By
Eric A. Smith
Tokyo, Japan
January 9, 2004
9-11 Widow Files rico Lawsuit
PHILADELPHIA – Ellen Mariani, whose husband died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when UAL 175 was flown into the World Trade Center, has filed suit in a US District Court alleging Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and other co-defendents had sufficient warning to stop the terrorist attacks but failed to either warn or protect the public.
According to a recent CBS News, the Republican 9-11 Commission Chairman agrees:
9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
(CBS News — December 18, 2003) For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston….
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. See here.
Mariani’s suit also charges the Bush Administration with burying evidence of its failure and refusing to release vital information.
Philadelphia Attorney Philip J. Berg, who filed the suit on Mariani’s behalf, says the Administration must be held accountable. Berg launched the suit on November 26, and has since put up a website explaining the details of Mariani vs Bush, et al. The Bush Administration is currently trying to have the charges dismissed in court.
Public support is critical, says Berg, who has posted an online petition. “We need at least a million signatures for them to take it seriously.” He added that mounting a class action is also being considered. Concerned citizens are urged to read and sign the petition here.
Related stories:
1. NY Times: Bush Warned bin Laden Would Hijack Planes
“The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft…”
2. CNN: Bush briefed on hijacking threat before 9-11
“President Bush’s daily intelligence briefings in the weeks leading up to the September 11 terror attacks included a warning of the possibility that Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network would attempt to hijack a U.S.-based airliner, senior administration officials said Wednesday.”
3. UK Guardian: Bush knew terrorists would hijack planes
“George Bush received specific warnings in the weeks before 11 September that an attack inside the United States was being planned by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, US government sources said yesterday…. The memo received by Bush on 6 August contained unconfirmed information passed on by British intelligence in 1998 revealing that al-Qaeda operatives had discussed hijacking a plane to negotiate the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the Muslim cleric imprisoned in America for his part in a plot to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993.”
4. Sunday Herald: Britain warned Bush to expect 9-11 al-Qaeda hijackings
“Britain gave President Bush a categorical warning to expect multiple airline hijackings by the al-Qaeda network a month before the September 11 attacks which killed nearly 3000 people and triggered the international war against terrorism.”
5. Village Voice: Officials Warned of Plans to Attack DC, NY with Planes
“The U.S. government had received repeated warnings of impending attacks&emdash;and attacks using planes directed at New York and Washington&emdash;for several years. The government never told us about what it knew was coming.”
6. AP: 9/11 report, Rice conflict; Bush got specific data on threats
“…the briefing given to the president a month before the suicide hijackings included recent intelligence that al-Qaida was planning to send operatives to the United States to carry out an attack using high explosives.”
7. MSNBC: White House Briefed on Imminent bin Laden Attack
“One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike ‘in the coming weeks,’ the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: ‘The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”
8. MSN: Condoleezza Rice’s False Statement
A: “The overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas.”
– White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, in a May 16 news briefing.
B: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
– Title of the CIA’s Aug. 6 briefing memo to President Bush . . .
9. Newsweek: Day before 9-11, Pentagon Generals Cancelled Flights
“On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.”
10. SF Gate: Mayor got 8-hour warning Before 9-11 Attacks – September 12, 2001
For Mayor Willie Brown, the first signs that something was amiss came late Monday when he got a call from what he described as his airport security – a full eight hours before yesterday’s string of terrorist attacks – advising him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel.
11. Florida State: Jeb Bush Declares Martial Law 9-7-01
“Based on the potential massive damage to life and property that may result from an act of terrorism at a Florida port, the necessity to protect life and property from such acts of terrorism…”
12. CBS News: Ashcroft Avoided Commercial Travel Prior to 9-11
“In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a “threat assessment” by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.”
13. UK Independent: Taliban Mole Warning Ignored
“Weeks before the terrorist attacks on 11 September, the United States and the United Nations ignored warnings from a secret Taliban emissary that Osama bin Laden was planning a huge attack on American soil.”
14. NY Times: “President Mubarek Warned US of Al Qaeda Plot”
“Egyptian intelligence warned American officials about a week before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden’s network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview on Sunday.”
15. Village Voice: US Ignored France Warnings
“A key point in unraveling why the FBI failed to follow up leads on Al Qaeda terrorism now centers on the Bureau’s contemptuously brushing aside warnings from French intelligence a few days before 9-11.”
16. Intl. Herald Tribune: White House Ignored Arab Warnings
“When the hubbub about what the White House did or didn’t know before Sept. 11 dies down, Congressional or other investigators should consider the specific warnings that friendly Arab intelligence services sent to Washington in the summer of 2001.”
17. UK News-Telegraph: Israel issued urgent warning of large-scale terror attacks
Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent.”
18. NY Post: FBI Warned D.C. It Was A Target
“A Minnesota FBI agent investigating Zacarias Moussaoui testified yesterday that he notified the Secret Service weeks before Sept. 11 that a terror team might hijack a plane and ‘hit the nation’s capital.'”
20. Yahoo News: FBI Warnings Ignored
“An FBI supervisor, sounding a prophetic pre-Sept. 11 alarm, warned FBI headquarters that student pilot Zacarias Moussaoui was so dangerous he might ‘take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center,’ a congressional investigator said in a report Tuesday.”
21. Independent: America had 12 warnings of aircraft attack
“American intelligence received many more clues before the 11 September attacks than previously disclosed, that terrorists might hijack planes and turn them into weapons, a joint congressional committee was told yesterday.”
22. Washington Post: 9/11 Probe Says Agencies Failed to Heed Attack Signs
“U.S. intelligence agencies received many more indications than previously disclosed that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network was planning imminent “spectacular” attacks in the summer of 2001 aimed at inflicting mass casualties.”
23. Yahoo News: Spy Agencies Had Pre-9/11 Threats on U.S. Soil
“U.S. intelligence agencies picked up threats of attacks inside the United States and of using airplanes as weapons during the spring and summer before last year’s Sept. 11 attacks, but were more focused on the possibility of an assault overseas, a congressional source said on Tuesday.”
24. Vanity Fair: Bin Laden Relatives Secretly Evacuated From NY
“Patrick Tyler of the New York Times is reporting from Washington: ‘In the first days after the attacks on Sept. 11, the Saudi Arabian ambasador to Washington, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, supervised the urgent evacuation of 24 members of Osama bin Laden’s extended family from the United States fearing they might be subjected to violence.'”
25. Sydney Morning Herald: Administration Told US agents “Back off bin Ladens”
“US special agents were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September 11, it was reported today.”
26. Ha’aretz Daily: CEO Says Workers Warned Hours Before World Trade Center Hit – FBI Investigating
“Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.”
27. NY Times: White House Approved Secret Evacuation of Bin Ladens After 9-11
“Richard Clarke, who ran White House crisis team after Sept 11 terror attacks, says top White House officials personally approved evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, from United States in days after Sept 11, when most flights were grounded.”
28. Tampa Tribune: Bodyguards tell of Secret Bin Laden Flight
“The hastily arranged flight out of Raytheon Airport Services, a private hangar on the outskirts of Tampa International Airport, was anything but ordinary. It lifted off the tarmac at a time when every private plane in the nation was grounded due to safety concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks. “
29. UK Minister: “Bush had Foreknowledge of 9-11 attacks”
“…it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance.”
