071609 News As Talked About On The Harry Thomas Show week in review

To lift the chances of passage, Democrats said the legislation, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would be attached as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill – a must-pass measure.

The proposal is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was tied to a fence, beaten and left to die in 1998.

The Senate approved the legislation last year, also as part of the military authorization bill, but it was never reconciled with a similar House-passed bill.

In response to NPN’s recent urgent pleas for hate bill protest, Senate offices today report “hundreds” of calls critical of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, S. 909. This contrasts sharply with yesterday when pro-hate bill calls, primarily generated by the homosexual Human Rights Campaign, outnumbered those of Christians/conservatives. On Tuesday one Senate office reported less than 15 calls against the hate bill by early afternoon. Today, however, Republican offices said pro-hate bill calls were only a small minority.

Many calls of protest are coming from the religious right. Within the last day almost all evangelical watchdog groups have sprung into action, with bold alerts and encouragements. At last, they join NPN in instructing their audiences not just to fax, email, or sign online petitions but to do as Rep. Steve King told us months ago: Actually call Senators. In fact, Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, which last Thursday encouraged America to give up hate bill resistance, are now urging their listeners to phone Washington!

Yet, despite this encouraging trend, the hate bill remains very much alive! Throughout Wednesday pro-hate bill Democrats, including Sens. Levin, Durbin, Feinstein, and Cardin argued passionately for passage of S. 909. The top issue of contention remains the inappropriateness of attaching the hate bill, protecting homosexuals but not soldiers, to the arms bill, providing security for America and her troops. This criticism, with which NPN-inspired callers have saturated the Senate over the past two weeks, remains a very potent weapon against the hate bill.

The hate bill will remain a hot issue Thursday with a push by Democrats to move it forward as quickly as possible. Protest must continue loud and strong!

Our best political hope right now is to continue to swamp the Senate. The more calls that come in against the hate bill, the more likely a few Democrats and liberal Republicans will be to defect from hate bill ranks. They will weigh the possibility of losing re-election against staying in good graces with liberal Senate leadership. If only five or six opt for their future political security and break ranks, it means hate bill defeat.

Make it happen NOW! Call Senators with this message: “Attorney General Holder says the federal hate bill, S. 909, will not protect members of America’s military. Yet Democrats will attach a hate bill amendment to the arms bill this week. This is dishonest. The hate bill has nothing to do with the military.” You can add: “Have you watched the video at www.truthtellers.org in which Holder says soldiers are not protected under the hate bill?” Call toll-free 1-877-851-6437 or toll 1-202-225-3121 (names available HERE at www.truthtellers.org).

Earlier this week South Korean intelligence (a creation of U.S. military intelligence) blamed the enfeebled Stalinist regime in North Korea for a series of cyber attacks on the U.S. government and commercial websites. As numerous observers have noted since the attacks, it is unlikely North Korea was behind the attacks. “Some analysts have questioned the North’s involvement, saying it may be the work of industrial spies or pranksters,” reports Reuters.

The cyber attacks will now enter a new phase by attacking personal computers and wiping out hard disks, South Korea claims. South Korean web security firm Ahnlab, which has closely examined the attacks, said the new phase would target data on tens of thousands of infected personal computers. Ahnlab sells antivirus software, online security solutions, and network security appliances such as firewalls.

The new alleged threat and accompanying propaganda comes as Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller prepares for a July committee vote on cybersecurity legislation he introduced in April with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. One of the bill’s most controversial provisions would give the president the power to effectively shut off the Internet during a cyber crisis similar to the one now threatening PCs, according to South Korea and its U.S. created intelligence agency.

The US State Department said Thursday its website came under cyberattack for a fourth day running as it tried to prevent further attacks.

According to computer security experts, a dozen US government websites, including those of the White House, Pentagon and State Department, were targeted in a coordinated cyberattack which also struck sites in South Korea.

South Korean lawmakers were quoted as saying Wednesday that South Korea’s intelligence service believes North Korea or its sympathizers may have staged the attack.

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They’re called denial-of-service attacks, and they began around July 4, slowing some websites in both countries to a crawl.

“A lot of the computers that are infected with this are probably from machines where the owners may not even be aware,” said Dennis Fisher of Kaspersky Lab Americas, an antivirus and Internet security company, Friday.

In the United States, websites belonging to the Department of Homeland Security and Defence Department and the Federal Trade Commission came under attack and were slowed.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a “chilling effect” on speech that might hurt someone’s feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.

Advance copies of Sunstein’s new book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” have gone out to reviewers ahead of its September publication date, but considering the prominence with which Sunstein is about to be endowed, his worrying views are fair game now. Sunstein is President Obama’s choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It’s the bland titles that should scare you the most.

Anyone who has ever been a fan of the Terminator mythos knows about the all seeing, all knowing global computer network known as Skynet. Well, the U.S. Military is working on the real deal! The GIG, or Global Information Grid is a worldwide surveillance network that will give anyone linked into it instant information, at the users request, about anything, anytime, anywhere in the world! This project, which began in 2003 under the guidance of Donald Rumsfeld, will give users a “God-Like” view of the entire world.

Robert J. Stevens, chief executive of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation’s biggest military contractor, said he envisioned a “highly secure Internet in which military and intelligence activities are fused,” shaping 21st-century warfare in the way that nuclear weapons shaped the cold war. Every member of the military would have “a picture of the battle space, a God’s-eye view,” he said. “And that’s real power.”

It seems the U.S. Air Force is investing huge sums of money, which began at a summit at the University of North Dakota, into the development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Army! Thats right folks, and there is a flavor for everyone planned for full force deployment by 2047! Not only is their the Predator and Global Hawk that the world has grown so familiar with, but they are also developing mid- and short-range UAVs as well. All of which are currently capable of autonomously taking off, flying en route to the “mission area” and landing, allowing for minimal human interaction. The real crazy stuff comes in the form of Fly insect-shaped UAV designed for espionage. These micro-sized vehicles are capable of full audio and video transmission making secrecy a thing of the past!

As if that wasn’t enough, the payload on each of these machines vary from Infrared/Electro-optical missiles to being able to deploy nanomachine weapons engineered in various different ways. Able to infect the target(s) resulting in whatever devious malaise they are programed with and ultimately resulting in death.

There you have it folks, if they have their way, there will be a global government able to know everything your doing at anytime of the day as well as all your personal information. Able to respond to any threat instantly, allowing the elitist scum to kick back and relax while anyone defying their wishes is eradicated by an unmanned vehicle using any number of weapon types, including nanomachines, to finish the job. Include the eugenics going on today and the successful depopulation of the planet and you have a corporate elitist theme park!

Below are the main links that PPF Member Anti-Illuminati graciously found for our perusal:

“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it.”

