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Nick Berg and Zacarias Moussaoui: More Evidence That They Knew Each Other
by Michael P. Wright
December 5, 2004

Ever since his decapitation in Iraq last spring, I have suspected that Nick Berg was a CIA-sponsored infiltrator at the University of Oklahoma, and was the one who bought the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket  from an OU library computer terminal. I believe the CIA set him up to be killed in Iraq, so the secret would die with him. Another very important fact supporting this suspicion came to mind today.

On May 14, 2004, CNN reported that Moussaoui had used Berg's email account and password, when he was in Norman, Oklahoma. Apparently the FBI discovered Berg's information on his computer hard drive when they searched it in the fall of 2001.

Relying on Berg's father, CNN accounted for Berg's information being on Moussaoui's computer by reporting that when Berg was attending the University of Oklahoma, during a bus ride he allowed a stranger to use his email. The stranger, they said, turned out to be one of Moussaoui's associates, and gave him Berg's email account and password.

This story is not credible. Nicholas Berg was enrolled at the University of Oklahoma only for the fall semester of 1999. According to his indictment, Moussaoui did not arrive in Norman, Oklahoma, until February 2001. An FBI affidavit confirms that Moussaoui was using free anonymous hotmail accounts, and therefore did not have the motive to steal anyone's password. See the May 26 and May 28 entries for links to these documents.

Another reason to doubt the story is that wireless connections were very expensive in 1999 and not standard on laptops, yet Berg's father said that the "stranger on the bus" used his son's email. City buses in 1999 were not equipped with the antennas necessary for facilitating wireless connections to the internet.

Here's the important fact I overlooked earlier. Nowhere on Moussaoui's federal indictment is he accused of stealing Berg's password. I know of no other criminal charges against Moussaoui. It appears that he was never charged with this "password theft."

Why not? The most likely answer is that he didn't steal Berg's password. Berg, in the course of conducting his infiltration activity, gave it to Moussaoui voluntarily. To have charged Moussaoui with this crime would have meant obligating Berg to commit perjury and expose him to cross-examination. I don't think the spooks wanted to go that far. Too many dirty secrets implicating David Boren, George Tenet, and David Edger could have come out.

According to CNN, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) was on a terrorist watch list because of suspicion arising from reported associations and financial support for Muslim charities with terrorist connections. This was recently used by U.S. authorities as a reason for obstructing Islam's entry into the country.

By these criteria, then David Boren also ought to be on a watch list. Boren, now president of the University of Oklahoma, as a U.S. Senator chaired the Intelligence Committee for seven years. He is widely known as the mentor and sponsor of now repudiated former CIA boss George Tenet.

In 2002, at OU Boren hosted Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, ambassador to the United States for Saudi Arabia. Prince Bandar addressed a dinner audience at 7 p.m. in the OU student union.

Boren was there to glow in the Prince's limelight and moderate the question-and- answer session between the ambassador and audience members. I do not know how large an honorarium in OU funds was paid to Boren's good friend the Prince. Tenet and CIA agent David Edger were also present for the events. This was reported by the OU student newspaper.

Members of the Saudi royal family appear to have rather peculiar notions of noblesse oblige. The Washington Post reports that Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of Prince Bandar, has provided "charitable support" to Osama Bassnan, described by the FBI as "an extremist and [an Osama] bin Laden supporter." Bassnan also befriended 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.

Why isn't Boren on a terrorist watch list? See my website for more reasons to be suspicious about Boren.

Below is a new Freedom of Information Act request I sent to the FBI. Readers are encouraged to see their reply to the first request, made in 2002. Recordings of telephone communications with KOCO-TV personnel can be accessed with the control panel beneath the May 18 column.

September 11, 2004

Freedom on Information Act Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20535

Dear FBI Officials:

In the fall of 2001, a librarian at the University of Oklahoma library informed me that she was present when an FBI agent conducted an interview of library personnel in order to identify an employee of that facility who purchased an airline ticket for a 9/11 hijacker from a computer terminal there. She told me that he was not a hijacker. He was a white American male and he knew he was assisting the hijackers.

