Lieberman Helps Boren's Myth-Making

Lieberman also assisted his pal Boren by repeating some of the mythological claims Boren likes to make about OU's "excellence" under his administration. The Daily reported: "He praised the university for its research to protect people from bioterrorism. OU ranks first in the Big 12 in the growth of research funding."

This claim stands in stark contrast to the reality published in 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education .³ In a table listing the top 100 institutions for federal research and development expenditures, OU was ranked number 97 for 2001. Further, OU's funding shrank by .5% from the year before, whereas the average for the group grew by 9.4%. Six other Big 12 schools were ranked above OU. Boren has a superb talent for enlisting others to repeat his misleading statements.

Did Boren Influence Lieberman's Contradictory Behavior?

On July 16, candidate Lieberman was grabbing headlines by calling for Tenet's resignation because he misled the President about the uranium issue. Bush had used the uranium story to persuade Congress to support his war plans against Iraq. A fair inference from this would be that Lieberman was indignant about having been misled.

The same Joe Lieberman was once again in the news on July 24, but was talking in a fashion very inconsistent with his statement of July 16. Appearing on CNBC's Capital Report, he was asked if he was misled before the vote on Iraq. His answer: "No, I don't believe I was misled." He added that he believed the adventure in Iraq was a "just war." ⁴ Did friend Boren have a little talk with pal Joe about this? Was Lieberman not showing sufficient gratitude for the fact that his sister and her husband were on the OU payroll?

Background Information: the Failure of CIA Boss George Tenet

(This material was posted in the summer of 2002.)

In mid-May 2002, the American people received startling news about the government's failure to act on various warning signals indicating that a terrorist attack such as the 9/11 catastrophe was imminent.^5,6 As we ponder these reports, there are two important conclusions which must be brought into focus:

1. the responsibility for the nation's failure to predict and prevent the 9/11 terrorists attacks rests mainly with CIA Director George Tenet; and

2. George Tenet was launched on the career path leading to his CIA directorship by Oklahoma's former U.S. Senator David Boren, described by Time as Tenet's mentor; before his surprise resignation from his powerful Senate seat in 1994, Boren, a presidential aspirant, had been chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

On June 3, 2002, the Associated Press reported that the CIA first learned about two of the individuals who later became 9/11 hijackers because they had attended a meeting in Malaysia in early 2000.

These were Khalid Almihdar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The agency did not alert domestic authorities to watch for them until three weeks before the attacks. By then, they were already in the USA. In response to this news, Senator Richard Shelby, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said CIA Director George Tenet "is in denial." He added: "But I believe he is totally wrong."

Reuters reported on June 3 that the CIA knew that one of the terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi, had attended the Malaysia meeting, which was a secret planning session of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida. Agents also discovered that another of the men, Khalid Almihdhar, had already obtained a multiple-entry visa that allowed him to enter and leave the United States at will. The story was originally broken by Newsweek, which said that the CIA did nothing with the information. It neither notified the FBI, which could have tracked the two men, nor the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which could have turned them away at the border.

On June 4, USA Today and other sources reported that the CIA had agents inside al-Qaeda who knew the following before the 9/11 attack:

1. al-Qaeda intended to launch attacks inflicting heavy casualties upon Americans;

2. the terrorists had in mind suicide bombings, plots to fly planes into buildings, and strikes against the Pentagon and World Trade Center;

3. the terrorists were looking forward to September 11 as "a great day for us."

Boren's sponsorship of Tenet has been described in the discussion of Joe Lieberman. Why would Boren choose to nourish so enthusiastically the career development of a man who has demonstrated serious incompetence in a period when the nation's defense has so heavily depended upon effective intelligence?

Former Rhodes Scholar W. Scott Thompson Outs Boren as Gay

For insight leading to an answer for this question, we must turn to a book entitled The Price of Achievement by openly gay Tufts University Professor W. Scott Thompson.⁷ Thompson was a member of Boren's Rhodes Scholar class at Oxford. He writes:

"I was aware that David [Boren] was gay before I was aware of my own homosexuality, and our scout confirmed it...his homosexuality was never too far from the surface."

In 1993, Queer Nation activist Michael Petrelis began publicly to accuse Boren of sexually harassing his male staff members.⁸ While concealing this from his consituents in Oklahoma, in April 1994 Boren announced his resignation from the Senate and used his political influence to have himself appointed president of the University of Oklahoma.