The coin, which bears the words “unity in diversity,” was minted in Belgium and presented to the heads of G-8 delegations, Medvedev said.

The question of a supranational currency “concerns everyone now, even the mints,” Medvedev said. The test coin “means they’re getting ready. I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are.”

WASHINGTON – A proposal from a long-time congressional foe of the Federal Reserve that could give lawmakers sway over monetary policy has won the support of a majority in the House of Representatives, alarming officials at the U.S. central bank.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, put forward by Republican Representative Ron Paul of Texas, now has 250 co-sponsors in the House. It will get air-time on Thursday during a congressional hearing on Fed independence that will feature testimony from the Fed’s No. 2 official, Donald Kohn.

Fed officials see this as a dangerous intrusion on their independence that could hinder their ability to make the best long-term decisions for the economy.

An addendum the the previous video posted earlier where Ron Paul asked Fed Vice Chair questions during a Federal Reserve hearing here is the second set of questions from Dr. Paul for the 2nd panel.

He asks Dr. Allan Metzger about the difference between the term “independence” and “transparency”. He then expresses a bit of tongue and cheek shock that James Kenneth Galbraith (also on the panel) brought up the Constitution in his opening testimony, and a few other questions. Galbraith then agrees that he believes Paul’s HR1207 is proper, that members of Congress are entitled to the information an audit would provide.

Watch this latest clip below and look for video of Ron Paul’s opening statement a bit later.

On Thursday of last week, the Federal Reserve’s vice chairman, Donald Kohn, threatened to jack up interest rates if Congress continues to expose “some of the U.S. central bank’s most sensitive decisions to political scrutiny,” Reuters reported. “Any substantial erosion of the Federal Reserve’s monetary independence likely would lead to higher long-term interest rates as investors begin to fear future inflation,” Kohn told a House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee.

Kohn’s threat came as Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) has picked up 256 co-sponsors — more than 55% of the House of Representatives. HR 1207’s companion bill in the Senate, S 604, has already attracted 8 co-sponsors. Kohn and his boss Ben Bernanke are obviously very concerned over the prospect that the American people may soon have a look at their books.

Kohn went before Congress as debate rages over Obama’s plan for “regulatory reform,” in effect granting the Fed power to gobble up companies in national socialist fashion and consolidate banking and securities across the board. In order to quell outrage over this brazen power grab, Obama and his bankster advisers propose a token council of regulators advise the Fed.

On June 16, Goldman Sachs operative Timothy Geithner said: “When you have too many people involved, there’s an accountability problem.” In other words, Congress and the American people need to mind their own business. The Federal Reserve is an institution owned by the bankers, not the American people.

“Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are the United States government’s institutions,” Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency in 1932 during the “Great Depression,” had entered into the Congressional Record. “They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign swindlers.”

McFadden’s international swindlers are running scared from HR 1207 and public anger over last year’s engineered financial crisis and Fed-orchestrated “bailouts” of investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group.

“The Federal Reserve strongly believes that removing the statutory limits on GAO audits of monetary policy matters would be contrary to the public interest by tending to undermine the independence and efficacy of monetary policy,” said Kohn. He said accountability to the people would “cast a chill” on monetary policy deliberations held in secret behind closed doors.

Bernanke’s underling made no bones about the fact Paul’s bill is a direct threat to the “independence” of the Federal Reserve. “History provides numerous examples of non-independent central banks being forced to finance large government budget deficits. Such episodes invariably lead to high inflation,” he said. “Given the current outlook for large federal budget deficits in the United States, this consideration is especially important.”

Talk about doublespeak. In fact, the Federal Reserve is all about huge federal budget deficits and a mounting federal debt. The Federal Reserve was established in 1913 by the banksters for the purpose of creating debt-based money secured by thin air. The American people are seriously and terminally indebted to the bankers and currently owe over $400 billion a year in interest alone, with no hope of every paying off the principal, which is in the tens of trillions.

In 1910, before the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the federal debt was a mere $1 billion, or $12.40 per citizen. Now the overall debt is over 80% of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product. When government “obligations” are considered, the debt balloons to an astronomical $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

It is simple, really — the larger the debt, the richer and more powerful the international bankers become. The Federal Reserve is their front organization and it runs roughshod over Congress.

The passage of HR 1207 is not certain and it faces an even more strenuous uphill battle in the Senate. It is, at this point, our only practical hope of auditing the Fed, revealing its numerous crimes, exposing its mega-grand theft scams, and delivering Donald Kohn, his boss Bernanke, and the minions of the international banksters to justice.

The following individuals whose primary goal in life is getting tenure and publishing a textbook, yet believe they have a voice in deciding whether over 300 million American people should know just whose interests the Fed so staunchly protects, have issued an open letter to Congress and The Executive Branch, demanding that no one ever dare tinker or have audit powers over the private institution that is the Federal Reserve. Those who run hedge funds, operate semi-failed companies, work for an Investment Bank, especially taxpayer bailed out ones, or are otherwise conflicted, are highlighted in bold.

It makes sense to recall that the recent grassroots campaign to enforce the opposite – i.e., more transparency at the Fed, has been supported by over 5,000 individuals at this point. Zero Hedge recommends all who believe in transparency in this time when we have anything but, sign the petition to demonstrate their disagreement with the individuals below.

Amidst the debate over systemic regulation, the independence of U.S. monetary policy is at risk. We urge Congress and the Executive Branch to reaffirm their support for and defend the independence of the Federal Reserve System as a foundation of U.S. economic stability. There are three specific risks that must be contained.

First, central bank independence has been shown to be essential for controlling inflation. Sooner or later, the Fed will have to scale back its current unprecedented monetary accommodation. When the Federal Reserve judges it time to begin tightening monetary conditions, it must be allowed to do so without interference. Second, lender of last resort decisions should not be politicized.

Finally, calls to alter the structure or personnel selection of the Federal Reserve System easily could backfire by raising inflation expectations and borrowing costs and dimming prospects for recovery. The democratic legitimacy of the Federal Reserve System is well established by its legal mandate and by the existing appointments process. Frequent communication with the public and testimony before Congress ensure Fed accountability.

If the Federal Reserve is given new responsibilities every effort must be made to avoid compromising its ability to manage monetary policy as it sees fit.

Washington is caught up in a political scandal centering on former Vice President Dick Cheney. It follows a move by the new CIA director Leon Panetta to cancel a secret plan to find and kill Al-Qaeda leaders.

He says that, while in office, Cheney ordered the agency to withhold information about the anti-terror program from Congress.

According to investigative journalist and RT contributor Wayne Madsen, “This assassination team may have targeted politicians in other countries. One name mentioned was former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who may have been a victim of this program. The other name is Jonas Savimbi, the former Angolan UNITA leader, who may have outlived his usefulness as far as Mr Cheney is concerned.”

