Collin Powel and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and later between Powell and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in Washington. Russia, Iran and India have also held a series of discussions and more diplomatic activity is expected.
Officials say that the Northern Alliance requires a "clean up" operation to reduce Taliban's war-fighting machinery to launch an attack against the Taliban advance to the Tajik-Afghan border. This "clean up" action is being planned by the US and Russia since the Taliban shows no "sign of reconciliation".
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will lead the ground attack with a strong military back up of the US and Russia. Vital Taliban installations and military assets will be targeted.
The US needs Russian assistance because of Soviet knowledge of the Afghan terrain. The former Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in 1979 and withdrew in 1989.
Such Central Asian countries as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are threatened by the Taliban that is aiming to control their vast oil, gas and other resources by bringing Islamic fundamentalists into power.
India, Iran and Russia, for example, are working on a broad plan to supply oil and gas to south Asia and southeast Asian nations through India but instability in Afghanistan is posing a great threat to this effort." - News Insight (06/26/01)

(See also:  May 2001 - U.S. gives $43 million to Afghanistan and becomes the largest donor to Afghanistan for two years in a row; July 2001 - U.S. plans an attack on Osama bin Laden and the Taleban)

• June 2001 - Attorney General John Ashcroft stops flying commercial aircrafts three months before 9/11.

"In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term."  - CBS (06/26/01)

- Note:  Watch CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports on Aschcroft's travel arrangements.

• June 2001 - NORAD has scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 67 times since September 2000.

Military now notified immediately of unusual air traffic events

"From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001, Martin said." - San Diego Union Tribune (08/12/22)

• June 2001 - WTC janitor William Rodriguez claims to have been approached in the building by one of the alleged 9/11 hijackers.

Janitor tells 9/11 panel of brush with WTC thug

"A hero janitor who helped victims escape from the World Trade Center's north tower before it collapsed told the 9/11 panel that he came across one of the hijackers in the building a few months before the attack.
William Rodriguez, 43, of Jersey City met with the commission for the first time last week.
A 20-year Trade Center employee who swept stairwells, he swears he saw United Airlines Flight 175 hijacker Mohand Alshehri in June 2001 and told an FBI agent in the family center at Ground Zero about it a month after the attacks. He never heard back from the bureau.
Rodriguez said he was working overtime one weekend cleaning rest rooms on the concourse and mezzanine levels when Alshehri approached him.
"I had just finished cleaning the bathroom and this guy asks me, 'Excuse me, how many public bathrooms are in this area?'" Rodriguez told the Daily News.
"Coming from the school of the 1993 [Trade Center] bombing, I found it very strange," Rodriguez said. "I didn't forget about it."
After Al Qaeda's attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Rodriguez recognized Alshehri's mug in newspapers.
"I'm very certain, I'll give it 90%" that Alshehri was casing the towers before the attacks, the WTC ex-porter said." - New York Daily (06/15/04)

- William Rodriguez's blog; lawsuit:  Rodriguez vs. Bush

(See also:  9/11 - WTC janitor William Rodriguez hears a large explosion in the basement of the North Tower seconds before a plane hits)

• June 2001 - Convicted terrorist provided U.S. officials with very specific info about a terrorist attack in which some of this information is used in the Aug. 6th memo.

Another Lost Opportunity

A convicted terrorist was providing U.S. officials with very specific information about a terrorist attack three months before 9/11.

"In the spring of 2001, one of the U.S. government’s most valuable terror informants gave the FBI a far more alarming account of Al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States than has ever been publicly disclosed, according to newly available court documents.
Algerian expatriate Ahmed Ressam, whose sentencing for a Millennium-eve plot to blow up the Los Angeles airport was unexpectedly postponed today, told bureau interrogators nearly four years ago that Al Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah had been discussing plans to smuggle terrorist operatives and explosives into the country for the purpose of launching a strike on U.S. soil, the documents show.
The fresh documents, released in federal court in Seattle in recent days, shed new light on an issue that dominated last year’s hearings by the September 11 commission: precisely how much did the U.S. government know about Al Qaeda plans to strike inside the country in the summer of 2001 when the attacks on the World Trade Towers and Pentagon were in their final stages?

