The following exchange between counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz took place at a ‘high-level’ meeting on terrorism held in April 2001: ” ‘Wolfowitz: Well, I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden. Clarke: We are talking about a network of terrorist […]
Category: quotes
4/15/2001
“In April 2001, the ISI [Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence] funded the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, to hold a three-day International Deoband Conference near Peshawar [Pakistan]. (The Deobandi are a sect of Sunni Islam, among whose adherents are the Taliban and Pakistani extremists who believe in active jihad.) Hundreds of thousands of people attended […]
4/15/2001
Then-Vice President Dick Cheney wrote: “In April 2001, when Nick Lemann of the New Yorker magazine asked me about the nature of the threat facing the United States, I said, ‘I think we have to be more concerned than we ever have about so-called homeland defense, the vulnerability of our system to different kinds of […]
4/15/2001
In April 2001, Nick Lemann of The New Yorker interviewed Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney wrote: “…Lemann asked me what we could do to reduce those [terrorist] threats [to the country]. I answered, ‘You need to have very robust intelligence capability if you’re going to uncover threats to the U.S., and hopefully thwart them before […]
4/15/2001
“In April [2001] the U.S. intelligence community learned from a source with terrorist connections that Osama bin Laden was interested in using commercial pilots in future attacks. The source said that law enforcement investigators should consider the possibility of ‘spectacular and traumatic’ attacks akin to the first WTC bombing. No time frame for an upcoming […]
4/9/2001
“The [9/11] Commission’s staff believed that it had debunked, once and for all, the widely circulated intelligence report about the so-called Prague meeting–a supposed encounter in the Czech capital between a senior Iraq spy and Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 ringleader, on April 9, 2001. The report had been circulated by the Czech intelligence service and […]
4/9/2001
On October 26, 2001, “Stanislav Gross, whose agency oversees the Czech intelligence service, made a statement to reporters about [9/11 hijacker Mohamed] Atta’s activities in Prague… ‘We can confirm now that during his next [spring [April 9] 2001] trip to the Czech Republic he did have contact with an officer of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. […]
4/9/2001
In a CNN interview on November 10, 2001, “Czech prime minister Milos Zeman confirmed the meeting [of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in Prague, on April 9, 2001], but added to the confusion by claiming knowledge of its contents. ‘Atta contacted some Iraq agent, not to prepare […]
4/6/2001
“Five months before Sept. 11, the government warned airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up a U.S. plane and that carriers should ‘demonstrate a high degree of alertness.’ The warning, obtained Saturday [May 18, 2002] by the AP [Associated Press], came out after the April 6, 2001, conviction of Ahmed […]
4/6/2001
“On April 6, 2001, the US closed its diplomatic missions in Paraguay, Uruguay and Ecuador following intelligence that an Al Qaeda attack was likely.” – Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda, Page 165 […]