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Title: Worldnetdaily, Joseph Farah - "The FBI spent $3 million of your tax money to blow up the World Trade Center"
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Worldnetdaily
URL Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14869
Published: Dec 9, 1999
Author: Joseph Farah
Post Date: 2006-03-25 00:53:15 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: Worldnetdaily,, million, Center"
Views: 38
Comments: 6
Worldnetdaily The FBI is warning us, through its Project Megiddo report, that right-wing Christians are dangerous terrorists prone to incite violence in the weeks ahead. This warning is more than slanderous, bigoted and inciteful. It needs to be understood in context. That context is that the FBI has set up a system of self-fulfilling prophecies that permits the government to scapegoat groups of people who are enticed into committing illegal acts or conspiring about them by agents provocateur. Whether the groups are organized militia outfits, Christian Identity, the White Aryan Resistance movement or some other misfit, would-be "terrorists," the tentacles of funding, control and conspiracy always seem to lead right back to the government -- whether it's the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or some other similar agency. This is the case with the most dramatic bombings in the recent history of our country -- from Oklahoma City to the World Trade Center. On behalf of the BATF, Carol Howe infiltrated Timothy McVeigh's cell while it prepared to blow up federal buildings. She tried to testify at McVeigh's trial to tell what she knew about the conspiracy behind it and was thanked for her troubles with an indictment. Anyone who believes McVeigh was the mastermind of that operation is either poorly informed or a certified fool. Howe identified as a participant in the plot a German former intelligence officer named Andreas Strassmeier. While in the U.S., he enjoyed full diplomatic immunity, carrying concealed weapons, talking about bombing the Murrah Building and practicing with explosives. Reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph called Strassmeier after he returned to Germany. Here's how that conversation went, according to Evans-Pritchard's book, "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton." Evans-Pritchard: "There comes a time in every botched operation when the informant has to speak out to save his own skin, and that's now, Andreas." Strassmeier: "How can he? What happens if it was a sting operation from the very beginning? What happens if it comes out that the plant was a provocateur?" Evans-Pritchard: "A provocateur?" Strassmeier: "What if he talked and manipulated the others into it. ... The relatives of the victims are going to go crazy. He's going to be held responsible for the murder of 168 people. ... Of course the informant can't come forward. He's scared ... right now." The most sensible conclusion anyone came to after examining evidence like this is that the Oklahoma City bombing was a sting operation that went wrong. But, incredibly, the same conclusion can be drawn about the World Trade Center bombing. According to tapes played at the trial of the "terrorists" in that case, the FBI planted Emad A. Salem to infiltrate an Arab group in New York. His job was to act, again, as an agent provocateur -- inciting violent attacks. It was Salem who convinced the other participants to bomb the World Trade Center. When he was asked to assemble the bomb, he went to the FBI to ask for harmless powder to avoid a catastrophe. The FBI essentially cut him off. To make a long, complicated story short and simple: The FBI spent $3 million of your tax money to blow up the World Trade Center. The story's essentially the same at Waco, Ruby Ridge and other government-made disasters. This week we learned the FBI has spent a year involved in a militia cell in California "investigating" a plot to blow up a propane facility in hopes of sparking martial law. I won't be shocked to learn later that FBI agents were leading these so-called militiamen down the primrose path -- actually inviting terrorist activity, encouraging it, paying for it. When will this insanity end? What is the overall objective of the FBI and government? Are these activities actually designed to thwart terrorism or encourage it? Who benefits most from terrorist activity? Americans might be shocked to learn that their government is involved in such escapades. But those who study history should expect such things. It's been going on since the beginning of time. Planting seeds of fear among the people only helps those in government remain in power and grab more control over people's lives. Remember this the next time you hear about a so-called "terrorist incident." And, tell your representatives and senators it's time to rein in the mad bombers and provocateurs in our own government. Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column Transcripts of the hundreds of hours of tapes -- which were recorded by the informer, Emad A. Salem, without the knowledge of the F.B.I. -- were distributed to defense lawyers yesterday. Although Judge Michael B. Mukasey ordered the lawyers to keep them secret, a copy of the transcripts was made available to The New York Times. The tapes offer a rare glimpse into the sensitive relationship between the confidential informer and the law-enforcement officals with whom he worked. They also reveal for the first time how Federal and police agents instructed him to "pump up" a suspect for information and negotiate a $1 million fee from the Government for his services. Scattered through the hundreds of pages of transcripts are many instances in which the Government agents appear to encourage Mr. Salem to lead the suspects to incriminate themselves. Defense lawyers have long contended that the Government crossed a legal line, instructing Mr. Salem in a fishing expedition that became entrapment. Although the bulk of the transcripts does not appear to show the agents steering Mr. Salem toward improper or illegal conduct, whether they did so finally will be resolved in court. Many New Details Among the details included in the transcripts are the following: *A reference by Mr. Salem to 12 possible bombs and hitherto unmentioned targets, including Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State Building and Times Square. *A New York City police detective working with the F.B.I. told Mr. Salem, who was getting $500 a week from the Government, that if he wanted a $1 million informer's fee, he should press for $1.5 million and then negotiate. *An unusual suggestion that some of the money sought by Mr. Salem was going to be put up by private individuals. *A reference from Mr. Salem, in a conversation with an F.B.I. agent, to an argument between F.B.I. officials over whether Mr. Salem should remain an unidentified informer or surface as a witness to testify at trial. *A major defendant in the World Trade Center trial was tipped off by a neighbor to an elaborate F.B.I. ruse to search the Brooklyn apartment of another suspect, Mahmud Abouhalima, and replace explosives in his apartment with false explosives supplied by the F.B.I. *Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a defendant in the second bombing case, was using a fax machine to command anti-Communist Muslim rebels, moving forces from Pakistan to Afghanistan and dealing with a code-named agent from Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, Mr. Salem told the F.B.I. The transcripts cover Mr. Salem's dealings with the suspects and his work for the Government over a period of at least two years, going back to the trial in the killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane. Mr. Salem recorded the conversations with Government agents on his own, without the knowledge or consent of his contacts in the F.B.I., apparently to use as an insurance policy to hold the Government to its promises of money and protection. Some of the most striking passages in the transcripts show Mr. Salem agonizing over what he suggests was the failure of the F.B.I., despite his information, to halt the Feb. 26 bombing of the trade center, in which six people were killed. Although Mr. Salem is not a witness in that case, he was working with the Government at that time. "They told me that 'we want to set this,' " Mr. Salem said, referring to the bomb in a conversation on April 1 with John Anticev, one of the F.B.I. agents he reported to, and sometimes complained to others about. " 'What's the right place to put this?' " Then he added, still speaking to the agent: "You were informed. Everything is ready. The day and the time. Boom. Lock them up and that's that. That's why I feel so bad." Federal officials have acknowledged in the past that they dropped Mr. Salem as an informer sometime before the trade center bombing over what they said was his reluctance to wear a body recorder, as well as other disagreements. They said he never provided detailed information of the attack in advance but that they began using his services again after the bombing and credited him with foiling the related but separate plot to bomb the United Nations, Holland and Lincoln tunnels and the Federal building housing the F.B.I. in Manhattan. The case is expected to come to trial next year, perhaps shortly after the end of the related trial of four men charged with bombing the World Trade Center. As the most important witness, Mr. Salem is expected to be called upon to verify tapes he made of conversations with suspects and testify on his dealings with them. Aid for Defense? By creating the so-called bootleg tapes, Mr. Salem has given ammunition to defense lawyers who argue that he entrapped the 15 defendants charged with conspiring to bomb New York City landmarks. In one instance that shows how Mr. Salem was prompted by Federal agents, Mr. Anticev is quoted as saying, "You know, pump, maybe kind of pump him up a little bit." The agent tells Mr. Salem to stress "the loyalty to his cousin." The target in that instance, Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, is a cousin of the man who was charged with shooting Mr. Kahane and now a defendant in a plot to bomb New York City targets. In another instance, Mr. Anticev is quoted as instructing Mr. Salem to press to learn whether Mr. Elgabrowny or his associates were hiding explosives. He is quoted as telling Mr. Salem not to worry about being exposed as the source of the information. "We'll just know where stuff exists and where it is," Mr. Anticev is quoted as saying. "And then we'll make our move." "There's no danger, you know," he says later. "We can be sneaky and take our time." Mr. Salem has dropped from sight since the June arrests, and an effort to get in touch with him through the witness protection program of the Federal Marshals Service was rejected. But a member of the defense team said he was spotted within the last month in Manhattan. Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer and confidant of the radical Egyptian cleric, Mr. Abdel Rahman, surfaced as the Government's mole after a June 24 F.B.I. raid on a Queens garage that the Government said smashed an extremist Muslim plot to blow up the United Nations, Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the Manhattan Federal building housing the F.B.I., and to assassinate Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato and State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, among other targets. The unauthorized tapes came to light immediately after the raid as Mr. Salem hurriedly evacuated his West Side Manhattan apartment and was quickly identified by associates of the sheik and by law-enforcement authorities as the "confidential informant" who had secretly gathered evidence, including many tape-recorded conversations, against those later charged as conspirators in the case. Tapes Left Behind In the belongings Mr. Salem left behind either carelessly or by design were cassettes of the tapes he had secretly recorded with the F.B.I. Because these could shed light on the prosecution's evidence-gathering methods to the point of possible entrapment, defense lawyers convinced Judge Mukasey that they should gain access to this material as well as to Mr. Salem's authorized recordings, turned over earlier. Even before he came in from the cold of his undercover role in June, the burly, bearded Mr. Salem was an enigmatic figure, a private investigator who supported himself as a jewelry designer, a security guard for the sheik who freely gave interviews to news reporters. Officials in Cairo say he entered the Egyptian Army as a private and during an 18-year career fought in the 1973 war with Israel and was "pensioned out" as a senior officer while continuing a relationship with Egyptian military intelligence. His American wife, from whom he was divorced this year but to whom he is still close, told New York Newsday last week that he had recently sent a set of the bootleg tapes home to Egyptian authorities with a visiting relative. In the United States for about six years, he lived most recently in a fifth-floor suite at the Bretton Hall residence hotel at 2350 Broadway. A news reporter invited to interview him there shortly after the World Trade Center bombing found herself on camera as Mr. Salem insisted videotaping the encounter. He showed her photographs of what he said was his sandbagged bunker in the 1973 war, the reviewing stand where former President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated in 1981 and his grave site. He also showed pictures of people who had apparently been tortured: a woman with cigarette burns and a man confined in a cage. He said that he prayed at the Abu Bakr mosque in Brooklyn and the al-Salaam mosque in Jersey City, where Sheik Omar often preached, and that he had known the cleric from Egypt. He said he was attracted by Mr. Rahman's aura of power and fearlessness. Remembered as Benefactor Associates in Jersey City said they remembered Mr. Salem as a generous benefactor of the mosques and of the sheik himself. He also collected money for the defense of El Sayyid A. Nosair, an Egyptian contractor charged in the 1990 assassination of the militant Jewish leader, Rabbi Meir Kahane. Mr. Nosair was acquitted of that killing but convicted of related assault and weapons charges. He is also one of the 15 defendants in the bombing conspiracy case. Mr. Salem also had dealings with Mr.. Elgabrowny, a relative of Mr. Nosair for whom Mr. Salem said he helped obtain a pistol permit from the New York City Police Department. Associates and lawyers of some of the defendants said that Mr. Salem appeared rather abruptly on the scene around the time of the Kahane killing and that they now suspect he was sent to infiltrate the circle around Mr. Nosair. Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City's tallest towers. The explosion left six people dead, more than 1,000 injured and damages in excess of half a billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court in that attack. Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian army officer, was used by the Government to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the trade center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I. Supervisor 'Messed It Up' After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and messed it up." "He requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor. "He requested to make me to testify and if he didn't push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that." The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. headquarters in Washington about the bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev. "He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York office to go to Washington, D.C.," Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him. Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the New York people: "Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed." Mary Jo White, who, as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York is prosecuting defendants in two related bombing cases, declined yesterday to comment on the Salem allegations or any other aspect of the cases. An investigator close to the case who refused to be identified further said, "We wish he would have saved the world," but called Mr. Salem's claims "figments of his imagination." The transcripts, which are stamped "draft" and compiled from 70 tapes recorded secretly during the last two years by Mr. Salem, were turned over to defense lawyers in the second bombing case by the Government on Tuesday under a judge's order barring lawyers from disseminating them. A large portion of the material was made available to The New York Times. In a letter to Federal Judge Michael B. Mukasey, Andrew C. McCarthy, an assistant United States attorney, said that he had learned of the tapes while debriefing Mr. Salem and that the informer had then voluntarily turned them over. Other Salem tapes and transcripts were being withheld pending Government review, of "security and other issues," Mr. McCarthy said. William M. Kunstler, a defense lawyer in the case, accused the Government this week of improper delay in handing over all the material. The transcripts he had seen, he said, "were filled with all sorts of Government misconduct." But citing the judge's order, he said he could not provide any details. Ms. Floyd seems to commiserate, saying, "hey, I mean it wasn't like you didn't try and I didn't try." In an apparent reference to Mr. Salem's complaints about the supervisor, Agent Floyd adds, "You can't force people to do the right thing." The investigator involved in the case who would not be quoted by name said that Mr. Salem may have been led to believe by the agents that they were blameless for any mistakes. It was a classic agent's tactic, he said, to "blame the boss for all that's bad and take credit for all the good things." In another point in the transcripts, Mr. Salem recounts a conversation he said he had with Mr. Anticev, saying, "I said, 'Guys, now you saw this bomb went off and you both know that we could avoid that.' " At another point, Mr. Salem says, "You get paid, guys, to prevent problems like this from happening." Mr. Salem talks of the plan to substitute harmless powder for explosives during another conversation with agent Floyd. In that conversation, he recalls a previous discussion with Mr. Anticev. "Do you deny," Mr. Salem says he told the other agent, "your supervisor is the main reason of bombing the World Trade Center?" Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev did not deny it. "We was handling the case perfectly well until the supervisor came and messed it up, upside down." The transcripts reflect an effort to keep Mr. Salem as an intelligence asset who would not have to go public or testify. A police detective working with the F.B.I., Louis Napoli, assures Mr. Salem in one conversation, "We can give you total immunity towards prosecution, towards, ah, ah, testifying." But he adds: "I still have to tell you that if you're the only game in town in regards to the information," then, he says, "you'll have to testify." Studied for Signs of Illegality The transcripts are being closely studied by lawyers looking for signs that Mr. Salem and the law enforcement officials, in their zeal to gather evidence, may have crossed the legal line into entrapment, a charge that defense counsel have already raised. But the transcripts show that the officials were concerned that by associating with bombing defendants awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Mr. Salem might have been accused of spying on the defense. In an undated conversation, Mr. Anticev tries to explain the perils. "We're not allowed to have any information regarding that," he tells Mr. Salem. "That could jeopardize, you know, if you go see a lawyer, ah, you know, with the defendant's friend or whatever like that, and you're talking about things we're not suppose to, ah, condone that. We're not supposed to make people do that for us. That's like sacred ground. You can't be privileged, ah, you can't know what's being talked about at all." Mr. Salem seems to bridle. "I, I, I don't think that's right," he says. The agent insists: "Yeah, but that's just a guideline. If that ever happened, ah, you can back and reported on the meeting between, ah, you know, Kunstler and Mohammad A. Elgabrown. Forget about it. I mean a lot of people ah the case can get thrown out. You understand?" The references were to the defense lawyer, Mr. Kunstler, and his client in the second bomb case, Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny. Mr. Salem seems to reluctantly agree. "They want you to have a hand in it," Mr. Anticev goes on, "but they're afraid that when you get that kind of, ah, too deep, like me, it's almost like, especially with all this legal stuff going on right now." If it were just intelligence gathering, the agent says, "You can do anything you want. You could go crazy over there and have a good time. Do you know what I mean?" The agent goes on: "But now that everything is going to court and there is legal stuff and it's just, it's just too hard. It's just too tricky, if, this, you know. And then there's the fact if you come by with the big information, he did this, ah, let me talk about this with the other people again." "O.K.," Mr. Salem says. "All right. O.K." CORRECTION-DATE: October 29, 1993, Friday CORRECTION: An article yesterday about accounts of a plot to build a bomb that was eventually exploded at the World Trade Center referred imprecisely in some copies to what Federal officials knew about the plan before the blast. Transcripts of tapes made secretly by an informant, Emad A. Salem, quote him as saying he warned the Government that a bomb was being built. But the transcripts do not make clear the extent to which the Federal authorities knew that the target was the World Trade Center. "Then he added, still speaking to the agent: "You were informed. Everything is ready. The day and the time. Boom. Lock them up and that's that. That's why I feel so bad." FEDERAL BOMB INSTIGATORS 7 Q Did there come a time when you began to 8 experience pressure from within the FBI to reach certain 9 conclusions that supported that theory of the investigation? 