Thursday, April 15, 2004
Wash Post transcript of 9/11 whitewash hearing: BEN-VENISTE: OK. Let me talk about the issue of planes as weapons.
KEAN: The gentleman's time has expired.
(LAUGHTER)
[...]
KEAN: Go ahead and ask your question.
BEN-VENISTE: Let me just follow up on this one area, although I have several.
The G-8 planning -- which I think the G-8 occurred in July of 2001.
But even a couple of months before September 11th we know that there was a planning session by NORAD where military officials considered a scenario in which a hijacked foreign commercial airliner flew into the Pentagon -- months before.
And so, people clearly were thinking about this possibility. You had information in August that came from the FBI regarding an Islamic jihadist in the United States named Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been in a flight school in Minnesota and he had been trying to learn to fly a 747 despite the fact that he had absolutely no background in aviation.
He could not explain a bank account of $30,000-odd deposited in cash. He could not explain his presence in the United States. He could not explain why he was trying to learn to fly a 747.
Now, this information came to you via the FBI because the FBI could not -- in their interpretation -- use the information to get a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer, et cetera, under FISA, according to their thinking.
The FISA court protects against improper prosecution, violating laws with respect to the potential of prosecuting this man.
My question is this.
Given the threat level, given the knowledge about planes as weapons, given the fact of Moussaoui's arrest, why was it that you didn't put the question of prosecuting Moussaoui to the side and go after the information which may well have led to unraveling this plot?
TENET: [blah blah blah blah non-answer blah blah blah] .....---
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