More Evidence: Queer In America by Michelangelo Signorile

Petrelis believed that Boren was the individual described only as "the Legislator" in Michelangelo Signorile's book Queer In America. ⁹ Male staff members employed by the Legislator, a U.S. Senator, had been promised confidence by Signorile after describing episodes of sexual harassment. Responding to an inquiry from The Texas Triangle, Signorile neither confirmed nor denied that Boren was the Legislator guilty of the misconduct.⁸

Based on accounts from victims, Signorile reported that the Legislator invited male staff members to his home when his wife was away, served them alcohol, and made aggressive sexual advances. One staff member, given the pseudonym "Keith" by Signorile, was harassed on twelve different occasions before he finally resigned. Although this victim was gay, he was not sexually attracted to the Legislator.

Photo: Authors W. Scott Thompson & Nicholas Thompson

More definite was W. Scott Thompson. With no ambiguity, he wrote that Boren was referred to "implicitly" in Queer In America. With these words, Thompson was hinting strongly that Boren is guilty of sexually harassing male Senate staff members.

Results of More Detailed Investigation

A more detailed account of my investigation into these matters is available here. I was able to determine that David Boren was the only U.S. Senator or former Senator whose biography matched the information given by Signorile for "the Legislator." Of the Legislator, Signorile writes:

"Almost all the men who work for the Legislator are handsome and appealing, and Keith feels that the Legislator hires them on that basis, perhaps for the possibility of having sex with them."

At this time, Congressional investigators, media organizations, and American citizens should be asking these questions: was Boren being favorable to Tenet in 1987 in pursuit of "the possibility of having sex" with him? How many other important positions in the intelligence community might have been influenced by this corrupt selection criterion?

Tenet Declares His "Affection" for Boren

When he was sworn in as CIA director in 1997, Tenet used the occasion to thank some very "special" people, including Boren, whom he described as "my friend and mentor for whom I have the highest personal regard and affection and without whom I would not be here today." His remarks are posted at the CIA website.

Why Tenet Must Be Held Accountable

On May 17 it was reported that on August 6, 2001, President Bush received a CIA briefing, approved by Tenet, and indicating that bin Laden was interested in hijacking aircraft.

National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice stated that the briefing "mentioned hijacking" but led to the expectation that the terrorists would "take over an airliner holding passengers and demand the release of one of their operatives." On May 19, Vice-President Cheney told NBC News that there was nothing in the August 6 memo which amounted to "actionable intelligence." He added that the information was only that "Al-Qaida has a desire to strike us and one possibility is they might hijack an aircraft." The report did not prepare the President for the possibility of using American aircraft as suicide bombers to destroy buildings and kill thousands of people in the U.S.

In addition to the information surfacing on June 3 and June 4, the failure on the part of the CIA is inexcusable, for these reasons:

1. It was publicly known as early as December 2000 that suicide airplane crashes were within the reportoire of terror tactics. An AP story distributed on 12/30/2000 reported a 27-year-old Kenyan having forced his way into the cockpit of a British Airways jet with the intention of seizing control of the plane and crashing it.¹⁰ Fortunately, he was physically overwhelmed and the aircraft was saved. The news article reported his motive to be suicide, but obviously he simultaneously intended to kill everyone on board.

2. On May 17, 2002, the Associated Press described a 1999 federal report warning the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government buildings. The report, entitled Sociology-Psychology of Terrorism, was prepared for the National Intelligence Council and shared with other federal agencies. The report noted that a terrorist associated with Al-Qaeda and convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had suggested such a suicide jetliner mission. It was the duty of CIA boss George Tenet to deal with this.

3. The FBI knew for several years before Sept. 11 that al-Qaeda was training pilots in flight schools in the United States and elsewhere around the world, according to court records and interviews at flight schools and with federal law enforcement officials. ¹¹

4. Five months before Sept. 11, the Federal Aviation Administration warned airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up a U.S. plane and that carriers should "demonstrate a high degree of alertness." ¹²

5. On July 5, 2001, a Phoenix FBI agent warned the main office in Washington that Bin Laden could be sending terrorists to flight schools to use them as pilots on hijacked aircraft. ⁵

Not long after the 9/11 attack, USA Today ran a feature article summarizing various failures of the CIA during the time of Tenet's leadership. Tenet declined to be interviewed for the article, which called attention to the fact that his "mentor" Boren had urged Bush to keep him as CIA director after taking office in 2001. USA Today also described Boren as "Tenet's patron as he rose to the top of the intelligence community."

Le Figaro Says CIA Let Bin Laden Slip Away in July 2001

According to The Guardian of London, it was reported by Le Figaro that two months before the attack bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days of treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent. The Guardian continued:

Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.

The CIA chief was seen in the lift, on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards.

According to Rohan Gunaratna, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in Scotland, Al Qaeda had a cell there in 2001. The United Arab Emirates was a major center for the terror network's financial operations. ¹³

Bob Woodward on the Boren-Tenet Breakfast

Writing in the Washington Post, Dan Balz and Bob Woodward provide an interesting account of the disruption of Boren's leisurely breakfast with Tenet on 9/11:

Tenet was at breakfast with his old friend and mentor, former senator David Boren . . .

Through much of the summer, Tenet had grown increasingly troubled by the prospect of a major terrorist attack against the United States. There was too much chatter in the intelligence system and repeated reports of threats were costing him sleep. His friends thought he had become obsessed. Everywhere he went, the message was the same: Something big is coming. But for all his fears, intelligence officials could never pinpoint when or where an attack might hit.

"This has bin Laden all over it," Tenet said to Boren. "I've got to go."

He had another reaction in the first few minutes, one that raised the possibility that the FBI and the CIA had not done all that they could to prevent the terrorist attacks from taking place.

"I wonder," Tenet was overheard to say, "if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training." He was referring to Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been detained in August after attracting suspicion when he sought training at a Minnesota flight school.

Moussaoui's case was very much on Tenet's mind. The previous month, the FBI had asked the CIA and the National Security Agency to run phone traces on Moussaoui, already the subject of a five-inch-thick file in the bureau.

Boren and Pals "Not Surprised" by WTC Attack

Boren, always eager to keep himself in the limelight, summoned some of his friends for a public discussion about the "war on terrorism" at the University of Oklahoma on February 25, 2002. Among those in attendance was David Edgar, a CIA officer on leave and in residence at OU. According to The Daily Oklahoman (2/26/2002), Edgar said he was "not surprised" by the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Edgar had earlier been supervisor of worldwide operations probing terrorism. The Oklahoman continued:

The attacks also didn't surprise OU President David Boren. The former head of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday he and CIA Director George Tenet were not "totally shocked" Sept. 11.

"I thought George was obsessed with Osama bin Laden and terrorism around the world," Boren said.

The two often had talked about the potential for international terrorists to strike in the United States before word [of the attack] came as they shared breakfast on Sept. 11.

In the wake of their failure, they appear to be struggling to preserve the perception of themselves as "insiders" and "experts" in the know. They, in all their puffy wisdom, weren't "surprised" by the attack. Only we naive plebians are to be surprised by such things.

The big question remains: if they are so competent and knowledgeable, why were they not able to prevent the attacks which were "no surprise" to them?

Summer 2003 Update

CIA Agent Edger Admits to Failure

In February 2002 David Edger, a CIA agent and guest professor at OU, was hosted for a speaking engagement by the Norman public library. Up until August 2001, as a CIA agent he had responsibility for surveillance over the Al Qaeda cell in Germany which included some of the 9/11 hijackers. The Norman Transcript reported: ¹⁴

He said although officers knew members of the cell and some of what they were doing, they had no idea that they would meet in London and go to different parts of the U.S., where they would learn to fly planes to crash into the World Trade Center.

"In that case, we failed," Edger said.

Terrorists Are Born That Way

The CIA professor, who was in Chile in 1973 when the CIA was overthrowing the Allende government, appears to have no use for attempts to explain the rise of terrorism with any discussion of errors in American foreign policy or consideration of the possibility that anyone in the rest of the world has any legitimate grievances against the U.S. In his view, terrorism appears to arise from a genetic mutation. "New terrorists are being born every day," he said. ¹⁴ The implications of the comment were in stark contrast with the subject of the discussion chosen by his library hosts: "Why Do They Hate Us? The Roots of Terrorism."

