Britain warned US to expect September 11 al-Qaeda hijackings

[skooooo]

After reading the article, I think the title is slightly overstated, but still, it's an interesting read.

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http://www.sundayherald.com/24822

Britain gave President Bush a categorical warning to expect multiple airline hijackings by the al-Qaeda network a month before the September 11 attacks which killed nearly 3000 people and triggered the international war against terrorism.

The confirmation of repeated British intelligence warnings about al-Qaeda hijackings Ð first establishedÊbyÊtheÊSunday Herald in 1999 Ð comes amid claims that the US intelligence community has now received furtherÊinformationÊofÊan imminentÊsecondÊwaveÊof terrorist attacks on America.

According to US government officials, the British warning of al-Qaeda plans to hijack US airliners was contained in a crucial briefing sent to Bush on August 6, a month before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

[scottxyz]

1. So would this mean that one of the redactions was "Britain"?

At TheSmokingGun.com you can view the two pages of the PDB - or you can download the PDF from other websites.

This lets you see which words were scratched out with black magic-marker.

One of the redactions is "XXXXX service". Would this be the British intelligence service? MI-5?

I find it interesting that the US chose to ignore a warning from its closest ally that Al Qaeda was planning on hijacking aircraft to attack American targets.

So... sometimes they ignore British intelligence (when it suits them, when they're jonesing for a New Pearl Harbor)... and sometimes they overplay British intelligence (when they need to be able to blame somebody for the phoney Iraq-Niger uranium story).

Why is this country run by a bunch of idiots from PNAC instead of by sane normal people???