Peter Lance Triple Cross book + Daniel Hopsicker: They Knew and needed a new Pearl Harbor: Netflix Osama Bin Laden doc

 Peter Lance interview on Triple Cross book!! 

Peter Lance followup book "CoverUp" - didn't know about that one!!  

 another Peter Lance interview

Having spent a decade writing fiction, Lance returned to the trenches and started digging. He began a tedious search for public documents. He read through 40,000 pages of trial transcripts from al-Qaeda cases in the Southern District of New York. He used his close connections in the Manhattan District Attorney's office to help him track down additional information.

"All I did was apply data-mining techniques to the story retrospectively, using Google - anybody could have done this," Lance said in an interview describing one aspect of his reporting technique.

Two years later, he produced 1000 Years for Revenge, a meticulously detailed volume of 9/11 reportage and international terrorism, which caught the attention of 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean, who asked Lance to testify before the commission. But the commission opted to take Lance's testimony in secret, "in a windowless conference room at 26 Federal Plaza on March 15, 2004," Lance wrote in the preface to Triple Cross. Lance has misgivings about the 9/11 Commission and believes its final report "has proven vastly incomplete."

Triple Cross covers 1981 through 2001 and tracks the rise of al-Qaeda, focusing heavily on former Egyptian army major and al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed, who successfully infiltrated the FBI. Perhaps the most intriguing part of Triple Cross is the appearance of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the CIA leak case, who plays a leading role in Lance's book and is featured prominently on the dust jacket and in the subtitle: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI - And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him. In the 1990s, Fitzgerald was the Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York directing the FBI's elite bin Laden squad.

Still in his early 30s, Fitzgerald made some costly blunders early on that might have changed the course of history if more attention had been paid to detail. Indeed, in 1991, the FBI discovered that a mailbox store in New Jersey had direct ties to al-Qaeda but failed to monitor the location. Yet four years later, Fitzgerald named the owner of the store as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Day of Terror case he was prosecuting. However, since no charges were filed against the owner, the store continued to stay in business and once again fell beneath the Justice Department's radar. Six years later, two of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their phony identification cards from that very store.

Lance presents convincing evidence in the form of court records, transcripts, and interviews with key players that casts Fitzgerald, along with numerous other Justice Department and CIA officials, as terribly negligent in allowing the agencies to be hoodwinked by Mohamed, who succeeded in penetrating the CIA's Europe division and the FBI in California, all while Mohamed was secretly helping bin Laden orchestrate the African Embassy bombings. The story of Mohamed, a man Fitzgerald called the "most dangerous man I have ever met," is groundbreaking and has never been fully fleshed out before.

Lance begins telling Mohamed's story - one that has all the makings of a Hollywood thriller - in the first passage of his opening chapter of Triple Cross.

"On October 20, 2000, after tricking the U.S. intelligence establishment for years, Ali Mohamed stood in handcuffs, leg irons, and a blue prison jumpsuit before Judge Leonard B. Sand in a Federal District Courtroom in Lower Manhattan," Lance writes. "Over the next thirty minutes he pleaded guilty five times, admitting to his involvement in plots to kill U.S. soldiers in Somalia, and Saudi Arabia, U.S. ambassadors in Africa, and American civilians anywhere in the world ... In short but deliberate sentences, Mohamed peeled back the top layer of the secret life he'd led since 1981 ..."

During that plea session, Lance writes, Mohamed kept quiet about "his most stunning achievements," including how he avoided being caught in a State Department Watch List, enlisted in the US Army and was stationed at the same base where the Green Berets and Delta Force undergo training, and wooed a Silicon Valley medical technician, whom he married. In the courtroom, Mohamed, fluent in four languages, "didn't say a word about how he'd moved in and out of contract spy work for the CIA and fooled FBI agents for six years as he smuggled terrorists across US borders, and guarded the tall Saudi billionaire who had personally declared war on Americans: Osama bin Laden," Lance writes.

