Triple Cross Peter Lance vs CrissCrossed Larry Johnson

OK everybody, enjoy all the finds. To think what started this lengthy post was early-morning watching Fox 'n Friends and I didn't turn Steve Doocy off when he came on. I was just going to count the times Doocy would slip his book Mr. and Mrs. Happy All the Time into conversations and news and weather reporting. Uh, what was the news of the day? A truck driver who didn't want to learn how to throw up while driving too fast. Peter Lance talking about his upcoming fiction book Triple Danger.(don't fall off your chair) You have to pay attention when Doocy is speaking because he really does somehow mention his book here and there and everywhere over the course of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. And the other two - who even recalls their names - don't object, or gag, or anything.

The original beginning of this post.

Yet again, a story which has not been confirmed arises.

9/11 hijackers wanted to learn how to "fly the plane, but not how to land the plane."

See my This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory which tracks for truth, distortions and continued unsubstantiated rumors concerning September 11, 2001.

On Fox'n Friends this morning, after relaying a news item about a reported Rhode Island situation involving a truck driver who reportedly said he only wanted to learn how to drive forward, Steve Doocy made the comment that this sounds like the hijackers who wanted to learn how to fly the plane, but not how to land the plane.

That remains unsubstantiated. See Alive 9/11 hijackers and BBC News

http://dirtline.tripod.com/talkacrosstown/id35.html

Doocy and many others continue the rumors to this day. (The man should just stick to his happy marriage Mr. and Mrs. Happy Handbook *between a man and a woman* book and planning its sequel - happy divorce)

Feds bust truck trainee who balks at back up By Staff and wire reports Monday, December 11, 2006

also see http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/rewards-for-justice.html wherein it appears the BBC News is reluctant to issue a retraction of its piece Hijack 'suspects' alive and well...

This Wednesday, December 13, 2006 morning, Peter Lance Triple Cross author's whirlwind 3-minute tops interview on Fox 'n Friends

mentions Ali Mohamed known to Fitzgerald...

Lance mentions Patrick Fitzgerald and says evidence in 1996 plot suppressed. Recaps how an al qaeda spy lived in U.S. for years...

(update 12/15/06) Lance 12/13/06 clip on Fox 'n Friends available

Triple Cross: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI--and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him (Hardcover) by Peter Lance

11/29/06 Democracy Now!

New details have emerged about how an al Qaeda spy named Ali Mohamed penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI before the 9/11 attacks. We speak with investigative journalist Peter Lance about his new book, "Triple Cross: "

Also see: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0612/S00046.htm

Next, in our search, we found...

Peter Lance, Crisscrossed By Larry Johnson

Peter Lance is back hawking his latest book, Triple Cross. Unfortunately, it does not come with a “Buyer Beware” label. Peter, in my judgment, confuses self-promotion with analysis and is prone to jump to conclusions not supported by actual evidence. Consider for example Lance’s specious claim in his recent post on Huffington Post, touting his book and his accomplishments:

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained.

Really? Here’s what Kit R. Roane; David E. Kaplan; Chitra Ragavan wrote in the January 8, 2001 edition of US News and World Report (Vol. 130 , No. 1; Pg. 25):

(quote)

Or, how about the November 4, 2001 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Lance Williams and Erin McCormick:

(quote)

Got the picture? Peter thinks that writing about something that has been in the public domain for almost six years is a first-time revelation.

But let’s not stop there. Peter also engages in hyperbole and pronounces on “facts” that on closer scrutiny are wrong or inaccurate...

continued

Here’s the truth—there is not one document, piece of court evidence, or retired FBI agent that supports the claim that in the year prior to the bombing of the US Embassies in East Africa Ali Mohamed was recorded stating his intent to attack those embassies. Not one. You see, clever Peter uses the benefit of hindsight to insist that law enforcement officers and prosecutors only had to look and listen to see the threat. If they had listened to wiretaps they might have heard something. If they had kept tighter rein on Ali Mohamed he might have spilled the beans. Yes, and if Peter was not such a cheap shot artist he might have written a book worth reading.

continued

On November 20, 2006 - 5:39pm topdog08 said:

Larry, neither of the articles you link to mention Ali Mohamed being an informant since 1992 or provide any details about his handling agent in California, John Zent. One is close mentioning 1993, but no cigar.
I think you are misreading the quote about Wadih El Hage. It is not saying they "got the truth" from Ali Mohamed. It is saying they should have been able to prevent the embassy bombings by connecting Mohamed to Wadih El Hage, or by getting the truth from Mohamed - which they did not do as far as anyone knows - unless you know otherwise?