She said the ticket was for United Airlines flight 93. It is an interesting coincidence that the Moussaoui indictment reports the incidents of ticket-purchasing for only 14 of the 19 hijackers. For United 93 it only reports one of four.

Three different people have confirmed to me that they saw a TV news broadcast reporting this event by KOCO-TV of Oklahoma City. In October 2003 I called KOCO and requested a copy of the videocassette of this broadcast. An employee at the news desk named Melissa confirmed to me that the station had made the broadcast. She then told me that I would have to speak to the reporter, Terri Watkins, in order to purchase a videocassette.

I left a message on Watkins’ voice mail and requested it. To my surprise she returned the call with a message on my answering machine and denied that the station had reported this event. I am quite confident that this was a lie and a cover-up.

In October 2002 I assisted Bill Crozier in preparing an FOI request to the FBI and asked for more details about this event. The FOI request letter was dated October 15 and used this language:

Under the Freedom of Information Act I request information about a report I heard involving purchase of airline tickets for the 9/11 terrorist hijacking from the public computer terminals in the University of Oklahoma library. My information is that tickets from the terrorists who seized the aircraft and crashed it in Pennsylvania were purchased by a terrorist collaborator operating in the OU library.

The letter additionally asked for the identity of the ticket purchaser, and whether he had been arrested. The FBI’s answer to this is enclosed.

My questions are:

For the five tickets not reported in the Moussaoui indictment, where and for whom were each purchased and why was this information originally suppressed?

It has now been 21 months since the FBI informed Crozier that the material he requested "is located in an investigative file which pertains to a pending investigation." Is that investigation complete? Will you now release the name of the person who bought the 9/11 hijacker’s airline ticket from an OU library terminal and inform me about whether he was ever arrested?

What information does the FBI possess about the decision by KOCO-TV to suppress its report about the ticket-purchasing incident?

I intend to copy this request to reporters, associated with several prominent news organizations, who have expressed interest in these questions. I shall also share your reply with them.

Sincerely,

Michael P. Wright
Norman, Oklahoma

Below the May 18 column there is a control panel which activates voice recordings of two women employed by Oklahoma City's KOCO-TV. One of them confirms that the station broadcast the fact that a 9/11 hijacker's ticket was bought from a University of Oklahoma library computer terminal. The other denies it. The truth is that the station did make such a report.

Now another ABC affiliate has joined KOCO in making a 9/11 story disappear. In early August, by email I received a link to an article posted by WCPO TV in Cincinnati. The date was 9/11/01, and it contained the extraordinary statement that United Flight 93 landed in Cleveland that morning because of a bomb scare. This was startling, since all major news organizations had reported that the flight was hijacked in mid-air and crashed in Pennsylvania.

Following my question, sent by email, about whether this article was a mistake, WCPO decided to yank it from the internet instead of answering me. Fortunately I was able to locate the Google cache of the article, in order to preserve the information for this column.

Here is the current WCPO website, which says that the story (without revealing its contents) was "factually incorrect" and has been removed. It also attributes the report to a "preliminary AP story." The original WCPO post did not say that AP was the source.

At the very least, we have a serious issue of journalistic ethics. Imagine the example of a conventional hard-copy newspaper. If an erroneous report is brought to their attention, then we expect them to publish an apology and correction.

Now, suppose they went around to all the libraries and tried to yank and burn all copies of the issue with the mistake. This would be considered outrageous. By analogy, that is exactly what WCPO in Cincinnati has done. They have made disappear a record of (what they are now calling) a mistake they broadcast and published online.

More than likely, the original story they posted on 9/11/01 was an error arising from that day's atmosphere of panic. Other news reports state that it was a Delta jet which landed in Cleveland that morning, due to a bomb scare; nonetheless, making the WCPO record vanish from history was done on purpose. The unscrupulous conduct they exhibit is another example of the decline of American journalism.