10 A Yes, that is correct. 11 Q In other words, you began to experience pressure 12 on you to say that the explosion was caused by a urea 13 nitrate bomb? 14 A Yes, that is correct. 15 Q And you were aware that such a finding would 16 strengthen the prosecution of the defendants who were on 17 trial, who were going on trial in that case, correct? 18 A Absolutely. 19 Q Did there come a time, sir, that you realized 20 that the technicians in Washington were actually making 21 conclusions and saying that the substances they were 22 analyzing were in fact urea nitrate? 23 A Yes, that did happen. 24 Q Did there come a time, sir, that you realized 25 that the conclusions that the technicians were making were SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS (212) 637-0300 58ekrahl 16338 Whitehurst - direct 1 being incorporated into a report done by Agent Williams? 2 A Yes, that is correct. 3 Q And that report, you recall, was done on April 4 12, 1993? 5 A I knew it was in April. I don't know the exact 6 date. 7 Q And that report, based on what the technicians 8 were saying, stated that in fact the explosion at the Trade 9 Center was a urea nitrate explosion, correct? 10 A That is what you would infer, correct. 11 Q Would I be correct in saying that both you and 12 Agent Burmeister disagreed with the conclusions that were 13 reflected in that report? 14 A Absolutely. ....... 9 Q There came a time, however, that Mr. Corby told 10 you that he had been instructed by people senior to him that 11 you were going to have to change your reports, correct? 12 A Mr. Corby had me come into his room one day and 13 told me that they -- I don't know who "they" were, that they 14 want me to take statements out of my report, and he showed 15 me the statements they wanted me to take out of my report, 16 and they were marked, highlighted with yellow highlighter. 17 Q Would I be correct in stating that the changes to 18 your report were changes that would have strengthened the 19 theory of prosecution and hidden alternative theories of 20 innocence? 21 MR. McCARTHY: Objection to form. 22 THE COLTRT: Sustained. 23 Q Would I be correct in stating that during that 24 period of time every one of your reports was either changed 25 outright by higher-ups to support a theory of guilt -- would SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS (212) 791-1020 58enrah2 16346 Whitehurst - direct 1 that be correct, that was one of the things that was done? 2 A Not every one of them. 3 Q Some of your reports? 4 A I was at times left with that impression. There 5 was a great deal of pressure put upon me to bias my 6 interpretation of the data. 7 Q In support of a theory of guilt, correct? 8 A In support of the theory of the presence of urea 9 nitrate and other things that would have supported a theory 10 of guilt, yes. 11 Q There came a time, did there not, that you wrote 12 a memo to the section chief, John Hicks, asking to be 13 advised as to the FBI's policy regarding concealment of 14 evidence from the court, correct? 15 A Yes. 
THE FBI AND THE MAD BOMBERS
By Joseph Farah
December 9, 1999
The informer at the center of the Government's case in the plot to bomb New York City landmarks had a volatile relationship with his handlers, often quarreling with F.B.I. agents who used him to infiltrate a group of Muslim extremists who have been charged in the plot, according to transcripts of secretly taped conversations.
"You were informed. Everything is ready. The day and the time. Boom. Lock them up and that's that. That's why I feel so bad." In several instances, the transcripts show Mr. Salem lecturing Federal agents on how to do their jobs, criticizing their surveillance and interview techniques. In one instance, he suggests that they tell a possible source that his phone was tapped, when in fact it was not, and that they confront the man and push him hard for information. "Don't give him a chance to think," Mr. Salem is quoted as saying. "If he will think it's, 'I want my lawyer.' Then bingo, you are gone."
L aw-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.
The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer said.
"Do you deny," Mr. Salem says he told the other agent, "your supervisor is the main reason of bombing the World Trade Center?" Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev did not deny it. "We was handling the case perfectly well until the supervisor came and messed it up, upside down." The transcripts do not make clear the extent to which Federal authorities knew that there was a plan to bomb the World Trade Center, merely that they knew that a bombing of some sort was being discussed. But Mr. Salem's evident anguish at not being able to thwart the trade center blast is a recurrent theme in the transcripts. In one of the first numbered tapes, Mr. Salem is quoted as telling agent Floyd: "Since the bomb went off I feel terrible. I feel bad. I feel here is people who don't listen."
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