Note: end topdog08 comment also see http://www.topdog08.com/2006/11/index.html

continued with posted comments about the Larry Johnson piece about Peter Lance

On November 21, 2006 - 3:19pm piotr said:

As a lurker, I have hard time deciding who is correct...

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/opinion/10JOHN.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/20/peter_lance_crisscrossed

Us too. But we press on...

what is the truth? Which Peter Lance facts are wrong or inaccurate?

Can we find the truth online?

Updated Analysis Thursday December 14, 2006

Triple Cross: the Book the Ex-Feds Don't Want You to Read by Peter Lance Huffington Post 12-6-06

Excerpt

JOHNSON Here's the truth--there is not one document, piece of court evidence, or retired FBI agent that supports the claim that in the year prior to the bombing of the US Embassies in East Africa Ali Mohamed was recorded stating his intent to attack those embassies. Not one.

(Peter Lance)(response to Johnson)

That was the fallacious allegation that Amy Goodman fell for on Democracynow. But as Mike Kasper pointed out: "Lance never said Mohamed stated his intention to attack the embassies beforehand! He said the FBI should have been able to stop the bombings by connecting him to Wadih El Hage."

El-Hage was one of the principal Embassy bombing cell members with links back to the original WTC bombing cell which Ali Mohamed had trained. In fact, Mohamed set up El-Hage to run the Nairobi cell after the death of its former leader Abu Ubaidah. Mohamed even stayed in El-Hage's house in Kenya and the FBI's elite squad I-49 had a wire tap on the place from 1996 on. That's what I reported in Triple Cross, but Johnson invented lines from the book that never existed, then tried to rebut them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-lance/triple-cross-th_b_35646.html

NY Post Kills Triple Cross Review by an Angry Ex-Fed by Peter Lance
Huffington Post 11-30-06

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-lance/ny-post-kills-t_b_35286.html

Net the Truth Online:

Larry Johnson states Peter Lance states:

Consider for example Lance’s specious claim in his recent post on Huffington Post, touting his book and his accomplishments:

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained.

Al Qaeda and The Mob: How the FBI Blew It on 9/11 by Peter Lance
Huffington Post 11-17-06

In that piece is the section:

WORKING FOR AL QAED AND THE FBI

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained.

All we want to find out is information

Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992

was revealed for the first time by Peter Lance in his book Triple Cross.

Johnson cites two articles:

Really? Here’s what Kit R. Roane; David E. Kaplan; Chitra Ragavan wrote in the January 8, 2001 edition of US News and World Report (Vol. 130 , No. 1; Pg. 25):

Putting Terror Inc. on Trial in New York
The case against bin Laden's alleged followers
By Kit R. Roane and David E. Kaplan
1/8/01

Ali Mohamed is a man of many faces: Egyptian intelligence agent, U.S. Army paratrooper, FBI informant, aide to accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/010108/archive_007652.htm

That article was published 1/8/01 so it predates Peter Lance's Triple Cross.

But while the article says Ali Mohamed is a man of many faces... FBI informant, it apparently doesn't say FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 as Peter Lance states in the Huffington Post.

The second article Johnson cites:

Or, how about the November 4, 2001 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Lance Williams and Erin McCormick:

According to Steven Emerson, a terrorism expert and author who has written about the case, Mohamed by the early 1990s had also established himself as an FBI informant. "He agreed to serve (the FBI) and provide information, but in fact he was working for the bad guys and insulating himself from scrutiny from other law enforcement agencies," Emerson said in an interview.

That, too, predates Triple Cross.

Larry Johnson then states:

Got the picture? Peter thinks that writing about something that has been in the public domain for almost six years is a first-time revelation.

topdog08 comment: Larry, neither of the articles you link to mention Ali Mohamed being an informant since 1992 or provide any details about his handling agent in California, John Zent. One is close mentioning 1993, but no cigar.

I guess because the two articles which pre-dated Triple Cross didn't include the exact wording as Peter Lance they don't count? In the Huffington Post, Peter Lance used the wording:

Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992

so since the two articles Johnson cites aren't word-for-word that means yep it was Peter Lance who first revealed in Triple Cross Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992.