Scroll down to the control panel beneath the May 18 column and hear the recordings of telephone communications with Oklahoma City KOCO TV news personnel. The recordings confirm that the station broadcast the fact that a 9/11 hijacker's ticket was purchased from a University of Oklahoma computer terminal. They also confirm that the station later chose to deny having made this broadcast. In doing so, they are concealing knowledge of a serious crime: treason.

The ticket was not purchased by a hijacker, but by a white American male, who has not been arrested. FBI agents visiting the OU library were able to gain cooperation in identifying him and confirming that he was an OU employee. I have voiced the suspicion that the ticket purchaser was infiltrating Al Qaeda under the CIA's instructions and participating in an attempted sting operation.

I brought this to the attention of the 9/11 Commission last fall, but they chose to ignore it. They have issued their report, which is a whitewash, placing blame on no one in particular, in spite of the fact that earlier their Chairman Thomas Keen said the attack was preventable.

Now that the 9/11 Commission has issued their whitewash, what are truth-seekers to do?

I encourage a grass roots demand for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the hijacker's ticket purchase at OU and all the people involved in it. He also needs to expose the cover-up completely. Of course, this would start with KOCO TV news. His first step would be to question Terri Watkins, the reporter who made the broadcast and then lied and said she didn't, and find out who ordered the lie.

The truth will unravel from there.

This is the story which emerges from observing the facts presented in today's AP story, appearing in The Oklahoman, page 13A.

A convicted felon, desperate to reduce his sentence, makes a deal with federal prosecutors to try to go out and find a couple of Arab suckers and entrap them into coming up with some money to buy a grenade-launcher.

The fink finds a couple of prospects in a Mosque in Albany and makes up a story that the weapon will be used to kill the Pakistani Ambassador to punish that country for cooperating with non-Muslims.

The fink comes back to the feds and tells them exactly what they want to hear -- that the two targeted Muslims agreed to help out. The two Muslims are arrested.

I have no reason to believe that the suspects actually did what the fink is saying. The fink has a powerful motive to lie in order to please the feds for the reward of a sentence reduction.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey described the two suspects as "potentially" dangerous and said the sting operation "was meant to send a message to terrorists." There is no claim of any actual plot to assassinate anyone.

One reason making this story is interesting is that it calls attention to the fact that stings are a common tactic used in espionage and law enforcement. I have argued that the 9/11 attack was enabled by David Boren and the now discredited George Tenet as a consequence of their effort to conduct a sting operation against Al Qaeda. Boren and Tenet stumbled all over themselves, and it blew back in their faces. See my website and earlier columns here for details.

There are three interesting news items about the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report criticizing the CIA and former director George Tenet. Unfortunately, providing links has become problematic because so many newspapers have opted for requiring online registration and allow unrestricted access to breaking news only for a limited amount of time. 

An AP story, temporarily available at Yahoo on July 10, says that the Senate report "repeatedly blasts departing CIA Director Tenet, accusing him of skewing advice to top policy-makers with the CIA's view and elbowing out dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the State or Defense departments." The article does not mention his close relationship to his mentor David Boren, former U.S. Senator and now president of the University of Oklahoma.

The Senate report makes clear that the CIA was adjusting its prewar communications to satisfy the Bush political agenda. What needs to be emphasized is that in 1991, as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Boren did a big favor for the senior Bush by pushing through the confirmation of his nominee Robert Gates as CIA director. During the 80s, Gates had been instrumental in corrupting the CIA analytical division by turning it into a chorus of political stooges willing to echo Reagan's "evil empire" crusade against the Soviet Union. That story is told by former AP correspondent Robert Parry. What we are witnessing today is the legacy of the Boren-Tenet solidification of the CIA's earlier corruption initiated by Gates.

