Topic: 9/11 Remembered
FBI: No hard evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11
No, that is not a joke. What it is, in reality, is one of the "Top 25
Censored Stories" of
2007.by George Dance
(Libertarian)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
In the summer of 2006, Muckraker Re****t editor Ed Haas received an e-mail
asking why the FBI's
Most Wanted poster of Usama (or Osama) bin Laden (UBL) -- head of the
terrorist group Al Qaeda,
and generally considered the mastermind behind the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001 (9/11) -- does not
mention UBL's involvement in the 9/11 atrocity. (1)
A glance at the FBI page was enough to confirm the e-mail's truth.
Originally posted in 1999,
the page was updated after 9/11, in Nov. 2001, at which time the reward
for UBL was raised to
$25 million. Yet the page still said (and still says today) absolutely
nothing about 9/11. (2)
Haas contacted the FBI and received this explanation from spokesman Rex
Tomb, at that time the
FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity:
The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted
page is because the
FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.... He has not been
formally indicted and
charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence
connecting Bin Laden to
9/11. (1)
That admission raises some disturbing questions, ones that any
Pulitzer-seeking journalist
would be expected to follow up. Yet, two years later, the main stream
media (MSM) has almost
completely ignored the story.
One reason those questions are disturbing is that, immediately after the
9/11 kamikaze attack,
UBL re****tedly denied any Al Qaeda involvement. An interview published on
Sept. 28, 2001, by
the Pakistani news service Ummat has him declaring:
I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September
attacks in the United
States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no
knowledge of these attacks,
nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans
as an appreciable
act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and
other people. (3)
Yet, at the same time, the U.S. government was already claiming to have
evidence sufficient to
warrant invading Afghanistan to capture UBL and bring him to justice; and
was able to persuade
Congress to authorize an invasion.
After the invasion, U.S. troops occupying Jalalabad found a videotape of
UBL taking
responsibility for the attack, and praising the suicide hijackers.
President George W. Bush
re****tedly called the so-called Confession video "a devastating
declaration" of UBL's guilt.
Added Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York during 9/11 (and a presidential
candidate this year,
whose abortive campaign was based almost entirely on that one fact), "the
tape removes any
doubt that the U.S. military campaign targeting bin Laden and his
associates is more than
justified." (1)
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was careful to emphasize, in a press
release accompanying the
Confession video's release, that "There was no doubt of bin Laden's
responsibility for the
September 11 attacks before the tape was discovered." (4)
However, a couple of 9/11 Truth sites have found and noted problems with
the Confession video.
Prison Planet pointed out that, while UBL is left handed, the speaker on
the videotape writes a
note with his right hand. (5) Infowars discovered that he got two of the
hijackers' names
wrong. (6) Both sites concluded that the video is a fake, which fits their
thesis that bin
Laden was in fact innocent.
On the other hand, Haas believes the Confession video to be genuine. (4)
Indeed, none of this is proof of the Truth sites' allegations. The truth
may be simpler: There
may indeed be no hard evidence, but compelling evidence nonetheless.
Anyone who has viewed the
CSI TV series has an idea of what "hard evidence" consists of: DNA,
fingerprints, ballistics,
etc. Testimony, including confessions, is not hard evidence. The only
plausible hard evidence
would be a paper trail (or an e-trail) showing that UBL gave the orders,
and that trail just
might not exist. Its failure to exist is not proof of UBL's innocence.
Similarly, even if the Confession video were found to be a fake, that
would not in itself be
evidence against UBL's involvement in the 9/11 attacks. (Concluding that
would be an example of
the logical fallacy known as Denying the Antecedent.)
It may even make sense "from a legal point of view" -- as former U.S.
attorney David N. Kelley
told the Wa****ngton Post (the one MSM outlet that did cover the story) --
to omit mention of
9/11 as "no formal charges have been filed. (7) However, that begs the
question: Why, almost
seven years later, have no formal charges ever been filed?