Perhaps no better sign of that was the inclusion of some of Resssam’s information in the now famous presidential daily briefing (PDB)—entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”—that was presented to President Bush by the CIA on Aug. 6, 2001.
The fact that Ressam’s information was the basis for at least part of the PDB to Bush first became known last year when the 9/11 commission hearings forced the White House to make the long-disputed document public. But it turns out, according to the new court documents, the information from Ressam that was contained in the PDB was watered down and seemed far more bland than what the Algerian terrorist was actually telling the FBI.
“Abu Zubaydah asked Mr. Ressam to send him original Canadian passports so Abu Zubaydah could get people to America,” Ressam told the FBI that day, according to the summary. “Abu Zubaydah wanted an operation in the U.S. Abu Zubaydah also talked to Mr. Ressam about need to get explosives into U.S. for operation, but this wasn’t re: Mr. Ressam’s operation,” meaning explosives that could be used for an attack other than the one planned for the Los Angeles airport. The debriefing report went on to say: “Mr. Ressam does not know if any [explosives] made it to U.S. Once possible operation initiated, operators would not talk about it to anyone, including Abu Zubaydah.”
Still, the apparently watered-down nature of the PDB may partly explain why President Bush later told the commission that he viewed the August 2001 briefing as “historical in nature” and that he never followed up with either national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice or Attorney General John Ashcroft to direct them to push more aggressively to identify Al Qaeda cells inside the United States." - Newsweek (04/28/05)

(See also:  August 6, 2001 - CIA PDB memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US")

• June 1, 2001 - Dept. of Defense (DoD) initiates new instructions for military assistance relating to aircraft hijackings, the first time since 1997, which states that for all non-immediate responses, assistance from the DoD must get approval from the Secretary of Defense who is currently Donald Rumsfeld.

"CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION; J-3; CJCSI; 3610.01A
1 June 2001
AIRCRAFT PIRACY (HIJACKING) AND DESTRUCTION OF DERELICT AIRBORNE OBJECTS
1. Purpose. This instruction provides guidance to the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO), National Military Command Center (NMCC), and operational commanders in the event of an aircraft piracy (hijacking) or request for destruction of derelict airborne objects.
2. Cancellation. CJCSI 3610.01, 31 July 1997.
3. Applicability. This instruction applies to the Joint Staff, Services, unified commands, and the US Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command (USELEMNORAD).
4. Policy.
a. Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) of Civil and Military Aircraft. Pursuant to references a and b, the Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has exclusive responsibility to direct law enforcement activity related to actual or attempted aircraft piracy (hijacking) in the “special aircraft jurisdiction” of the United States. When requested by the Administrator, Department of Defense will provide assistance to these law enforcement efforts. Pursuant to reference c, the NMCC is the focal point within Department of Defense for providing assistance. In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference d, forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval. DOD assistance to the FAA will be provided in accordance with reference d. Additional guidance is provided in Enclosure A."
ENCLOSURE D; REFERENCES:
d. DOD Directive 3025.15, 18 February 1997, “Military Assistance to Civil Authorities” - Defense Technical Information Center (06/01/01)

"Department of Defense; DIRECTIVE NUMBER 3025.15
February 18, 1997
4.7. Requests for military assistance should be made and approved in the following ways:
4.7.1. Immediate Response. Requests for an immediate response (i.e., any form of immediate action taken by a DoD Component or military commander to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage under imminently serious conditions) may be made to any Component or Command. The DoD Components that receive verbal requests from civil authorities for support in an exigent emergency may initiate informal planning and, if required, immediately respond as authorized in DoD Directive 3025.1 (reference (g)). Civil authorities shall be informed that verbal requests for support in an emergency must be followed by a written request. As soon as practical, the DoD Component or Command rendering assistance shall report the fact of the request, the nature of the response, and any other pertinent information through the chain of command to the DoD Executive Secretary, who shall notify the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and any other appropriate officials. If the report does not include a copy of the civil authorities' written request, that request shall be forwarded to the DoD Executive Secretary as soon as it is available." - Defense Technical Information Center (02/18/97)

