If the individuals who staff our intelligence agencies are unable to prevent large-scale terrorist attacks then they should be fired. And yet since September 11 nobody in a position of authority has been sacked and in fact the majority have received raises in addition to the millions of extra funding that has poured in to the FBI and CIA. They have been rewarded for their complicity in 9/11.

In December 2002 Senator Charles Grassly, a Republican, described as a “slap in the face” and “shocking” a decision by FBI director Robert Mueller to give an award for ‘exceptional performance to Marion "Spike" Bowman, head of the FBI's national security law unit. The award is officially titled ‘Presidential Rank of Meritorious Service’ and includes cash bonuses of between 20 percent or 35 percent of each recipient's base salary. Bowman was instrumental in calling FBI agents off the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called ‘20th hijacker’ whose arrest many analysts conclude would have cracked the September 11 plot before it was carried out. Grassly stated, "Unfortunately, this award continues a bad tradition. If the FBI is ever to reform, there must be accountability."

The head of the State Department’s consular service Mary Ryan was awarded $15,000 in October 2002 as part of an ‘outstanding performance bonus’. Her office issued visas to 13 of the 19 suicide hijackers, giving them entry to the country. In addition, Thomas Furey, who was consul-general in the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was also awarded a bonus. The Saudi embassy was named by former Consulate officer Michael Springman as a conduit for Al-Qaeda members hired for CIA terrorist training in the 80's.

We have the dichotomy of the government being rewarded for protecting terrorists while at the same time issuing apocalyptic terror alerts. If I called in a hoax bomb threat to a government building I would rightfully be arrested and yet our governments have been doing the exact same thing on a larger scale without retribution.

In May and June of 2002 watered down evidence of the Bush administration’s prior knowledge of the attacks emerged in the media. Despite the fact that the information was largely a whitewash it was still a source of embarrassment for a regime that had naively become used to saying and doing what it liked by dancing on the graves of the victims of 9/11. To shut down the dissenters and provide the media with a distraction to fill the headlines, the Bush administration released a hoaxed terror alert. They cautioned that terrorists had hatched plans to attack targets such as stadiums, nuclear power plants, shopping centers, synagogues, apartment houses, subways, and the Liberty Bell, the Brooklyn Bridge and other New York City landmarks.

What’s even more incredible than the hoax itself is that they openly admitted it! The Washington Times calmly reported,

“The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks. The warnings, including yesterday's uncorroborated FBI report that terrorists might target the Statue of Liberty, quieted some of the lawmakers who said President Bush failed to act on clues of the September 11 attacks, although Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle yesterday reiterated his demand for an independent investigation. The latest alerts were issued "as a result of all the controversy that took place last week," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, referring to reports that the president received a CIA briefing in August about terror threats, including plans by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to hijack U.S. commercial airliners.”

All the ‘conservative’ news outlets tried to bury the story by claiming that it was Dan Rather’s opinion that the White House was releasing fake terror alerts. They could then dismiss it as an empty liberal sideswipe, blatantly ignoring the Washington Times report and Ari Fleischer himself acknowledging it.

In January of 2003 FBI and CIA whistleblowers told Capitol Hill Blue that the White House was scripting phony terror alerts to maintain hysteria, upkeep President Bush’s approval ratings and milk extra defense funding. The report that five Pakistani men had entered the States via Canada and were planning on carrying out a dirty bomb or biological attack was completely conjured up by the Bush administration’s black propaganda office. New York Harbor was shut down to visibly pump up the fear. One of the named suspects, Mohammed Asghar (pictured left), was tracked down to Pakistan by the Associated Press. He was a fat guy running a jewellers shop and had never even been to America.

World Net Daily commented,

“Other sources within the bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency said the administration is pressuring intelligence agencies to develop "something, anything" to support an array of non-specific terrorism alerts issued by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security…CHB reported that FBI and CIA sources said a recent White House memo listing the war on terrorism as a definitive political advantage and fund-raising tool is just one of many documents discussing how to best utilize the terrorist threat.”

Making hoax threats to carry out terrorist acts is punishable by law under H.R. 3209. This legislation outlines that any party doing so will be liable for a fine of up to $250,000 and a prison sentence of up to five years. So why aren’t the Democrats exposing the fact that the Bush administration is engaging in criminal activity? Democratic strategist Russ Barksdale gives us the answer,

“Of course the White House is going to exploit the terrorism threat to the fullest political advantage, they would be fools not to. We'd do the same thing.”

Days after this story broke and began to gain more attention, ABC News sprang into action and whitewashed the story so it could be safely swept under the carpet.