In the months following the 9/11 attack, I attended a small discussion on the OU campus led by the distinguished Professor Edger. I asked him what he knew about the Le Figaro report of Bin Laden's July 2001 presence in the American hospital in Dubais. A scowl emerged on his face as he replied, "Never heard of it." He added: "That doesn't mean it didn't happen." Then he disposed of the matter by quickly pointing to the next questioner. The others in attendance were all obedient students not willing to risk offending the master. None asked any uncomfortable questions.

There Was a 9/11 Terror Cell in Oklahoma

During 2001 Zacarias Moussaoui was an Al Qaeda operative in Norman and also spent time on the University of Oklahoma campus. He wasn't the only one. Rohan Gunaratna recognized that there was an Al-Qaeda cell in the state, when he reported that 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Al Hazmi was in Oklahoma "to consult with his cell colleagues on April 1, 2001." ¹⁵ Other evidence discussed in this document indicates that the cell was centered in Norman and on the OU campus.

Al Hazmi was also in Oklahoma on April 11, 2001. On that day he was given a speeding ticket while traveling east on I-40. He was in Washita county in western Oklahoma driving toward Oklahoma City, which is 20 miles north of Norman. A copy of the speeding ticket was published by Newsweek on June 10, 2002. Along with Khalid Almihdhar, Al Hazmi was one of the two hijackers known by the CIA to have attended the January 2000 Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysai. ¹⁶

Zacarias Moussaoui's Activity in Oklahoma Not Fully Investigated and Disclosed

Norman is the home of the University of Oklahoma, where Boren is president. In August 2001, Zacarias Moussaoui, who had attended flight school in Norman that year before his move to another flight school in Minneapolis, was detained in Minnesota under suspicion of immigration violations. He had arrived at the Minnesota school on August 13, for simulator training on a Boeing 707. Time reported that he expressed a desire to learn how to fly the 747 in four or five days and did not want it known that he was a Muslim. ¹⁷ Moussaoui triggered suspicion by announcing his ambition to learn to fly only in mid-air with no interest in learning how to land or take off.

In December 2001, Moussaoui was indicted by federal authorities and accused of the following:

1) Conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism
2) Conspiracy to commit air piracy
3) Conspiracy to destroy aircraft
4) Conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction
5) Conspiracy to commit murder
6) Conspiracy to destroy property

On Oct. 14, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that federal authorities believed they had had a would-be hijacker in custody since August -- an apparent reference to Moussaoui. The Times and the Washington Post reported the feds thought Moussaoui was either the 20th hijacker, part of a fifth Sept. 11 team that never came together, or part of a separate hijacking plot planned for a later date.

Government officials later shifted their announced view of Moussaoui's role. We were later told that Moussaoui is suspected of having been a conspirator for the attack planned for a later date. Since this attack never happened, the amended view of Moussaoui presents him as more of a minor figure in the terrorist hierarchy. Have there been sordid politics going on behind the scenes which would account for these adjustments?

A Strange Article in U.S. News

A significant article in the effort to put an adjusted spin on the Moussaoui matter appeared in U.S. News and World Report in September 2002 under the headline, "The Strange Case of Mr. M." ¹⁸ The article, based upon interviews with Justice Department officials, leads readers to believe that Al Qaeda was always planning to use only nineteen hijackers on 9/11. They report this intercepted coded message from an Al Qaeda conspirator:

The first semester starts in three weeks. Nothing has changed. Everything is fine. ...This summer will surely be hot...Nineteen certificates for private study and four exams.

The U.S. News article says that prosecutors were facing another "roadblock." Prosecutors at that time were saying that the only link between Moussaoui and the other nineteen was to Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, the paymaster for the 9/11 hijacking operation. Evidence available from a variety of public sources contradicts this view and is discussed in this article.

Government's Intent to Seek Death Penalty

The government's original Notice of Intent to Seek a Sentence of Death against Moussaoui says:

3. The actions of defendant, Zacariah Moussaoui, resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 people from more that 15 countries...

Moussaoui's Activities in Oklahoma and Unanswered Questions

According to the LA Weekly, in August 2001 Zacarias Moussaoui had a meeting with Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 9/11 plot, in an Oklahoma City motel.