Department of Defense; DIRECTIVE NUMBER 3025.1
January 15, 1993
SUBJECT: Military Support to Civil Authorities (MSCA)
References: (e) through (u), see enclosure 1
E1. ENCLOSURE 1
(g) DoD 5025.1-M, "DoD Directives System Procedures," December 1990" - Defense Technical Information Center (01/15/93)

(See also:  January 20, 2001 - Donald H. Rumsfeld becomes the U.S. Secretary of Defense for the second time)

• June 1, 2001 - NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 01, an exercise involving a cruise missile attack scenario in which their presentation manual has a photo of Osama bin Laden on the cover and a picture of an explosion in a skyscraper inside.

Amalgam Virgo
"Amalgam Virgo is a joint-service, cruise-missile defense exercise at Tyndall AFB.
Fast, low-flying cruise missiles are hard to detect. To practice their part in defending the U.S. from these missiles, members of the 513th Air Control Group deployed to Florida for the "Amalgam Virgo" cruise missile defense exercise. The multi-service exercise tested the defense and response capabilities to a cruise missile attack on Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., June 1-4, 2001.
Homeland defense is increasingly being discussed as a primary mission for Guard and Reserve forces. The exercise was coordinated by the Air National Guard's 1st Air Force and involved active duty, National Guard and Reserve forces, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard as players.
Contributing to the air picture was the Navy Aegis cruiser, USS Yorktown, in the Gulf of Mexico. Equipped with a high-powered radar capable of tracking more than 100 targets simultaneously, the Yorktown also played a role in the multi-layered defense used to shoot down a cruise missile
Real-time battle management and the transmission of E-3 aircraft sensor information is nothing new to the members of the 513th ACG. Data linking the Airborne Warning and Control System "picture" involves providing continual updates of the battlefield, thereby providing command leadership the needed information to instantly respond to changing conditions. It is crucial that information gathered by the AWACS aircraft be transmitted to the specified command center for rapid analysis and response.
What was perhaps a bit different about this exercise was that it involved U.S. homeland defense and practicing to merge a variety of sister services' capabilities to create a uniform picture and response. There are 75,000 cruise missiles and cruise missile-like aircraft in about 75 countries around the world. Those facts, coupled with the ease with which a cruise missile can be acquired make cruise missile defense a priority. Because of the capability for people with very limited means, in relative terms, to be able to obtain a cruise missile, NORAD has to be very serious about that threat. Key to defending against cruise missiles is making sure all air defenders see the same thing. The goal of this exercise was to improve the air picture and counter new and emerging threats.
The Coast Guard, Navy and U.S. Southern Command, took the lead in detecting, identifying and prosecuting the surrogate terrorist vessel that "launched" the cruise missiles for the exercise. From an air defense point of view, the exercise was a complete success. Twelve drones were launched, and twelve were 'destroyed.' The multi-layered defense structure worked as advertised.
At the heart of the exercise was the Joint-Based Expeditionary Connectivity Center, or JBECC, which 1st Air Force tested as part of its Area Cruise Missile Defense demonstration. Ackermann explained that the JBECC is a highly mobile connectivity shelter, which can be deployed to high-risk areas to provide early warning of a cruise-missile attack. It does this by collecting and correlating radar information from the different services to provide an accurate tracking picture of low-level targets such as cruise missiles.
During the June 2001 exercise Amalgam Virgo, ANZUS, Inc. demonstrated the Rosetta LINK-16 / Link-11 gateway functionality. Tracks and data were forwarded between both links in both directions in real-time. This demonstration served as the pre-certification contractor test which was scheduled for October 2001 at JITC. Additionally, ANZUS demonstrated the JMMTIDS JICO toolset capabilities developed to support the Joint Interface Control Officer in managing a complex combined interface architecture." - GlobalSecurity.org [PDF]

(See also:  June 4, 2002 - NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 02, an exercise involving a domestic commercial airliner-hijacking scenario planned before 9/11)

• June 16, 2001 - A simulated terrorist attack exercise called "Mall Strike 2001" is conducted in the Pennsylvania county of Westmoreland which borders Somerset county where the city of Shanksville is located in.

