Report: French knew of al-Qaida plot

[maddezmom]

Source: Associated Press

Report: French knew of al-Qaida plot 25 minutes ago



PARIS - A French intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaida was working on a plot to hijack U.S. airliners, and it passed the information on to the CIA, a news report said Monday.

France's Le Monde newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network that were drawn up by the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001.

The Defense Ministry didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Le Monde reported that the documents included a note dated Jan. 5, 2001, which said al-Qaida had been working on a hijacking plot for months. The intelligence note reported that bin Laden had attended a meeting in Afghanistan in October 2000, where a final decision to carry out the plot was taken, the newspaper said.

French intelligence officials apparently had no idea that al-Qaida was plotting to crash hijacked planes into buildings, as happened in the Sept. 11 attacks.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_re_eu/france911

---

here is the link if you can read or speak French

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-896448@51-892780,0.html

[wakeme2008]

1. what does this have to do with Star Wars equipment

that Bush and Friends were pushing back then... That's the problem.

[Ian David]

2. "no one could have anticipated..." n/t

[babylonsister]

3. Wow. Passed to CIA in January 2001, and nobody blinked? nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Everything was being delegated to Cheney after the inauguration in

January 2001.

Need I say more?

[babylonsister]

12. And all the OBL info handed down from the Clinton admin was categorically

ignored. How conveniently that worked out for them.

[heliarc]

4. Yet another attempt to blame the french... nt

[MethuenProgressive]

5. "and it passed the information on to the CIA" fat lotta good that did...

Le Monde, Sept. 12th, 2001 banner hedline:
We Are All Americans Today
And just months later Bush was eating Freedom Fries.

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Uhhh, I was AWOL when that report came in." - Commander AWOL

"So you can't blame me. You know. I had a busy vacation schedule and shit like that. So this must all be The fault of Bill Clinton's Penis.

Besides, I was in a remedial reading class that year, to prep me for the challenge of "My Pet Goat' on 9/11"

- Commander AWOL & Corrput republicon cronies

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Well, did Tenet purposely NOT tell the Clinton Admin?

If the CIA knew, then Tenet should've known. Why didn't he pass that info onto Clarke and Cressey @ the WH?:shrug:

[rosesaylavee]

8. Probably was part of the meeting

that Clarke was desperately trying to set up from day 1 of the * admin and finally succeeded in having with Condi and Tenet in July 2001.

And then, they all went on vacation because national security is "hard work".

[babylonsister]

13. The Clinton admin knew, Clarke tried to tell them, they ignored him, too. nt

[youngdem]

9. Bushco knew something was gonna happen.

I doubt they knew that it was gonna be so damn big, but they knew something was coming and they did little to stop it I think because they wanted to impose the PNAC agenda on us and needed, as they put it "a new Pearl Harbor".

Remember, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" memo was read to Bush while he was on a month long vacation, and NOTHING was done in response.

[Robson]

17. Agreed

They knew such a Pearl Harbor event was needed to advance their agenda. If they need not aid and abet it, they did nothing to prevent it. The latter was the more likely scenario.

[idgiehkt]

23. who do you think told the French?

sorry, had to inject some levity...

yep, 8/6/01 was the date of the memo if I remember right.

[cal04]

10. USA Today:Report: French told CIA of hijacking plot in early '01

A French intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaeda was working on a plot to hijack U.S. airliners, and it passed the information on to the CIA, Le Monde reported Monday.
The newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network that were drawn up by the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001.

The Defense Ministry did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

(snip)
The newspaper said the DGSE report was passed on to the CIA chief in Paris, as was all information about possible threats to American interests.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-16-france-sept11_N.htm?csp=34

[kickysnana]

14. "I" knew of Al-Queda plot...

shortly after the 2000 election it was all over the internet. I was homebound with Lyme and MS could only get out of bed about 3 hours a day.

Russia, French, Australia, Minnesota FBI all printed stories about it. It was said that there was a war going on in the US intelligence service of the US and who won would determine what would happen. Stories were sent to our Congressmen.

Question now is it has been 5 years and why is it taking so long to put these terrorists in jail? I mean the Bush administration, rogue CIA, and NEOCONS.

[reprehensor]

15. Who didn't know?

Everybody knew.
http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/911bush.html

Thanks for posting.