A three-member U.N. commission arrived in Pakistan on Thursday to conduct an inquiry into the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Conspiracy theories abound over who was behind the suicide gun-and-bomb attack that killed Bhutto after an election campaign rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set up the commission at the request of the coalition government, led by Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and it began its inquiry earlier this month.

The previous government, headed by allies of former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf, blamed Pakistani Taliban commander and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud for Bhutto’s slaying.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency also made Mehsud the prime suspect, but the Taliban leader denied the accusation from his redoubt in the mountains of Waziristan, a remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Yes, the U.S. DID Carry Out Foreign Assassinations . . . And STILL DOES

U.S. Government officials have claimed that foreign assassinations were never carried out.

However, in 2002, the New York Times wrote the following about the government’s assassination program:

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh has repeatedly said that assassinations did, in fact, take place.

And the former number 2 man in the State Department – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson – confirms that assassinations did occur:

Indeed, veteran investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill points out that foreign assassinations are still continuing under Obama.

The secret CIA program allegedly aimed at assassinating suspected terrorists abroad has raised the eyebrows of at least one former senior Bush Administration official who hints that the program may have actually gone into effect, despite the denials of the agency and congressional staff who have been briefed.

The aide, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, was chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. He says he heard “echoes” of the program from US ambassadors abroad, who informed him that clandestine military teams were being dispatched to their countries.

“What I suspect has happened is what began to happen while I was still in the government, and that was we’re killing the wrong people,” Wilkerson added. “And we’re killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. And the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. That’s my strong suspicion.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta announced this month that he’d shut down the program last month when he first learned about it.

The State Department, under Colin Powell, asked the Pentagon which countries were being targeted but found out little information from then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Wilkerson asserts.

“After some hemming and hawing, which was Rumsfeld’s forte, he finally admitted that he had dispatched some of these teams,” Wilkerson explained. “I don’t think we ever knew the full range of his deployments.” Wilkerson believes the CIA became involved in the program of targeted assassinations later.

“It’s laughable [the idea] that the CIA has never lied to Congress,” Wilkerson quipped. “They lie to Congress on a routine basis,” said Wilkerson. Historically, it’s presidents that take the fall when the CIA lies to Congress. Wilkerson says it’s unprecedented for a vice president to fill that role as Cheney appears to have done.

Now this is a big story, if true: Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee accused the CIA of lying to Congress about classified actions, citing as their evidence recent testimony by the agency’s chief, Leon Panetta. Intel chairman Silvestre Reyes, in a letter sent to House Dem and GOP leadership, said the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications and (at least one case) has been affirmatively lied to.” (Here’s the letter, courtesy the Washington Post.) A separate letter signed by seven other Democrats on the Intel committee says Panetta recently told the panel in closed-door testimony on June 24th that the CIA had “misled members” and “concealed significant actions” from Congress for the last eight years. What actions are they specifically talking about? Democrats won’t say—but according to the Wall Street Journal, the CIA does confirm Panetta “took the initiative” to notify Congress about “lapses.” This comes on the heels of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s run-in with the CIA, where she said the agency intentionally misled her in a 2002 briefing on controversial interrogation techniques used against terrorism detainees. So is this vindication for Pelosi—or simply politics as usual? Your Gaggler asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs here in Italy if the White House or the president was aware of Panetta’s testimony, and if so, what the CIA director was referring to. Gibbs, who said he was only aware of the flap through news reports, didn’t have an immediate comment. But it’s notable that the letters, which were written late last month, become public just a day before the House prepares to take up a bill cracking down on executive powers. The White House has said Obama will veto the bill if it includes language proposed by the Democrats that would require the president to notify Intel committees in Congress about covert CIA activities in their “entirety.”

Hillary Clinton: ‘CFR Tells Government What It Should Be Doing’

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s opening remarks during her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday will have done little to dampen accusations that the elitist CFR pulls the strings of the U.S. government.

Clinton effectively said that she was happy the CFR had created an outpost in Washington DC because it meant she did not have to travel as far to get her orders.

“I am delighted to be here in these new headquarters. I have been often to, I guess, the mother ship in New York City, but it’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department.”

“We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.”

Clinton’s admission that the CFR tells the government what it should be doing is somewhat more concrete an influence than the mere “talking shop” perfunctory role that apologists claim the CFR assumes.

As we previously reported, Hillary Clinton’s first appointment as Secretary of State, George Mitchell, was not only a CFR member, but a former director of the globalist organization. Mitchell got his start in politics with the aid of another CFR member, former President Jimmy Carter.

Obama’s first appointments were also almost universally CFR members. As we wrote at the time, “It looks like the White House is shaping up to become a branch office of the CFR and Bilderbergers, but then this is simply business as usual. For years, the CFR — with its associate memberships in such international units as the Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, and Bildebergers — has infested not only the White House, but the State Department, the NSC, the Pentagon, and much of the federal government.”

During the speech, Clinton outlined her vision of the “global agenda” and how a “global consensus” should be formed to help shape it by means of a “global architecture”.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy Premium Members can see crosstabs, trends, and Scott Rasmussen’s Daily Briefing.

Active duty Army suicide rate on record-setting pace

Suicides in the US Army are on the rise with 88 suspected cases in the first six months of the year, compared to 67 in the same period in 2008, according to Pentagon figures issued.

The latest figures confirmed warnings from top US military officers that the number of suicides among active-duty soldiers this year was on track to surpass a record level set in 2008.

Last year 128 soldiers took their lives, up from 115 in 2007, amid increasing strain on Army troops serving repeated combat tours.

The 2008 suicide rate among active duty soldiers rose to 20.2 per 100,000, surpassing a demographically adjusted national suicide rate of 19.5 per 100,000 in 2005, the latest year on record.

Of the 88 reported suicides this year, 54 have been confirmed and 34 are pending investigation, the Defense Department said in a statement.

In about 90 percent of previous cases, suspected suicides have been confirmed, officials say.

A lack of mental health care for veterans, combined with the stress of fighting the Taliban, will mean many survivors of the conflict pay a heavy price in psychological problems and self harm, according to David Cameron and the shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

As the bodies of eight soldiers – including three teenagers – killed in a bloody 24 hours in Helmand were repatriated yesterday, mental health experts joined the politicians in warning that not enough was being done to care for returning members of the armed forces.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

Black teens attack white family on 4th, shouting ‘It’s a black world’

Akron police say they aren’t ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation.

It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend’s home in South Akron.

Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ”This is our world” and ”This is a black world” as they confronted Marshall and his family.

The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black.

200 White Workers Fired and Replaced With Unskilled Minorities

Fredric U. Dicker—regarded as the pre-eminent political reporter in New York’s state capital—recently published a column decrying the complete breakdown of the state legislature, which has been unable to conduct business for the past month.