That's facetious.

What is fascinating is that Larry C. Johnson is quoted in the November 4, 2001 article.

Why doesn't Larry C. Johnson point this out in his post Peter Lance, Crisscrossed?

San Francisco Chronicle Al Qaeda terrorist worked with FBI
Ex-Silicon Valley resident plotted embassy attacks
Lance Williams and Erin McCormick, Chronicle Staff Writers
November 4, 2001 article.

A former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya was a U.S. government informant during much of his terrorist career, according to sources familiar with his case.

Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen and longtime Silicon Valley resident who pleaded guilty last year to terrorism charges, approached the Central Intelligence Agency more than 15 years ago and offered to inform on Middle Eastern terrorist groups, a U.S. government official said.

Later, according to the sources, Mohamed spent years as an FBI informant while concealing his own deep involvement in the al Qaeda terrorist band: training bin Laden's bodyguards and Islamic guerrillas in camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan; bringing Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is bin Laden's chief deputy, to the Bay Area on a covert fund-raising mission; and planning the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, in which more than 200 people died.

The story of Mohamed's dual roles as FBI informant and bin Laden terrorist - - and the freedom he had to operate unchecked in the United States -- illustrates the problems facing U.S. intelligence services as they attempt to penetrate the shadowy, close-knit world of al Qaeda, experts said.

Mohamed "clearly was a double agent," Larry C. Johnson, a former deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism and a onetime CIA employee, said in an interview.

Johnson said the CIA had found Mohamed unreliable and severed its relationship with him shortly after Mohamed approached the agency in 1984. Johnson faulted the FBI for later using Mohamed as an informant, saying the bureau should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist, deeply involved in plotting violence against the United States and its allies.

"It's possible that the FBI thought they had control of him and were trying to use him, but what's clear is that they did not have control," Johnson said. "The FBI assumed he was their source, but his loyalties lay elsewhere."

The affair was "a study in incompetence, in how not to run an agent," Johnson said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/11/04/MN117081.DTL

Don't forget cooperative research info concerning double-agent FBI informant Ali Mohamed predates Triple Cross (publication).

One would have thought Larry Johnson would have cited all the resources on the Cooperative Research site (section entitled: Spring 1993: Ali Mohamed Detained in Vancouver; FBI Tells Canadian Authorities He Is an Informant) to bolster his Criscrossed viewpoint.

More google search results

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know all this?

PETER LANCE: Well, I know it because, you know, I have been working for five years now, Amy, focusing primarily on the two bin Laden offices of origin, the New York office of the FBI and the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office. Up until 9/11, the war on terror, as you know, was fought as a series of legal cases, a stones throw from where we are here in the Southern District.

And so, what I did when I went -- right after 9/11, when I began, really “How did this happen?” and “Could it happen again?” were my two questions. So, what I did was, I read all 40,000 pages of the Southern District cases. I read every book on the subject, 10,000 articles. You know, Paul Thompson has -- I’ve worked closely with Paul Thompson of cooperativeresearch.org and basically, you know, began developing sources inside and outside of the bureau.

And one day, I woke up -- after the first book, I showed tremendous negligence by the bureau, and then gross negligence, in my second book, to the point of suppression of some evidence. And I still couldn’t connect the dots. And one day, I woke up, and I went, “Ali Mohamed is the key.” I mentioned him briefly in my first two books. And there had been about a dozen articles on him, which I cite in the beginning of the book. New York Times had done pieces on him. But no one had ever looked at him in depth...

And here's the last of it. If only Larry C. Johnson had read the beginning of the book, Triple Cross. He'd have learned...

The book's Preface indeed includes references with footnotes

On the other hand, Peter Lance should not have made a blanket statement about the exclusivity of a revelation about Mohamed in his November 17, 2006 post on the Huffington Post, and should have cited in that article all those he's cited in the beginning of Triple Cross.

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992...

Fair is fair.

Given all of that effort and analysis, is there any sane reason to pursue any further who revealed absolutely first that Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant since 1992 on the West Coast. There are many more pursuits which are more important.

Plus, if an author believes his/her material has been used without attribution, that author can initiate a lawsuit.

What surely knocks most of us in the gut is the FBI maintained an informant who was in the al Quada - bin Laden caverns.