COUNTY OF WESTMORELAND, PENNSYLVANIA; COMPREHENSIVE ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORT, For the Year Ended December 31, 2001

"On June 16, 2001 the Department of Public Safety and the County Local Emergency Planning Committee conducted the largest full-scale emergency exercise ever conducted in the County. The exercise, called Mall Strike 2001, occurred at Greengate Mall and involved over 600 emergency first responders and emergency managers who responded to a weapons of mass destruction event involving the simulated release of a toxic chemical agent and the simulated release of radiation and radiological contamination. The exercise was a major training success.
The department dedicated its new Public Safety and 9-1-1 Center, located at 911 Public Safety Road in Hempfield Township, on September 11, 2001. This long awaited day was marred, however, by the terrorist attacks on the United States that also occurred on that date. In response to those attacks, the first official action at the new Center involved several days of 24 hour operations in the new County Emergency Operations Center.
The 9-1-1 Center was the only Center that had direct cell-phone communications with a passenger on United Flight 93. United Flight 93 was the aircraft that crashed in Somerset County. The National Emergency Numbering Association, NENA, recognized the County’s highly professional and well-trained Telecommunications Officers who handled this terrible emergency situation by presenting our 9-1-1 Center with NENA’s first national level award, the “September 11th Memorial Telecommunicators Award." - Westmoreland County

In the wake of Sept. 11, just how safe are we?

"...officials with Westmoreland and Fayette counties and local municipalities say security hasn't been increased. Rather, security plans were in place before Sept. 11 and communications channels exist between Fayette, Westmoreland and its neighboring counties in preparation for a terrorist attack.

Daniel Stevens, public information officer for Westmoreland County's Department of Public Safety, said the department has held trainings for fire departments and municipal officials when these are requested. The department, just 2 1/2 months before the terrorist attacks, held a training drill simulating a terrorist attack. "When the terrorists struck the World Trade Center, Flight 93 was above Westmoreland County and actually wound up in Shanksville," stated Stevens.
Stevens said that Westmoreland County is one of 13 southwestern Pennsylvania counties and the City of Pittsburgh that make up a regional task force on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Also included is Fayette County, according to Roy Shipley, director of Fayette County's Emergency Management agency." - PittsburghLive.com/Daily Courier (09/11/02)

U.S. Department of Homeland Security FEMA Preparedness Smart Practices Spotlight

A Regional Approach to Terrorism and All-Hazards Preparedness Pennsylvania Region 13 Working Group
"Summary: In 1998, 12 Pennsylvania counties and the City of Pittsburgh together became the first group in the state to try a regional approach to terrorism preparedness.

While attending a Pennsylvania emergency management conference in 1998, a number of county emergency managers began to discuss threats of terrorism and the resources needed to respond effectively should a weapons of mass destruction incident occur in their region. In searching for a way to pool their resources, they created the Pennsylvania Region 13 Working Group.
Since formalizing the mutual aid and inter-government agreements, the Region 13 Working Group has established an incident command system for response operations, created a Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS), and developed plans and procedures for surveillance and notifications, and mass immunization and fatality management. They have organized major training exercises such as "Mall Strike 2001," a simulated nerve agent and radiological incident; a simulated gas attack exercise in the Pittsburgh subway system; and a full-scale exercise testing the ability of 27 hospitals in three of the 13 counties to decontaminate victims of a chemical attack.
When United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in rural Somerset County on Sept.11, 2001, the chair of the working group was immediately in touch with other members of the group and emergency teams were deployed swiftly to the site. The group's four years of working together and preparing for terrorist events allowed them to develop and train teams that could work efficiently together during an event of this magnitude." - FEMA (03/12/03)

(See also:  9/11 (10:03 - 10:06 am) - Flight 93 is said to have crashed in a empty field in Shanksville, PA)

• June 22-23, 2001 - U.S. government conducts the senior-level bio-terrorist war game, Operation Dark Winter, which includes scripted TV news clips that name possible culprits of the simulated attack; Iraq and terrorists groups in Afghanistan.

Dark Winter

"On 22-23 June, 2001, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention Terrorism, hosted a senior-level war game examining the national security, intergovernmental, and information challenges of a biological attack on the American homeland.
With tensions rising in the Taiwan Straits, and a major crisis developing in Southwest Asia, a smallpox outbreak was confirmed by the CDC in Oklahoma City. During the thirteen days of the game, the disease spread to 25 states and 15 other countries. Fourteen participants and 60 observers witnessed terrorism/warfare in slow motion. Discussions, debates (some rather heated) and decisions focused on the public health response, lack of an adequate supply of smallpox vaccine, roles and missions of federal and state governments, civil liberties associated with quarantine and isolation, the role of DoD, and potential military responses to the anonymous attack. Additionally, a predictable 24/7 news cycle quickly developed that focused the nation and the world on the attack and response. Five representatives from the national press corps (including print and broadcast) participated in the game, including a lengthy press conference with the President.
SCENARIO OVERVIEW
DARK WINTER was an exercise designed to simulate possible US reaction to the deliberate introduction of smallpox in three states during the winter of 2002.
KEY PLAYERS
President The Hon. Sam Nunn
National Security Advisor The Hon. David Gergen
Director of Central Intelligence The Hon. R. James Woolsey
Secretary of Defense The Hon. John White
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Tilelli (USA, Ret.)
Governor of Oklahoma The Hon. Frank Keating
Correspondent, NBC News Mr. Jim Miklaszewski
Pentagon Producer, CBS News Ms. Mary Walsh
Reporter, The New York Times Ms. Judith Miller" - MIPT [Download scripted TV news clips:  1, 2, 3*, 4, 5 | Watch all clips here.]

Dark Winter: Day 6 - 'Angie Miles': "Still, no group claims responsibility for unleashing the deadly smallpox virus, but NCN has learned that Iraq may have provided the technology behind the attack to terrorist groups based in Afghanistan." - *Watch clip 3 [Download clip 3]

- See:  Operation Dark Winter - Wikipedia;  Pre-9/11 bio-attack drill names Sept. 11 scapegoats

(See also:  9/11 - After the first WTC plane crash, an aide to CIA Director George Tenet tells him that the WTC has just been "attacked" by an airplane and Tenet say this attack has Osama bin Laden's "fingerprints all over it."; 9/11 (2:40 pm) - Donald Rumsfeld began planning strike plans against Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.)
 

• June 27, 2001 - The Defense Department's budget request for fiscal year 2002 is $328.9 billion, a $37.8 billion (or 11.5%) increase over last years budget request, and is released four months later than previous and future requests.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AMENDED BUDGET FOR FY 2002

"Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today released details of President Bush's Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 amended defense budget. The amended budget adds funding and program details to the broad defense vision the President outlined in February in his budget submission to Congress, A Blueprint for New Beginnings.

Secretary Rumsfeld said the new budget begins an increased focus on future threats. "If we are to extend this period of peace and prosperity, we need to prepare now for the new and different threats we will face in the decades ahead and not wait until they fully emerge." He said the new budget balances preparation for the future with current needs -- through robust funding to improve morale, boost readiness, transform defense capabilities, and upgrade aging facilities.