So, nearly 200 people lose their jobs in New York State because of their race? And not at the hands of some evil corporation, but our own elected officials?

It’s quite telling that, in our political age, mass firings can still happen because of one’s race. It’s even more telling that—the only time I’ve seen this story get any coverage at all—it was in the 19th paragraph of an otherwise unrelated column.

Ex-IBM Employee Alleges TV Abandoned Analog Band to Make Room for Chips

Major General Albert Stubblebine discusses his experience and background as well as his assessment of what happened at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and Building 7 on 9/11.

In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November.

At the time of 9-11, I had been an FBI agent for over 20 years. My main responsibilities by then were teaching criminal procedure to FBI agents and other law enforcement officers, mostly about 4th Amendment search and seizure, 5th and 6th Amendment law of interrogation, right to attorney and constitutional protection of rights to “free speech”, due process, habeas corpus, and against cruel and unusual punishment. A week before 9-11, I and the rest of the FBI’s ethics instructors were mandated (as a result of an earlier public FBI scandal) to give a one hour PowerPoint presentation, a form of remedial training on “law enforcement ethics” which I accomplished in a fairly perfunctory way, just reading the slides.

After 9-11, with the knowledge I had of the bitter internal dispute inside the FBI that was being hushed up but had kept some of our better agents from possibly uncovering more of the 9-11 plot before it happened, I couldn’t forget two of the slides in that Law Enforcement ethics curriculum: “DO NOT: Puff, Shade, Tailor, Firm up, Stretch, Massage, or Tidy up statements of fact.” And “Misplaced Loyalties: As employees of the FBI, we must be aware that our highest loyalty is to the United States Constitution. We should never sacrifice the truth in order to obtain a desired result (e.g. conviction of a defendant) or to avoid personal or institutional embarrassment.”

The official dissembling and excuse-making about the true causes and prior mistakes that gave rise to and allowed the terrorist attacks to happen, almost immediately ushered in the Bush-Cheney Administration’s egregious and lawless, post 9-11 “war on terror” agenda which bore no connection to the original causes and no connection to the goal of reducing terrorism and making the world safer. When I got a chance, about 8 ½ months after 9-11 to tell what I knew, I did so and my disclosures led to further investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General and figured in the 9-11 Commission Report.

But it was way too late for this emerging bit of truth that has continued to leak out in dribs and drabs to have any impact. The laws themselves, especially the criminal procedure ones rooted in the Constitution that I had spent my career teaching to law enforcement, have largely gone up in smoke. Having seen the cost of remaining silent, I publicly warned, a few months after my first memo, against launching the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. But false agendas had already filled the vacuum created by lack of truth. And we are still dealing with the disastrous consequences of these unjustified, pre-emptive wars.

Let me therefore simply repeat the request I made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2002: “Foremost, we owe it to the public, especially the victims of terrorism, to be completely honest. I can only imagine what these crime and terrorism victims continue to go through. They deserve nothing but the complete, unfettered truth.”

Therefore, I fully support the 9/11 families, first responders, survivors and over 60,000 other New Yorkers who have endorsed a new 9/11 investigation in New York City as advanced by ballot referendum this coming November election.

Coleen Rowley is a former FBI staff attorney who turned whistle-blower after witnessing repeated failures within the bureau to properly investigate alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. She was one of three Time Magazine Persons of the Year in 2002.

WMR has learned that the National Security ‘Q’ Group, responsible for security, has grown to an immense security and counter-intelligence force, with an estimated one thousand government employees, contractors, and paid informants. NSA’s Security force is reportedly primarily tasked with plugging any leaks of classified or other information that points to U.S. government’s involvement with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

NSA Security has doggedly pursued a number of NSA employees, some in ’sting’ operations, others in frequent polygraphs and repeated security interviews where threats are made by thuggish NSA security agents with and without the presence of FBI agents, and others in constant surveillance operations at their homes, churches, and other locations away from the Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters of the agency.

The most egregious NSA Security operation against an NSA employee was the 2004 arrest of NSA analyst Ken Ford, Jr. Ford became a target of opportunity for NSA Security and the FBI after Vice President Dick Cheney noted his name on an NSA signals intelligence report on Saddam Hussein’s government that stated that there was no proof from interceptions of Iraqi communications that Saddam Hussein possessed ‘weapons of mass destruction.’

Cheney and other neocons in the Bush White House arranged for a ’sting’ operation to be mounted as retribution against Ford. Ford was charged with taking classified papers home from NSA headquarters, something that is quite impossible considering the stringent security in place at one of the most-secured complexes in the world.

Ford was convicted by a tainted jury and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. Ford, who is African-American, originally had an African-American federal trial judge. However, the judge was replaced by a pro-Iraq war Jewish U.S. judge, Peter Messitte, who set out to ensure a guilty conviction of Ford in cahoots with Jewish U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein, and Jewish Assistant U.S. Attorney for Southern Maryland David Salem, both Bush appointees. Nothing was done by the judge or prosecutors to dismiss from the jury a contractor whose company had major contracts with NSA. The trio of Messitte, Rosenstein, and Salem have also ‘rocket-docketed’ a number of cases, resulting in slam-dunk convictions, against Arab- and Iranian-Americans in the southern district of Maryland.

NSA’s Security chief is Kemp Ensor III. Ensor has built up what amounts to a massive law enforcement and intelligence agency in Maryland that operates as a virtual independent operation that answers to no one. Maryland’s congressional delegation has shown little interest in oversight over the security operation.

In fact, WMR has learned that many NSA employees, aware of the political and other misuse of their agency by the Bush-Cheney administration, avidly backed Barack Obama for president hoping that the past era when NSA complied with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution would be restored. However, many NSA employees are bitterly disappointed that Obama has done nothing to curtail not only the widespread surveillance of the communications of law-abiding Americans but the constant ‘Stasi-like’ harassment and surveillance conducted by Ensor’s team of agents and confidential informants.

WMR has also learned that NSA Security has been authorized to work directly with Washington area local police department intelligence divisions to carry out its surveillance of not only NSA employees and contractors, but journalists who report on the activities of NSA. Two police departments mentioned in this respect are the Alexandria, Virginia, and Anne Arundel County, Maryland, sheriff departments.

One senior level NSA official recently found himself sitting in front of NSA Security questioners asking why he gave his NSA business cards to some students at a university. It turns out the official was trying to recruit students for NSA employment. When the official asked why there was a problem in his handing out his business cards, the answer by NSA Security was that some of them, all American citizens, had ‘Russian last names.’