Boren has a long history of using his influence over government agencies to install crony networks composed of his friends and loyalists. This is documented by a 1978 Oklahoma legislative audit exposing this kind of conduct when he was governor. It was reported by The Oklahoma Journal on January 26, 1979, and is available at the archives of the Oklahoma Historical Society museum near the Capitol. I suspect Boren has polluted the intelligence community in the same fashion. He has certainly continued with this kind of behavior by maximizing opportunities provided by his reign as OU boss.

Evidence at my website from two sources indicates that Tenet himself had no background in intelligence when Boren made him chief of staff of the Intelligence Committee in 1987.

Another AP story at Yahoo says that the current report's "across-the-board criticism of the CIA could indicate that any nominee from within the intelligence community would have a tough time winning confirmation by the Senate." Maybe some of the Senators share my suspicion.

Finally, there is an LA Times article at Yahoo which reports that Tenet is telling CIA employees to resist unnecessary and unwanted changes. He appears to be addressing the Boren crony network when he says: "This institution is your own. We who serve as your leaders are stewards for limited periods of time."

If I am correct, then Tenet is indicating his desire for the Boren crony network to defend itself and carry on in the tradition established by his mentor.

Note: Yahoo news articles have a temporary shelf life and the links in this column will no longer function after the online items expire. Readers are encouraged to print this column out and mail it to Senators on the Intelligence Committee.

The FBI searched Zacarias Moussaoui's computer after the 9/11 attack and found Nick Berg's email account and password on it. When interviewed by them, Berg reportedly explained that when he was a student at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 1999, he allowed a stranger on a bus ride to use his email. The stranger turned out to be an associate of Moussaoui, we are told, and gave him Berg's password and email account name. This was reported by CNN and other news organizations.

There are several big reasons to be extremely skeptical about this story and to wonder what kind of fools the FBI agents were who bought it. One glaring fact is that, according to his indictment, Moussaoui did not show up in the United States until February of 2001.

Conceivably the stranger on the bus was already an associate of Moussaoui in the fall of 1999, but isn't that kind of a reach? The indictment states that Moussaoui was doing a lot of world traveling in the late 90s. He was present at an Al-Qaeda training camp in 1998 and was in Pakistan in 2000. He didn't start to get interested in Norman until he contacted the Airman Flight School in September 2000. He didn't use Nick Berg's email account for that. He used one he set up that month with an internet service provider in Malaysia.

A year and a half elapsed from the time of the reported bus ride until Moussaoui's arrival in Norman, the home of OU. If the stranger did not know Moussaoui in 1999, did he retain Berg's information for 18 months while just hoping that some time he would be able to share it with a terrorist?

We wonder if FBI agents ever research their own files in the organization. Just for fun, readers, try a Google search with these terms, without quotes: moussaoui fbi computer email.

The second hit on the list is going to be this FBI court document, which is all about Moussaoui's computer accounts ! Would an FBI agent not be bright enough to conduct this simple search, in the process of evaluating Berg's story?

From the FBI document we see that Moussaoui, like anyone else, was able to obtain free anonymous Hotmail accounts. Why would he need to snatch Nick Berg's password for purposes of sending email?

It seems unlikely that Berg's email account and password were on Moussaoui's computer because he needed to steal one for his own communication purposes with his Al Qaeda cell members. An alternative hypothesis is that Berg actually was a friendly associate with Moussaoui, but did not want to admit this to his father when he discussed the FBI interview with him. CNN had relied on Berg's father for their report. This is not to suggest that Berg was a terrorist. More than likely, he had been working very covertly under the CIA's direction to infiltrate Al Qaeda during his period of residence in Norman, which extended into 2001. Giving the FBI the benefit of the doubt and exempting them from the judgment of incompetence, it is possible that Berg was able to mobilize his CIA supervisors to influence the FBI agents to clear him of suspicion.

On this date, the New York Times published an article by James Dao under the headline: Tracing a Civilian's Path to Gruesome Fate in Iraq. Dao described Nick Berg's life and travels from his college years until his untimely demise in Iraq.

