FBI'S JOHN O'NEIL --CENTER FOR COOPERATIVE RESEARCH ASKS --"Was there a deliberate sabotage of John O'Neill's investigation in Yemen?"
SearchRE,
Perhaps we can get people on the thread to help in a co-ordinated fashion so we can educate ourselves prior to the PBS-Frontline show in order to be able to see what their strategy is.
Here's something that just hit the Web today on John O'Neil:
cooperativeresearch.org
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The Frustrated USS Cole Investigation
On October 12, 2000, the destroyer USS Cole, was bombed in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen American sailors died, and thirty-nine others were seriously wounded. [New Yorker, 1/14/02
cooperativeresearch.org
] In early October Almihdhar left San Diego. Investigators claim not to know where. But Abd al-Karim al-Iryani, the Prime Minister of Yemen at the time of the Cole attack, offered the following: "Khalid Almihdhar was one of the Cole perpetrators, involved in preparations. He was in Yemen at the time and stayed after the Cole bombing for a while, then he left." [Guardian, 10/15/01 cooperativeresearch.org ]
Two days after the bombing, John O’Neill, the FBI’s New York chief of counter-terrorism, arrived in Aden with a support staff of 300. The country was in chaos, with heavily armed bandits and/or terrorists having de facto control over certain areas. Upon arrival, O'Neill told his fellow investigators, "This may be the most hostile environment the FBI has ever operated in." [New Yorker, 1/14/02] He immediately ran into problems with Barbara Bodine, the US ambassador. Bodine, a career diplomat, didn't want O'Neill and his men to carry weapons, because it would upset the government of Yemen. O'Neill insisted his men needed the guns to protect themselves.
O'Neill spent much of his time coaxing the Yemeni authorities to cooperate, but was largely unsuccessful. Agents rarely left their heavily guarded hotel or offshore naval ships, and after receiving a bomb threat, they evacuated the hotel and permission was needed just to come ashore. Relations between Bodine and O'Neill deteriorated to the point that Barry Mawn, chief of the FBI's New York office, flew to Yemen to assess the situation. Upon his return to the US, Mawn reported that O'Neill was doing "an outstanding job" and added that Bodine was his "only detractor." [New Yorker, 1/14/02] Nevertheless, after three weeks of personality battles, Bodine asked the State Department to recall O'Neill. Attorney General Janet Reno was considered a strong O'Neill supporter but nonetheless approved Bodine's request, and he returned to the US about a month after arriving. [Sunday Times, 2/3/02http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/completetimeline/2002/sundaytimes020302.html]
After the departure of O'Neill and his team, the remaining agents retreated to the US Embassy in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. In June 2001, there was a bomb threat against the embassy, and the entire team withdrew from Yemen shortly thereafter. [New Yorker, 1/14/02]
Commenting on the aborted investigation, The Sunday Times noted, "The failure in Yemen may have blocked off lines of investigation that could have led directly to the terrorists preparing for September 11." The newspaper conjectured further: "If the number had been under surveillance or the Yemeni [who owned the safe house] fully investigated, then Almihdhar might have been unmasked before September 11." [Sunday Times, 2/3/02] Khalid Almihdhar's brother-in-law Sameer Mohammed Ahmed Al-Hada - the son of the Yemeni safe house's owner - later blew himself up after being cornered by Yemeni security forces in February 2002. [CBS News, 2/13/02 - cooperativeresearch.org]
Had John O'Neill's operation in Yemen been allowed to proceed, is it possible that the 9/11 operation could have been prevented?
Bin Atash and the Trail Back to Almihdhar
Even though the Cole investigation was generally considered a failure, some useful evidence was collected. [New Yorker, 1/14/02] In January 2001, the FBI determined that Khallad bin Atash had been a principal planner in the Cole bombing, and that two other participants in the plan had delivered money to bin Atash at the time of the January 2000 Malaysia meeting. The FBI shared this information with the CIA, whose analysts took another look at the Malaysian meeting. [Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/20/02 - cooperativeresearch.org]
Upon pulling out the file on bin Atash, they discovered pictures of him taken at the Malaysia meeting. In one of the shots, they recognized that he was standing next to Almihdhar, [Newsweek, 6/10/02 - cooperativeresearch.org]
who had also been photographed with "top bin Laden operative" Fahad al Quso. [Newsweek, 9/20/01 - cooperativeresearch.org]
CNN observed, "At that point, the CIA -- or the FBI for that matter -- could have put Alhazmi and Almihdhar and all others who attended the meeting in Malaysia on a watch list to be kept out of this country. It was not done." [CNN, 6/4/02 - cooperativeresearch.org]
Even more incredibly, not even bin Atash himself was placed the watch list at this time, despite being labeled the principal planner of the Cole bombing! [Los Angeles Times, 9/22/02 - cooperativeresearch.org]
In the wake of these new revelations, John O'Neill applied to reenter Yemen to breathe new life into the Cole investigation, but his application was turned down by Ambassador Bodine. [New Yorker, 1/14/02]
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Questions, Questions
The most serious questions have not even been asked by the Congressional committee. What does FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh really know? Why does he contradict neighbors' claims that Mohamed Atta was a frequent visitor to his house? Who do phone records show Alhazmi and Almihdhar calling so frequently? Was there a deliberate sabotage of John O'Neill's investigation in Yemen? Why did the CIA fail to share information on Alhazmi and Almihdhar? Why were even well known, top level terrorists like Khallad bin Atash not put on watch lists, much less investigated? Do we really know the true identities of the hijackers? Why can't we see the video footage of them passing through airport security? Why does the FBI still use a photo of an innocent man for Salem Alhazmi? Is there any reason to believe Khalid Almihdhar is still alive?
Most importantly, at what point does incompetence and bureaucratic barriers cease to be a reasonable explanation for so many failures surrounding Alhazmi and Almihdhar? Could the meetings in late night limousines have been the communication link between the hijackers and some group outside of al-Qaeda? When will investigators and the media start asking these questions?
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If anyone else has O'Neil URLs on file, please get them up here on the thread! TigerPaw, MSI, TexasDude anyone?
Thanks in Advance!
The Truth Shall Set Us Free!
-Ray |