WMR has in the past reported on NSA surveillance of journalists. On December 28, 2005, we reported: ‘WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA), on the orders of the Bush administration, eavesdropped on the private conversations and e-mail of its own employees, employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies — including the CIA and DIA — and their contacts in the media, Congress, and oversight agencies and offices. The journalist surveillance program, code named ‘FIRSTFRUITS,’ was part of a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) program that was maintained at least until October 2004 and was authorized by then-DCI Porter Goss. FIRSTFRUITS was authorized as part of a DCI ‘Countering Denial and Deception’ program responsible to an entity known as the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC). Since the intelligence community’s reorganization, the DCI has been replaced by the Director of National Intelligence headed by John Negroponte and his deputy, former NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden.’

Since the revelation of the NSA journalist monitoring database, which later added communications intercepts of journalists’ phone calls, emails, and faxes to its database, NSA Security has, according to information received by WMR, conducted physical surveillance of journalists it deems to be threats to the operations of the agency. The top targeted journalists, who make up a virtual ‘rogues’ gallery’ at NSA Security, complete with photographs and other personal information, are: former Baltimore Sun and current Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Gorman, Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, former Baltimore Sun and current New York Times reporter Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun reporter Phil McGowan, author James Bamford, New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, and this editor, Wayne Madsen.

In addition to the aforementioned, FIRSTFRUITS also contained the names of former Washington Post reporter Vernon Loeb, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh, and UPI’s John C. K. Daly.

Ironically, NSA Security allegedly has its own connections in the news media. A Washington Times source revealed that the paper’s writer of the ‘Inside the Beltway’ column, John McCaslin, has a relative inside NSA Security — Robert McCaslin, the chief of NSA Security counter-intelligence and the chief ’sting’ agent against Ford. Robert McCaslin, according to the Times source, is the brother of the paper’s columnist.

NSA Security is also able to utilize the agency’s most sophisticated electronic surveillance systems to monitor the activities of journalists. The cell phones of journalists are routinely used as listening devices, even when turned off. And what was considered a sure-fire method of avoiding having a cell phone used as a transmitter, removing the batteries in what has become known as ‘batteries out’ conversations, is no longer safe. Even when the batteries are removed, the global positioning system (GPS) chip in cell phones continues to have enough residual power that two to three pings from satellites can give away a person’s location and what other uniquely identifiable cell phones are at the same location.

The bottom line is that a number of NSA personnel who were on duty in the months leading up to 9/11, the day of the attacks, and subsequent weeks and months, are aware of undeniable facts that point to a massive cover-up by the Bush-Cheney administration of the circumstances surrounding 9/11, including what actually befell United Airlines flight 93 and who was issuing direct military orders from the White House.

The Obama administration, rather than lessen the pressure on the NSA personnel, has turned up the heat and is resorting to even more draconian methods to ensure silence. The word from inside NSA is that a state of fear exists and the mission of the agency, to conduct surveillance of foreign communications to provide threat indications and warnings to U.S. troops and policy makers and protect sensitive U.S. government communications from unauthorized eavesdropping is suffering as a result.

The evidence was crucial because it undermined the official explanation that Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at high speed after executing an extremely difficult top gun maneuver. But to understand how all of this played out, let us review the case in bite-size pieces…

In August 2004 when the 9/11 Commission completed its official investigation of the September 11, 2001 attack, the commission transferred custody of its voluminous records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).[1] There, the records remained under lock and key for four and a half years, until last January when NARA released a fraction of the total for public viewing. Each day, more of the released files are scanned and posted on the Internet, making them readily accessible. Although most of the newly-released documents are of little interest, the files I will discuss in this article contain important new information.

As we know, the 9/11 Commission did not begin its work until 2003–––more than a year after the fact. By this time a number of journalists had already done independent research and published articles about various facets of 9/11. Some of this work was of excellent quality. The Washington Post, for example, interviewed aviation experts who stated that the plane allegedly piloted by Hani Hanjour [AA Flight 77] had been flown “with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.”[2] Yet, strangely, when other journalists investigated Hani Hanjour they found a trail of clues indicating he was a novice pilot, wholly incapable of executing a top gun maneuver and a successful suicide attack in a Boeing 757. By early 2003 this independent research was a matter of public record, which created a serious problem for the 9/11 Commission…

By all accounts Hani Hanjour was a diminutive fellow. He stood barely five feet tall and was slight of build. As a young man in his hometown of Taif, Saudi Arabia, Hanjour cultivated no great dreams of flying airplanes. He was satisfied with a more modest ambition: he wanted to become a flight attendant. That is, until his older brother Abulrahman encouraged him to aim higher. Even so, Hani Hanjour’s aptitude for learning appears to have been rather limited. Although he resided in the US for about 38 months over a ten-year period that ended on 9/11, Hanjour never learned to speak or write English, a telling observation about his capacity for learning. As we will discover, he actually flunked a written test for a driver’s license just weeks before 9/11.

While it is true that Hanjour trained at various flight schools in the US, the evidence shows he was a perpetual novice. Hanjour dropped out of his first school, the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, located in Oakland, after attending only a few classes. Next, he enrolled at Cockpit Resource Management (CRM), a flight school in Scottsdale, Arizona. But his performance as a student at CRM was less than adequate. Duncan K.M. Hastie, owner of the school, described Hanjour as “a weak student” who was “wasting our resources.”[3] After several weeks, Hanjour withdrew from the program, then returned in 1997 for another short period of instruction. This on and off pattern of behavior was typical of the man. Hastie says that over the next three years Hanjour called him at least twice a year, and each time wanted to return for more training. By this time, however, it was obvious to Hastie that his erstwhile student had no business in a cockpit. Hastie refused to let Hanjour come back. “I would recognize his voice,” Hastie said. “He was always talking about wanting more training. Yes, he wanted to be an airline pilot. That was his stated goal. That’s why I didn’t allow him to come back. I thought ‘You’re never going to make it’.”[4]

Rejected by CRM, Hanjour enrolled at nearby Sawyer Aviation, also located in the Phoenix area. Wes Fults, a former instructor at Sawyer, later described it as the school of last resort. Said Fults: “it was a commonly held truth that, if you failed anywhere else, go to Sawyer.” Fults remembers training Hanjour, whom he describes as “a neophyte.” He says Hani “got overwhelmed with the instruments” in the school’s flight simulator. “He had only the barest understanding of what the instruments were there to do,” said Fults. “He [Hanjour] used the simulator three or four times, then disappeared like a fog.”[5] I must emphasize to the reader, I am not making this up. Other accounts by Newsday, the New York Times, as well as the FOX network, all confirm that Hani Hanjour was at best a novice pilot.