They reported that the fake terror alert was a ‘mistake’ as a result of an informant lying to the FBI, thus shifting the emphasis away from the FBI and CIA agents blowing the whistle on how the government was manufacturing evidence to heighten fear.

To legitimize SWAT cops in Darth Vader masks pushing people around on street corners, the government needed to convince the people that this was a successful method of fighting terrorism. So it was that we saw a wave of arrests and break-ups of ‘Al Qaeda cells’ from Spain to Italy to England. Maybe there really were dangerous mass killers around every corner and the government really just wanted to protect us. Not quite. These arrests were subject to a blaze of publicity and headlined the evening news. However, after investigations found no evidence to justify detaining those arrested, their release warranted only a paragraph in the back of the newspaper. A plot to release cyanide in the London Underground was ‘foiled by MI5’ and splashed across the front pages. The fact that no cyanide was ever found and most of the suspects were released within days was barely mentioned. Nine arrests were made under anti-terrorism laws and yet six of those detained were released within hours.

In late January 2003, 28 Pakistani men were arrested in a raid in the Italian city of Naples. The headlines shrieked that the men were plotting assassinations and bombings of NATO targets. They had maps of London, the U.S. consulate and American naval bases. They were a definite ‘Al-Qaeda terrorist cell’ in possession of 800 grams of explosives, enough to blow up a three-story building. Despite all this unfolding in Italy, it made the top story on both American and British news for two days.

Just two weeks later, the BBC quietly announced,

“An Italian judge has ordered the release of 28 Pakistani immigrants arrested on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. The reasons for the order are unclear, but reports suggest little evidence was found against the men.”

And so the story vanished.

In London, a plethora of arrests are made after police supposedly discover ingredients used to make the deadly ricin poison. Many suspects are later released and doubts emerge as to whether any actual ricin components were seized. The Algerian terrorist ring was said to have obtained the poison from a cave in Afghanistan, where large quantities were found. To know this was false took just a brief glance back in the archives and a story of March 2002. Under the headline ‘Britain accused on terror lab claim - Story of find in Afghan cave 'was made up' to justify sending marines’ – the London Observer reported,

“Britain was accused last night of falsely claiming that al-Qaeda terrorists had built a 'biological and chemical weapons' laboratory in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines to fight there. The allegation follows a Downing Street briefing by a senior official to newspapers on Friday which claimed US forces had discovered a biological weapons laboratory in a cave in eastern Afghanistan after fighting near the city of Gardez this month.”

The White House had to publicly admit that the story was fabricated to avoid deeper embarrassment because there was no actual evidence to support the claim. So the original source of the ricin was in actual fact based on a foundation of total fabrication.

After a while the blatantly fake terror alerts that never preceded a terror attack were beginning to lose their gravity. People largely ignored them and were not imbued by fear. The next government threat had to be backed up by physical action.

It was at this point that Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge announced that the Orwellian terrorism threat level had been raised to orange, one notch short of full out police state takeover. Armed police and the National Guard swarmed the streets of New York and Washington, helicopters and military jets patrolled the skies, Tony Blair considered putting troops on the streets of Britain, tanks were already rolling around Heathrow airport and the M25 motorway, airport screeners made sure more 70-year-old men took their shoes off to be searched. TV networks rabidly hijacked the fear and revelled in the panic, highlighting interviews with people on the street commenting on how this downtown Beirut military occupation was acceptable because it was part of the ‘new America’ (or new Amerika). People were encouraged to buy first aid kits and duct tape to seal their windows.

Yet again, there was no reliable information to indicate a potential terrorist attack (one not carried out by the CIA that is). Many observed that the alarm was merely a show of force to frighten the people into supporting an impending war on Iraq. The government was again terrorizing the citizens.

The measures were put in place because the government had, once again, been lied to by their informants. Or so we’re told. And once again, ABC News rushed out to whitewash the story,

“The informant described a detailed plan that an al Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops, sources told ABCNEWS. The informant reportedly cited specific targets of government buildings and Christian or clerical centers. "This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant.”

I don’t believe for a second that the criminal CIA had at any point believed New York, Washington or Florida had been, according to this lying informant, targets of a dirty bomb attack. As we were warned before by the responsible FBI and CIA agents, the government was again scripting hysterics to bully us into submission. Even though the whole thing was admitted to be a false alarm, the orange terror threat status still remains in force days and weeks after.


"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

Paul Joseph Watson is a writer and researcher based in Sheffield, England. He is the webmaster at both Propagandamatrix.com and prisonplanet.com. Watson's new book 'Order Out of Chaos' - published by Dandelion - will be released later this year. He is a columnist for Ether Zone.

Paul can be reached at: paul@propagandamatrix.com

Published in the February 17, 2003 issue of  Ether Zone.
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