France knew of al-Qaida hijacking plot in Jan. 2001 - report

[voivod]

PARIS - A French intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaida was working on a plot to hijack U.S. airliners, and it passed the information on to the CIA, a news report said Monday.

France's Le Monde newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network that were drawn up by the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001.

The Defense Ministry didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Le Monde reported that the documents included a note dated Jan. 5, 2001, which said al-Qaida had been working on a hijacking plot for months. The intelligence note reported that bin Laden had attended a meeting in Afghanistan in October 2000, where a final decision to carry out the plot was taken, the newspaper said.

French intelligence officials apparently had no idea that al-Qaida was plotting to crash hijacked planes into buildings, as happened in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Le Monde quoted Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, a former chief of staff for the intelligence agency's director, as saying, "You have to remember that up until 2001, hijacking an airplane did not have the same meaning as after Sept. 11. At the time, that meant forcing an airplane to land in an airport to carry out negotiations. We were used to handling that."

The newspaper said the DGSE report was passed on to the CIA chief in Paris, as was all information about possible threats to American interests.

[ZeoBandit]

Way to act on information, people.

[Red]

Nice propaganda piece, France. Go take a terrorist bribe or something.

[sisca]

yet another good reason to hate the french, along with their shitty food and body odor.

[JasonG5150]

yet another good reason to hate the french, along with their shitty food and body odor.

HAHAHAHAHA

[Ace Ventura]

Way to act on information, people.

No shit! How could it even be possible that they wouldn't share this with America prior to the events of the day??? This makes me ill....

Have any of you seen the documentation from congress of Al Gore's presentation in 1997? Where he CLEARLY stated that Osama Bin Laden was the biggest terrorist threat to this country. And what happend to that little piece of information??? In one ear and out the other...

[JasonG5150]

No shit! How could it even be possible that they wouldn't share this with America prior to the events of the day??? This makes me ill....

Have any of you seen the documentation from congress of Al Gore's presentation in 1997? Where he CLEARLY stated that Osama Bin Laden was the biggest terrorist threat to this country. And what happend to that little piece of information??? In one ear and out the other...

i tell you what happened, Clinton let him go

[chefcraig]

yet another good reason to hate the french, along with their shitty food and body odor.

Actually, this is not yet another knee-jerk reactionary reason to despise the French. Before 9/11, hijacking an airplane meant taking over a plane and flying it to a new destination, then bartering the release the plane's hostages for political demands. It was a highly manipulative bargaining tool used by extemists to get a terrorist point across.

It was not defined by crashing planes into buildings, a suicide mission to seek martyrdom. 9/11 created a new perception of hijacking and it's horrific potential. One can not point a highly suspect (and self serving) finger of blame at the French (or anyone else on the fucking planet) for being contrite about about rumours of hijacking at that time.

[Ace Ventura]

i tell you what happened, Clinton let him go

Good ol' Bubba strikes again....

[AT]

Actually, this is not yet another knee-jerk reactionary reason to despise the French. Before 9/11, hijacking an airplane meant taking over a plane and flying it to a new destination, then bartering the release the plane's hostages for political demands. It was a highly manipulative bargaining tool used by extemists to get a terrorist point across.

It was not defined by crashing planes into buildings, a suicide mission to seek martyrdom. 9/11 created a new perception of hijacking and it's horrific potential. One can not point a highly suspect (and self serving) finger of blame at the French (or anyone else on the fucking planet) for being contrite about about rumours of hijacking at that time.

Exactly as I would have put it.

[JasonG5150]

Good ol' Bubba strikes again....

thats me!

[graeme]

yet another good reason to hate the french, along with their shitty food and body odor.

Pointless but whatever. The French passed the info onto all security services (standard practice_), the CIA included: maybe you didn't read that bit.

Hijackings have been a fairly common tool for years so I doubt this would have been any surprise. Maybe why no-one acted on it. Or maybe they did.

Who the fuck knows?

[JasonG5150]

Pointless but whatever. The French passed the info onto all security services (standard practice_), the CIA included: maybe you didn't read that bit.

Hijackings have been a fairly common tool for years so I doubt this would have been any surprise. Maybe why no-one acted on it. Or maybe they did.

Who the fuck knows?

hell yeah the gov't will never tell us anything

[chefcraig]

Look, if one allows one's own house to burn down, then finds fault with one's neighbors for not calling the fire department, then one would become a societal pariah, in adition to being an irresponsible fuck-wit to begin with.

What lessons/changes have taken place since Sept. 11, 2001? Other than pissing all over people's rights with the "Freedom Act" and making it impossible to bring one's Harley Davidson Zippo lighter or a tube of "Jerk-Eze" masturbatory lotion on an airplane, very little.

If some sociopath decides to blow up a government instalation, a power plant, a port or a Sizzler, all one need do is rent a truck at U-Haul-It and make a couple of quick stops at Joe-Bob's Garden supply and a Hess station. Attempts to close our borders, resulting in a myopic and isolationist fiefdom miss the point that most goods used by Americans today come from other countries. Increased security at one or two places is akin to the dimwitted midieval king that asked the royal locksmith to come up with the "chastity belt", overlooking the fact that the queen had other points of "entry". To make such a venture a success, the queen would need her lips and bunghole sewed shut and her hands and breasts removed. The end result would be far less than attractive or functional.

The hiring of minimum wage "rubber bullet" cops on bicycles at various airports is equally non-effective.

So what happens in lieu of any real progress? Assignation of blame, just like our friend I mentioned above, who let his own house go up in flames and now seeks to castigate others for his own failings. The United States must accept responsibility for it's own shortsighted, knuckle dragging notions and at times disturbing foriegn policy in all of this.

And closing the barn door after the cows, horses and tractor have departed is kinda pointless.

[sisca]

Pointless but whatever. The French passed the info onto all security services (standard practice_), the CIA included: maybe you didn't read that bit.

Hijackings have been a fairly common tool for years so I doubt this would have been any surprise. Maybe why no-one acted on it. Or maybe they did.

Who the fuck knows?

no , i read the whole thing. i just dont like france. or anything french, for that matter.