If there is sufficient evidence to indict UBL -- if there is "no doubt" of
his complicity, as
Rumsfeld claims -- then why has no indictment ever been sought? If there
is a simple
explanation for that, then why was that not given to Haas? One would think
that the authorities
would be anxious to give him as full an explanation, and show him as much
of their evidence, as
possible, if only to get him to drop the story.
Instead, they've done and accomplished the opposite. Haas has kept on the
story for two years,,
submitting Freedom of Information requests to the FBI, the FBI, CIA,
Department of Defense, and
CENTCOM to discover how they authenticated the Confession video. Yet as of
March, "not one
do***ent has been released that demonstrates the authenticity of the
[Confession] videotape or
that it even went through an authentication process." DoD referred his
request to CENTCOM;
CENTCOM has yet to reply. The FBI challenged the request, lost, and then
responded that it had
no relevant do***ents. The CIA has refused to confirm or deny whether it
has any such
do***ents. (4)
One also has to wonder why the MSM has paid so little attention to this
story - so little that
(on Mar. 18, 2008) Project Censored, of independent press network
Voltairenet, ranked Mr.
Haas's original expose as one of the "Top 25 Censored Stories" of 2007.
(4)
While the story may not indicate a 9/11 conspiracy, it definitely smells
of a cover-up. Why is
the U.S. government so reluctant to prove UBL's complicity? If they have
compelling evidence,
why not seek an indictment? Why not share as much information as possible
with American
citizens? Why ask them to take Donald Rumsfeld's word for it to trust
Rumsfeld, when Rumsfeld
does not trust them?
Sadly, all this is in line with the negative conclusions of Congressman
Ron Paul (R-TX)
(another 2008 presidential candidate, who did somewhat better than
Giuliani), who has publicly
called for re-opening the 9/11 investigation. In May of last year, Paul
told Reason magazine
that he accepts the U.S. government's account of UBL's complicity: "I
don't think there's any
evidence of [an inside job] and I don't believe that. The blame goes to
bad policy. And a lot
of times bad policy is well-motivated." However, Paul expressed his
concern that much of the
truth was being covered up:
I do think there were cover-ups, and I think it was mainly to cover
up who was blamed,
who's inept. See, they had the information. The FBI had an agent who was
very much aware of the
terrorists getting flight lessons but obviously not training to be pilots.
He re****ted it 70
times or whatever and it was totally ignored. We were spending $40 billion
a year on
intelligence. It wasn't a lack of money or a lack of intelligence, it was
a lack of the ability
to put the intelligence together. Even the administration had been
forewarned that something
was coming, the CIA had been forewarned. So it was a cover up of who to
blame. I see it more
that way. (8)
Rep. Paul is right. The official U.S. government account of how 9/11
happened may be entirely
factual. However, that government's continual refusal to be open and
transparent with those
facts, and the MSM's dogged refusal to re****t them, only serves to sow
suspicion and distrust
of their account.
----------
Sources:
(1) Ed Haas, "FBI says, No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11,"
Muckraker Re****t, June
6, 2006.
http://www.muckrakerre****t.com/id267.html
(2) "FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive -- Usama bin Laden,"
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
(3) "Usama bin Laden Says the Al-Qa'idah Group had Nothing to Do with the
11 September
Attacks," robert-fisk.com, Sept. 5, 2003.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/usama_interview_ummat.htm
(4) Ed Haas, "No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11,"
voltairenews.org, Mar. 18, 2008.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article155945.html
(5) Paul Joseph Watson, "Wa****ngton Post Doesn't Answer Why No Bin Laden
9/11 Indictment,"
Prison Planet.com, Aug. 28 2006
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/280806binladen.htm
(6) Steve Watson, "Expert Goes On Record: Bin Laden 9/11 Confession Is
Bogus," infowars.net,
Feb. 19, 2007
http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2007/190207Osama_tape.htm
(7) Dan Eggen, "Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?", Wa****ngton
Post, Aug. 28, 2006.
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html
(8) David Weigel, "Ron Paul on 9/11 and Eric Dondero," Hit & Run, Reason
online, May 22, 2007.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120338.html
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