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| Terror Networks |
| Osama targeted FBI, CIA chiefs |
| 2002-09-21 |
| Osama Bin Laden targeted the heads of the US Defence Department, State Department, CIA and FBI and offered a $9 million bounty for the assassination of four top intelligence officers, a congressional investigator said on Wednesday. "Hey! Is that camera on?" In August 1999, US intelligence agencies obtained information that Bin Laden’s organization had decided to target the top officials at the State and Defence departments and the CIA, said Eleanor Hill, staff director of the joint 9/11 inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees. "The word ‘target’ was interpreted by intelligence community analysts to mean ‘assassinate’," she said at the first public hearing held by the joint investigation. Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable assumption... In November 1998, intelligence agencies received information that Bin Laden and his senior associates had agreed to offer a reward of $9 million each for the assassination of four top intelligence agency officers, Hill said. That's a lot of jack that nobody collected... In February 1999, intelligence agencies had information that Iraq had formed a "suicide pilot unit" that it planned to use against the British and U.S. forces in the Gulf, Hill said. "The CIA commented that this was highly unlikely and probably disinformation," she said. "This is Teheran, right? Hi, I'm an Iraqi suicide pilot. Mind if I leave my plane here until the war's over?" In 1997, the FBI and CIA became aware of reports that a ‘terrorist’ group had bought an unmanned aerial vehicle. They were concerned the group would use the drone to attack a U.S. embassy or a visiting U.S. delegation overseas, Hill said. Guess they never figured how to work it... In March 1999, intelligence agencies obtained information about plans by an Al Qaeda member, who was a U.S. citizen, to fly a hang glider into the Egyptian presidential palace and then detonate the explosives he was carrying. "The individual, who received hang glider training in the United States, brought the hang glider back to Afghanistan," Hill said. But there were various problems during the testing of the glider, and he was subsequently arrested and is in custody abroad. If they weren't so inept, we'd have been severely damaged long before last year. It sounds like what Congress is getting is a summary of junk intel for the most part: guys with turbans, probably high on hash, sitting around saying "It'd really be neat if we..." For every hundred "plans" like this, money's actually spent on one. For every hundred that money gets spent on, probably one executes. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |