know you can do an investigation and if you don't really want to research an area you just don't look at it if you don't me ask them all the questions or you don't let them tell you the whole story you know then you could write a report based on how the people who lost loved ones at nine eleven like the families of guys who were lost in vietnam they just can't get over it sometimes people become crusaders because they they can't deal with reality the families i think have to understand that it virtually impossible to conceive of any way in which these attacks could have been stopped even had the best things happened on nine eleven the media started out by doing its job and somehow got waylaid and stopped doing its job  i personally was hoping for was another word working bernstein with regard to nine eleven someone anyone that was willing to put their team and to th e families discovered a website created by independent investigator paul thompson his complete nine eleven timeline to minutely the internet research stitches together information from over seven  conscience works in game mainstream media exposure timeline is based on public documentation what we know what the world know about nine eleven changed which way it was among the first to bring attention to paul thompson's timeline you know has to be almost taken more seriously than nine eleven because i mean it's open there's nothing secret here this i began researching and it is this curious phenomenon which is that there's a lot of explosive information that has come out of the mainstream press but it comes out buried as a casual observer of the news i've never noticed any of this stuff  you might find one important bit of information and say a newspaper story and another bit of information on a news show you start to put all those rather obscure stories together you end up with an almost completely different narrative that we're just about any area relating to nine eleven the story is quite different and clearly something yesterday took place in new york that was not foreseen that we had no specific specific information about like most american the mr thompson initially didn't question the bush administration's first statements about the attacks ministration consistently maintain that there were no warnings or specific threats of a threat no specific threat involving really domestic operation involving what happened obviously the cities airliner and so forth there were no warning signs and i'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country i first became interested in nine eleven around mid two thousand and two right around the time that president bush is now famous august sixth p t b became leaked to the press president bush was told in august that osama bin laden might be planning an attack involving the hijacking of u s aircraft it was a revelation that the white house had no intention of making public an official spent the entire day in full damage control i don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile a hijacked airplane as a missile the way our government at least and i don't think the prior government could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale his interest p thompson began to search for new stories that might help him determine exactly where the white house had been of all kind his desire to use planes as weapons he was quickly able to compile a wealth of examples that any journalist should plot operational chink of a plan to blow up multiple airliners over the pacific was heavily reported but thompson noted most journalists failed to mention the second aspect of the plot only c n n international dug deeper into th targeted the pentagon and the world trade center and the f b i using the philippine documents did check the for flight schools named there but found no evidence of any other plan terror attacks bin ladin the hijacking airplanes and he can fast he was now in america to carry out an attack khan was recruited into a kind of british mosque then flown to lahore pakistan for a hijack training and a mock seven sixty seven  before being sent to america where it was told he would hijack a plane from j f k and into a building i told him before the nine eleven about more than hijacking america and america headline calling claims he got cold feet instead of meeting his contacts he slipped away gambled away all his money and in fear turned himself in and can  and another story that comes out on page b twelve but what i found is that many times the story that comes out on b twelve is more important than the story that comes out on the front page march the talian intelligence gave information to the august according to moroccan and french newspapers an intelligence agent reported that bin laden's men were preparing large scale operations in new york in the summer or fall of two thousand and one agent was then called to the u s to report this information directly august britain warned three times of an al qaeda attack in the us the final warning specifying multiple airplane hijackings according to britain's sunday herald the warning was passed on to president bush a short time later it's unknown how many of these warnings reported but buried in back pages reached the white house through channels but one threat assessment is well known to have reached president bush directly it was known as the presidential daily briefing or p b of august sixth the bush administration kept it from the public for months until it was revealed in part by the c b s news in may two thousand and two putting the white house on the defensive all of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking you take a plane people were worried they might blow some blow one up on the i'd like to ask you about the august sixth p v p or you mentioned two years later president bush responded to questions about what led him to request the august sixth briefing government and i asked for the briefing and the reason i did is because there had been a lot of threat osama bin laden to assassinate george w bush the l a times reported u s officials were warned of a threat posed from the air by commercial airliners it's terrorists as well as protesters the italian government so we're on standby at the airport congolese so rice was present there president bush ari fleischer karl rove president bush's own family they were going to if the august sixth p t b was prompted by a threat from the air in genoa clearly president bush his spokesperson ari fleischer and his national security adviser condi rice were more than aware of the threat of planes as weapons but the news media appeared to mislead give information about simultaneous hijackings no specific threat planes being used as weapons i don't think anybody could have predicted specific targets including mentions the pentagon the world trade center whole truth and nothing but the truth in april two thousand and four public pressure finally forced the white house to allow dr rice to testify before the nine eleven commission to answer the threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of two thousand and one was not specific as to time nor place nor manner of attack almost all of the reports focused on al qaeda activities outside the united states this set in stark contrast to the warnings well documented in thompson's timeline what the august sixth p t b said and perhaps i should read it to you we would be happy to have it the classified info when he was testifying one bend in nice was really trying to get into the nitty gritty did you tell the president at any time prior to august sixth of the existence of al qaeda cells in the united states but first let me just make certain if you could just reporting there was no new threat information and it did not in fact warn of any coming attacks inside the united states and what was the title of the memo i believe the title was finland determined to attack inside the united states preparations for hijackings are other types of attacks including recent surveillance of federal buildings in new york that's present tense and domestic ari fleischer came out right after september eleventh and said there were no warnings i watched him tell me there were no warnings ok i want to know why nobody has gone back and said what did he mean howard dean recently seemed to muse all out whether you had advance knowledge of nine eleven the press has reported this one that one could never really put it all together is that how many different wordings did you get how many different ways was this information coming at you and why wasn't anything done about all these warnings remains and on the night before the attacks the president may have slept more soundly knowing surface to air missiles were placed on the roof of the service sort of florida resort where he was staying not a typical security procedure at the time it seemed night particularly urgent warning may have been received causing some top pentagon brass to cancel their scheduled flights the morning of nine eleven why that same information was not available to the two hundred sixty six people who died aboard the four hijacked aircraft may become a hot topic on the hill it never did we took an oath not to talk about  were inside the united states you were told again by briefing officers in august that it was up to the dire threat didn't do anything that hard enough border security didn't do anything to harden airports or security didn't do anything to engage local law enforcement didn't do anything to round  say we have to shut this down and didn't warn the american people what did you do nothing so far as we can s the government first said there were no want to use their work then the white house and the warnings were not specific as to whether when the nine eleven families and the time line connect the dots with there were many warnings most were detailed somewhere urgent and yet little or no difference of action was taken by responsible officials except for their own personal protection the public was better informed in the summer of two thousand and one lives would have been saved maybe they wouldn't been prevented lives would have been saved my husband was in tower to if he knew that it was a terrorist attack he would've stayed in the building when they were told that the building was secure order an evacuation of tower to no one ordered fighters to perform anytime we defensive action against remaining hijacked planes no one responded adequately to the  is wrong in its value because the nine eleven terrorists were not just lucky ones they were lucky over and over again when you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols broken laws broken communication one cannot still call that if at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever expect the terrorists to not get lucky again september the eleventh anime's of freedom committed an act of war against our country and tonight the united states of america makes the following demands on the taliban delivered to united states authorities all the leaders america's apparently clear military victory in afghanistan was not so clear cut  the war ended very quickly but in the end the u s was only able to capture or kill one major figure and no taliban figures you know the fact is right now today we don't have any high ranking taliban or al qaeda but we haven't really captured anybody wanted to on the fringe his understanding of the from its actions before nine eleven now fundamentally changed thompson decided to take a similar look into what happened in afghanistan the pressed never looked very closely at how so many of these leaders were able to escape every few pieced together a number of different music yes you can begin to understand the story night before because they came in a convoy of at least a thousand cars and trucks it must have been easy for american pilots to see th by the tenth bin laden had joined the convoy in jalalabad an intelligence official told knight ridder newspapers it was obvious that this area was to be the base for an exodus to pakistan we were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for  s special forces are working with pakistani troops on the border to watch possible escape routes while there were two main escape routes newsweek reported that the u s bombed only one using the other route hundreds of all kind and taliban including senior leaders escaped in the wake of the attacks eyewitnesses told britain's the daily telegraph that they were shocked that the us had surrounded tora bora only on three sides out and getting his book published that he actually resigned two years short of retirement from the cia in order to publish his book at the time of this interview he was required to speak through his attorney until the cia cleared his book for  publication at various points in time they did have to my understanding definitive intelligence as to his general location within tora bora i can't go into detail as to the actual  sources of the intelligence and the collection methods because those remain classified however we had osama bin laden essentially cornered in tora bora and for whatever reasons we did not do what was necessary