JustGetThere

Former counter-terrorism czar tells CNN terrorist attack or video tape will be “October surprise

Watch the CNN clip courtesy of Raw Story.

By Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars | Former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told CNN yesterday that Osama Bin Laden would attempt to influence the 2008 U.S. election with a terrorist attack or the release of a video tape, an October surprise to replicate that of 2004 when Bin Laden swung the election for Bush.

“At the moment, as far as I can tell, the FBI, other intelligence agencies, do not have any credible information that would lead them to believe an attack might take place. Why are we asking this, though?” said Clarke.

“Because in 2004, bin Laden did try to influence the US election. Whether or not he succeeded, who knows? But he issued a video tape on Halloween, a few days before the election, that implied that he supported Senator Kerry.”

“He knew, that if he seemed to be supporting Senator Kerry, that would help President Bush. And it did.”

“So, we know he likes to try to influence elections,” said Clarke. “So, we can look forward to perhaps another video tape like that, or an attack. But an attack is a heck of a lot harder for them to stage than the easy job of putting out a video tape.”

The CNN panel highlighted the fact that federal law enforcement officials were less worried about an Al-Qaeda attack than they were about a “lone wolf” American because “50 per cent of the country was going to be pissed off on election day either way”.

Host Rick Sanchez read from an alleged Al-Qaeda affiliated website which stated that if an attack took place, it would be in support of McCain.

Both John Kerry and George W. Bush attributed Bush’s 2004 success to a video tape featuring Bin Laden that was released days before voters went to the polls. Veteran news broadcaster Walter Cronkite called the tape a Karl Rove-orchestrated set up.

As we wrote on the eve of the vote four years ago, “Bush’s poll numbers have been significantly boosted and this will be enough to win him re-election.”

Bin Laden’s chastisement of Bush resulted in a 6 point swing, enabling Bush to seal a second term in office.

Who will the finger of suspicion point to should we witness the emergence of yet another dubious Bin Laden tape or a catastrophic event linked with Al-Qaeda?

Consider the comments of one of McCain’s top advisors, Charlie Black, who in June said that a terror attack on American soil would be a “big advantage” to McCain’s election hopes. Black added that last December’s assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had helped McCain to win the New Hampshire primary, a state he had to win to save his candidacy.

The “chatter” surrounding the probable entrance of Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda to impact the election is widespread.

According to a New York Sun report, in August America’s military and intelligence agencies intercepted messages indicating that “Al-Qaeda” was planning to launch operations to coincide with the November election.

Earlier this month, the L.A. Times speculated that the recent incursions into Pakistan are aimed at capturing Bin Laden before Bush leaves office.

The report coincided with pulitzer prize winning journalist Bob Woodward’s admission to CNN’s Larry King that the U.S. had devised a new secret weapon in the war on terror. “We’ll see - maybe they can use it on Bin Laden and all of a sudden the September or October surprise is gonna be the apprehension or the death of Bin Laden,” Woodward said.

The fact that the media is hyping the inevitability of an “October surprise” should be cause for concern, especially when allied to reports of police departments across the country “preparing for possible civil unrest and riots” in the aftermath of the election.

By Harold Gray

JustGetThere | Shortly after the attacks on 9/11, a U.S. government plan was implemented called 'Continuity of Government' (COG), also referred as the "Shadow Government". This Unconstitutional program, also known as project 908, would send 3 teams from Washington to secure locations around the country in order to keep the executive branch intact. This system is managed by the government agency called the National Program Office. The agency was created by Ronald Reagan with a secret executive order in response to the threats of potential nuclear attack during the Cold War.

Once activated, COG plan would circumvent the traditional line of presidential succession with it's own alternative succession plan, known officially as the Presidential Successor Support System, or PS3, would allow a small group of officials to appoint a new government. The program establishes a process for designating a new US president that is nowhere authorized in the US Constitution or federal law. According to one participant, “One of the awkward questions we faced was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.” Thus the decision is made to abandon the Constitutional framework of the nation’s government if this plan is ever activated. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 198]

During it's inception, this multibillion dollar agency was headed up by Oliver North and Vice-President George Bush. Other key names that were part of the COG were, Dick Cheney who at the time was a Republican Congressman; Donald Rumsfeld, who was at the time was out of government and was the head of Searle; and Richard Clark who was promoted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence.

