11-S. Richard Clarcke, miembro del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, denuncia que cuando menos la CIA encubrió el atentado al WTC
Clarke: "Dos de los terroristas que participaron de la voladura de las torres gemelas eran agentes de la CIA o fueron usados de alguna manera por la CIA para que realizaran los ataques".
Publicado por www.urgente24.com el 12/08/2011
FALSA BANDERA
Richard Clarke denuncia que la CIA encubrió el atentado al WTC
Richard Clarke, miembro del Consejo Nacional de Seguridad, ex zar contra el terrorismo y asesor del presidente en esa materia, sostiene que la CIA estaba en conocimiento de dos de los terroristas acusados de atacar el WTC el 11 de septiembre de 2001 y no hizo nada para detenerlos. Además, asegura que el entonces presidente de USA, George Bush, rechazó los informes que le enviaba sobre Al Qaeda.
Una de las personas que mayor información tiene al respecto es Richard Clarke, miembro del Consejo Nacional de Seguridad, ex zar contra el terrorismo y asesor del presidente en esa materia. Clarke sirvió bajo los gobiernos de Reagan, George H. W. Bush Sr., Bill Clinton y George Bush Jr y dejó la administración de este último en 2003.
En un documental que será estrenado el 11 de septiembre, al cual ha tenido acceso The Daily Beast-Newsweek, Clarke acusa a la CIA y a su entonces director y amigo, George Tenet, de encubrir a los terroristas que secuestraron los aviones con los que se perpetró el atentado.
Anteriormente ya se había dado a conocer por parte de Newsweek, citando fuentes al interior de las agencias de inteligencia, que la CIA sabía que dos terroristas de Al-Qaeda, Nawaf al-Hazmi y Khalid al-Mihdhar, habían entrado a Estados Unidos días después de asistir a una cumbre de Al-Qaeda en Malasia. La CIA negligentemente —un eufemismo para decir conspiratoriamente— no comunicó esta información al FBI ni otras dependencias del gobierno de Estados Unidos.
Clarke señala que esto sucedió debido a que la CIA había estado intentando reclutar a estos terroristas que vivían en California usando sus propios nombres.
«He pensado mucho sobre esto y creo que fue una decisión de alto nivel dentro de la CIA, ordenando que no se compartiera esa información. Creo que tuvo que haberse hecho por el director», dice Clarke en el documental y agrega que Tenet no lo admitiría «aunque se le torturara».
La CIA ha emitido una declaración al respecto: «Richard Clarke fue un apto funcionario público que sirvió a su país por muchos años, pero sus últimos comentarios sobre lo que siguió al 9/11 están profundamente equivocados».
Richard Clarke dijo que de haber tenido esa información se hubiera podido fácilmente aprehender a los terroristas. «No hay duda en mi mente, aunque quedara una semana. Estaban usando tarjetas de crédito con sus propios nombres. Se estaban quedando en el Charles Hotel en Harvard Square, ¡porDdios!. Esos tipos hubieran sido arrestados en 24 horas».
En una ocasión anterior Clarke reveló que un día después de los ataques del 9-11 el presidente Bush insistentemente le pidió que encontrara evidencia que vinculara a Saddam Hussein con el atentado.
El 6 de agosto del 2001 Clarke había dado a conocer información de inteligencia sobre la amenaza de Al-Qaeda al presidente Bush, pero este le dijo que no quería seguir siendo informado sobre el tema. Jamie Gorelick, el único miembro de la Comisión Warren del 9-11 que leyó el brief diario del presidente, dijo que los documentos «hubieran incendiado tu cabello» y que las advertencias de la inteligencia ameritaban un nivel máximo de alarma meses antes del 9-11.
Las declaraciones de Clarke implican que la CIA no reveló la información que tenía sobre los terroristas que luego perpetraron los ataques del 9-11 porque estos terroristas eran sus agentes o estaban siendo usados de alguna manera para que realizaran los ataques. De otra manera no se explica por qué se les permitió estar en USA 1 año y 9 meses sin ser detenidos o sin que se monitorearan sus planes. Se puede hablar de la más grande negligencia de la historia, pero viniendo de una agencia como la CIA eso sería simplemente ingenuo.
Nota publicada en The Daily Beast-Newsweek el 11/08/2011
An Explosive New 9/11 Charge
In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers—then covered it up. Philip Shenon on George Tenet’s denial.
Philip Shenon
Aug 11, 2011 8:47 AM EDT
With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only a month away, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former top aides are fighting back hard against allegations that they engaged in a massive cover-up in 2000 and 2001 to hide intelligence from the White House and the FBI that might have prevented the attacks.
