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Jeff Miller
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 22 Nov 2001
Posts: 23947
Location: Mental Ward for the Mentaly Unstable 6th floor, Saint John's 1615 Delaware Longview Washington 98632
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 Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:15 pm 9/11 panel says Wash. state buildings were al-Qaida targets |
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| Quote: | 9/11 panel says Wash. state buildings were al-Qaida targets
11:43 AM PDT on Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By kgw.com, NWCN and AP Staff
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a pair of reports, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said Wednesday that tall buildings in Washington state were proposed targets of al-Qaida attacks. The commission also bluntly contradicted the Bush administration by finding that there was "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.
9/11 Commission staff said that senior al-Qaida planner Khalid Shaihk Mohammed initially proposed a Sept. 11 attack involving 10 planes. An expanded target list included the CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear plants and tall buildings in California and Washington state.
There is only one nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, near Richland, Wash., in operation, but several skyscrapers in Seattle top 600 feet.
That ambitious plan was rejected by Osama bin Laden, who ultimately approved a scaled-back mission involving four planes, the reports said. Mohammed wanted more hijackers for those planes: 25 or 26, instead of 19.
The 9/11 panel intends to issue a final report in July on the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the World Trade Centers in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A fourth plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania.
The staff reports pieced together information on the development of bin Laden's network, from the far-flung training camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to funding from "well-placed financial facilitators and diversions of funds from Islamic charities."
The notion that bin Laden had a huge personal fortune to finance acts of terror are overstated, the reports said.
The description of the training camp operations contained elements of faint, grudging praise.
"A worldwide jihad needed terrorists who could bomb embassies or hijack airliners, but it also needed foot soldiers for the Taliban in its war against the Northern Alliance, and guerrillas who could shoot down Russian helicopters in Chechnya or ambush Indian units in Kashmir," the commission said.
According to one unnamed senior al-Qaida associate, various ideas were floated by mujahadeen in Afghanistan, the commission said. The options included taking over a launcher and forcing Russian scientists to fire a nuclear missile at the United States, mounting mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iraq or releasing poison gas into the air conditioning system of a targeted building.
"Last but not least, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport or nearby city," said the commission statement.
The Iraq connection long suggested by Bush administration officials gained no currency in the reports.
"Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded," the reports said. "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred" after bin Laden moved his operations to Afghanistan in 1996, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the commission concluded.
"Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq," the reports said.
The 9/11 Commission has identified at least 10 al-Qaida operatives who were to participate but could not take part for reasons including visa problems and suspicion by officials at airports in the United States and overseas.
From a seamless operation, the reports portray a plot riven by internal dissent, including disagreement over whether to target the White House or the Capitol that was apparently never resolved prior to the attacks. Bin Laden also had to overcome opposition to attacking the United States from Mullah Omar, leader of the former Taliban regime, who was under pressure from Pakistan to keep al-Qaida confined.
The United States toppled the regime in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, but Omar has eluded capture, as has Osama Bin Laden.
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| ~Tony Montana wrote: | | You know what you need people like me people for you to snub your nose at and point at saying there is a bad man. Well guess what This bad man is leaving. Say goodnight to the BAD MAN! |
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