What a sick country.

Let me post this here, even though there is much more to this journey of a post, especially the ending. Don't look yet.

From the Democracy Now! interview

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think needs to happen now?

PETER LANCE: What I think needs to happen is there needs to be a real investigation of 9/11, not staffed by alumni of the very agencies that, you know, were asleep at the switch in the years leading up to 9/11. It should be staffed by American citizens, journalists, scholars, widows, the Jersey girls should be on it. It should be fully funded, and it should have subpoena power, because anyone that thinks that in reading the 9/11 Commission Report you’ve gotten the full story is wrong. No accountability. They never named a single name in the 9/11 Commission Report.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0612/S00046.htm

You won't get an argument from this site. Particularly, George W. Bush should be asked specifically when he learned there was speculation and when he learned there was confirmation commercial airplanes had been hijacked the morning of September 11, 2001.

Date of following Wednesday, December 13, 2006

10:07 a.m. As I continued to search for truth, of course I reviewed my own site and came upon the response by Mr. Peter Lance. I had not yet visited Mr. Lance's website, but would have done so to provide a link to his own material.

See: http://www.peterlance.com

This is Peter Lance, the author of TRIPLE CROSS.

Larry C. Johnson, has attacked my book because he was criticized in it for his stunning underestimation of the al Qaeda threat in the summer of 2001.

If you are going to post outdated and discredited comments from him then I ask you, in fairness, to post the links to my response to Johnson which appeared on The Huffington Post December 6th:

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Home/DC7E038F-B1A7-46D9-A874-FF0054B427D2.html

TPMcafe, which first posted Johnson's specious attack, also ran my rebuttal on December 13th

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2006/dec/08/triple_cross_the_book_the_ex_feds_dont_want_you_to_read

On November 21st, one day after the book's publication, Johnson went so far as to falsely claim that I had not won five Emmys, then retracted that libelous comment after being admonished by the National Academy. The proof is in my blogs.

But if you don't trust my defense of TRIPLE CROSS, read this point by point rebuttal of Johnson by Mike Kasper who runs AbleDangerBlog.com

http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/11/read-damn-book-first-larry.html

contined in comments

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/yet-again-story-which-has-not-been.html

11:26 a.m. after adding to the post concerning C-Span's misplaced focus on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential aspirations, I visited the sites Peter Lance posted.

So now earlier than ever expected we're up-to-date

TPMcafe Peter Lance answers Larry Johnson
Wednesday, Dec. 13th, 2006 By Peter Lance

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Home/Home.html

Now, however, I have to digress momentarily as I notice the promo of The Terror Timeline on Peter Lance's site, (forward by Peter Lance) I'm energized to dig out my own fully independent 9/11 research started five years ago to determine the actual length of time President George W. Bush remained seated in that Florida second grade classroom after learning from Andrew Card that a second plane hit the World Trade Center and America was under attack. Contrary to many sites' claims all those years ago, (and continued to this day) the time Bush remained in the room wasn't 20 minutes, 25 minutes, or 30 minutes.

On my site: THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY: 6-MINUTE SLIVER SHOWS HISTORICAL TRUTH
Bush-No-TV-Don't-Say-Anything-Yet Timeline compiled from reviewing...

http://dirtline.tripod.com/talkacrosstown/id15.html

While I don't have a copy of The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response (Paperback) by Paul Thompson at hand, I did read the section about Bush's whereabouts the morning of 9/11. If I am not mistaken, the book notes a lapse of time of 10 minutes from the time George W. Bush enters the second-grade classroom and exits the classroom.

Wow, found this just tonight: Bush listens to the goat story for about ten more minutes. The reason given is that, “Without all the facts at hand, George Bush ha[s] no intention of upsetting the schoolchildren who had come to read for him.” [MSNBC, 10/29/2002]

and

(9:06-9:16 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Bush Reads Pet Goat Story for Nearly Ten Minutes; Warned Not to Talk

(The timing of this entry is a rough approximation based mostly on the Tampa Tribune estimate. Much of this video footage is shown in Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. [New York Times, 6/18/2004]

My research shows differently. 6-minutes. That's the length of time according to the accounts of three different pool reporters who were eye-witnesses to the morning events of September 11, 2001.

