Saturday, June 05, 2004

No one could have envisioned

Maru has an excerpt of a Bill Maher interview with Larry King:

MAHER: And how come these people like Condoleezza Rice, but others, always say the same thing? No one could envision -- that was her view. No one could envision flying planes into buildings. You know what? Stop saying that, Ms. Rice. You couldn't envision it. Plenty of people envisioned it. The terrorists envisioned it. Some of the people in your own FBI and CIA envisioned it. Those two little jerks at Columbine envisioned it. Tom Clancy envisioned it. You didn't envision it. And by the way, when you have National Security in your title and stenciled on your door, it sort of is your job to envision it.


I'll tell you who else could have envisioned it: the FBI and British security officials.

Eighteen months before the attack on the Twin Towers the former curry waiter from Burnley entered an FBI office in New Jersey and told startled agents he had been trained to hijack a plane and fly it into a building.

His tale of al-Qa'eda training camps equipped with mock Boeing aircraft was carefully noted by two FBI counter-terrorism experts, and filed away.

Though he passed two lie detector tests, his allegations were ignored as too fantastic to be believed.

After three weeks of questioning two agents flew him to England where he was handed over to security officials. After a day in custody he was released and forgotten.

...After the September 11 attacks the American authorities contacted the British security services demanding he be re-interrogated but did not receive an official reply. Mr Khan, having seen the attacks on television, called the Crimestoppers hotline. He was told to contact his local police station where he was interviewed for half an hour.
  Telegraph article