1115.org

If your understanding of September 11th, 2001, the events leading up to it and the government’s reaction is based on what you have seen on television news or read in newspapers, you haven’t been reading the work of Peter Lance. Lance, a five-time Emmy-winning investigative journalist, has uncovered facts that powerful people have sought to bury, profiled incompetence at the highest levels of local and federal law enforcement, and with his latest work Cover Up : What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror, detailed the conflicts of interest and cover-ups that taint the 9-11 Commission.

In March we had the opportunity to interview Lance about his previous book 1000 Years for Revenge : International Terrorism and the FBI–the Untold Story which was just released in paperback.

The basic theme that runs through both books is both frustrating and terrifying: Our government is not doing a good job protecting us from external threats.

Cover Up deals in large part with the 9-11 Commission, a body charged with assigning responsibility for the failures that allowed 9-11 and affecting changes to prevent future domestic attacks. Through limiting the scope of their inquiry and active stonewalling by the White House, the Commission failed in their mission.

If you think everything is being done to keep you safe, think again.

1115.org highly recommends reading both Cover Up and 1000 Years for Revenge.

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In our last interview, you said that you were “thrilled” that Senator Max Cleland chose to read passages of 1000 Years at a 9-11 Commission hearing. You were also looking forward to testifying before the Commission. How did it feel to then watch the 9-11 Commission ignore your investigative work in their conclusions?

Sen. Cleland, the most vociferous critic of the White House, didn’t last long after that hearing. He was moved off the Commission after the Bush Administration came through with a long awaited appointment to the board of the Export-Import Bank.

I would have liked the Commission to include my findings about the origin of the plot in 1994, not because it was my discovery – other reporters including CNN�s Manila Bureau Chief Maria Ressa had told the story before me, but because it was true. To push the plot forward two years to cut Ramzi Yousef loose and save some Feds the embarrassment of not having stopped him in 1993, resulted in a distortion of the historical record.

By going easy on the FBI, the Commission staff, dominated by ex-FBI and DOJ personnel, lost an opportunity for true reform in the Bureau today – and believe me, the FBI needs an overhaul when it comes to their domestic intelligence capabilities.

Is there any substance in the 9-11 Commission’s work, or is it all window dressing?

The Commission filled in a number of gaps with respect to the defense failures on the day of 9/11, but again, they left out key information like the fact that three separate war games were being conducted and that those NJ F-16s were only 8 minutes away.

So in the end they have become “The Warren Commission” of our day. Unless they issue additional reports and come clean – taking the road to 9/11 back to the waning days of the Afghan War in 1989, their findings will be subject to doubt for decades to come.

Was the die cast on the 9-11 Commission when it’s original co-chairmen Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell were named? What did it say when they chose to keep their Saudi clients secret rather than serve?

It says that the fix was in from Day One. This White House never even wanted to have a 9/11 Commission. The idea that journalists still continue to refer to it as “independent” is ridiculous. Of the 75 staff members some 32 (or more) were either alumni of the very agencies or institutions they were charged with vetting (CIA, FBI, DOJ, NSA, WH) or they were part of the congressional oversight community that has failed to do any effective oversight.

As for the 10 Commissions, ALL of them except for Gov. Thomas Kean were in the same boat: Beltway Insiders who had been in Justice or on The Hill and dropped the ball repeatedly on the road to 9/11. Gov Kean was on the board of Amerada Hess; a major oil company with heavy middle east ties.

I am absolutely certain that a decision was made by the Commissioners and staff team leaders from early on that evidence would be limited – especially evidence damaging to the Justice Department and the FBI. Also Douglas MacEachin, who was a team leader and supervised several staff statements relating to the CIA was DDI (Deputy Director of Intelligence) for the Company until 1995.

How many foxes do you need to guard the chicken coop?

Speaking of protecting the Justice Department and the FBI, one of the most spectacular revelations in Cover Up is the link you found between terrorist mastermind Ramzi Yousef and the downing of TWA flight 800. Much of your information is based on actual FBI documents such as internal 302 memos. How did you gain access to this kind of information, and how did you beat everyone to connect the dots?