The amended budget requests $328.9 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Defense (DoD)." - DoD (06/27/01)

- FY 1996 request - $246.0 billion - DoD

- FY 1997 request - $243.4 billion  [ $2.60 billion, or 1.1% decrease ] - DoD (03/14/96)

- FY 1998 request - $250.7 billion  [ $7.30 billion, or 2.9% increase ] - DoD (02/06/97)

- FY 1999 request - $257.3 billion  [ $6.60 billion, or 2.6% increase ] - DoD (02/02/98)

- FY 2000 request - $267.2 billion  [ $9.90 billion, or 3.7% increase ] - DoD (02/01/99)

- FY 2001 request - $291.1 billion  [ $23.9 billion, or  8.2% increase ]  - DoD (02/07/00)

- FY 2002 request - $328.9 billion  [ $37.8 billion, or 11.5% increase ] - DoD (06/27/01)

- FY 2003 request - $369.0 billion  [ $40.1 billion, or 10.9% increase ] - DoD (02/04/02)

- FY 2004 request - $379.9 billion  [ $10.9 billion, or 2.9% increase ] - DoD (02/03/03)

- FY 2005 request - $401.7 billion  [ $21.8 billion, or 5.4% increase ] - DoD (02/02/04)

- FY 2006 request - $419.3 billion  [ $17.6 billion, or 4.2% increase -- 42% increase since 1997 ] - DoD (02/07/05)

(See also:  September 2000 - PNAC advocates major US military budget increases, but won't think it will happen without a catastrophic event like a 'new Pearl Harbor'; September 5, 2001 - Defense Secretary Rumsfeld asks Senate to approve 2002 defense budget request; February 4, 2002 - '03 defense budget request is a $40.1 billion, or 10.9% increase over '02)

• June 29, 2001 - A MASCAL (mass casualty) exercise about a terrorist incident involving an explosion is conducted at Fort Belvoir near the Pentagon to test first team's "external response."

Exercise tests Belvoir's first responders

"What seemed like just another ordinary Thursday morning at the Military Police desk here June 29, quickly turned when MPs received a call from a frantic woman about 10 a.m.
"There was an explosion, wounded soldiers are laying all over the place. There are little kids too," the woman yell into a cellular phone directed to the military police desk sergeant on the other end.

"The 'First Team' organizations knew that there was going to be a Post MASCAL [mass casualty] training exercise some where on post. But they didn't know the location, the day or time it was going to happen," said Percy Perry, mobilization officer for the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security here. "This exercise was designed to enhance the first ready response in dealing with the effects of a terrorist incident involving an explosion," he said.

The Fort Belvoir Fire Department arrived soon after and provided stretchers as the MPs carried the victims off the site.

"We do MASCAL training periodically throughout the year," said Sgt. 1st Class Donald McCasland, the noncommissioned officer in charge of training for MEDDAC. "Normally our MASCAL exercises are internal, but this one was designed to test our external response." - Military District of Washington (07/05/01)

- Ft Belvoir to the Pentagon = approx 18 miles - Yahoo Maps

(See also:  9/11 - Fort Belvoir conducts exercise to test the security at the base in case of a terrorist attack)

• July 2001 - U.S. plans to invade Afghanistan for an attack on Osama bin Laden and the Taliban by October 2001.

US 'planned attack on Taleban'

"A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.
He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.
And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban." - BBC (09/18/01)

Attack and counter-attack, Evidence suggests that Washington had planned to move against Bin Laden in the summer. Was the attack on America a pre-emptive strike?

"These are the troubling questions raised by the Guardian's disclosure at the weekend that the Taliban received a specific warning - passed during secret diplomacy in Berlin in July - that the Bush team had prepared a new plan to topple the entire Afghan regime militarily unless they handed Bin Laden over.

The Guardian's disclosures are proving controversial. Some analysts say Bin Laden had evidently prepared his suicide pilots up to a year beforehand, thus making Washington's behaviour in July beside the point. Others ask why US threats of military strikes in July should be of any more concern to Bin Laden than previous episodes, such as Clinton's rocketing of his camps.

Reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan existed on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north." - Guardian (09/26/01)

(See also:  June 2001 - India and Iran will "facilitate" U.S. and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban; August 2001 - Taliban warns the U.S. of a huge attack from Osama bin Laden; September 4, 2001 - White House approves plans to invade Afghanistan; October 7, 2001 - U.S. invades Afghanistan)

• July 2001 - U.S. and Italian officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations.