[maddezmom]

16. NO Mention in the Officiail US Sept 11 Report........

Le Monde said the French report of January 2001 had been handed over to a CIA operative in Paris, but that no mention of it had ever been made in the official U.S. Sept. 11 Commission, which produced its findings in July 2004.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16125438.htm

[Robson]

18. Tenet's book

If Tenet's new book mentions it we'll know that it will be some interesting reading. If it doesn't, well then we'll know that it is just another coverup of the failures that lead to 9-11 and Iraq.

[Igel]

19. Oddly, the only news here is that the French told the US

about it, and had Uzbek spies. (Although I must say, the bit about spying on tactical discussions between the Taliban and Bin Ladin seems to go against what many try to say, that the Taliban had been keen to dispose of AQ for some time.)

The internal (and some not so internal) US reports indicated AQ was interested in hijacking planes. Having the French admit that they thought exactly what the State Department said the US thought: Hijacking for the purpose of negotiations. But after all, everybody knew that AQ wanted to crash planes into buildings, so the French must be lying. :sarcasm:

[maddezmom]

20. Actually, I think this furthers Dick Clarke's assertion that

the Bush administration blew him off about AQ. Will be interesting to see if this is mentioned in Tenet's new book.

[Vogon_Glory]

21. Bushies Practiced Their ABC's

Gee Dubya's boys and girls were probably too busy practicing their ABCs (Anything But Clinton) to pay any attention to warnings passed along from the French.

What? International co-operation with foreigners? What? Intelligence warnings passed along by godless, secular-humanist, wine-drinking, cheese-eating FRENCHIES?

Pay no never-mind to them scare stories! Hairy-chested, patriotic chest-beating true conservatives don't NEED to pay any attention to ANYTHING said by the French.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As an aside, I remember that in his youth, outgoing French President Jacques Chirac had actually travelled to the USA, and had even worked for a time as a dish-washer in an American restaurant. I'm trying to imagine a youthful Gee Dubya doing the same thing--and I'm failing at my visualization.

[rcdean]

22. LIHOP confirmed

That's always been the best explanation.

This will almost certainly place 9/11 in the same historical category as FDR knowing about Pearl Harbor but wanting to Let It Happen On Purpose to stir the American people.

The neocons did it to fulfill the PNAC requirement for taxpayers opening up the spigots to mammoth new defense spending.

[Up2Late]

24. French "knew in 2001 al Qaeda was planning hijack" (Reuters)

French "knew in 2001 al Qaeda was planning hijack"

Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:40pm ET137

PARIS (Reuters) - French secret services produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001 looking at the al Qaeda threat to the United States, and knew it planned to hijack an aircraft, Le Monde newspaper reported on Monday....

(edit)

...In the United States, CIA spokesman George Little said Le Monde's article did not add to what was already known about the attacks. "Today's Le Monde article merely repeats what the U.S. government knew and reported before September 11 -- that al Qaeda was interested in airliner plots, especially hijackings," he said.

"The article does not suggest that U.S. or foreign officials had advance knowledge of the details surrounding the September 11 plot. Had the details been known, the U.S. government would have acted on them...."

(edit)

"...You have to remember that a plane hijack (in January 2001) did not have the same significance as it did after September 11. At the time, it implied forcing a plane to land at an airport and undertaking negotiations," said Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi.... (more at link) <http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-04-16T214028Z_01_L16125438_RTRUKOC_0_US-FRANCE-USA-QAEDA.xml>

WHAT!?!? "...did not have the same significance as it did after September 11.????"

Well exactly how many Airplane Hijackings had there been in the U.S. in the previous 10 to 15 years before September 2001?!?!?

Because, as far as I recall, the number was ZERO! I believe MOST people were shocked by the Hijacking alone, even before they crashed the Jets into buildings!

[Morgana LaFey]

25. MANY goverments warned us --

Great Britain, France, Russia, Israel, Jordan, Morrocco, and several others I'm not remembering off the top of my head. MANY, though -- about 12, IIRC.

A superb book on the whole subject of 9-11, tho I couldn't bear to read past about 80 pages (yet), is The War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September 11, 2001 by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in the UK. Heavily footnoted. Intense reading. Breathtaking, heartbreaking, solidly researched. In the first 80 or so pages, covers our relationship with the taliban, Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard, the fact that the war plans had been drawn up well before 9-11, all about all those oil reserves and other wonderful natural resources in the region, etc.