In fact, because fluency in English is required to qualify for a US pilot’s license, Hanjour’s atrocious English should have barred him from ever obtaining a license. But it seems that Hanjour exploited a loophole in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system, which for years has outsourced the pilot certification process. According to a June 2002 story in the Dallas Morning News, Hanjour was certified in April 1999 as an “Airplane Multi-Engine Land/Commercial Pilot” by Daryl Strong, one of the FAA’s 20,000 designated pilot examiners.[6] Although an FAA official later defended the agency’s policy of using private contractors, a critic, Heather Awsumb, took issue with it. Awsumb is a spokesperson for the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) Union, which represents more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department employees. She pointed out that the FAA does not have anywhere near enough staff to oversee its 20,000 designated inspectors, all of whom have a financial interest in certifying as many pilots as possible. Hanjour probably evaded the language requirement by finding an examiner willing to ignore the rule. Said Awsumb: “They receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being too tough, they won’t get any business.” According to Awsumb, the present system allows “safety to be sold to the lowest bidder.”[7]

Later, Hanjour’s horrible English prompted one flight school, Jet Tech, to question the authenticity of his FAA-approved pilot’s license. Jet Tech was another school in the Phoenix area where Hanjour sought continuing instruction. Peggy Chevrette, operation manager at Jet Tech, later told FOX News: “I couldn’t believe that he had a license of any kind with the skills that he had.”[8] She explained that Hanjour’s English was so bad it took him five hours to complete an oral exam that normally should have taken about two.

But it wasn’t just his poor English that failed to impress. In his evaluation the Jet Tech flight instructor wrote that the “student [Hanjour] made numerous errors during his performance and displayed a lack of understanding of some basic concepts. The same was true during review of systems knowledge….I doubt his ability to pass an FAA [Boeing 737] oral at this time or in the near future.” The 737 instructor concluded his evaluation with a final entry: “He [Hanjour] will need much more experience flying smaller A/C [aircraft] before he is ready to master large jets.”[9] The 9/11 Commission Report fails to discuss or even mention this negative written evaluation, even while presenting Hanjour’s substandard performance in a Boeing 737 simulator as sufficient evidence that Hanjour could fly a Boeing 757, an even larger plane![10] The wording of the final report succeeds in giving this impression, however dubious, even while obscuring the facts: an amazing achievement of propaganda.

Early in 2001, Peggy Chevrette, the operation manager at Jet Tech, repeatedly conveyed her concerns about Hanjour to the FAA. Eventually John Anthony, a federal inspector, showed up at the school and examined Hanjour’s credentials. But Anthony found them in order and took no further action. The inspector even suggested that Jet Tech provide Hanjour with an interpreter. This surprised Chevrette because it was a violation of FAA rules. “The thing that really concerned me,” she later told FOX News, “Was that John had a conversation in the hallway with Hani and realized what his skills were at that point and his ability to speak English.”[11] Evidently, the inspector also sat in on a class with Hanjour.

FOX News was unable to reach John Anthony for comment, but FAA spokesperson Laura Brown defended the FAA employee. “There was nothing about the pilot’s actions” she said, “to signal criminal intent or that would have caused us to alert law enforcement.”[12] This is true enough. The Jet Tech staff never suspected that Hani Hanjour was a terrorist. According to Marilyn Ladner, vice-president Pan Am International, the company that owned Jet Tech, “It was more of a very typical instructional concern that ‘you really shouldn’t be in the air’.”[13] Although Pan Am dissolved its Jet Tech operation shortly after 9/11, a former employee who knew Hanjour expressed amazement “that he [Hanjour] could have flown into the Pentagon. [because] He could not fly at all.”[14]

The “Scouting” Flights

We know that in the months before the September 11, 2001 attack Hani Hanjour rented planes at several small airports on the outskirts of New York City and Washington DC. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions these local flights and suggests that Hanjour was scouting the terrain: familiarizing himself with possible suicide targets.[15] But the record also shows the same pattern described above. For example, on May 29, 2001 Hanjour rented a plane at a small airport in Teterboro, New Jersey and flew “the Hudson Tour,” accompanied by a flight instructor. However, the next day, when Hanjour returned for a repeat flight the same instructor “would not allow it because of Hanjour’s poor piloting skills.”[16] The 9/11 Commission Report actually cites this incident, but in a context that diminishes its significance.[17]

The pattern played out again on August 16-17, 2001 when Hanjour attempted to rent a plane at Freeway Airport, in Bowie, Maryland, about twenty miles from Washington. Although Hanjour presented his FAA license, according to Newsday the Freeway Airport manager insisted that instructors first accompany him on a test flight to evaluate his piloting skills. During three such flights over two days in a single-engine Cessna 172, instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner observed what others had before them. Hanjour had trouble controlling and landing the aircraft. Afterward, Baxter interviewed Hanjour extensively about his flight training and experience, and also reviewed his flight log, which documented 600 hours of flight time. On this basis she and Conner declined to approve a current license rating until Hanjour returned for more training. On their recommendation, Freeway’s chief instructor Marcel Bernard refused to rent Hanjour a plane.[18] Notice, this was less than a month before 9/11. When I reached Bernard by phone he confirmed the details of the story by Newsday.[19] So did Ben Conner when I spoke with him.[20] Conner also emphasized that the issue was not simply Hanjour’s poor English. It was everything, i.e., his general ineptitude.

Curiously, The 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges Hanjour’s poor English and sub-standard flying skills. The report even mentions that flight instructors had urged Hanjour to give up trying to become a pilot.[21] Strangely, however, another passage (in a footnote) describes Hanjour as “the [al Qaeda] operation’s most experienced pilot,” suggesting that the commission had a mixed opinion about Hanjour.[22] In the end the official investigation evidently interpreted Hanjour’s FAA license as sufficient proof that he had “persevered” in overcoming his issues.[23] The word “persevered” is straight out of the report.

But why did the commission ignore the multiple open-sourced accounts cited above, all mutually corroborative, indicating that Hanjour would have been lost in the cockpit of a Boeing 757 and was barely qualified to fly a single-engine Cessna? It is notable that The 9/11 Commission Report fails to mention the negative written evaluation by Hanjour’s Jet Tech flight instructor. The omission is serious because a glance at the timeline shows that Hanjour’s 5-6 weeks of training at Jet Tech occurred in February-March 2001, that is, after he had already earned his FAA license. Perseverance obviously was not enough. The instructor’s negative evaluation was based on Hanjour’s actual skill-set at the time, license or no license. Nor does the final report so much as mention Hanjour’s test flight at Freeway airport, or the fact that he failed it. These are telling omissions. Obviously, the commission screened out testimony that conflicted with the official narrative of what happened on that terrible day. But there is more to the story. As we are about to learn, the recently released 9/11 files have raised important new questions.