RESPONSE TO TERROR,THE INVASION

Italy Tells of Threat at Genoa Summit; Plot: Officials there took seriously a report that terrorists would try to crash a plane to kill Bush and other leaders.

"U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations, officials said Wednesday.
Italian officials took the reports seriously enough to prompt extraordinary precautions during the July summit of the Group of 8 nations, including closing the airspace over Genoa and stationing antiaircraft guns at the city's airport.
But a U.S. official said that American counter-terrorism experts considered the warning "unsubstantiated."
In either case, the reports suggest that Western governments were aware that terrorists might one day use a hijacked airplane as a suicide weapon--as they did Sept. 11 in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The Genoa warning was disclosed last week by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini. In remarks on a television talk show reported by the Italian news agency ANSA, Fini said: "Many people were ironic about the Italian secret services. But in fact they got the information that there was the possibility of an attack against the U.S. president using an airliner. That's why we closed the airspace and installed the missiles. Those who made cracks should now think a little."
An attack on the summit would have endangered not only President Bush, but also British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and others.
In an interview published Sept. 21 in the French newspaper Le Figaro, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said his government provided information to the United States about possible attacks on the Genoa summit by Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden. "There was a question of an airplane stuffed with explosives. As a result, precautions were taken."
White House aides refused to comment on the reports. "We just don't talk about security arrangements," spokeswoman Anna Perez said.
But a U.S. official outside the White House said the Genoa reports were received and discounted.
"There were some press reports citing what we subsequently determined was unsubstantiated information," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In any case, the possibility of suicide hijackings has been known to U.S. counter-terrorism officials for several years.
On Christmas Eve 1994, Algerian terrorists hijacked an Air France Airbus and planned to blow it up over the Eiffel Tower in Paris. French troops stormed the plane as it was refueling in Marseilles and killed the hijackers.
The hijackers' organization, the Armed Islamic Group, is now believed to be part of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
In 1996, a terrorist captured in Manila told Philippine police that Al Qaeda planned to hijack 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and to fly a plane into CIA headquarters near Washington." - LA Times (09/27/01) [Wayback], Newsday (09/27/01) [Wayback]

(See also:  1994 - U.S. intel had several warnings that terrorists might attack the US using airplanes as weapons; 1995 - U.S. warned of plot to hijack planes and attack the Pentagon, CIA headquarters from foiled Operation Bojinka)

• July 2001 - A briefing prepared for senior government officials warns of spectacular attacks by terrorists with little or no warnings.

"In July 2001, the report says, a briefing prepared for senior government officials warned of "a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties ... (it) will occur with little or no warning." - CNN (09/12/02)

• July 2001 - Armed pilots banned 2 months before 9/11

"A 40-year-old Federal Aviation Administration rule that allowed commercial airline pilots to be armed was inexplicably rescinded two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, leading aviation security experts to lay at least some of the blame for the tragedy at the feet of airlines, none of which took advantage of the privilege while it was in effect.
But in July 2001 – just two months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks – the rule was rescinded." - WorldNetDaily (05/16/02)

• July 2001 - Larry Silverstein, owner of the WTC 7, signs a 99-year lease for the rest of the WTC just six weeks before the attacks.

"A private developer little known to the general public, Silverstein signed a 99-year lease for the twin towers just six weeks before the attack.
His lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey remains in place, making Silverstein, 72, a key figure in the rebuilding of the site.
After much behind-closed-doors wrangling over the site's final design, Silverstein and redevelopment officials reached an agreement that leaves in place architect Daniel Libeskind's centerpiece (the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower) but hands the lead role in construction to Silverstein's hand-picked architect, David Childs." - CBS Interactive

"Silverstein leased the center six weeks before it was destroyed by terrorists Sept. 11, 2001." - Washington Times/UPI (12/06/04)

(See also:  April 2001 - The New York Port Authority granted a 99-year lease of the twin towers and four other buildings to Silverstein Properties; October 15, 2001 - Silverstein seeks $7.2 billion from his insurers; 9/11 - Silverstein said smartest thing for WTC 7 was to 'pull it'; September 12, 2001 - WTC hated, money-losers, collapse benefited owners; Killtown's - Was the WTC 7 pulled?)

