Response to The UK Guardian Hit Piece

Crimes of the State

Mr. Monbiot has taken the standard media attack approach: conflate the internet film "Loose Change" with the subject of September 11th US government complicity. How brave to redo the same smear that has gone around for several years now focusing on the easily challenged claims, and ignoring the full breadth (and breathtaking amount) of evidence.

DISTURBING FACTS ABOUT THE 9/11 ATTACKS

1. The president of the United States, when informed that a second plane had struck the World Trade Center, continued to read about a pet goat.

2. This same president was moved from his high rise hotel in Genoa Italy two months previously for security reasons, because of a known al Qaeda plot for hijacking and "crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations." The assumption in July 2001 was that there existed a plot that "terrorists would try to crash a plane to kill Bush and other leaders" (LA Times, 9-27-01).

3. The Secret Service did not secure the president, even though his location was publicly disclosed in the press for days before the school photo op on 9/11. This was a break in standard operating procedures that left the president vulnerable in the middle of a purported "attack" on America.

4. NORAD has told three different and conflicting stories explaining why no jet fighters intercepted any of the four hijacked airliners.

5. Vice President Richard Cheney was placed in charge of anti-terrorism training and military preparedness exercises by Bush on May 8, 2001. This gave him command authority during the 9/11 attacks because as many as nine war game exercises involving military and intelligence agencies were occurring simultaneously.

6. The military's "Air Piracy" regulations were rewritten on June 1st 2001 to require the "Secretary of Defense" to give "approval" for military escort aircraft in the event of a hijacking. Donald Rumsfeld gave no "approval" that day.

7. More than an hour and fifteen minutes after the first hijacking was reported by FAA, the US military headquarters at the Pentagon was struck without any defensive action taken to stop the attack. The impact was on the west side, for some reason the only side that had been "hardened" with blast-proof windows and specially reinforced walls. None of the highest ranking military leadership were located on that side.

8. (TRANSCRIPT) Air Force General Richard Myers: "When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked..."

Senator Carl Levin: "Was that order that you just described given before or after the Pentagon was struck? Do you know?"

Air Force General Richard Myers: "That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck."

Reality intrudes. It became "clear what the threat was," the moment the first hijacked airliner struck the North Tower at 8:45am. This congressional testimony is inexcusable and grounds for investigation into criminal negligence, dereliction of duty, and treason.

9. "President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11..." ..."Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request."

10. The Project For a New American Century, which wrote of the need for a "catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor," had members throughout the top of the government on 9/11 including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Armitage, Abrams, Wurmser, as well as Bush's brother, the governor of Florida, Jeb.

11. Four days before 9/11, Jeb Bush activated the Florida National Guard, "Based on the potential massive damage to life and property that may result from an act of terrorism at a Florida port." (Executive Order 01-261).

12. On 9/11 Jeb Bush declared a "State of Emergency" in Florida (E.O. 01-262). "I hereby delegate to the Department of Law Enforcement the operational authority to coordinate and direct the law enforcement resources and other resources of any and all state, regional and local governmental agencies..." And by 2am on 9/12/01, Jeb Bush was reported to have confiscated the police records in Venice, FL related to the Huffman Aviation flight school. Two rental trucks full of these records drove onto a C-130 military aircraft at Sarasota Airport and flew out with Jeb Bush aboard.

13. Huffman Aviation flight school, where Mohamed Atta and other alleged hijackers trained, had a Lear jet seized by the DEA with "43 pounds of heroin" onboard. No one was ever prosecuted in connection with the "biggest drug seizure in central Florida history."

14. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States ("9/11 Commission") was a blatant and obvious cover-up under the control of Bush administration member and "Executive Director" Phillip Zelikow. This cover-up can be proven easily with one example: the time of Dick Cheney's arrival at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center ("PEOC bunker"). Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified under oath that Cheney was present at 9:20am and issuing "orders" related to the plane that struck the Pentagon. Mineta's testimony was completely omitted from their final report, and a fraudulent time of 9:58am for Cheney's arrival was given instead (book pg 40 / .pdf file pg 57).

15. The 9/11 Commission was originally only given $3 million to investigate the greatest terrorist attacks on US soil in our history. The Bush administration then witheld requested documents forcing the Commissioners to issue subpoenas to FAA and the Department of Defense.