Dao's work was not altogether accurate. He reported that Berg quit his studies at the University of Oklahoma in 2000. Following this, Dao writes that "for more than a year" Berg "wandered across Oklahoma and Texas working as a freelance contractor replacing lights, painting girders, and fixing cables."

Now we've heard the New York Times' fiction. What is the truth? It is true that Berg's last and only semester at OU was the fall of 1999. This is confirmed by the official OU record obtained and displayed here earlier in May.

We have also displayed other records demonstrating some of Berg's activities in 2000. The Norman city court record reveals that he was arrested for trespassing in April and May of that year. The 2000-2001 OU personnel directory confirms that Berg was working for the university's Lloyd Noble Center during that period.

We don't know what he was doing for the entire twelve months, but it is an error to say that he spent the whole year wandering across Oklahoma and Texas. It exposes sloppiness by the New York Times and perhaps susceptibility to manipulation by press officers of OU, who would like to keep the lid on the true Berg story. Perhaps Berg did conduct some successful endeavors as a contractor during 2000. This would only make one more suspicious in regard to the question of whether his appearance as a vagrant during the spring was an honest expression of his circumstances or a facade.

Readers are invited to take a close look at Nick Berg's Norman city court record, which I obtained on May 18. There are some strange paradoxes in it.

First, observe that there were two arrests for trespassing, and two columns with dates. On the left are the dates for the arrests, and on the right are the dates of consequent court actions. For the arrest of 5/28/00, we see the symbol BF, meaning that Berg forfeited bond in the amount of $162. He did not make a court appearance. The bond forfeiture amounted to a guilty plea, and a conviction went on the record.

Earlier, he had been arrested on 4/11/00. After this we see the symbol DISM CO, which means dismissal complied. We also see the date of 11/21/00 for the court action. The clerk explained this. It meant that on 5/21/00, six months earlier, Berg appeared in court and received a deferred sentence. He was told that the complaint would be dismissed six months later if he committed no other offenses within that time interval. As the record demonstrates, it was dismissed.

The paradox in this record is that he violated the terms of this deferred sentence by being arrested seven days later but enjoyed obtaining a dismissal in November in spite of this. The clerk stated that this was done at the city attorney's discretion.

How do we account for this? Now we must move from fact to informed speculation. It looks like the city attorney did a favor for Berg. In my column of 5/18/04, I state the suspicion that Berg was a CIA operative and infiltrator taking instructions from David Boren, George Tenet, and David Edger. Boren is a powerful political patriarch in Oklahoma. It would be a trivial matter for Boren to ask a little favor from the city attorney, in order to help out one of his operatives.

Take another look at the record. Notice that for both arrests, financial sums in the amount of $162 were assessed against Berg. Why did he have to pay this amount for the charge which was dismissed? The clerk explained that for this charge, the sum was a fee instead of a fine. The amount was $100. Additionally he had to pay $32 for court costs and $30 for time spent in jail. For the conviction, the $100 went on the record as a fine.

I had never heard of anything like this before, and it strikes me as a questionable and extraordinary arrangement. I suspect a little horse-trading went on behind the scenes. The city attorney, in the process of granting the favor of dismissing the complaint, simultaneously and paradoxically came up with a way to snatch a little money from Berg for the court. He was sneaking in the back door. In Oklahoma, that's the way good ol boys "do bi'ness."

Today from the Norman city court clerk I obtained a document confirming that Nicholas E. Berg, who reportedly was decapitated by militants in Iraq, was arrested twice for trespassing on the University of Oklahoma campus during the spring of 2000. Earlier, OU police had reported that he had been sleeping on couches around the campus. He appeared to be living as a vagrant during that period. The OUPD actually contacted him six times.

Today I gave the arrest record to the editor of The Norman Transcript.

Friday, I ascertained that Berg had been an OU employee during academic year 2000-2001. The OU personnel directory for that year listed him as a facilities attendant at the Lloyd Noble arena.

The thought crosses one's mind that Berg might have been the one who bought the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket from the OU library computer terminal. I have not been able to ascertain whether he was ever an OU library employee. Most likely, he would have been a temp.