As I say on This is Not a Conspiracy Theory - History that is inaccurate is not history. History that is inaccurate is a lie.

That is exactly the reason Net the Truth Online began the research into the subject of Triple Cross Peter Lance vs CrissCrossed Larry Johnson.

Possibly before relaying his assertions that we had basically stopped our search for truth by posting as Lance says, outdated and discredited comments from him (Larry C. Johnson), Mr. Lance didn't read the title of the post or maybe the title wasn't fully displayed in the header as it is long. Triple Cross Peter Lance vs CrissCrossed Larry Johnson - that's our title and that includes both authors, Peter Lance and Larry Johnson.

We don't stop searching for truth. In fact, we had already posted the Democracy Now! interview which is cited by Lance on his website. Also, the sections we excerpted from Crisscrossed by Larry Johnson posted on TPMCafe (http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/20/peter_lance_crisscrossed) included the message of topdog08 who rips Johnson.

In addition, to determine truth online more fully, it became necessary to attempt to find what Larry C. Johnson had said regarding Valerie Plame since early on in the research for this post an item revealed Johnson admitted a bias regarding Valerie Plame.

Net the Truth Online only wants the truth. No matter what the truth reveals. No matter who the truth hurts.

Back to Triple Cross Peter Lance vs CrissCrossed Larry Johnson

finds:

Burying the Mistakes of 9-11 by Jack Cashill August 31, 2006

http://www.cashill.com/terrorism/burying_mistakes.htm

Posted: Sun., Aug. 20, 2006, 4:15pm PT
Spy docu sparks spat
Cabler, author sparring over 'Triple Cross'
By GABRIEL SNYDER


The National Geographic Channel is going ahead with plans to broadcast "Triple Cross: Bin Laden's Spy in America" on Aug. 28 despite the objections of author Peter Lance, whose book was the basis of the docu.

Lance claims that it does not reflect the accusations in his book, which ReganBooks will release in September, that law-enforcement officials were negligent in tracing Ali Mohamed, an Al Qaeda agent in the U.S. for years before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"If they go to air with a documentary that dilutes the essence of my five-year investigation, they rushed to judgment to make an air date," said Lance, a former ABC News correspondent and the winner of five Emmys. "They hijacked my work."...

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Variety%208.20.06.html

More additions to this post 5:30 p.m. (post time is way off)

The Huffington Post, Peter Lance's Flawed Triple Cross, 12/06/06

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-c-johnson/peter-lances-flawed-trip_b_35649.html

No Quarter = site of Larry C. Johnson

Saturday, 02 December 2006 Peter Lance's Flawed Triple Cross by Larry C Johnson Comments section No Quarter

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/peter_lances_fl.html#comments

Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Maybe Larry should find a quarter So he can call someone who has a clue.

http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/12/maybe-larry-should-find-quarter.html

search results

http://www.topdog08.com/2006/11/index.html

November 20, 2006 Read the damn book first, Larry
Cross posted at Able Danger Blog. I wanted to leave my review of Triple Cross at the top of the page, but this was too good to pass up:

http://www.topdog08.com/2006/11/index.html

Lance vs McCarthy with Chapter 17 excerpted from Triple Cross

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/McCarthy%20vs.%20Lance.html

More

IMO, the idea that Mohamed fooled US intel for 12 years is absurd. I wonder why Lance seems to believe this makes sense.

It appears Scott isn't having any part of the incompetence rationale. I wonder if Lance made a decision that he would get further (draw more attention to problems with the 9/11 Commission report) if he stuck to the less sinister 'incompetence' rationale. Then, when people read his book they will quickly realize that incompetence isn't a sufficient explanation. Or maybe he has a mental block...and the notion of official complicity is too threatening to his world view.

One strange aspect is why US intelligence would associate with the same guy over and over. Does Mohamed have a dossier/tapes/video to protect him? I would guess that he does...