16. So many lies were told by Bush administration officials regarding warnings before the attacks, that it is difficult to count them. Ari Fleischer's two word response, "No warnings," aboard Air Force One on 9/11, sums up the administration's claim.

17. Contrary to the Bush administration's claim: "Newspapers in Germany, France, Russia and London reported in the months before September 11th of a blizzard of warnings delivered to the Bush administration from all points on the compass. The German intelligence service BND warned American and Israeli agencies that terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack important American targets. Egypt warned of a similar plane-based plot against Bush during the G-8 summit in Genoa last June [2001], a warning taken so seriously that anti-aircraft batteries were placed around Columbus Airport in Italy. Last August [2001], Russian intelligence services notified the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been trained for suicide missions, and Putin himself confirmed that this warning was delivered 'in the strongest possible terms' specifically regarding threats to airports and government buildings." -Newsweek, May 20, 2002

18. In July of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black claim to have made a detailed presentation and warned National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft of imminent attacks on US soil by Al Qaeda operatives. This was also omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report.

19. Many more warnings stretching back to the early 1990s were known to intelligence agencies and to FBI. These warnings expose as a lie National Security Advisor Rice's response: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

20. March 7, 2001: "The Russian Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly submits “an unprecedentedly detailed report” to the UN Security Council about bin Laden, his whereabouts, details of his al-Qaeda network, Afghan drug running, and Taliban connections to Pakistan and the ISI. The report provides “a listing of all bin Laden’s bases, his government contacts and foreign advisers,” and enough information to potentially locate and kill him. It is said to contain an “astonishing degree of information.” The US fails to use the information in any noticable manner. Alex Standish, the editor of the highly respected Jane’s Intelligence Review, concludes that the attacks of 9/11 were less of an American intelligence failure than the result of “a political decision not to act against bin Laden.” [Jane's Intelligence Review, 10/5/2001; Times of India, 10/8/2001]

21. On August 6, 2001 a CIA briefer went to Bush's Crawford ranch to read the president a briefing called, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" (2 redacted pages out of 11 reported). After the briefing, Bush told the CIA man, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Bush then went fishing.

22. Minneapolis FBI Agent and Legal Advisor Colleen Rowley (21 year veteran) said that the FBI Headquarters Special Supervisory Agent, "seemed to have been consistently, almost deliberately thwarting the Minneapolis FBI agents' efforts ...continued to, almost inexplicably, throw up roadblocks and undermine Minneapolis' by-now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant, long after the French intelligence service provided its information and probable cause became clear. ...Even after the attacks had begun, the SSA in question was still attempting to block the search of Moussaoui's computer, characterizing the World Trade Center attacks as a mere coincidence. ...HQ personnel never disclosed to the Minneapolis agents that the Phoenix Division had, only approximately three weeks earlier, warned of Al Qaeda operatives in flight schools seeking flight training for terrorist purposes!"

23. FBI Special Agent Robert Wright (12 year veteran) said: "“[T]here existed a concerted effort on the part of agents conducting counterterrorism intelligence investigations to insulate the subjects of their investigations from criminal investigation and prosecution.” ...“The supervisor ...started yelling at me: ‘You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects.’” ..."(T)here is virtually no effort on the part of the FBI’s International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected terrorists residing within the United States."

"A lawyer speaking for (FBI Special Agent) Wright after 9/11 will blame Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Michael Chertoff for refusing to take Wright’s concerns seriously before 9/11." Chertoff will later be appointed to become head of the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security.

"Larry Klayman, one of two lawyers now representing [FBI Agent] Wright, later says he calls the Justice Department a few days after 9/11 and asks that Wright be allowed to present his issues to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Klayman claims he receives a reply from Michael Chertoff, then head of the Criminal division, who refuses to meet with Wright and says, “We are tired of conspiracy theories.”

FBI Agent Wright says at his press conference: “Corruption is knowing when something is not being done, knowing when the American people are being left unprotected and when you make a decision not to do something to protect the American people... And you effectively allow 9/11 to occur. That is the ultimate form of government corruption—dereliction of duty. That’s subject in the military to prosecution, to court martial.... Frankly, if not treason.”

24. FBI Agent Harry Samit, who before 9/11 sent 70 communications to supervisors warning them of Moussauoi's plan to hijack a commercial jet and crash it -- to no avail -- has said, “...(I)f you’re not going to advance this the FISA route, or if you don’t believe we have enough for a FISA, I shudder to think—and that’s all I got out. And [Supervisory Special Agent Mike Maltbie] cut me off and said, ‘You will not question the unit chief [David Frasca] and you will not question me. We’ve been through a lot. We know what’s going on. You will not question us.’”