Also present was a man who appeared to be Marwan al-Shehhi -- who helped crash a jetliner into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Atta and al-Shehhi had also visited the Airman Flight School in Norman during the summer of 2000. (The LA Weekly can be compared to New York's Village Voice. In fact, they are owned by the same newspaper chain.)

A confidential source who has been studying the Moussaoui information pretty closely has assisted me in this research. He suggests that, after they learned the motel had no rooms available, Moussaoui took the two hijackers down to stay for a few days in his base of operations, an OU student apartment, which he shared with Hussein Al-Attas and Mukkaram Ali. (The Kraettli apartments have two bedrooms, four twin beds, and a living room couch.) It was Al-Attas who drove Moussaoui to Minneapolis, where he went to enroll in a flight school and said he only wanted to learn how to fly in mid-air. This raised suspicions which led to his arrest.

It was alleged in the original indictment , item 53, that while in Norman Moussaoui was making inquiries about starting a crop-dusting company. However, the Washington Post reported that later the feds dropped references to the crop-dusting ambitions from the indictment (6/20/02). ¹⁹ The news article did not explain why these changes were made. It is even more perplexing in light of the fact that Moussaoui was not just "making inquiries." He had a crop-dusting manual in his possession when arrested.

The Weekly is perplexed by the fact that this Oklahoma City meeting was apparently overlooked by the FBI:

The government's case, as outlined in its new six-count conspiracy indictment, is largely circumstantial, lacking any definitive link between Moussaoui and the 19 hijackers identified by federal authorities. All of which makes the apparent shelving of the Moussaoui-Atta sighting all the stranger.

Time said that it was "extraordinary" that Moussaoui's case was not brought to the attention of officials in Washington before 9/11 even though they were "sleepless with worry" about an imminent terrorist attack. Nobody in the FBI or CIA even informed anybody in the White House of Moussaoui's detention. Time wrote: "That was unforgivable."

Eye Spy magazine ²⁰ writes that FBI agent John O'Neill had tried in vain to warn the U.S. government of the dangers of Al-Qaeda, but few listened. He left the FBI four weeks before the WTC attack and, having become the WTC's chief of security, he died on 9/11. According to Eye Spy, former FBI director Louis Freeh has not explained why O'Neill's abilities were simply discarded by the agency when it needed them the most.

Former State Department Official Confirms Hijackers' Meeting in Oklahoma City Motel

On May 11, 2002, Bill O'Reilly interviewed Larry Johnson, former Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Counter-Terrorism. He had worked under both Clinton and Bush. Johnson confirmed the report of the August 2001 meeting of Moussaoui with the two 9/11 hijackers in the Oklahoma City motel. He said that the FBI had interviewed the motel owner and learned about this. Johnson said that the hijackers told the motel owner that they were going for flight training in Norman.

MSNBC News Wonders If Obstruction of Moussaoui Investigation Facilitated 9/11 Attack

At its website MSNBC News engages in some troubling speculation about Moussaoui:

Dec. 14 His arrest on Aug. 16 poses one of the great what-ifs of the war on terrorism -- the possibility, remote but tantalizing, that FBI agents working in Minneapolis might have discovered the Sept. 11 hijacking conspiracy before it happened.

French Official Talks About Moussaoui's Membership in GIA

In the fall of 2001, ABC broadcast an interview by Brian Ross with Alexis Debat, a former French defense official. Debat talked about the terrorist plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into the Eiffel Tower in 1998. The plot was disrupted by French police and the details were provided to American authorities. Debat also stated that they were aware of Moussaoui's position as a "high-ranking member of GIA," the Groupe Islamique Arme, a terrorist organization.

During the same broadcast, Ross also interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence. He was talking about the August 2001 arrest of Moussaoui in Minnesota. He said, "Unfortunately it appears it was a warning sign for the impending September 11 operation that we missed completely." Narrator Ross, quoting Cannistraro, then added that information gathered by FBI agents in Minnesota never made it to Washington. Cannistraro continued: "Information that was known in August about Moussaoui, particularly from foreign intelligence services, that he was a member of Bin Laden's organization Al Qaeda should have been a large warning flag if that information had been put together in Washington. It was not."

The Phone Number Found at the Pennsylvania Crash

An Oklahoma City Channel 9 TV broadcast reporting Eleanor Hill's testimony before a Congressional Committee also presented news of the legal proceedings against Moussaoui. The newsman quoted prosecutors who said that a business card belonging to one of the hijackers on the Pennslvania flight had a phone number written on it. Moussaoui had called the same number.