Scott and Peter Lance discuss the history of the terrorist ring surrounding Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, Kalid Sheik Mohammed, and Osama bin Laden. Audio Stream

Oct. 8, 2006 Peter Dale Scott

FBI protected Al Qaeda’s 9/11 Hijacking Trainer

Excerpt:

Ali Mohamed manipulated the FBI, CIA and U.S. Army on behalf of Osama bin Laden. Mohamed trained terrorists how to hijack airliners, bomb buildings and assassinate rivals. [D]uring much of this time Mohamed was …, an operative for the CIA and FBI, and a member of the U.S. Army.17 …Mohamed turned up in FBI surveillance photos as early as 1989, training radical Muslims who would go on to assassinate Jewish militant Meir Kahane and detonate a truck bomb at the World Trade Center. He not only avoided arrest, but managed to become an FBI informant while writing most of the al Qaeda terrorist manual and helping plan attacks on American troops in Somalia and U.S. embassies in Africa.18

That Mohamed trained al Qaeda in hijacking planes and wrote most of the al Qaeda terrorist manual is confirmed in a new book by Lawrence Wright, who has seen US Government records.19 Let me say this again: one of al-Qaeda’s top trainers in terrorism and how to hijack airplanes was an operative for FBI, CIA, and the Army.

Yet this TV show, just before the 9/11 anniversary, was itself another cover-up. It suppressed for example the information given it about Mohamed’s detention and FBI-ordered release in Canada. According to Peter Lance, the principal author for the show, the show suppressed many other sensational facts. Here is Lance’s chief claim: that Fitzgerald and his FBI counterpart on the Bin Laden task force, John Cloonan, learned shortly after 9/11 that Mohamed “knew every twist and turn of” the 9/11 plot.20

Within days of 9/11 Cloonan rushed backed from Yemen and interviewed Ali, whom the Feds had allowed to slip into witness protection, and demanded to know the details of the plot. At that point Ali wrote it all out - including details of how he'd counseled would-be hijackers on how to smuggle box cutters on board aircraft and where to sit, to effect the airline seizures.21

If all these latest revelations about Ali Mohamed are true, then:

1) a key planner of the 9/11 plot, and trainer in hijacking, was simultaneously an informant for the FBI.

2) This operative trained the members for all of the chief Islamist attacks inside the United States – the first WTC bombing, the New York landmarks plot, and finally 9/11, as well as the attacks against Americans in Somalia and Kenya.

3) And yet for four years Mohamed was allowed to move in and out of the country as an unindicted conspirator. Then, unlike his trainees, he was allowed to plea-bargain. To this day he may still not have been sentenced for any crime.22

Peter Lance has charged that Fitzgerald had evidence before 1998 to implicate Mohamed in the Kenya Embassy bombing, yet did nothing and let the bombing happen.23 In fact, the FBI was aware back in 1990 that Mohamed had engaged in terrorist training on Long Island; yet it acted to protect Mohamed from arrest, even after one of his trainees had moved beyond training to an actual assassination.24

http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_bnaielim_archive.html

More...

ZAHN: We have heard from the 9/11 commission today that al Qaeda is planning to hit the U.S. again. We've also heard that it's become more decentralized since 9/11, but what do we do about that? How potent is al Qaeda now? Joining us is an expert on al Qaeda who testified before the 9/11 commission last month, investigative journalist Peter Lance.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/16/pzn.00.html June 16, 2004

New Book Highlights Able Danger
Posted by Curt on November 18, 2006

Able Danger is mentioned throughout the book, but some other chapters which focus on it include Chapter 31, "Operation Able Danger", Chapter 32, "Obliterating the Dots", and Chapter 33, "Able Danger Part Two". Over the past nine months, I was beginning to doubt if anyone would ever give the Able Danger story the treatment it deserves. Peter Lance has gone above and beyond my expectations in "Triple Cross" and anyone who is interested in getting to the bottom of the Able Danger story should read it. ..

http://www.floppingaces.net/2006/11/18/new-book-highlights-able-dange/

But as Sun Tzu wrote in the 6th century B.C., “all war is deception,” and Ali Mohamed was one of the most capable deceivers this nation has ever embraced.

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Home/43F10BD6-380D-4BF0-BEC5-BD5235B08E8B.html

Oh no, I have to disagree Ali Mohamed didn't deceive them, Mr. Lance.