25. On July 10, 2001 FBI Agents in Phoenix AZ issued a memo to FBIHQ requesting that headquarters investigate flight schools across the U.S. to look for middle eastern flight students connected to international terrorist organizations. Nothing was done, and the information was not shared.

26. "The [FBI Inspector General] report attributes the inaction and inattention to the lack of resources committed to anti-terrorist activities in the summer of 2001. For instance, there was only a single research analyst assigned to the FBI’s Bin Laden Unit in 2001, and she was transferred to another unit in July 2001."

27. "Although the FBI's counterterrorism budget tripled during the mid-1990s, its counterterrorism spending stayed fairly constant between fiscal years 1998 and 2001" ..."Then-acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard said he appealed to Ashcroft for more money for counterterrorism but on Sept 10, 2001, one day before the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people, Ashcroft rejected the appeal."

28. "At issue is a July 5, 2001, meeting between Ashcroft and acting FBI Director Tom Pickard."

"'Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore,' Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste asked on April 13. 'Is that correct?'"

"'That is correct,' Pickard replied."

..."(A)nother senior FBI official tells NBC News he vividly recalls Pickard returning from the meeting that day furious that Ashcroft had cut short the terrorism briefing. Several sources familiar with the investigation say Garcia confirmed to the commission that Ashcroft did indeed dismiss Pickard's warnings about al-Qaida."

29. FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds has become the most gagged whistleblower in the country's history. In a letter to 9/11 Commissioner Thomas Kean, she said, "“If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited ‘direct pressure by the State Department,’ and in other cases ‘sensitive diplomatic relations’ is cited. ...Your hearings did not include questions regarding these unspoken and unwritten policies and practices. Despite your full awareness and understanding of certain criminal conduct that connects to certain terrorist related activities, committed by certain US officials and high-level government employees, you have not proposed criminal investigations into this conduct, although under the laws of this country you are required to do so."

Another FBI translator, who had been "shielding" the targets of FBI investigations, told Sibel Edmonds: "“Why are you doing this, Sibel? Why don’t you just drop it? You know there could be serious consequences. Why put your family in Turkey in danger over this?” Sibel Edmonds' sister was reportedly sought by Turkish police shortly after this incident.

30. The FBI's top Al Qaeda investigator, John O'Neill, "resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruction of terrorist investigations."

31. Two of the alleged hijackers lived openly in San Diego with an FBI informant for over a year: "The FBI inspector general’s report reveals for the first time that the CIA not only failed to inform the FBI about [Al] Mihdhar, but that CIA officials intervened to suppress a memorandum drafted by an FBI agent detailed to the CIA-run Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC), who wanted to notify the FBI about the suspected terrorist with a US visa."

"One FBI official familiar with the case will later complain, “[The CIA] purposely hid [Almihdhar] from the FBI, purposely refused to tell the bureau. ...And that’s why September 11 happened. ...They have blood on their hands.” [Bamford, 2004, pp. 224, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies]

32. The 9/11 Commission, at the orchestration of Bush administration member and "Executive Director" Phillip Zelikow, wrote: “To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. ...Ultimately the question of the origin of the funds is of little practical significance.”

33. The Times of India reported that Indian Intelligence had traced the wire transfers of over $100,000 from British born terrorist and reported MI6 and ISI asset Omar Saeed Sheikh in the UAE to Mohamed Atta in Florida, on the orders of the head of Pakistani intelligence Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad. This was reportedly confirmed by the FBI. The Pakistani ISI chief Ahmad resigned immediately, but he has never been sought by US authorities for funding and participating in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

34. ISI chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was in Washington DC the week prior to 9/11, meeting with CIA Director George Tenet and other high ranking US officials including Tenet's replacement at CIA Porter Goss.

35. During the ISI chief's stay in Washington, Osama bin Laden was reportedly admitted to the Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on September 10, 2001 by CBS News.

36. Osama bin Laden was also reportedly admitted to a US MILITARY HOSPITAL in Dubai, UAE, in July of 2001 for kidney dialysis treatment. There bin Laden is said to have met with the CIA station chief, Larry Mitchell.

37. Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: "I was surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments [Plural!] involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States." ..."I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing -- although that was part of it -- by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down, make the further case, or find the evidence that would indicate that that is not true."

38. Senator Bob Graham also said: "High officials in [the Saudi Arabian] government, who I assume were not just rogue officials acting on their own, made substantial contributions to the support and wellbeing of two of these terrorists and facilitated their ability to plan, practise and then execute the tragedy of September 11." These investigations remain blocked, classified, covered-up and unresolved to this day by the Bush administration's clear Obstruction of Justice.

39. Senator and 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned, saying: "This is the most serious independent investigation since the Warren Commission. And after watching History Channel shows on the Warren Commission last night, the Warren Commission blew it. I'm not going to be part of that. I'm not going to be part of looking at information only partially. I'm not going to be part of just coming to quick conclusions. I'm not going to be part of political pressure to do this or not do that. I'm not going to be part of that. This is serious."

40. At least 7 of the alleged "hijackers" were reported to be still alive. Neither the FBI nor the 9/11 Commission corrected the identities, and the government has treated the issue of who exactly attacked America on September 11th as relatively unimportant. The flight manifests released by the airlines did not contain any of the names of the hijackers (who supposedly bought tickets just like everybody else), and there are discrepancies in the number of persons reported to be onboard the airliners. This also has not been explained by officials, at all.

41. The Dulles Airport security camera video released as evidence of hijackers has no time or date stamp, nor any other coded information, which suggests that it may not be authentic.

42. The aircraft "black boxes" from the World Trade Center site were admittedly recovered by NYC Fireman Nicholas DeMassi. The FBI, NTSB and the 9/11 Commission all deny they were ever recovered at all.

43. Congress shoveled $15 Billion of taxpayer money to the airlines immediately after 9/11 as one of the first responses to the attacks.

44. The autopsy report from the Pentagon crash site contains no mention of any of the hijackers.

45. Up to 200 Israeli agents were arrested and detained in relation to September 11th. This includes five Mossad agents who were celebrating the World Trade Center job with "cries of joy and mockery." The Justice Department (sic) released all of the Israelis, and the entire matter was made "classified."

46. "According to several Weehawken neighbors of the [Israeli MOSSAD front operation] Urban Moving Systems warehouse, the FBI, upon searching the warehouse, discovered fertilizer, other chemicals for making explosives, pipes, caps, and traces of anthrax. After anthrax was discovered, investigators wearing hazardous material suits went through the warehouse."

47. "On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed [the anthrax drug] Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David..." The public was not warned about anthrax or alerted about Cipro for another six weeks, when anthrax-laden letters were sent through the mail to top Democratic congressmen and to others.

48. "Palestinians" were accused of committing the 9/11 attacks by Israeli MOSSAD operatives. One of the arrested MOSSAD agents told the police, “We are Israelis, we are not your problem. Your problems are our problem. Palestinians are the problem.” A phone call to the "Jersey City Police Department ...claimed 'Palestinians' in Arab clothes were seen celebrating the attacks." Was this MOSSAD referring to their own covert agents? At 9:43am on 9/11, "Abu Dhabi television reports it received a call from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claiming responsibility for crashing two planes into the WTC. However leading officials later deny the claim."

49. Israeli instant messaging firm Odigo received warnings of the World Trade Center attacks 2 hours before they occurred.

50. Zim American / Israeli Shipping broke its lease in the World Trade Center and evacuated one week before the attacks. The company is 49% owned by the Israeli government.

51. Although the Israeli government sent MOSSAD officers to "warn" the U.S. about imminent terror attacks in August 2001: "'They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,' said a senior Israeli security official." Mixing Osama bin Laden together with his enemy Saddam Hussein has been a ridiculous propaganda exercise, and exposed as such.

52. Fire has never, before or after 9/11, caused a steel-framed building to completely collapse. Three gigantic steel-framed skyscrapers were alleged to have collapsed from the effects of fire, including the 47 story building 7 which was not hit by a plane. The Twin Towers and building 7 displayed numerous characteristics of controlled demolition including free fall speed, collapsing into footprints, pulverization of all the concrete, and the sounds and appearances of explosive charges, as reported by many eyewitnesses. Needless to say, this has not been investigated officially, because officials refuse to admit the possibility existed at all.

