YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST....
Bush Told of Possible Hijack Plot Before Sept. 11
Thursday, May 16, 2002
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agents told President Bush before Sept. 11 that Usama bin Laden's terror network might hijack American planes, though the president had no specific information of the plot and no way of knowing the planes would be used in suicide attacks.
"There has been long-standing speculation, shared with the president, about the potential of hijackings in the traditional sense," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Wednesday night. "We had general threats involving Usama bin Laden around the world and including in the United States."
He said the administration, acting on the information received in early August, notified the "appropriate agencies" that hijackings were possible. The warning was never made public, he said.
[...]
foxnews.com
I TOLD YOU SO EVER SINCE DAY THREE --the whole 911 conspiracy was initially devised as a CLASSIC hijacking scheme:
Anyway, my feeling is that, at some point, the whole plot, somehow, swerved away from its initial "low-key" pitch: perhaps Masood changed the screenplay at the last minute and told the hijackers to go for it BIG-TIME. After all, he was likely the one who felt the deepest hatred for the US. Hence, the hijackings were turned into suicide raids. When European and/or Israeli intelligence outfits got aware of the new scenario they attempted to pull the plug on the whole mess and dispatched the fake reporters to kill Masood. It's a plausible scenario since, in any such large-scale operation there's always a "loose-canon" factor that jeopardizes the whole (remember the failed hostage rescue in Iran in 1978). And a terrorist conspiracy is the rogue operation par excellence.
Now, from the hijackers' standpoint, it's clear that they didn't switch to a suicidal mindset overnight. But they also realized that they were not playing in Saudi Arabia, or Turkey, or even Great Britain (see the Dec 11th, 2000 hijacking when passengers, crewmembers and hijackers alike ended up applying for the asylum-refugee status!!) but in the United States --the terrorists' Nemesis. So, even if they stuck to their "initial plan" and landed the hijacked aircraft on a US airport, their survival prospects looked pretty grim....
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