The answer to that question has to do with my last book, 1000 Years for Revenge. In it, I had a chapter suggesting a possible connection between Ramzi Yousef (the original WTC bomber and the architect, with his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, of the 9/11 plot.)

Because I had told that story honestly and with great documentation and stood up to the FBI and the Justice Department, a remarkable forensic investigator who had read 1000 Years contacted me in mid April saying that she had read the book, was in possession of some amazing documents relating to TWA #800 and Yousef and wondered if I would like to see them.

This was Angela Clemente, a single mother of three who has emerged in the last few years as one of the top forensic investigators in the country. She had obtained the records from the Government’s original confidential informant and presented a summary/timeline of her findings to both the House Government Reform Committee and the Chairman and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. After getting zero response from the Commission she turned to me.

It was fortuitous that I was working at the time on a book that would prove to be a “minority report” on the Commission’s findings and that fact that they left out of their final report, issued July 22nd, proof in the form of FBI memos that there was an al Qaeda connection to the downing of TWA #800 is nothing short of astounding.

Also in our last interview you mentioned that you were focusing on the actual events of 9-11. What was it like to have to change course so dramatically so late in the game to include the new information?

It gave my editor at Harper Collins, Cal Morgan, some pause. But he is used to working under battlefield conditions. Judith Regan runs her publishing company like a news magazine. She and her staff, led by Cal and Cassie Jones, the managing editor are able to produce extremely topical and compelling books in less time than most publishing companies would take to close the initial book deal.

As it turned out the TWA #800 material dovetailed perfectly with what I had found with respect to the Commission: that they were cherry picking evidence and limiting the scope of the investigation.

And in a twist that you can either regard as an incredible coincidence or the underscoring of the very conclusions I was reaching: one of the key players involved in the Yousef-Scarpa intelligence back in 1996 was Dietrich Snell, the Assistant US Attorney who co-prosecuted Yousef in the Bojinka case which I say was the genesis of the TWA #800 crash.

Snell, who should have been a WITNESS before the Commission, was appointed one of its team leaders. He was the senior counsel charged with writing the staff statement on the genesis of the 9/11 plot. He was also the man assigned by staff director Philip Zelikow to interview me when I testified before the Commission on March 15th, 2004.

Later, after the book went to press, I found an FBI 302 which I had not seen initially, which put Snell in the room with Gregory Scarpa Jr. as he was describing the Yousef intel several months before the Bojinka trial that Snell himself would prosecute.

I could not have made up these connections. When I testified on March 15th I found myself grilling Snell and asking him almost as many questions as he asked me. But while I was entirely forthcoming with my answers he repeatedly stated that he could not answer or that the information I was seeking was “classified.”

In the end, despite the evidence that I gave him from Col. Rodolfo B. Mendoza, the senior investigator for the Philippines National Police – the Richard Clarke of the PNP who had told me that Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had hatched the plot that became 9/11 as early as 1994, Snell and the Commission concluded that the genesis was two years later in 1996 AFTER Yousef was in federal custody. The separated him from the plot even though he was one of its two masterminds and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed went on to perfect the plot.

And who did Snell and the Commission rely on for the truth of when the plot was conceived? Khalid Shaikh Mohammed himself.

To me this is like relying on David Berkowitz for the truth of when he committed his first Son of Sam homicide.

In an end note to the Commission’s final report they cite a CIA report on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s interrogation and refer to what he had confessed as: “Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies.”

In the final pages of the book, you mention how you were concerned enough about governmental intervention to contact two separate lawyers and safeguard all of your research. Now, with the release of “Cover Up” imminent, are you still concerned about the potential fallout from the book? Is your publisher concerned about such matters? Do you get intimidated when you see what happens to people who get in the way like NYPD Detective Joe Simone who became the designated fall guy to protect the FBI?

