German Intelligence Says US Knew
in Advance About 9/11
>>> In the early coverage of the September 11 attacks, one of the most important articles was "Newspaper: Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks" by Ned Stafford, Newsbytes (Washington Post), 13 Sept 2001. (Also published here.)
This short but crucial article was based solely on a story that had just appeared in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the most respected newspapers in the world. I emailed the author of the Newsbytes story, who scanned the FAZ article for me. It is reproduced below, along with an English translation, provided by F.S.
Hints for months
Experts talk about "Failure of the secret service"
Quote:MUNICH, 11 September [2001]. According to this newspaper, more than six months ago, western and near eastern news media received information and hints regarding planned attacks on 'American and Israeli symbols, which stand out' by hijacked airplanes, not only in the United States.
According to the German secret service, the American, Israeli and apparently also the British secret services had adequate warnings. The American services had taken these warning seriously and increased the secret service measurements for the investigation. There have been disagreements, however, in regard to the method of defense against these kinds of attacks.
The technical secret service, National Security Agency (NSA), would have been after these hints for at least the past three months with the help of the so-called 'Echelon' espionage systems--a worldwide network of 120 satellites, which monitors international data communications. Israeli services would also have had information about Arab terror groups planning to hijack airplanes in Europe to attack Israeli goals in Tel Aviv and other coastal cities. In the context of the arising fear of airplane hijacks, Israel had secretly implemented an X-ray machine--developed by one of Philips daughter companies--at the Tel Aviv airport, which in contrast to the conventional systems analyzes all the chemical elements and is the first airport security system that determines all known explosives, even if they are carried separately or exist sparely.
The German secret service now fears that in the next days terrorists would hijack airplanes in Europe and the Near East. According to the German information service: 'There is no complete protection from the defense point of view against such terrorists.'
Richard Tomlinson, one of the former employees of the British foreign secret service MI6, said to this newspaper, he could not imagine that the secret services would not have had any hints and tips about a planned attack. 'If they calculate only two terrorists for each crashed airplane there should be a bigger organization, which has planned it. This should have been noticed by the secret services.' Thomson talked about an 'obvious total failure of the secret services'.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/faz-article.htm
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