in order to ensure that he did not escape the goal has never been to get bin laden obviously that's desirable it's interesting i just read a piece by some analysts that said you may not want to go after the top people in these organizations who may have more effect by going after the middle managers because they're harder to replace toward the end of the war when all eyes were on tora bora the news media missed another major story again thousands of taliban and al qaeda escaped without drawing s buyer this time from the northern city of can do the taliban's only stronghold in the region is all but full into the forces of the northern alliance once again the door was left open for our side in that battle at the enemy surrounded there were a reported perhaps eight thousand enemy forces in there now they have the cream of the crop of al qaeda cause journalist seymour hersh later broke this story in the new yorker magazine briefly sparking v news coverage and from there all of a sudden one night around thanksgiving in the middle of the siege an air corridor was set up between condos in northern pakistan and at night pakistani really playing regularly flew through that corridor was a very orderly organized thing that armed men would stand on the tarmac waiting for a flight that would come in and then they would be taken out as many as forty five thousand they were not only al qaeda but maybe even some of bin ladin the media family had to be done with the blessing of exactly and of the united states when i tell you it cams at the level of don rumsfeld that has to what we're describing here is something which would clearly be noticed by the united states  maybe not ok an airlift of these portions it certainly would this is the most secure space on the face of the earth right now if someone's moving over afghanistan the united states knows about no plane conduit to pakistan without getting shot down unless we let it happen and we let it happen and i think there's just no other way to explain it my take on it basically is the fact there is some sort of a deal in place between the government of pakistan and the united states intrigue thompson deeper into pakistan his timeline showed osama bin laden was reportedly last seen in pakistan after escaping from tora bora c b s news has exclusive information tonight but thanks to an s he also learned bin laden was in pakistan on the eve of nine eleven bin laden was spirited into this military hospital in relativity for kidney dialysis treatment the military had him surrounded says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity managed they were saying that osama bin laden had to be watched carefully and looked after we will make no distinction between a terrorist who committed these acts and those who harbor them to better understand the times between bin laden and pakistan thomas and followed a timeline thread that began with covert pakistan involvement in the soviet afghan war two decades ago mujahideen were backed by the central intelligence agency who hoped to give the soviets their own costly vietnam type rather than fund the mujahideen directly the cia covertly channeled money through the afghanistan when this record cia and intelligence services of pakistan and saudi arabia created this group of people to fight the russians in afghanistan billions of dollars from the cia and the saudis were passed through the i s i to support the war thompson wondered if i s i involvement in terrorism included the attacks of nine eleven we will get the facts and government a chance to confident that all kind of alone was behind nine eleven will you release publicly a white paper which links him and his organization to this attack we are you know we are hard at work bringing all the information together intelligence  the sunday shows i'm not aware of anybody who said white paper the secretary and say that a white paper yesterday you know you're here talking about actions in other parts of the world and certainly you want the support of this many people around the world  laden was not capable of doing this by himself and his group so who was cable obviously there has to be much more of an investigation in pakistan but on october first the f b i discovered evidence linking the alleged hijackers and al qaeda by following the money trail that ended at mohamed atta in florida suspected hijacker mohamed atta received wire transfers by a pakistani and then distributed the cash via money order but most of his post nine eleven reports about omar saeed shake and failed to mention was that at the same time a shaikh dropped out of the london school of economics to presumably join al qaeda he had also joined the  clear that he was provided for to action and safe haven in pakistan with the direct support with the knowledge and obviously with the connivance of the pakistani intelligence only two days after the invasion of afghanistan the times of india reported the f b i discovered credible evidence that one hundred thousand dollars was wired to alleged hijacker mohamed atta by nine eleven paymaster omar saeed sheikh on the orders of the was a key player william pepper he's an international lawyer and consultant to the pakistani government indian state intelligence came upon this transfer it was the times of india was able to get this information and the f b i got involved in this whole situation because this was now becoming very public as a result of the indian investigation though the evidence was never publicly disclosed indian intelligence claimed that the f b i had privately confirm the story to them and it soon made every major indian newspaper in the u s only a single news outlet even mentioned the allegation the information was reported as an internet only story on the editorial section of the wall street journal website now this cutesy title may contain this completely explosive information after the times of india story broke shaykh was no longer the apparent proof that al qaeda was the sole sponsor of the attacks instead sayed shaikh acting on the orders of the i s i appeared to be the smoking gun of pakistani involvement in nine eleven and instantly within that they basically saved shaikh becomes personified grata and then a whole bunch of other people are put forth as the paymaster over the next several months authorities began confusing the news media with the bill will during variety of alternate names for the paymaster each sounding similar to omar saeed sheikh no it's this guy no it's this guy they keep changing the story about who the guy is it becomes hard to keep track by the one year