Still, there are things about Berg's story which don't add up. Are we to believe that someone would really voluntarily surrender his email password to a stranger he met on the bus? This is apparently the story which Berg told the FBI to account for the fact that the password and Berg's email address were on Moussaoui's computer when they searched it, after 9/11.

If Berg was the one who bought the ticket, then appearing to be a vagrant would have been a way to gain the trust of Al Qaeda, for infiltration purposes. They would be likely to trust someone who appeared to be a misfit and alienated from mainstream American society. Also, it has been reported that Berg had been in possession of anti-Semitic literature. That would be another tactic for gaining the trust of Al Qaeda.

How does a one who was a vagrant in spring 2000 make the transition to independent businessman in Iraq, doing telecommunications work, in 2004? Maybe with the help of funds paid by the CIA to its operatives?

If he bought the plane ticket, then the CIA had a good reason to set him up to be snuffed: dead men tell no tales. The execution also served the propaganda purpose of taking the focus of off American mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Three different people have told me of watching a Channel 5 TV news broadcast reporting the event of the hijacker's ticket purchase from the OU library. During an October 2003 phone conversation, a Channel 5 employee at the news desk confirmed this, but reporter Terri Watkins later denied it. These communications were recorded, and readers can hear them by clicking on the play button below.

© Michael Wright

See my website for the details about the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket purchase from the OU library.

University of Oklahoma Newspaper Gives Misleading Information about Berg
by Michael P. Wright
Norman, Oklahoma
5/20/04

The Oklahoma Daily misinformed its readers about Nicholas Berg in its issue of May 19, 2004. The Daily reported that Berg was "listed for trespassing in the union on April 12, 2000." Norman city court records confirm that Berg was arrested twice for trespassing in April and May of that year. The Daily did not report both arrests.

More importantly, the Daily gave the false impression that Berg was an OU student at the time of the arrest. They quoted Danny Akins, a former co-worker with Berg at the Lloyd Noble Center, who said that "Berg often lacked a home because of OU housing problems."

The truth is that Berg was not an OU student in the spring of 2000. This fact makes the reference to "OU housing problems" irrelevant. I have obtained a document from OU Records officer Richard Skeel, who said that Berg was an OU student during the fall 1999 semester, and was not enrolled in any prior or subsequent terms.

When he was being arrested, Berg was either a vagrant or he had chosen to give the appearance of being one. OU directory information confirms that in the fall of 2000, he was employed as a facilities attendant at Lloyd Noble Center. The comments from Akins suggest that he was also working there in the spring of that year.

The Oklahoma Daily, in its bungling amateurish sort of way, has inadvertently helped expose the likelihood that Nick Berg was a liar. From whom would one expect Akins to get the idea that Berg was a student having "problems" with OU housing, in the spring of 2000, except from Berg himself? The letter from the OU Records office confirms that Berg was not a student at that time.

Deception of course is the very nature of the infiltration business.

Did the CIA Have Berg Snuffed?
His Father Said U.S. Caused Son's Death Indirectly
by Michael P. Wright
Norman, Oklahoma
5/23/04

In the May 18 column, I speculated that Nick Berg, while at the University of Oklahoma, might have been the one who bought the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket from the OU library computer terminal, while infiltrating Al Qaeda under CIA direction. In that event, I said that the CIA would have a motive to set him up to be killed in Iraq because of their desire to ensure that he never disclosed this incident.

An interesting quotation by Berg's father came to my attention today. The Boston Herald writes: Berg's family said U.S. officials deserved part of the blame because their son was wrongly jailed for 11 days in Mosul as violence worsened there. If Berg had not been detained, he may have evaded the unrest, they said. "They caused his death indirectly by detaining him," Berg's father Michael told reporters at his West Chester, Pa., home.

