Denys,

did you also read this about the incompetence and ignorance?
Seems like the FBI and Justice Department got lots of help and hints.
However they were sound asleep and George awards medals !!!!!


FBI Agent Slams Bosses at Moussaoui Trial By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, AP Writer 
Mon Mar 20, 9:02 PM ET

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 
2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. 
officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal negligence" 
by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks. 

FBI agent Harry Samit of Minneapolis originally testified as a government 
witness, on March 9, but his daylong cross examination by defense attorney 
Edward MacMahon was the strongest moment so far for the court-appointed 
lawyers defending Moussaoui. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent 
is the only person charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's 
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

MacMahon displayed a communication addressed to Samit and FBI headquarters 
agent Mike Maltbie from a bureau agent in Paris relaying word from French 
intelligence that Moussaoui was "very dangerous," had been indoctrinated in 
radical Islamic Fundamentalism at London's Finnsbury Park mosque, 
was "completely devoted" to a variety of radical fundamentalism that     
Osama bin Laden espoused, and had been to Afghanistan.

Based on what he already knew, Samit suspected that meant Moussaoui had 
been to training camps there, although the communication did not say that.

The communication arrived Aug. 30, 2001. The Sept. 11 Commission reported 
that British intelligence told U.S. officials on Sept 13, 2001, that 
Moussaoui had attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. "Had this 
information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would 
almost certainly have received intense, high-level attention," the 
commission concluded.

But Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters or the 
Justice Department to take his fears seriously. No one from Washington 
called Samit to say this intelligence altered the picture the agent had 
been painting since Aug. 18 in a running battle with Maltbie and Maltbie's 
boss, David Frasca, chief of the radical fundamentalist unit at 
headquarters.

They fought over Samit's desire for a warrant to search Moussaoui's 
computer and belongings. Maltbie and Frasca said Samit had not established 
a link between Moussaoui and terrorists.

Samit testified that on Aug. 22 he had learned from the French that 
Moussaoui had recruited someone to go to Chechnya in 2000 to fight with 
Islamic radicals under Emir Ibn al-Khattab. He said a CIA official told him 
on Aug. 22 or 23 that al-Khattab had fought alongside bin Laden in the 
past. This, too, failed to sway Maltbie or Frasca.

Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the 
Justice Department inspector general that "obstructionism, criminal 
negligence and careerism" on the part of FBI headquarters officials had 
prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about 
Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked "a serious 
opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."

The FBI's actions between Moussaoui's arrest, in Minnesota on immigration 
violations on Aug. 16, 2001, and Sept. 11, 2001, are crucial to his trial 
because prosecutors allege that Moussaoui's lies prevented the FBI from 
discovering the identities of 9/11 hijackers and the Federal Aviation 
Administration from taking airport security steps.

But MacMahon made clear the Moussaoui's lies never fooled Samit. The agent 
sent a memo to FBI headquarters on Aug. 18 accusing Moussaoui of plotting 
international terrorism and air piracy over the United States, two of the 
six crimes he pleaded guilty to in 2005.

To obtain a death penalty, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions 
led directly to the death of at least one person on 9/11.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly 
planes into U.S. buildings. But he says he had nothing to do with 9/11 and 
was training to fly a 747 jetliner into the White House as part of a 
possible later attack.

Samit's complaints echoed those raised in 2002 by Coleen Rowley, the 
bureau's agent-lawyer in the Minneapolis office, who tried to help get a 
warrant. Rowley went public with her frustrations, was named a Time 
magazine person of the year for whistleblowing and is now running for 
Congress.

Samit revealed far more than Rowley of the details of the investigation.

MacMahon walked Samit through e-mails and letters the agent sent seeking 
help from the FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI 
headquarters files, the CIA's counterterrorism center, the Secret Service, 
the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation 
Administration, an intelligence agency not identified publicly by name in 
court (possibly the National Security Agency), and the FBI's Iran, Osama 
bin Laden, radical fundamentalist, and national security law units at 
headquarters.

Samit described useful information from French intelligence and the CIA 
before 9/11 but said he was not told that CIA Director George Tenet was 
briefed on the Moussaoui threat on Aug. 23 and never saw until after 9/11 a 
memo from an FBI agent in Phoenix about radical Islamists taking flight 
training there.

For each nugget of information, MacMahon asked Samit if Washington 
officials called to assess the implications. Time after time, Samit said 
no. 

MacMahon introduced an Aug. 31 letter Samit drafted "to advise the FAA of a 
potential threat to security of commercial aircraft" from whomever 
Moussaoui was conspiring with. 

But Maltbie barred him from sending it to FAA headquarters, saying he would 
handle that, Samit testified. The agent added that he did tell FAA 
officials in Minneapolis of his suspicions. 

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