I would be reckless if I wasn’t concerned. I always take appropriate steps to protect the integrity of my research material and sources. I watch my back and there are others that care enough about what I do to watch it for me. But I would never do this kind of work if I got up in the morning and worried about reprisals.

How did your sessions with the “Jersey Girls” (women who lost their husbands in the 9-11 attacks) affect you?

They inspired me. Meeting these amazing women: Lorie van Auken, Kristen Breitweiser, Mindy Kleinberg, Patty Casazza, along with Monica Gabrielle and Beverly Eckert, the “Connecticut Girls,” brought me back every day as I wrote this book to the human cost of the 9/11 attacks.

Their stories pushed me forward to find the truth in the same way that Eve Bucca, the widow of hero FDNY fire marshal Ronnie Bucca inspired me during the writing of 1000 Years. During the research phase of this book Ronnie’s son “Little Ronnie,” who wasn’t so little anymore, had joined a unit in Army Intelligence and was posted to Iraq. I prayed for him every day.

The Jersey Girls spent nine months fighting for the creation of the 9-11 Commission. After all that has happened, do they think it was worth it?

Absolutely: as flawed as the Commission’s final report is and despite the fact that they weaseled out and failed to assess any blame or accountability for the failures of the U.S. intelligence Community, much of what they DID reveal was startling.

The failure of the Bush Administration to adopt the Commission’s recommendations gives the American public a clear choice in November. Anyone who reads the 9/11 Report and reads Cover Up and still comes away believing that George W. Bush is the better candidate on the issue of national security would have to be either mentally defective or related to Karl Rove.

A few days ago the four “Jersey Girls” and Monica came out and endorsed John Kerry. These five women probably know more about the failures of U.S. intelligence than any single citizens of this country and they’ve come down on the side of the challengers vs. the incumbent. That speaks for itself.

You were very harsh on Commission members Lee Hamilton and Bob Kerrey (as were the Jersey Girls) for walking out of the closed-door testimony of the President and Vice President. With all of the conditions and limits that their testimony carried, isn’t it reasonable to expect that nothing worthwhile came out of that session anyway? Or was it simply disrespectful to the families?

It wasn’t just disrespectful to the families, it was disrespectful to the American people. The Commissioners should have INSISTED that Bush and Dick Cheney testified before the full Commission in open session and under oath. Instead they compromised with this closed door session.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney may have only had seven and a half months prior to 9/11 to appreciate the dire intelligence warnings pointing to the attacks, but on “the day of,” the two of them presided over what had to be the greatest DEFENSE failure in American history.

Remember Cheney was the former Secretary of Defense. Bush came to Washington with the rep of a team that was senior and seasoned on defense matters. Yet on the day the nation was under attack, the President remained in that school with a stunned look on his face listening to a story about a goat and the V.P. reportedly had to be carried by Marines and/or Secret Service agents into the WH bunker.

Bush was the only one in the chain of command empowered to issue a shoot down order. We know that Pilots Duffy and Nash from Otis Air National Guard base on Cape Cod didn’t get into the air until 8:52 a.m. 39 minutes after the FAA knew AA #11 had been hijacked.

But even as they were vectored by NORAD and the FAA to a site off of Long Island (and not directly to the WTC) they still admitted that had they arrived at the Twin Towers on time, they still lacked authority to engage those airliners with hostile firepower.

It was incumbent upon Bush, Cheney, the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers to cut through the confusion and chaff and arm those pilots with the rules of engagement sufficient to protect this nation. AND THEY FAILED. That is undisputable. They failed.

Rumsfeld was in his office at the Pentagon out of the loop (according to the Commission) and didn’t even enter the NMCC (war room) until after his own building was hit and Myers was reportedly beyond closed doors with Sen. Max Cleland on Capitol Hill and also apparently incommunicado.

With that kind of knowledge why wouldn’t the widows endorse Kerry. Could the Bush team have done any worse that day? I don’t think so.