Were the jailers instructed to put the "adventurous" Berg out on the street at a time when violence mixed with anti-occupation sentiment were known to be peaking? The New York Times also reports that Berg's father has complained that U.S. officials did not do enough to protect his son. The article mentions "accusations that the actions of the military in Iraq exposed their son to worsening danger."

At my 9/11 website, I report that the person who purchased the hijacker's ticket was a white American male. A pretense of being a neo-Nazi sharing Al Qaeda's hatred for Jews and Israel would serve as a plausible strategy for infiltrating the terrorist organization.

In its online edition of May 17, 2004, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that U.S. officials told them that Berg was seen to be in possession of a copy of the Koran and what they called "anti-Semitic" literature. A link to this article is not feasible since the publication requires online viewers to register.

By the way, I do not contend with those who argue that the beheading video was a hoax. It is quite possible that the CIA had him killed by conventional means and then orchestrated the video as a means of presenting the American audience with an "atrocity" in order to deflect attention from the prison abuse scandal.

[Note: In case the links are taken down, the online New York Times article was dated May 13, 2004, and the Boston Herald article was May 12, 2004]

CIA boss George Tenet lied to the 9/11 Commission during his April 14 testimony.

The AP reported that on that day Tenet appeared before the Commission and testified that he did not speak with President Bush in August 2001. On August 6 of that year, the CIA's report led the President to believe that if any hijackings of aircraft took place, the hijackers would land the planes, make demands, and then negotiate for release of the hostages. Obviously, this expectation was an incredible blunder, and Tenet had every interest in distancing himself from responsibility for it.

Why isn't Tenet in jail for perjury?

The next day, the news came out that the CIA disclosed that Tenet personally briefed the President in August 2001. This was reported by AFP news of France. Tenet's lie is also exposed by this White House memo of August 25, 2001. While he was conducting a tour of his Texas ranch, Bush mentioned Tenet's visit there the day before.

This is not to excuse or defend Bush, but it is clear that in 2001, he was leaving matters of national security and defense against terrorists in the hands of George Tenet, who was given all the room he needed to operate without close supervision from the commander-in-chief. On April 11, 2004, Bush insisted that in August 2001 he was satisfied that federal agents were on top of the terrorist threat.

One can fault Bush for poor judgment in allowing his old Skull and Bones pal, Oklahoma's former Senator David Boren, to talk him into keeping Tenet as CIA director in January 2001, but primary responsibility for the failure to obstruct the 9/11 attack before it happened lies in the hands of Tenet and his mentor Boren. CIA agent David Edger is also part of this gang. Earlier the chief of surveillance over the Hamburg cell of Al Qaeda, Edger was summoned to Norman by Boren in the summer of 2001, ostensibly to take a visiting professor post. Edger, who was in Chile in 1973 when Allende was being overthrown, is a specialist in infiltration and covert action. USA Today has reported that the CIA was infiltrating Al Qaeda cells.

What kind of strange brew were the three spooks cooking up? Why is Tenet so anxious? What was driving him to lie before the 9/11 Commission ? Why does he want to distance himself from responsibility for the August 6 report? Why did he have his mind set on the naive expectation that hijackers would land the aircraft for hostage negotiation?

Readers are invited to see my website for answers, details, many links, and references. Don't miss the Channel 5 recording.

UPDATE -- The Erroneous August 6 Memo Explains Why NORAD Was Slow
4/26/04

Philip Shenon of The New York Times reported on April 25, 2004, that the 9/11 Commission is expected to offer "sharp criticism" of the Pentagon's domestic air defense command (NORAD) in the panel's final report. The Commission suggests that quicker military action might have prevented the crash of a hijacked passenger jet into the Pentagon during the 9/11 attack.

The Commission seems to be forgetting the most important part of the contents of the August 6 CIA briefing, which was finally disclosed by the President in April 2004. The briefing, for which CIA boss Tenet would like to deny responsibility, embraced the expectation that any hijacked aircraft would be landed for a negotiation over hostages instead of crashed into buildings. With that erroneous information circulating in the intelligence community, why is anyone surprised that NORAD was slow to respond with military aircraft that morning?

