FBI Training Exercise on 9/11: New Details

[Shoestring]

Here is my latest blog entry, with some new information about the FBI training exercise that was held on 9/11. The original is here:
http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2007/11/breakdown-of-fbi-anti-terror -team-on.html
and http://www.911blogger.com/node/12579

The Breakdown of the FBI Anti-Terror Team on 9/11

A brief but important NBC News report broadcast during the morning of 9/11 indicated how the FBI was rendered useless in its ability to respond to the kind of attacks that were taking place. (View video here.) Shortly after 10:00 a.m., correspondent Andrea Mitchell reported: "This very interesting information ... from the FBI: They have been operating a massive exercise from their hostage rescue unit. All of their top teams, about 50 personnel, helicopters, equipment, were in Monterey, California for the last two days, scheduled to fly back today commercially. So all of those people are out of place." She continued: "You've got all of their special experts on this stuck in Monterey, California, trying to get a military flight back because there are no longer commercial flights. So they are seriously out of pocket, and there is a real breakdown of the FBI anti-terror coordination team, which is of course the principal team that would lead any effort, and was so effective under Jim Kallstrom in New York City during the World Trade Center bombing and the TWA [Flight 800] explosion."

Despite the implications of this incredible information, only one newspaper covered it. In a report published that same day, USA Today briefly described: "The attack was so unexpected that a joint FBI/CIA anti-terrorist task force that specifically prepared for this type of disaster was on a training exercise in Monterey, Calif." The politics website Evote.com also mentioned the incident, concluding: "just as the worst terrorist act was being committed on American lives and property, the chief federal agency responsible for preventing such crimes was being AWOL." But, in the six years since, this information has been ignored, and no mention was made of it in the 9/11 Commission Report.

If the official theory about 9/11 is correct, and the attacks were indeed perpetrated by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, then the absence of the FBI's antiterrorist experts at the one time they were most needed must be a freak coincidence. However, if the official theory is wrong, then this could have been part of a deliberate attempt to 'stand down' normal lines of defense, so as to ensure that the attacks succeeded.

In her report, Mitchell also stated: "It's fair to say, according to sources that we've talked to here at NBC, that the FBI rescue operations and other FBI operations are really in chaos right now, because they can't reach their officials in New York, all of their phone lines are down." I have previously described evidence that communications may have been deliberately sabotaged on 9/11, particularly in the Washington, DC area. Key individuals, including government officials and members of the military, appear to have been affected. So when we hear a report about the FBI on 9/11, stating, "all of their phone lines are down," we must surely also wonder whether this was due to sabotage. A proper investigation of the 9/11 attacks is urgently needed to establish the truth.

[QuitTheirClogs]

Thanks for posting. I read about this a while ago at Cooperative Research , but it’s the first time I’ve seen the video.

There’s a reference in the video to Colin Powell being away on a two day trip to Colombia. I had a look at Powell’s Meet The Press interview (Sept. 23, 2001) where it is claimed that he promised evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11. But I think he dodged the question; and I wonder how deliberate a dodge that was.

RUSSERT: Are you absolutely convinced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for this attack?

POWELL: I am absolutely convinced that the al Qaeda network, which he heads, was responsible for this attack.

You know, it's sort of al Qaeda--the Arab name is for "the base." It's something like a holding company of terrorist organizations that are located in dozens of countries around the world, sometimes tightly controlled, sometimes loosely controlled. And that the head of that organization is Osama bin Laden.

So what we have to do in the first phase of this campaign is to go after al Qaeda and to go after Osama bin Laden. But it is not just a problem in Afghanistan. It is a problem throughout the world. That's why we are attacking it with a worldwide coalition.

RUSSERT: Will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?

POWELL: We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack.

[Shoestring]

Adding to this, I'd highly recommend anyone unfamiliar with it to have a good look through the "Military Exercises Up to 9/11" page at the Complete 9/11 Timeline:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_ timeline&before_9/11=militaryExercises

The day of 9/11 exercises start about half way down the page, but there is lots of important pre-9/11 information too. There has been a massive amount of new information found on this subject since Mike Ruppert wrote Crossing the Rubicon.

[andyb]

Re the Colin Powell trip, it would be interesting to see who requested he make this trip. Richard Armitage was his deputy, and was acting secretary of state in his absence. Armitage is another of the PNAC signatories.

[Mark Gobell]

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Testimony on Counterterrorism before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
Washington, DC
May 8, 2001