Also my book points out via the remarkable Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson who runs Center for Cooperative Research that there were two F-16s from the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey ANG doing bomb sortie practice runs over the Pinelands of southern Jersey – eight minutes away from Ground Zero. They clearly could have arrived prior to the UA flight striking the South Tower.

A 12/5/03 Bergen Record story that Thompson found quoted Gov. Kean as wondering why this unit had not been contacted by the FAA or NORAD, but he never raised the question during the 6/17/04 “day of” hearing and there’s little or no mention of this in the 9/11 Commission’s final report.

Which is why if people want more of the truth they should read, 1000 Years, Cover Up and The Terror Timeline for which I wrote the forward.

They’re all accessible via my website along with the timeline from 1000 Years (under TERRORISM) and many of the FBI #302 memos that document the al Qaeda link to TWA #800.

In light of the 9-11 Commission wasting so much of their time on irrelevant hearings (repeating Senate committee findings, what you call “an advertisement for an insurance company,” and discredited conspiracy theorist Laurie Mylroie etc.), will they deserve a significant share of the blame for a future terrorist attack?

If another attack comes without significant changes and restructuring of the U.S. intelligence community, in my opinion, the entire Commission staff and all 10 Commissioners will be partly culpable.

But the ultimate culpability will lie with this White House which has continued to stonewall and adopt even the recommendations of the Commission.

Your commission session with Dietrich Snell looks like a perfect example of all that is wrong with the Commission. You spoke with a DOJ lawyer who was in a position to put the pieces together, there was no transcript (written or otherwise), and in 1000 Years, you were very harsh on the DOJ/FBI. Now he was responsible for relaying your testimony to the whole Commission and much of what you uncovered in your work is extremely critical of the DOJ, even accusing them of massive cover-ups. Do you hold out any hope that your words were accurately reported to the Commission members?

To answer that question you should ask Dieter Snell. I have challenged him on a number of media programs to come forward and tell the truth about the Yousef-Scarpa intelligence initiative and about what he knew of the DOJ’s cover up of the PNP intel from 1995. So far he hasn’t said a word publicly. Maybe you can encourage him to talk now that the Commission staff has officially disbanded.

The administration famously fought tenaciously to keep Condoleezza Rice from testifying before the 9-11 Commission. There was a tremendous buildup (even in the comatose media) to her testimony. Yet with the exception of one tense exchange between Rice and Richard Ben-Veniste, she was given a pass. And then only after her testimony did the White House release the August 6th PDB. Was this all part of a deal that was made for her testimony?

It wouldn’t surprise me. Commissioners like Bob Kerrey waved their swords in the air in the days prior to her testimony, predicting that she’d be subject to a real grilling, but instead they treated her with virtual kid gloves.

In all the confusion on 9-11, was the Constitution violated ?

No. But the country was, along with our sense of safety and well-being that had pretty much existed for more than 200 years as we sat protected by two oceans. The result was an unnecessary Patriot Act that does, in my opinion, impact our constitutional safeguards with no benefit to national security. If the systems we had in place had – intelligence gathering systems and defense systems – had simply worked, we wouldn’t need the Patriot Act and we still don’t. We simply have to restructure our intelligence gathering and defense capabilities.

What is your next project? Has there been any progress in the TV deal for 1000 Years?

I would like to see 1000 Years for Revenge adapted for the screen. That process, as they say in Hollywood, is “in development.” Cover Up is now being considered by the studios and networks as a film as well.

As in 1000 Years, your crime reporting is gripping. Is that something that you carry with you from writing Wiseguy?

It’s a skill I developed as a rookie reporter for the Newport Daily News in my hometown of Newport, R.I. where I covered court and the cops.

How is the book tour going?

This interview has been the most relaxing part of it. But I love talking about these books. The trade paperback of 1000 Years just came out with a new and improved index. Your readers can sample the 32 page color illustrated Timeline in it by going to PeterLance.com and clicking the TERRORISM tab.

**We have a copy of Cover Up : What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror to give away to one lucky reader. Send an email to “coverup at 1115 dot org” to enter.