53. "Fire Engineering [Magazine] has good reason to believe that the "official investigation" blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure. Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by ASCE investigation committee members- described by one close source as a "tourist trip"-no one's checking the evidence for anything."

54. "'The decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses from the WTC in the days immediately after 9/11 means definitive answers may never be known.'[NY Times] The next week, Fire Engineering magazine said: 'We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence ...The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.'" (Griffin)

55. Ben Fountain, who worked in the South Tower, told People Magazine, "Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on."

56. On Thursday, September 6, 2001 bomb-sniffing dogs were removed and the security threat level at the World Trade Center was downgraded.

57. Scott Forbes who worked in the South Tower described a "power down" on the weekend before 9/11, which was corroborated by WTC janitor William Rodriquez in his RICO lawsuit. The power down knocked out communications, computer systems, and security cameras. Numerous workmen were reported, and the sounds of heavy construction, and a pervasive grey dust was found on the 97th floor by Forbes.

58. William Rodriguez also reported bombs in the basement levels and on various floors. After describing a series of explosions, Rodriguez heard that floor 65 had completely collapsed (nowhere near the plane impact zone). Rodriguez also claims to have heard construction on floor 34 affter the plane impacts, a floor that wasn't in use.

59. President Bush's brother Marvin Bush had been a director for Securacom (now Stratasec) that was in charge of security for the WTC, United Airlines and Dulles Airport (where Flight 77 originated). An Israeli security firm, ICTS International had security responsibilities at Boston Logan airport and other airports involved in the September 11th attacks.

60. On September 10, 2001 Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, received a warning not to fly. He credited who he called "my security people at the airport." No FAA warnings had been issued however "in recent days."

61. "On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."

62. "The author Salman Rushdie believes that US authorities knew of an imminent terrorist strike when they banned him from taking internal flights in Canada and the US only a week before the attacks. On September 3 the Federal Aviation Authority made an emergency ruling to prevent Mr Rushdie from flying unless airlines complied with strict and costly security measures."

63. "The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it provided 15 warnings to airlines regarding possible terrorist attacks -- including al Qaeda hijackings -- in the months leading up to September 11. ...The FAA mentioned Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda in alerts the agency sent to domestic airlines." At this same time, July 2001, the FAA inexplicably terminated a firearms certification program for commercial airline pilots, which had made it legal for pilots to be armed since 1961.

64. A military data mining operation called Able Danger created a presentation chart in 2000 that allegedly included four future 9/11 hijackers. Their recommendation to send the data to the FBI was thwarted by military lawyers and by higher ranking officers. Yellow stickers were placed over the photographs of Mohamed Atta and the others. Although this information was brought directly to several of the 9-11 Commissioners, including Phillip Zelikow, it was never mentioned in their final report.

65. Purported "lead hijacker" Mohamed Atta was already known to US intelligence when he was living in Germany. "He is 'reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives [and/or] for biological warfare.' ...'The US agents reported to have trailed Atta are said to have failed to inform the German authorities about their investigation,' even as the Germans are investigating many of his associates."

66. "Military records show that hijackers Saeed and Ahmed Alghamdi listed their address on driver licenses and car registrations as 10 Radford Blvd., a base roadway where residences for foreign-military flight trainees are located, according to Newsweek (9-15-2001) ...(A) now-mysteriously deceased, Pensacola naval flight instructor from the Royal Saudi Air Force had the same name [Alghamdi] and also lived and worked at the U.S. naval air base."

67. "U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in [the 9/11] terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s."

68. "Ali Mohamed was involved with most of the major al Qaeda attacks against U.S. interests: ...the 1993 WTC bombing, the African Embassy bombings in 1998 and, even though he was arrested in late 1998, [Peter] Lance proposes that he also helped train some of the 9/11 hijackers in hijacking techniques. Astoundingly, Mohamed participated in these operations while also being a U.S. citizen, being enlisted in the U.S. military, ...and being an FBI informant in California. Importantly, ...he also had ties to the CIA."

69. While "Loose Change" is attacked for getting some things incorrect, the film does correctly describe Operation Northwoods, which was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. The military planners expressly said: "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington [DC]. ...Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping, and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions. ...We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). ...At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases."

70. And, while Operation Northwoods was not implemented, another U.S. state-sponsored terror campaign called Operation Gladio did murder innocent civilians across Europe at the orchestration of the CIA (BBC Documentary on Operation Gladio).