The Other Flight Instructor

It turns out that just three days after Hani Hanjour failed a flight evaluation in a Cessna 172 at Freeway airport he showed up at Congressional Air Charter, located down the road at Gaithersburg airport, also in the Washington suburbs. Once again Hanjour attempted to rent a plane, and again he was asked to go up with an instructor for a flight evaluation to confirm his flight skills. The plane was the same: a Cessna 172. Yet, on this occasion Hanjour passed with flying colors and, later, this other instructor gave testimony to the 9/11 Commission that turned out to be crucial. The final report mentions the instructor’s name only once in a brief endnote buried at the back of the report. The note states:

“Hanjour successfully conducted a challenging certification flight supervised by an instructor at Congressional Air Charter of Gaithersburg, Maryland, landing at a small airport with a difficult approach. The instructor thought Hanjour may have had training from a military pilot because he used a terrain recognition system for navigation. Eddie Shalev interview. (Apr. 9, 2004)” [24]

The note gives a name, Eddie Shalev, but no other information about him. Indeed, his identity remained a mystery until January 2009, when NARA released the 9/11 files.[25] Nonetheless, David Ray Griffin had already identified the key questions in his 2008 book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited. Wrote Griffin: “How could an instructor in Gaithersburg [i.e., Shalev] have had such a radically different view of Hanjour’s abilities from that of all of the other flight instructors who worked with him? Who was this instructor? How could this report be verified?”[26]

These are important questions because the two assessments of Hani Hanjour’s flight skills are so radically different that both cannot be correct. The evaluations, made just days apart, are contradictory, hence, mutually exclusive; which raises the disturbing possibility that someone could be lying.

The FBI File

Fortunately, another newly released document, the FBI file on Hani Hanjour, sheds additional light on the case.[27] The file includes a timeline and evidently was compiled to document the government’s case against Hanjour. I learned about it from a source on the commission, a staffer who insisted to me in an email that it authenticates Hani Hanjour’s flight training. At a glance it appears to do that. However, on closer examination the file is much less impressive and I have to wonder if the staffer actually studied it. As we will see, the document not only falls short of confirming Hanjour’s flight skills, it shows signs of having been “enhanced” to obscure the record.

Crucially, the FBI file includes not a scintilla of evidence that Hani Hanjour ever trained in a Boeing 757. Although Hanjour did some sessions a Boeing 737 simulator, as we have already seen, the press accounts, more importantly, his own instructor’s written evaluation, offer a clear and unambiguous assessment of his actual skills. It is also important to realize that even if Hanjour had mastered the controls of a Boeing 737, this would not have qualified him to execute a high-speed suicide crash in a Boeing 757, a significantly larger and less maneuverable aircraft. Such is the view of commercial pilots who fly these planes every day.[28]

One such pilot, Philip Marshall, who is licensed to fly Boeing 727s, 737s, 747s, as well as 757s and 767s, recently authored a book, False Flag 911, in which he states categorically that the alleged 9/11 hijacker pilots, including Hani Hanjour, could never have flown 767s and 757s into buildings at high speed without advanced training and practice flights in that same aircraft over a period of months. As Marshall put it: “Hitting a 90-foot target [i.e., the Pentagon] with a 757 at 500 mph is extremely difficult — absolutely impossible for first-time fliers of a heavy airliner. It’s like seeing Tiger Woods hit a 300-yard one-iron and someone telling you he never practiced the shot.”[29] Marshall speculates that the hijackers may have received advanced flight lessons from Arabic-speaking instructors at a secret desert base somewhere in Arizona or Nevada, possibly arranged by complicit Saudi diplomats, or by members of the Saudi royal family.[30] This is why Hanjour’s inability to pass a test flight evaluation at Freeway airport just weeks before 9/11 is so significant: It tends to rule out Marshall’s theory of advanced instruction.

Close inspection of the FBI file also shows that someone padded the record to put the best face on Hanjour’s flight training. This was done in a curious way. Instead of simply informing us that Hanjour took courses “x,” “y” and “z” at such-and-such a flight school between certain dates, the FBI file gives an itemized record of every single day that Hanjour showed up for training at the various schools. The effect creates the appearance of more extensive instruction than actually occurred. Even so, the enhancement is transparently obvious. Imagine the reaction of a potential employer if you or I engaged in this dubious practice in a resume. On closer examination, another reason for padding the record is also obvious. Enhancement tends to obscure Hanjour’s tendency to jump around from school to school and his inability to finish anything he started.

The FBI file also conspicuously fails to mention the Jet Tech instructor’s written evaluation of Hani Hanjour’s flying skills. The omission easily qualifies as suppression of evidence because we know the FBI had the document in its possession. It was made public at the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui when the document was submitted as evidence. This means, of course that the 9/11 Commission also surely had it and similarly suppressed it. (See note #9.)

The FBI file also grossly mischaracterizes what happened at Freeway airport. The file mentions Hanjour’s visits but wrongly states that Hanjour received flight instruction. Not true. When I specifically asked Marcel Bernard about this he denied the fact and emphasized that Hanjour’s test flights included no lessons and were strictly for the purpose of evaluation.[31] The FBI should have known this because after 9/11 Bernard and his two flight instructors notified the FBI about Hanjour’s visit and were subsequently interviewed by FBI agents. The file also conspicuously fails to mention that Hanjour flunked his test flight evaluation! Whether through incompetence or deception, the FBI failed on every point to state the facts correctly

The FBI file does offer some fresh insight into Hani Hanjour the man. On August 2, 2001, according to the timeline, Hanjour showed up at the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in Arlington, where he flunked a standard written test for a Virginia driver’s license. The fact is astonishing and ought to make us wonder how Hanjour ever managed to acquire his previous Arizona driver’s license issued in 1991 and his Florida license issued in 1996, let alone master the controls of a Boeing 757.

There is another interesting item. The record indicates that on September 5, 2001, just six days before 9/11, Hanjour showed up at the First Union National Bank in Laurel, Maryland where he made four failed bank transactions. The file cites bank records showing that Hanjour was unable to make balance inquiries and withdraw funds from his account because he failed to enter the correct pin number, which he evidently had forgotten! Two days later, Hanjour returned to the bank, this time accompanied by an unidentified male, and made another unsuccessful attempt to withdraw $4900.

It is astonishing the FBI file was ever touted as authenticating Hanjour’s flight credentials. The document falls short on that score and actually raises new questions. How likely is it that a man who was unable to remember his own pin number, and who just weeks before 9/11 flunked a simple test for a driver’s license, could have executed a top gun maneuver in a commercial airliner? The odds, I would submit, are approximately zero.

The FBI file includes one other curious entry. On August 20, 2001 Hanjour shopped at Travelocity.com for information about September 5, 2001 flights from Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles. This suggests that as of August 20 Hanjour did not yet know the date of the planned attack, either because he had not been briefed or because the date had not yet been selected. By the end of the month, however, the die was cast. On August 31 Hanjour and another “middle-eastern male” purchased one-way tickets for AA Flight 77 from a New Jersey travel agent. The date of departure: September 11, 2001. Yet, given Hanjour’s level of skill, one has to wonder what the waif from Taif believed was supposed to happen on that fateful morning.