Assessing the Alleged Terrorist Photographer of 2001
4/29/04

Some members of the 9/11 truth movement are making much ado about an article which appeared in the New York Post in July 2001 and which reported that the feds in that city let a suspected terrorist slip through their hands after he was caught taking photos of federal buildings in lower Manhattan. The article was also summarized by The Village Voice. This is being taken as another "smoking gun" demonstrating that Bush and his gang are liars and should be blamed for 9/11.

I do not support Bush, but this kind of thinking seems to be far too tainted with partisanship and the goal of electing Kerry. An effective 9/11 truth movement has to be non-partisan and leave no stone unturned in the search for dishonest and corrupt official behavior. Is this type of "truth-seeker" willing to admit that some Democrats might be culpable too?

The kind of photos being taken by the suspected terrorist indicates a plan for a bombing done like the one at the WTC in 1993 -- not suicide crashes of airliners. Suicide bombers don't need to know where the security cameras are for that. The other possibility is that the terrorists were taking these photos as a decoy to throw U.S. intelligence off guard.

Some of the activists have accused Bush and Rice of lying under oath about questions of judgment involving their response to the August 6, 2001 report. Poor judgment it was, but it would be very difficult to nail them for perjury for making statements about what their assessments were regarding the significance of the report.

As shown by evidence available in the top item at this webpage, Tenet lied under oath. That's a clear and simple fact. The question of his motive is a matter of judgment. I believe it was to distance himself from responsibility for the erroneous August 6 report.

The August 6 report demonstrates that Tenet assumed that any hijacked aircraft would be landed for negotiations over hostages instead of crashed into buildings. Why was he clinging to this illusion?

Those who want the truth need to leave partisan concerns on the back burner and put the harsh spotlight on David Boren, George Tenet, and David Edger. In 2001, they were the inner circle of U.S. intelligence.

Skull & Bones Society Must Return Geronimo's Skull
5/5/04

Question: What do John Kerry, George W. Bush, and David Boren all have in common?

Answer: They are all three members of Skull and Bones, the Yale "secret society" which was recently the subject of research and publication by journalist Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb. The members of the organization, she discloses, believe that the ancient Greek goddess Eulogia came to inhabit their "tomb" in 1832. Over the years they have engaged in such vicious pranks as grave-robbing in order to present Eulogia with "tributes."

One of the thefts was conducted in 1918 by Prescott Bush, the President's grandfather. When he was an officer at Ft. Sill, he robbed Geronimo's grave and plundered it for the skull, which he brought to the Bonesmen's clubhouse in New Haven. She describes an unsuccessful effort by an Apache official to arrange its return.

Kerry, Bush, and Boren should all be confronted with demands that the skull be returned. Boren, in particular, represents himself as a great admirer of American Indians. His hypocrisy is disgusting.

Another issue is that, by accepting Eulogia as a goddess, the organization has identified itself as essentially pagan. Roman Catholics should be demanding that Kerry either renounce Skull and Bones or be ex-communicated. One should not be allowed to have it both ways.

Although nominally a Methodist, Boren's pagan leanings come out in other, more subtle ways. There's a fellow here in Norman, Elmer Z. Million, who likes to say that Boren wakes up in a different fantasy world every day. One of his favorites is being a Roman emperor.

Boren has built several new Roman fountains on the University of Oklahoma campus since he showed up there to be boss in 1994. One of them is on the large grass oval south of the main library. It was paid for by a wealthy alumnus named Pitman.

This is what the chiseled inscription says: Huc veni hospes ad lymphas fontis Pitmani ubi discipuli se ex laboribus studiorum reficiunt.

Translation: Here I have come as a guest to the water of the Pitman fountain where students restore themselves after the labor of studies.

The important thing here is that the word lympha is used for water, instead of the more common aqua. Lympha designates healing water. Further, Lympha was the name of a rural goddess. Adding two and two, this suggests that Boren wants us to believe the water has divine, magical qualities.