One and the same Ramzi Binalshibh?

The Moussaoui indictment states that he had two German telephone numbers in his notebook. Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, paymaster for the Al Qaeda attacks, was operating from Dusseldorf and Hamburg, and was wiring money to Moussaoui. One of the phone numbers was for bin Al-Shibh.

July 2003 Congressional Report on Intelligence Failures

Describing the 900-page Congressional report on failures in the intelligence community, AP writer Ken Guggenheim (7/23/03) brought out the Moussaoui affair as one of the errors:

When FBI agents in Minnesota arrested Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspicious student pilot, in August 2001, FBI headquarters didn't obtain a court order to search his belongings because it misunderstood the legal standards for obtaining one. Moussaoui has been charged with conspiring in the attacks.

The AP writer's statement was not entirely correct. The Minneapolis FBI was, for some strange reason, denied permission by headquarters to search Moussaoui's computer. From other belongings they recovered a hard-copy crop-dusting manual. In view of this discovery, the fact that the FBI already had a five-inch-thick file on him, and his attendance at two flight schools, the FBI's failure to investigate Moussaoui more vigorously in August 2001 is another extremely startling event.

A Big Question

In August 2001, Zacarias Moussaoui was the key to unraveling the 9/11 plot before it hatched into the worst act of terrorism ever committed against the American people on a single day. No one knew this better than the Al Qaeda leaders themselves. After his arrest, they changed their plans in response to fear that he might talk. Rohan Gunaratna writes:²¹

The arrest of Moussaoui forced bin Laden's organisation to bring forward its operation to strike America's outstanding landmarks. Although Al Qaeda strives to train agents who disclose nothing to their captors, in reality they were well aware of the growing danger to the operation with every day that passed. Moreover Moussaoui was one of the few suspected terrorists who knew about both the Hamburg and the Kuala Lampur cells. With the imminent threat of being compromised, Al Qaeda's cells stepped up their financial, logistical, and administrative preparations within a week of Moussaoui's arrest.

Reporting the proceedings against Moussaoui, USA Today (6/3/02) provided similar information: "Prosecutors have indicated in court that Moussaoui...not only knew about the hijacking plan in advance but also was the key to any hope that U.S. agents had of uncovering and stopping it."

In September 2001, Oklahoma Daily reporter Ryun Chittum informed readers that Moussaoui was identified by French intelligence as "a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden."²²

From the indictment, Gunaratna also gives a detailed report of items in Moussaoui's possession when he was arrested: ²³

Moussaoui was found in possession of two knives, fighting gloves, shin guards, flight deck videos for a Boeing 747 Model 400, a flight simulator computer programme, software that could be used to review pilot procedures for the Boeing 747 Model 400, notes referring to a handheld GPS receiver and a camcorder, a handheld aviation radio, a notebook listing two German phone numbers and the name of Ahad Sabet, letters from Infocus Tech and a computer disk containing information relating to the aerial dispersal of pesticides.

FBI Agent Rowley Suspects Political Interference In response to these peculiar events, FBI agent Coleen Rowley wrote to bureau director Robert Mueller and accused FBI headquarters of obstructing the investigation. She wrote that the Minneapolis agents "believed that Moussaoui signaled he had something to hide in the way he refused to allow them to search his computer" [emphasis added]. Reminding the director that French Intelligence had confirmed Moussaoui's activities connected with bin Laden, she stated that probable cause "was certainly established after that point and became even greater with successive, more detailed information from the French and other intelligence sources."

Rowley was tempted to describe the FBI's behavior in the Moussaoui matter as a "cover-up," but decided that the term would be "too strong a characterization." She decided instead to "carefully (and perhaps over laboriously) choose my words here."

In spite of her pledge to choose her words carefully, Rowley could not contain her righteous passion. She told Mueller that headquarters "brought up almost ridiculous questions in their apparent efforts to undermine the probable cause." One of these ridiculous questions was the supposition that Zacarias Moussaoui was such a common name in France as to render meaningless the information from there. A look at a Paris phone directory found only one person by that name. In spite of this, she wrote that headquarters "continued to stall."

Rowley also wrote that "certain facts" had "been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons." The most interesting question is: what were the likely improper political reasons?

