US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s
Mood:  loud
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

While Clintax slept (around)!!!!:

July 1996 - State Department analysts warn the Clinton administration that OBL move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move.

08/23/1996 - OBL issues Declaration of Jihad (Holy War) against the US.

02/15/1998 - OBL issues joint declaration which states Muslims should kill Americans, including civilians anywhere in the world.

06/08/1998 - US grand jury investigation started in 1996 issues a sealed indictment charging OBL with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the US and prosecutors charge OBL heads Al-Qaeda and is a major financier of world wide Islamic terrorists."

2000 - US military counter terrorism unit Able Danger identifies 4 of the 9/11 hijackers, but was unable to give the information to the FBI due to the "wall" created in 1996 by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, in the spring of 2000, the "wall" had also prevented the CIA from tipping off the FBI that two additional 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had entered the country

08/15/2005 - Clinton tells New Yorker magazine says he would have taken out Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks - if only the FBI and CIA had been able to prove the al-Qaida mastermind was behind the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. "I desperately wish that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole," Despite his failure to launch such an attack, Clinton said he saw the danger posed by bin Laden much more clearly than did President Bush.

08/18/2005 CIA's former bin Laden desk chief Michael Scheuer told MSNBC's "Hardball." "We had at least eight to 10 chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999. And the government on all occasions decided that the information was not good enough to act,"

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in connection with the Sept 11 attacks, is seen in an undated police photo. The U.S. government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks four years before they occured, an FBI agent said on Tuesday. >>>>>

US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s: FBI agent

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The U.S. government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said on Tuesday.

FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the U.S. government knew by the mid-1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries.

Operatives at the camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained how to avoid detection, he said.

At that time, the U.S. government was tracking several top al Qaeda members, Anticev said, and between 1996 and 1998 made an attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the man who has been described as the brains behind the September 11 hijackings.

Anticev said the attempt, made "somewhere in the Middle East," failed after Mohammed was apparently tipped off.

Anticev was responding to questions from defense attorney Edward MacMahon, who was trying to refute the government's argument that if Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI in the days before September 11, 2001, the hijackings could have been stopped.

The question of Moussaoui's lies while in custody on immigration charges from August 16, 2001, are at the heart of a sentencing trial to determine if he receives the death penalty for conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks.

Moussaoui's lawyers have said the government will be hard-pressed to prove Moussaoui could have told the FBI anything that would have prevented the hijackings.

Another FBI agent said in later testimony that the U.S. government had no evidence Moussaoui had ever had telephone, e-mail or physical contact with any of the 19 hijackers while in the United States.

During cross-examination by MacMahon, agent James Fitzgerald also said the government had never discovered any of the hijackers before September 11 even though they used their real names to get drivers licenses, report crimes, buy insurance and open bank accounts.

Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, pleaded guilty in April to all six conspiracy charges against him. The sentencing trial is being held to determine if he will be executed for his crimes or sentenced to life in prison.

When he pleaded guilty last year, Moussaoui said he was not meant to be part of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, which killed 3,000 people.

But he said he was part of a broader conspiracy to use airplanes as a weapon and said he was being trained on a 747 airliner to strike the White House.

The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent did not speak while the court was in session, but sat stroking his bushy beard and smiling at times when FBI agents identified the September 11 hijackers and explained the overall plot.

In response to questions from MacMahon, Anticev said the U.S. government was also aware before September 11 that there had been a plan in the 1990s to blow up 12 U.S. airlines.

"Do you know if the FBI was concerned before 9/11 about the possibility of al Qaeda using planes as weapons?" MacMahon asked.

"I don't know if that's correct," Anticev replied, but he said the FBI had been concerned about possible hijackings.

Yahoo News ~ Reuters - Deborah Charles ** US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s: FBI agent