The source of the explosive, unproved allegations is a man who once considered Tenet a close friend: former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who makes the charges against Tenet and the CIA in an interview for a radio documentary timed to the 10th anniversary next month. Portions of the Clarke interview were made available to The Daily Beast by the producers of the documentary.
Richard A. Clarke in 2010., Markus Schreiber / AP Photo
Clarke speculates—and readily admits he cannot prove—that the CIA withheld the information because the agency had been trying to recruit the terrorists, while they were living in Southern California under their own names, to work as CIA agents inside Al Qaeda. After the recruitment effort went sour, senior CIA officers continued to withhold the information from the White House for fear they would be accused of «malfeasance and misfeasance,» Clarke suggests.
Clarke says it is fair to conclude «there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information.» Asked who would have made the order, Clarke replies, «I would think it would have been made by the director,» referring to Tenet.
Clarke said that if his theory is correct, Tenet and others would never admit to the truth today «even if you waterboarded them.»
Clarke’s theory addresses a central, enduring mystery about the 9/11 attacks— why the CIA failed for so long to tell the White House and senior officials at the FBI that the agency was aware that two Al Qaeda terrorists had arrived in the United States in January 2000, just days after attending a terrorist summit meeting in Malaysia that the CIA had secretly monitored.
In a written response prepared last week in advance of the broadcast, Tenet says that Clarke, who famously went public in 2004 to blow the whistle on the Bush White House over intelligence failures before 9/11, has «suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.»
Agency officials said the CIA's delay in sharing information about the two terrorists was a grave failure, but maintained there was no suggestion of deception by CIA brass. Tenet has said he was not informed before 9/11 about Hazmi and Mihdhar's travel to the U.S., although the intelligence was widely shared at lower levels of the CIA.
The 9/11 Commission investigated widespread rumors in the intelligence community that the CIA tried to recruit the two terrorists—Clarke was not the first to suggest it—but the investigation revealed no evidence to support the rumors. The commission said in its final report that "it appears that no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA" about the two terrorists.
But in his interview, Clarke said his seemingly unlikely, even wild scenario—a bungled CIA terrorist-recruitment effort and a subsequent cover-up—was «the only conceivable reason that I’ve been able to come up with» to explain why he and others at the White House were told nothing about the two terrorists until the day of the attacks.
«I’ve thought a lot about this,» Clarke says in the interview, which was conducted in October 2009. He said it was fair to conclude «there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information.» Asked who would have made the order, Clarke replies, «I would think it would have been made by the director,» referring to Tenet.
Clarke, now a security consultant and bestselling author, has hinted in his writings in the past that there may have been a CIA cover-up involving Hazmi and Mihdhar, although he has never made such direct attacks on Tenet and others at the CIA by name.
He did not reply to requests from The Daily Beast to expand on his comments or to explain why he has not repeated them publicly since the 2009 interview. The documentary’s producers, FF4 Films, said they had been in contact with Clarke this month and that he stood by his remarks in the broadcast.
The producers, John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski, had previously made a well-reviewed film documentary, Press for Truth (www.911pressfortruth.com), on the struggle of a group of 9/11 victims' families to force the government to investigate the attacks.
«Richard Clarke was an able public servant who served his country well for many years,» the statement says. «But his recently released comments about the run-up to 9/11 are reckless and profoundly wrong.»
«Clarke starts with the presumption that important information on the travel of future hijackers to the United States was intentionally withheld from him in early 2000. It was not.»
The statement continued. «Building on his false notion that information was intentionally withheld, Mr. Clarke went on to speculate—which he admits is based on nothing other than his imagination—that the CIA might have been trying to recruit these two future hijackers as agents. This, like much of what Mr. Clarke said in his interview, is utterly without foundation.»
CIA had long known about the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar inside the United States.
«To this day, it is inexplicable why, when I had every other detail about everything related to terrorism, that the director didn’t tell me, that the director of the counterterrorism center didn’t tell me,» Clarke said in the interview for the documentary, referring to Tenet and Cofer Black. «They told us everything—except this.»
He said that if he had known anything about Hazmi and Mihdhar even days before 9/11, he would have ordered an immediate manhunt to find them—and that it would have succeeded, possibly disrupting the 9/11 plot.
«We would have conducted a massive sweep,» he said. «We would have conducted it publicly. We would have found those assholes. There’s no doubt in my mind, even with only a week left. They were using credit cards in their own names. They were staying in the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square, for heaven’s sake.» He said that «those guys would have been arrested within 24 hours.»
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Philip Shenon is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C. Almost all of his career was
spent at The New York Times, where he was a reporter from 1981 until 2008. He is the bestselling author of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. He has reported from several war zones and was one of two reporters from the Times embedded with American ground troops during the invasion of Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.