Did someone with a heavy hand operating in the intelligence community intervene to hush things up about Moussaoui?

Boren Would Have Had a Strong Motive for Cover-up

David Boren, who loves to flaunt his close ties in the intelligence world, would have had a strong motive to interfere with the Moussaoui investigation: he didn't want to see OU embarrassed because it would undermine his chances of getting a new weather center located there. He has big plans for attracting federal funds to the facility and has gone to extraordinary lengths in his maneuvering to have it funded. His fanatical devotion to this idea was shown by his behavior in 2002, when he convinced the Oklahoma legislature to appropriate $19 million for the weather center by raiding a fund earlier created exclusively for the purpose of meeting EPA requirements to clean and repair underground gasoline storage tanks. As a result of his leadership in this outrage, Common Cause initiated a lawsuit against the Oklahoma legislature in 2003.

Boren also is interested in the fact that a substantial number of enrollees in the Airman Flight School are from the Middle East. He wants them to feel comfortable in coming to Norman and spending their money. It would not be good for business for them to feel any stigma from negative associations with terrorism. Airman has a contract with OU to house its students in university dorms. Its most famous student, Zacarias Moussaoui, had worked to improve his strength by enrolling in OU's Huston Huffman exercise center.

Ryan Chittum reported in The Oklahoma Daily that about half the students at Airman are foreign. ²² Airman's website was expressing pride in its international enrollment: "We have trained students from more than 60 countries around the world. International students are welcome at The Airman Flight School, with I-20 visas available."

Has Boren's influence accounted for the fact that Moussaoui hasn't even come to trial yet? Is Boren afraid of the answers Moussaoui would give to questions about his activities in Norman? Will Moussaoui, who now appears to have been a central planner in the 9/11 attack, never come to justice because of Boren?

Whom Could Boren Have Tapped for a Favor?

I am not able to identify all the members of Boren's vast network of contacts who might have given him entre into the FBI when he needed to take the spotlight off Moussaoui. Evidence of Boren's close relationship with CIA boss George Tenet has already been discussed.

Tenet is able to influence the FBI, and in August 2001 did so in such a way as to assist the headquarters in its obstruction of the Moussaoui investigation. Time reported that the CIA at that time described Moussaoui as one having "extremist views." ²⁴ Additionally, Tenet's CIA offered the misleading statement that information from the French "didn't say Al Qaeda or anything like that."

On the morning when the leisurely breakfast with his mentor Boren was interrupted by the news of the 9/11 attack, Tenet was singing a different song. As noted earlier,The Washington Post reported a comment from this breakfast conversation:

"I wonder," Tenet was overheard to say, "if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training." He was referring to Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been detained in August after attracting suspicion when he sought training at a Minnesota flight school.

Moussaoui's case was very much on Tenet's mind. The previous month, the FBI had asked the CIA and the National Security Agency to run phone traces on Moussaoui, already the subject of a five-inch-thick file in the bureau.

Culprits in the FBI Associated with Boren?

Rowley's letter named two high-ranking FBI officials as especially active in obstructing the Moussaoui investigation:

David Frasca and Michael Maltbie. If any other investigators know of any associations which either of these men might have had with David Boren or any of his political allies, loyalists, cronies, or drinking buddies, please inform me.

The Al-Qaeda Manual

In its ninth lesson, the Al Qaeda manual, which had been distributed by the Justice Department, has advice which we can safely assume affected Moussaoui's conduct in Norman. It says that meeting locations should not be rented under real names. On December 5, 2001, the Oklahoma Daily reported that the apartment in Kraettli was in another OU student's name and that neither the name Al-Attas nor Ali was on the lease. ²⁵

How Many Jihad Terrorists Spent Time in Oklahoma?

Here is the summary:

(1) Two 9/11 hijackers, Mohhammed Atta and Marwana al Shehhi, toured the Airman Flight School at OU's Westheimer Airport in July 2000. Atta and another man thought to be Al Shehhi met with Zacarias Moussaoui in an Oklahoma City motel in August 2001.

(2) Moussaoui, reported by French Intelligence to be a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda, was in Norman from February to August 2001. He was enrolled in the Airman Flight School until May, and lived in OU housing for part of the time.