While Mohamed vacationed from the US Army in 1988, he tracked down an elite group of Soviet commandos in Afghanistan, while later cozying up to Special Agents in New York and San Francisco, and found out everything the FBI knew about al-Qaeda, learning it firsthand from the agency's top agents. He guarded Osama bin Laden during the same time he enjoyed the luxuries of being one of the FBI's top informants. There are so many threads to this story, dating back more than two decades, that one cannot help but feel utter contempt for the intelligence agencies who were entrusted with weeding out threats like Mohamed but instead fiddled with the internal bureaucratic red tape at federal agencies so that by the time any action was taken, it was too late: 9/11 had arrived.

Triple Cross would end up being a highly entertaining Tom Clancy-esque thriller, in other words, pure fiction, if Lance didn't have tens of thousands of pages of documents locked up in a safe-house to back up this explosive account. Remarkably, Mohamed was never sentenced for the crimes he pleaded guilty to. He is in the witness protection program, his existence shrouded under a veil of secrecy.

A.J. MacDonald, Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars Triple Cross: How Much Did the FBI Know Before 9/11?

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2010

Verified Purchase

This is my review of Peter Lance's latest book 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. Peter Lance--a five-time Emmy award-winning investigative journalist--has, in Triple Cross, provided us with yet another eye-opening expose of the U. S. government's multiple "failures" to prevent the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (This is Lance's third book on this subject; his first two being: 1,000 Years for Revenge and Cover-Up.)

In Triple Cross, Lance chronicles the saga of a man you may, once or twice, have heard snippets about, in the media, but who, for all practical purposes, has never been mentioned in connection with 9/11 or with any of the other al Qaeda-related terror attacks (e.g., the U.S.S. Cole bombing and the U. S. embassy bombings in Africa).
I pick-up snippets about this guy on the news, once or twice, and, I must say, after hearing what little I did manage to hear about this guy, he certainly peaked my interest. This man was a former Egyptian military officer and highly trained Egyptian military commando who would take leave from his active duty service with the U. S. Army, while assigned to the JFK Special Warfare Center in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, in order to travel to Afghanistan to help his Muslim brothers fight the Soviets, during the late 1980's.

Have you ever heard of this guy? His name is Ali Mohamed, and Peter Lance has done one hell of a job digging up the truth about him, his terrorist activities, and his long-standing relationship with the FBI, which dates back to 1992, when Ali began working for the FBI as a Foreign Counter Intelligence agent.

The question Lance asks (and answers) in Triple Cross is: What did the FBI know and when did they know it?
Here's just a brief list of what the FBI knew and when they knew it:

They knew Ali Mohamed was training al-Qaeda terrorists in New York in 1992.

They knew about the al Qaeda cell that planned and executed the first attack on the World Trade Center (i.e., the bombing of the WTC in 1993) before it happened.

They knew that Ali Mohamed traveled to Nairobi, Kenya in order to do surveillance on the U. S. embassy located there in preparation for a future al Qaeda terrorist attack (the bombing of which actually occurred in 1998, killing 213 people).

They knew Ali Mohamed traveled to Khartoum, Sudan, in 1993, in order to arrange a terror summit between (Sunni) al Qaeda and (Shiite) Hezbollah leaders, including Osama bin Laden, which led to the Khobar Towers bombing (Saudi Arabia) in 1996, and facilitated the future Sunni-Shiite insurgency alliance in Iraq (2003).

They knew, in 1993, that Ali Mohamed was training al-Qaeda terrorists how to hijack commercial airliners.

They knew, in 1995, that terror mastermind Razi Yousef, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were planning to use airliners as missiles; plotting to hijack and then crash commercial airliners into buildings (e.g., the Transamerica building, the Sears Tower, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center towers) in the U. S.

They knew, in 1995, that terror mastermind Razi Yousef, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were planning to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific by using small, easily concealed, liquid-based, time-activated bombs, which were to be placed near the center fuel tanks of Boeing 747's, causing the airliners' fuel (and the airliner itself) to explode.

