Sept. 11 Report Ties Bin Laden to UAE (Yahoo)

[cal04]

The United States raised concerns with the United Arab Emirates seven years ago about possible ties between officials in that country and Osama bin Laden, according to a section of the Sept. 11 commission's report that details a possible missed opportunity to kill the al-Qaida leader.

Republicans and Democrats alike are raising concerns this week about the Bush administration's decision to let a UAE-operated company take over operations at six American ports, in part citing ties the Sept. 11 hijackers had to the Persian Gulf country. President Bush has called the UAE a close partner on the war on terror since Sept. 11, and his aides have listed numerous examples of the country's help. The Sept. 11 commission's report released last year also raised concerns UAE officials were directly associating with bin Laden as recently as 1999.

The report states U.S. intelligence believed that bin Laden was visiting an area in the Afghan desert in February 1999 near a hunting camp used by UAE officials, and that the U.S. military planned a missile strike. Intelligence from local tribal sources indicated "bin Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited the Emiratis," the report said.
"National technical intelligence confirmed the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of bin Laden's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely," the report said.

The missile attack was never launched, and bin Laden moved on, the report said. A month later, top White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke "called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and bin Laden," the report said. CIA officials hope to continue staking out the Afghan camp in hopes bin Laden would return and a possible strike could be launched. But "imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke's phone call, the camp was hurriedly dismantled and the site was deserted," the report said.
CIA officials were "irate" and "thought the dismantling of the camp erased a possible site for targeting bin Laden, the report said.





http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060223/ap_on_go_ot/ports_bin_laden

[twaddler01]

1. That TRUTH is coming out!

:bounce:

[FreedomAngel82]

8. Yep!

How long will it though and who will pay attention?

[rodeodance]

2. Levin talked of this ealier at the Senate Port Briefing.

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3. last line of the article

Just raise your hand if anybody talked to the 9-11 commission," Levin told the administration representatives at the witness table. Nobody raised a hand.


Levin should bring this out at a press conference and make the public aware that they say they're so concerned and yet they didn't even ask the commission about this

[rodeodance]

4. here are Levins comments--no one raised their hand.

At a hearing of the
Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), the ranking Democrat, asked Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt if he was aware of the 9-11 commission's assertion that the United Arab Emirates represents "a persistent counterterrorism problem"for the United States.

Kimmitt replied that administration figures involved in the decision to approve the deal "looked very carefully" at information from the intelligence community.

"Any time a foreign-government controlled company comes in," Kimmitt said, "the intelligence assessment is of both the country and the company."

"Just raise your hand if anybody talked to the 9-11 commission," Levin told the administration representatives at the witness table. Nobody raised a hand.

[rodeodance]

5. in other words--the hearing toward said to all--contrary to Bush--that

a red flag should have been raised but it was not.

[rodeodance]

6. 4.8 stars

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[cal04]

7. I can't seem to get to the discuss part

wonder why

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9. Al Qaeda's Road Paved With Gold

Al Qaeda's Road Paved With Gold
Secret Shipments Traced Through a Lax System In United Arab Emirates
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 17, 2002

Dubai's links to suspected terrorist financing and money laundering have long been a point of contention between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. "There is no question the UAE was used by terrorists, the question is why," said a U.S. official. "It is no more lax and unregulated than many places. The answer is, Dubai is so damn convenient."

Three former Clinton administration officials said that two senior U.S. delegations went to the emirates, one in July 1999 and one in January 2000, to press for measures against terrorist financing. "We got exactly nowhere," said a participant in one of the meetings. A spokesman for the UAE Ministry of Information said the "visits and requests from the U.S. in 1999 and 2000 represented a part of the normal exchange of information . . . aimed at enhancing cooperation and tackling issues of mutual concern."

Since Sept. 11, U.S. officials said, the emirates have been much more cooperative on tracing suspect finances and last month enacted the most stringent money laundering laws in the region.
U.S. investigators acknowledge they have been slow to focus on the trail of gold and the hawala network. While a handful of investigators had been urging that more attention be paid to those areas, they were largely ignored because the concepts are so foreign to the Western way of doing business, current and former officials said.

Wechsler, the former National Security Council official, said that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence know "virtually nothing" about how the hawala system operates and its relationship to gold. "We don't know where the hawalas are, we don't even have an order of magnitude on how much money they move," Wechsler said. "We don't know how much it costs to be bin Laden. All I can say is, it costs millions and millions of dollars."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22303-2002Feb16?language=printer