(3) The Wall Street Journal reported that Moussaoui convinced OU engineering student Hussein Al-Attas to join the jihad in Chechnya; ²⁶ Al-Attas drove Moussaoui from Norman to Minneapolis to attend another flight school; later Al-Attas admitted that he was aware of Moussaoui's jihad activities.

(4) Two 9/11 hijackers listed home addresses in Tulsa; Fayez Ahmad listed the address of Spartan School of Aeronautics as his home address; Mohammad Ahmad Al-Ghamdi listed his home as an apartment complex in Tulsa. ²⁷

(5) Hijacker Nawaf Al Hazmi visited the Oklahoma Al Qaeda cell in April 2001 and was cited for speeding on I-40. He also attended the January 2000 Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia.

(6) An unidentified Al Qaeda member or collaborator purchased an airline ticket for a 9/11 hijacker on a public computer terminal at the OU library. A link to details about this event is in the final section of this article.

Oklahoma Media Covering for Boren?

David Boren was a loyal political slave of Eddie Gaylord, the ruthless tycoon who was publisher of The Daily Oklahoman until his death in the spring of 2003. In an article describing the Oklahoman as the worst newspaper in America, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that as a U.S. Senator Boren "had sponsored a one-of-a-kind, multimillion-dollar tax break that would benefit only eight wealthy investors -- one of whom was publisher Ed Gaylord."

In return for his obedient loyalty, the Oklahoman also does favors for Boren. The newspaper appears to be showing high respect for Boren's desire for damage control on the Moussaoui matter. In a July 2003 editorial, the newspaper expressed approval of moving Moussaoui's trial to a military court, where proceedings can be conducted in secret. ²⁸ In the 2-column by 7-inch editorial, they never mentioned the fact that Moussaoui spent several months in the OU community in 2001 while taking pilot lessons in Norman.

The Gaylord empire also owns Oklahoma City's channel 9 TV news. Indicators of a desire to protect Boren are subtle but still apparent to the careful listener. In an evening broadcast about Moussaoui's arrest, reporter Tamara Pratt stated that he had lived in a Norman apartment during the summer. She neglected to inform the viewers that this was in Kraettli apartments on the OU campus.

While she was speaking, the viewer was greeted with a sign announcing Kraettli Apartments, but the camera was a sufficient distance away from the sign to allow the limb of a tree to obscure the name Kraettli. Nonetheless, other indicators, such as the mail boxes in front and the large numbers 209 on the woodwork, enabled a positive identification of the apartment complex. It was Kraettli.

In a December 2001 broadcast announcing Moussaoui's indictment, Pratt reported that he had opened an account in a Norman bank and had deposited $32,000 in cash. She did not name the bank, but the camera allowed viewers to see it on screen. It was the Arvest Bank at the corner of Main & Peters. In all likelihood, Moussaoui was using the Arvest ATM machine in the OU student union for withdrawals. While in Norman, Moussaoui was receiving funds from Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, a member of the Al Qaeda cell in Germany.²⁹

An Airline Ticket for a Terrorist on the Pennsylvania Flight Was Purchased on the OU Library Computer

With my assistance Bill Crozier made a fall 2002 Freedom of Information Act request asking the FBI to confirm what I had been told by two University of Oklahoma library employees, who were acting independently of one another. Because they might suffer reprisals at the hands of OU administrators, who clearly like to keep tight control over information and prevent any unflattering news to be known about the school, I have to conceal their identities. The FBI letter corroborates what I was told by them.

The first employee spoke to me in the fall of 2001. She said that she was present when an FBI agent interviewed a fellow librarian. The subject under discussion was the fact that one of the tickets used by a terrorist on the 9/11 flight which crashed in Pennsylvania was purchased online using a public computer at the OU library. This was United Airlines Flight 93. I have never seen any news accounts about this.

In the original indictment against Moussaoui, it lists the names of thirteen hijackers who bought airline tickets on the four planes and the dates of the purchases. Only one ticket bought for the Pennsylvania flight is listed. This was for the ticket purchased by Ahmed al-Haznawi. The indictment reported that ticket purchases were made from August 25-29. The indictment does not report the location from which al-Haznawi made the transaction. Go here for a scan of the FBI letter and details.

Please see the author's reference note section at mpwright9

Please also compare with The Terrorist Motel (By Jim Crogan, APFN)

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