And just had to find this... wherein

Peter Dale Scott The 9/11 Report and Ali Mohamed

same here http://reprehensor.gnn.tv/blogs/18778/Peter_Dale_Scott_The_9_11_Report_and_Ali_Mohamed

Patrick Fitzgerald knew Ali Mohamed well. In 1994 he had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York landmarks case, yet allowed him to remain free. This was because, as Fitzgerald knew, Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989.12 Thus, from 1994 “until his arrest in 1998 [by which time the 9/11 plot was well under way], Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries.”13 Shortly after 9/11, Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States.14

As I say in our book, in 1993 Ali Mohamed had been detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, when he inquired at an airport after an incoming al Qaeda terrorist who turned out to be carrying two forged Saudi passports. Mohamed immediately told the RCMP to make a phone call to the United States, and the call secured his release.15 We’ve since been told that it was Mohamed’s West coast FBI handler, John Zent, “who vouched for Ali and got him released.”16

http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_bnaielim_archive.html

1989? Yep. If 1989 date turns out to be true, Mohamed an FBI informant since 1989 on the West Coast, we'll be sure to report that fact.

ali mohamed 1989 fbi informant

The Bin Laden Trial: What Did We Learn?
Peter Bergen

http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(420g5pv52sb5zb55lpr3kf35)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,8;journal,34,47;linkingpublicationresults,1:102492,1

Cast of Character Peter Lance 10/06/06

http://peterlance.com/Cast.pdf

Peter Dale Scott reference and footnote 27

9/11 in Historical Perspective: Flawed Assumptions

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/911Background.htm#_ftn27

Ali Mohamed was not just an FBI job applicant. Unquestionably he was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989.[27]

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/911Background.htm#_ftn27

[27] Fitzgerald must have known he was dissembling. Even the mainstream account by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon (The Age of Sacred Terror [New York: Random House, 2002], 236) records that “When Mohamed was summoned back from Africa in 1993 [sic, Mohamed in his confession says 1994] to be interviewed by the FBI in connection with the case against Sheikh Rahman and his coconspirators, he convinced the agents that he could be useful to them as an informant.” Cf. Lawrence Wright, New Yorker, 9/16/02: “In 1989…Mohamed talked to an F.B.I. agent in California and provided American intelligence with its first inside look at Al Qaeda.” Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States. In Johnson's words, "It's possible that the FBI thought they had control of him and were trying to use him, but what's clear is that they did not have control” (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/04/01).

Related:
Statement of Steven Emerson to the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
July 9, 2003

Overview: The Rampant Allure of Jihad in the Muslim World

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/9-11_commission/030709-emerson.htm

References Peter Lance notes in Preface xxvi-xxvii
Bibliography contains citations

Found online 12/18/06

Peter Lance:
al Qaeda’s master spy... TRIPLE CROSS is the third book in my investigative trilogy on the FBI and the road to Sept. 11th. Why spend five years on the probe? Because 9/11 has become a cold case...

THE INVESTIGATORS WHO PAVED THE WAY
All investigative reporters stand on the shoulders of those who came before them, and the Ali Mohamed story is no exception. As I began to piece together the fragments of intelligence on his triple life, a series of seminal news pieces helped me form a grid. Among the first investigators to fully appreciate Mohamed’s deception was Steven Emerson, who examined him in American Jihad back in 2002. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams and Erin McCormick did an outstanding series on Ali and his Silicon Valley cohort Khalid Dahab. Joseph Neff and John Sullivan did a pair of excellent investigative stories for the Raleigh News & Observer on Ali’s years at Fort Bragg. Additional pieces that helped form my initial blueprint came from Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Sharon Theimer, Peter Waldman, Gerald F. Seib and Jerry Markon in the Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune reporters Andrew Martin and Michael J. Berens.
But by far the most comprehensive reporting on Mohamed was done by Benjamin Weiser, who covers the SDNY for the New York Times. His co-writer on several key pieces was Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen. To the degree I’ve been able to add to the body of knowledge on al Qaeda’s master spy, I remain indebted to all of them.

http://www.peterlance.com/Peter%20Lance/Home/43F10BD6-380D-4BF0-BEC5-BD5235B08E8B.html

Note: the Lance excerpt does not include footnote numbers.

Link urls to articles not contained in Lance book
FYI

17. Steve Emerson American Jihad 2002

18. Lance Williams and Erin McCormick San Francisco Chronicle

19. Joseph Neff and John Sullivan Raleigh News & Observer
Joseph Neff and John Sullivan November 14, 2001

20. Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Sharon Theimer, Peter Waldman, Gerald F. Seib

21. Jerry Markon Wall Street Journal

22. Chicago Tribune reporters Andrew Martin and Michael J. Berens

23. Ben Weiser New York Times
James Risen