Iran Behind 9/11?
Three days before Christmas a New York Federal Judge George Daniels signed a default judgment that found Iran, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda responsible for 9/11. The judgment was the end result of a ten year judicial process in which family members of victims of the attacks have been seeking $100 billion from those held responsible. Previous iterations of the case have seen claims that Saddam Hussein, the Saudi government, and individual Saudi Princes and billionaires were involved rejected by the court. Somewhat ironically, the Federal government’s Justice Department has never filed charges against anyone claiming that he or she planned or executed 9/11 though it has always been assumed by the media and punditry that it was Osama bin Laden.
Iran is, of course, the flavor du jour for those who seek a new war in the Middle East, so the new “evidence” of its evil nature is being promoted by the usual suspects at the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Iran did not defend itself in court but witnesses were brought in by the plaintiffs claiming that travel patterns of 9/11 plotters prove that Tehran was complicit in the al-Qaeda attack. The information used to implicate Iran was known to the 9/11 Commission and President George W. Bush, who concluded that “There was no direct connection between Iran and the attacks of September 11th,” a conclusion also reached by the CIA. Most intelligence officers working on the Iranian and terrorist targets would also agree that there is zero liklihood that Iran and al-Qaeda could have conspired to attack the United States.
Ironically, if anyone had prior knowledge of 9/11 it was Saudi Arabia, which had been dropped from the case in spite of 16 of 19 hijackers being Saudis, and Israel, which was running large scale illegal intelligence operations directed against Arabs resident in the US. Saudi intelligence clearly knew about the radicalization of several of the hijackers while Israeli intelligence officers under cover as “movers” danced in front of the burning twin towers in New Jersey’s Liberty Park. Other movers were arrested driving vans carrying explosives. The 9/11 Commission did not make a serious effort to determine either the Saudi or Israeli role, but it now appears that somehow the Iranians were responsible.