Why Louis Freeh Should Be Investigated For 9/11

Nine days after Freeh announced his retirement, the FBI told Timothy McVeigh’s attorneys that it had failed to give them about 3,000 pages of documents related to the OKC bombing investigation.  “Self-righteous and sanctimonious, Freeh never admitted a personal mistake. He never pointed out his own role in the McVeigh debacle.”[60]

If there is nothing to hide, why hide it?

Testifying before the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry in October 2002, Freeh said:

I am aware of nothing that to me demonstrates that the FBI and the intelligence community had the type of information or tactical intelligence which could have prevented September 11th. In terms of the FBI’s capability to identify, investigate and prevent the nineteen hijackers from carrying out their attacks, the facts so far on the public record do not support the conclusion that these tragic events could have been prevented by the FBI and intelligence community acting by themselves.[61]

This assessment contradicts that of FBI agent Robert Wright, whose written warning prior to 9/11 was ignored.  Wright later stated that:  “September the 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI’s International Terrorism Unit. No doubt about that.  Absolutely no doubt about that. You can’t know the things I know and not go public.” Agent Wright was prohibited by the U.S. Justice Department from telling all he knew about the pre-9/11 FBI failures.  But he added: “There’s so much more. God, there’s so much more. A lot more.”[62]

Why did the FBI, if it had nothing to hide, go into full-blown cover-up mode immediately after the attacks?  For example, FBI agents confiscated all of the surveillance videos which would have shown what happened at the Pentagon.[63]  The Bureau harassed witnesses in Florida who suggested that the alleged hijackers were not the devout Muslims the official account made them out to be.[64]  In Pennsylvania, FBI agents took control of the United 93 crash site and intentionally ignored eyewitness testimony that contradicted the official account.[65]  At the WTC debris collection site, FBI agents were caught stealing evidence.[66]

The FBI also went to great lengths to avoid cooperating with the Joint Congressional Inquiry.  For example, the Bureau refused to allow the interviewing or deposing of Abdussatar Shaikh, the FBI informant who had lived with alleged hijackers Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi.[67] Through the FBI’s maneuvering, Shaikh was never required to testify.  The FBI also tried to prevent the testimony of Shaikh’s FBI handler, which occurred only secretly at a later date.

The protection of Abdusttar Shaikh by the FBI makes no sense considering that the Bureau encouraged the torture of other suspects, like Hani El-Sayegh.  Reputed al Qaeda associate Abu Zubaydah, who was later found to have nothing to do with al Qaeda, had already been tortured many times to gain information related to 9/11, while Shaikh was allowed to negotiate his entire removal from the 9/11 investigation.[68]

The FBI also failed to cooperate with the 9/11 Commission.  According to author Philip Shenon, the FBI was “as uncooperative with the 9/11 Commission as it had been in the Congressional investigation” and was “painfully slow to meet the Commission’s initial request for documents and interviews.”[69]

The only reasonable explanation for FBI management’s behavior in the decade before 9/11 and in the ensuing investigations is that they were somehow complicit in the attacks. But why would Freeh and the FBI want to support the activities of alleged terrorists?

We know that the accused 19 hijackers could not have accomplished most of what needs explaining about 9/11.  They could not have disabled the U.S. air defenses for two hours, they could not have made the U.S. chain of command fail to respond appropriately, and they could not have caused the destruction of the three tall buildings at the WTC.  However, the myth of al Qaeda was a necessary part of the official account and was able to provide a grain of truth in an otherwise unbelievable story.

In 2006, Freeh joined George Tenet on the board of a company that had been flagged, but never investigated, for 9/11 insider trading.[70]  He also became the personal attorney for Saudi Prince Bandar who, as stated before, was implicated through his wife in financing of the alleged hijackers.  Recently Freeh has been trotted out to pass judgment on the late coach Joe Paterno.  But he is in no position to pass judgment on others.

Under Louis Freeh, the FBI failed miserably at preventing terrorism when preventing terrorism was the FBI’s primary goal.  Moreover, the actions of FBI management suggest that it was facilitating and covering-up acts of terrorism throughout the time that Freeh was the Bureau’s director.  Fifteen examples have been cited here from the time of Freeh’s tenure and three other examples were given from the time just after he left, when it was unclear why he left or what he was doing.  Add to these examples the fact that the FBI took extraordinary measures to hide evidence related to the 9/11 attacks and it becomes abundantly clear that Mr. Freeh should be a prime suspect in any honest investigation.

Notes

[1] Wikipedia page for Robert Wright Jr, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wright,_Jr.

[2] Statement of Louis J. Freeh, Former FBI Director, before the Joint Intelligence Committees, October 8, 2002,http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/100802freeh.pdf

[3] News Release, JUDICIAL WATCH REJOICES AT RESIGNATION OF FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH, May 3, 2001,http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2001/printer_921.shtml

[4] Ibid

[5] Judicial Watch press release, U.S. Supremes Rule in Favor of JW,http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/newsletter/2003/0203b.shtml

[6] Joseph J. Trento, Prelude to Terror: Edwin P. Wilson and the Legacy of America’s Private Intelligence Network, Carroll & Graf, 2005, p 351

[7] Ralph Blumenthal, “Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast,” New York Times, October 28, 1993

[8] Pierre Thomas and Mike Mills, FBI Crime Laboratory Being Probed, The Washington Post, September 14, 1995

[9] See the film A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995, http://www.anoblelie.com/

[10] Stephen Labaton, Man in the Background at the F.B.I. Now Draws Some Unwelcome Attention, The New York Times, May 28, 1995

[11] Geoffrey Fattah, Nichols says bombing was FBI op, Deseret News, February 22, 2007

[12] Peter Dale Scott, Systemic Destabilization in Recent American History: 9/11, the JFK Assassination, and the Oklahoma City Bombing as a Strategy of Tension, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, September, 2012

[13] Alasdair Scott Roberts, The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government, NYU Press, 2008, p 35

[14] April 1995 memo from Jamie Gorelick outlining the “Wall” procedures,http://old.nationalreview.com/document/document_1995_gorelick_memo.pdf

[15] Louis J. Freeh, My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror, MacMillan, 2006

[16] James T. McKenna, Report Cites Obstacles To Witness Interview, Aviation Week and Space Technology, December 15, 1997

[17] Don Van Natta Jr, Prime Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800, The New York Times, August 23, 1996

[18] CNN, FBI: No criminal evidence behind TWA 800 crash, November 18, 1997

[19] Peter Lance, Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI – and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him, Harper Collins Publishers, 2006

[20] Peter Lance, Triple Cross

[21] Patrick Fitzgerald, Testimony before 9/11 Commission, June 16, 2004,http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing12.htm

[22] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, University of California Press, 2007, p 152-160

[23] Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, Simon and Schuster, 2004