They knew, in 1995, that Ali Mohamed had gotten Ayman al-Zawahiri (al Qaeda's number-two man) into the U. S. for an al Qaeda fundraising tour; the purpose of which was to raise funds for the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan.

They knew that Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols had been in contact with al Qaeda members in the Philippines before the bombing of the Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995.

They knew al Qaeda was planning to blow up a U. S. airliner, via a small, liquid-based, time-activated bomb, which was to be placed near the center fuel tank of a Boeing 747 (in order to cause a mistrial) during terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef's federal trial in New York City, during July 1996. (This event actually did occur, when TWA flight 800 blew up in mid-air just after taking off (bound for Paris, France) from JFK International airport (Long Island, New York) on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on-board; including an entire high school French Club, from Pennsylvania, who were on their way to Paris; killing sixteen students and five adults).

They knew of, and were monitoring, the al Qaeda cell (in Africa) that was plotting to bomb, simultaneously, the U. S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 (killing 224 people and injuring thousands) before it happened.

They knew, during late 1999-early 2000, that al Qaeda held a meeting (in the Philippines) to plan the execution of terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef's (9/11 style) airliners-as-missiles plot.

They knew, in 2000, that two of the 9/11 hijackers had entered the U. S. and that they were living in a room they had rented from an FBI informant in San Diego, California.

They knew of, and were monitoring, in 2000, at least four of the 9/11 hijackers who were then living in the U. S., including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, whose picture was also included in a link chart, which was produced by Defense Intelligence Agency analysts (the results of a vast data-mining project which they had developed).

Suffice it to say that Peter Lance has done one hell of a job uncovering the truth concerning what the FBI knew about the 9/11 terror plot and exactly when they knew it.

Many people are simply unaware of the fact that government law-enforcement agencies, like the FBI, aren't caught off-guard very often, especially when it comes to large-scale terrorist attacks. They are well aware of those groups who are plotting acts of terror--they monitor and infiltrate these groups in order to control them and to control the situation. Sadly, what many people fail to realize is that governments often have plans (or laws) that they wish to implement in order for them to be better able to control the general population, and that often they require an event--a crisis--to occur before these plans (laws) can be implemented.

The FBI and its handling of intelligence before 9/11 indicates, to me, that the U. S. government was seeking a crisis of epic proportion in order to implement its plans to invade the Middle East and to pass new, draconian laws (i.e., the USA Patriot Act) so that they might better control the general population.
I highly recommend this book, which is now Lance's third book on this subject.

As Lance says, at the end of Triple Cross:

"For the sake of Ronnie Bucca, Louie Garcia's good friend, and for the sake of every man, woman, and child who died that day, the cold case of 9/11 needs to be reopened, and investigated with tenacity and courage. There has never been a crime in the history of this nation that deserves clearance more than the mass murders of September 11, 2001...I sincerely hope this is my last 9/11 book. I don't want to have to write another one" (Peter Lance, Triple Cross; p 483)

You shouldn't have to write another book Peter; you've already written three excellent books on the subject.

The American people simply need to care enough to read them.

 this book concentrates on some but not all, of the intelligence failures before and during 9/11 and also is only one of two so far, that have mentioned ali mohammed (Sander Hicks [The Big Wedding] is the other) However, the author doesnt question the official version of the events or considers some anomalies of that day which you will have to find by reading other books ie M.Ruppert's, or Sander Hicks to name but a few.
The author fails to anaylse why or how there could have been such failures of intelligence. It beggars belief that the catalogue of so many failures could have been explained by mere negligence. such an all too easy and convenient excuse! Also the author doesnt mention eye witness testimonies such as William Rodriguez, many firefighters,and Fellipe David that contradict the offical version of the events of 9/11.
Also there is no mention of the operation northwoods document whereby terrorist acts would be blamed on cuba as a pretext for war during the 1960's.