So, Who is Eddie Shalev?

The record compiled by the FBI for the purpose of to authenticating Hani Hanjour‘s flight skills fails to provide convincing substantiation. Notice, for this reason it also fails to support the testimony of the other flight instructor, Eddie Shalev, who certified Hanjour to rent a Cessna 172 from Congressional Air Charters just three days after Marcel Bernard, the chief instructor at Freeway, refused to rent Hanjour the very same plane. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the incident at Freeway airport, nor does it discuss Eddie Shalev, other than alluding to Hanjour’s certification flight in a brief endnote. All of which is curious, since it now appears that Shalev’s testimony was crucial. By telling the commission what it was predisposed to hear, Shalev gave the official investigation an excuse to ignore the preponderance of evidence, which pointed to the unthinkable.

So, who is Eddie Shalev? His identity remained unknown for more than seven years, but was finally revealed in one of the files released in January 2009 by the National Archives. The document, labelled a “Memorandum for the Record,” is a summary of the April 2004 interview with Eddie Shalev conducted by commission staffer Quinn John Tamm.[32] The document confirms that Shalev went on record: “Mr Shalev stated that based on his observations Hanjour was a ‘good’ pilot.” It is noteworthy that Tamm also spoke with Freeway instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, as revealed by yet another recently-released document.[33] Although I was unable to reach Tamm or Baxter for comment, I did talk with Conner, who confirmed the conversation.[34] Conner says he fully expected to testify before the commission. Perhaps not surprisingly, the call never came.

But the shocker is the revelation that Eddie Shalev is an Israeli and served in the Israeli army. The file states that “Mr. Shalev served in the Israeli Defense Forces in a paratroop regiment. He was a jumpmaster on a Boeing C-130. Mr. Shalev moved to the Gaithersburg area in April 2001 and was sponsored for employment by Congressional Air Charters…[which] has subsequently gone out of business.”

The memorandum raises disturbing questions. Consider the staffer’s strange choice of words in describing Shalev’s employment. What did Quinn John Tamm mean when he wrote that Shalev “was sponsored for employment”? Did the commission bother to investigate Congressional Air Charters? It is curious that the charter service subsequently went out of business. But the most important question is: just how thoroughly, if at all, did the commission vet Eddie Shalev? Does his military record include service in the Israeli intelligence community?

Real people have known addresses. But Eddie Shalev’s whereabouts has been unknown for years. As reported by David Griffin, a 2007 search of the national telephone directory, plus Google searches by research librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, turned up no trace of him. A LexisNexis search by Matthew Everett also came up dry.[35] Not satisfied, I conducted my own search and did turn up two possible addresses for an “Eddy Shalev” in the Gaithersburg-Rockville, Maryland area. But the lead went nowhere. The phone number had been disconnected. The 9/11 memorandum indicates that Shalev’s US visa was about to expire in July 2004, suggesting that Shalev may have returned to Israel. Clearly, the man needs to be found, subpoenaed and made to testify under oath before a new investigation, even if this requires extradition. Quinn John Tamm and the two Freeway instructors, Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, should also be subpoenaed. All are key witnesses and obvious starting points for a new investigation.

Given his identity, the search for and possible extradition of Eddie Shalev could become controversial. But 9/11 investigators must not be turned aside. We must follow the trail of evidence, regardless. Should it lead into a dark wood, we must resolve to go there; and if it takes us to the gates of hell, so be it. Truly, no force, certainly no political force, can withstand the power of truth. If and when our search obtains a certain critical mass, momentum will shift decisively in our favor. Public support for a new 9/11 investigation will become irresistible. The light of truth will do the rest.

Mark Gaffney is the author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008). For more details check out Mark’s web site http://www.the911mysteryplane.com/ Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney(at)earthlink.net

Notes:

1 Many of the documents have been posted at History Commons: http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/7104168 Also see http://www.archives.gov/research/9-11-commission/

2 Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, “On Flight 77: ‘Our Plane is Being Hijacked’,” Washington Post, September 12, 2001.

3 Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun and George Lardner Jr., “Hanjour an Unlikely Terrorist,” The Cape Cod Times, October 21, 2001.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 A copy of Hanjour’s FAA license is posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/13120915/Airman-Records-for-Alleged-911-Hijacker-Hani-Hanjour

7 Kellie Lunney, “FAA contractors approved flight licenses for Sept. 11 suspect,” GovernmentExecutive.com, June 13, 2002.

8 “FAA Probed, Cleared Sept. 11 Hijacker in Early 2001,” FOX News, May 10, 2002.

9 Hani’s Jet Tech evaluation and other documentation were entered as evidence during the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui. Training Records, Hani Hanjour, B-737 Initial Ground Training, Class 01-3-021, Date: 2/8/01, Jet Tech International, posted at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/PX00021.pdf

10 The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, pp. 226-227.

11 “FAA Probed, Cleared Sept. 11 Hijacker in Early 2001,” FOX News, May 10, 2002.

12 Ibid.

13 Jim Yardley, “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence,” New York Times, May 4, 2002.

14 “Report: 9/11 Hijacker Bypassed FAA,” AP story, June 13, 2002.

15 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.

16 http://911myths.com/images/2/2a/PENTTBOM_About_Hanjour.pdf

17 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.

18 Thomas Frank, “Tracing Trail of Hijackers,” Newsday, September 23, 2001. This story was confirmed by one of the newly-released 9/11 files. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/15103091/Contents-of-John-Tamm-Memos-Folder-Memos-Notes-and-Withdrawal-Notices

19 Phone conversation with Marcel Bernard, June 26, 2009.

20 Phone conversation with Ben Conner, June 28, 2009.

21 The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 226-227.

22 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 530, note 147.

23 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 227.

24 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 531, note 170.

25 http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00551.pdf

26 David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Olive Branch Press, Northhampton, 2008, p.80.

27 http://911myths.com/images/2/2a/PENTTBOM_About_Hanjour.pdf

28 Numerous testimonials by commercial pilots, all of whom question the official story, can be found here: http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html

29 Philip Marshall, False Flag 911, pilotsof911@AOL.com , 2008, pp. 6-7.

30 Ibid., pp. 34-37.

31 Phone conversation with Marcel Bernard, June 26, 2009.

32 http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00551.pdf

33 Memo from John Tamm to Dieter Snell, April 15, 2004. Posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/15103091/Contents-of-John-Tamm-Memos-Folder-Memos-Notes-and-Withdrawal-Notices

34 Phone conversation with Ben Conner, June 28, 2009.

35 The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, p. 286, note 99.

See also Gaffney’s piece on James Bamford; “Eavesdropping on the World”

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