anniversary of nine eleven newsweek had concluded that the paymaster remains almost a total mystery the nine eleven commission would ultimately conclude that the question of who financed the attacks is a little practical significance and in my opinion it seems to be a bunch of smoke and mirrors to try to really hide the fact that there's money coming from the i s i going to the hijackers if we were really going after the people who sponsored al qaida would we be bombing pakistan are we better off in pakistan or in iraq in terms of being terrorism i would say to you if you asked me that question i would say no question let's forget about iraq and let's focus on pakistan there is no reason for the administration to continue to shield make believe allies who are supporting either directly or indirectly terrorist who's goal is to kill americans you think that will ever become public which countries become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives but that's twenty or thirty years from now we need to have this information now because it's relevant to the threat that the people the united states are and here the story took another unexpected turn several top news sources had all reported that the pakistani i s i director had actually been in washington for a rare visit during the week of september eleventh  elie weekly reported that on the very evening of september eleventh u s state department officials began negotiating the terms of the us pakistani partnership with i assigned director mahmoud i'm in the very man who was alleged to have ordered the wire transfer to mohamed oughta the talks continued over the next several days before the lieutenant general returned to pakistan on september fourteenth but an undercover operative named randy glass says he can prove that usa officials knew about the i s i role in nine eleven even as they chose to partner with pakistan the revelation came in yet another largely overlooked story this one reported by dateline n b c conmen turned undercover operative brandy glass was infiltrating a terrorist arms buying network layer by layer former kamen glass was part of a one nine hundred ninety nine government sting called operation diamondbacks a two and a half year investigation by the f b i and the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms on july twenty second one thousand nine hundred nine last flew to new york for a meeting here at the trendy try back and grill it was dinner for mixed in with the dinner crowd were agents from the f b i as terrorism task force basically what he told me was they were interested in purchasing a large amount of sophisticated weapons systems and who was a boss representing as a boss was represented to me as being an i s i agent and this is where the stakes really get high because of abbas was telling the truth randy glass when the feds were about to cut any legal weapons deal with a pakistani intelligence operative linked to terrorists the story of or in a glass that was in the kitchen the best most people have heard about this have you heard about randy glass they haven't heard about earlier today perhaps the story failed to spark the public imagination because the most dramatic revelation ended up on dateline's cutting room floor i had been threatened by f b i agents cleburne asked me if i mention any of that i would be charged with obstruction of justice two months later the palm beach post ran the story during the course of the conversation i asked him exactly what his intentions were after dinner as we walked outside he pointed in the direction of the world trade center and said those towers are coming down i'm not suggesting from this that pakistan is the quote unquote solution in nine eleven because it's not pakistan is one part in the very complicated story the question to me is who else in august two thousand and four after the nine eleven commission had disappointed so many of the families with its report paul thompson's completed timeline was published as a book by harper collins the brokering themes of paul thomas and the united states the man named as the culprits allowed to escape but we haven't really captured anybody wanted to run the brain and the government officials could nord warnings before nine eleven still their position i don't remember the al qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something obviously still despite years of investigation and advocacy by their families and others the official story of what really happened on september eleventh what is democracy you know it's government by the people it's a simple equation ok the biggest part of the mock recy is the media they have the whole everyone accountable you know it would be impossible as a citizen to be up and informed on every single topic because it took us thousands of hours of research in order to be informed enough to ask the right questions here and that's where you need media because you know what somebody has to be out there connecting the dots and we don't have  reporting there is always use of caution in how we cover this story for those turning to the internet rather than network news online buzz about president bush in the florida but most americans remain unaware that for nearly three years the footage gathered dust on newsroom shelves as the networks avoided the issue and their anniversary retrospective so maybe she knew it was going to be with you all day long bringing you the events of the day starting hear every day kicking and screaming in the news room trying to get stories out but we could do a story and it might not make air you have someone from the corporation making the editorial  these are not journalists another reaction from the administration now and again not exactly the stifling of dissent on the rise in america after nine eleven the tough questions were not asked much less answered there was a time in south africa people would put flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around from that now it's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions so all this information keeps the facts were driven out and over such an extended period of time that i think that effect was lost on you merican public the press should have been doing a better job of putting damaging place maybe we should have question whether or not president had any involvement in watergate maybe we should have just accepted that story maybe we should have accepted the story that president clinton had no lives and with our country to try and make my damnedest with the other family members to make sure this never happens again