• July 4, 2001 - Osama Bin Laden, wanted by the US government since 1998, undergoes medical treatment at the American Hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates where he is met by a local CIA chief.

"Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates federation, is northeast of Abu Dhabi. This city of 350,000 inhabitants was the discreet stage for a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA representative, in July. A man, a professional partner of the administrative management of the American hospital of Dubai, affirms that public enemy number one stayed in this hospital from July 4-14.
Coming from the airport of Quetta in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden was transferred on arrival at Dubai airport. Accompanied by his personal doctor, and faithful lieutenant, who could be the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahari, -- on this point the eyewitness accounts are not fully confirmed --, four bodyguards, as well as an Algerian nurse, bin Laden was admitted to the American hospital, a glass and marble building situated between the Al-Garhoud Bridge and the Al-Maktoum Bridge.
Each floor has two VIP suites and about 15 rooms. The Saudi billionaire was admitted to the very famous urology department of Dr. Terry Calloway, specialist in kidney stones and male infertility. Reached by telephone, several times, Dr. Calloway did not want to answer our questions.
Already in March 2000, the weekly Asia Week published in Hong Kong, etc. .... a mobile dialysis machine delivered to his hideout in Kandahar, in the first half of 2000. According to our sources, 'bin Laden's move for health reasons' was not the first. Between 1996 and 1998, Osama bin Laden went to Dubai several times for business.
On September 27, 15 days after the attacks against the World Trade Center, on US demand, the central Bank of the U.A.E. announced that it had ordered the freezing of accounts and investments of 26 persons or organizations suspected of having contacts with the organization of bin Laden, especially the Dubai Islamic Bank.
During his hospitalization, Osama bin Laden received visits of several family members, Saudi and Emirate personalities. In the course of the same stay, the local CIA representative, whom many people in Dubai know, was seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to Osama bin Laden's room.
A few days later, the CIA man boasted to some friends that he had visited the Saudi billionaire. According to authorized sources, the CIA agent was called by his headquarters on July 15, the day after bin Laden's departure for Quetta.
Following their investigations, the FBI discovered 'structures' that the CIA had developed with its 'Islamist friends' for years. The meeting in Dubai, therefore, is nothing but the logical follow-up of a 'certain American policy'." - Le Figaro (10/31/01) [Reprinted at:  billstclair.com]

"In America, where the FBI has been notoriously ineffective, the White House is forced to admit on the record that the country is as vulnerable now as it was on the morning of September 11.
Exactly one year ago, from July 4 to July 14, Osama bin Laden was undergoing medical treatment at the American Hospital in Dubai. He arrived by plane from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan (daily flights either with PIA or Emirates Airlines). He met many wealthy Saudi princes and businessmen. He was also visited by the local CIA chief. He could have been arrested on the spot - and there would be no excuses for a war against terrorism. He was not arrested. The rest, of course, is history - with an al-Qaeda hand in the screenplay." - Asia Times (07/13/02)

"Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro." - Guardian (11/01/01)

"Links: Le Figaro Reports CIA, bin Laden Contacts" - Scoop (11/02/01)

FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive - Usama Bin Laden

"USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD." FBI

(See also:  September 10, 2001 - Osama Bin Laden reportedly undergoes kidney dialysis at a Pakistani military hospital in which a "secret team" replaces the regular urology staff; December 2001 - Osama bin Laden reportedly dies)

• July 10, 2001 - FBI agent Kenneth Williams urges the bureau's headquarters in his "Phoenix memo" to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools who are supporters of Osama bin Laden, suggesting the schools could be used for terror operations.

Flight School Memo Named Bin Laden

"A memo by an FBI agent last summer