In 1991, CNN found the Continuity of Government program and National Program Office to be rife with waste, fraud, and abuse.

According to journalist James Mann, the participation of Rumsfeld and Cheney in these exercises demonstrates a broader truth about them since they were not a part of the Reagan administration:

“Over three decades, from the Ford administration onward, even when they were out of the executive branch of government, they were never too far away; they stayed in touch with its defense, military, and intelligence officials and were regularly called upon by those officials. Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States.” [Mann, 2004, pp. 138-145]

Activated on 9/11/01

So on that fateful day in 2001, we just so happened to have 3 key members of the COG program in prominent positions in the Bush administration, that have been practicing for this type of event for decades. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Counter-Terrorism Tsar Richard Clark.

Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m on the morning of 9/11, Clarke is in fact responsible for activating the COG plan, the first time it is ever implemented. Clark states after the White House is ordered to evacuate and while Air Force One is preparing to take off in Florida, he activates the Continuity of Government (COG) plan:

The coordinator for Continuity of Government has joined Clarke in the White House Situation Room. Clarke asks, “How do I activate COG?” Recalling this conversation, he will comment, “In the exercises we had done, the person playing the president had always given that order.” But the coordinator replies, “You tell me to do it.” Soon after, Clarke instructs him, “Go.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 8]

Transportation Director Norman Mineta states Vice President Cheney, Lynn Cheney and other key staff were in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. on the morning of 9/11. This timeline is extremely important and is disputed by the 9/11 Commission Report which shocked Mineta.

Mineta's statement to the Lee Hamilton on the 9/11 Commision:

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?"

As reported by Infowars:

In May of 2001, by presidential order, Cheney was handed direct control of all wargame and drill operations. This meant he was solely in charge of the overlapping NORAD drills and wargames on the morning of 9/11, that prevented Standard Operating Procedure from being implemented, and any of the hijacked planes being intercepted.

As reported by many mainstream news agencies, several drills were taken place that morning and some even involved hijacked planes hitting targets such as the Pentagon and World Trade Center. This directly contradicts President Bush and other Administration officials statements of never conceiving that something like this could happen.

A list of drills running on 9/11 via Infowars:

1) OPERATION NORTHERN VIGILANCE: This was planned months in advance of 9/11 and ensured that on the morning of 9/11, jet fighters were removed from patrolling the US east coast and sent to Alaska and Canada, therefore reducing the amount of fighter planes available to protect the east coast.

2) BIOWARFARE EXERCISE TRIPOD II: Alex Jones first reported on this back in May when Rudolph Giuliani let the details of it slip in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. FEMA arrived in New York on September 10th to set up a command post located at Pier 29 under the auspices of a 'biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12. This explains why Tom Kenney of FEMA's National Urban Search and Rescue Team, told Dan Rather of CBS News that FEMA had arrived in New York on the night of September 10th. This was originally dismissed as a slip of the tongue. Giuliani was to use this post as a command post on 9/11 after he evacuated WTC Building 7. As we reported back in January , Giuliani knew when to leave WTC 7 because he got advanced warning that the Trade Towers were about to collapse. "We were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse," Rudolph Giuliani told Peter Jennings of ABC News. How did Giuliani know the towers were about to collapse when no steel building in history had previously collapsed from fire damage?

3) OPERATION VIGILANT GUARDIAN: This exercise simulated hijacked planes in the north eastern sector and started to coincide with 9/11. Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, was overseeing the exercise. At 8:40am she took a call from Boston Center which said it had a hijacked airliner. Her first words, as quoted by Newhouse News Service were, "It must be part of the exercise." This is another example of how the numerous drills on the morning of 9/11 deliberately distracted NORAD so that the real hijacked planes couldn't be intercepted in time.

4) OPERATION NORTHERN GUARDIAN: The details of this exercise are still scant but it is considered to be part of Vigilant Guardian, relating to simulating hijacked planes in the north eastern sector.

5) OPERATION VIGILANT WARRIOR: This was referenced in Richard Clarke's book 'Against All Enemies'. It is thought to have been the 'attack' component of the Vigilant Guardian exercise.

In particuliar another drill titled Amalgam Virgo, had Bin Laden on the cover of the exercise. [Source: NORAD] Amalgam Virgo 01, a multi-agency planning exercise sponsored by NORAD, involved the hypothetical scenario of a cruise missile being launched by “a rogue government or someone” from a barge off the East Coast. The combination of drills on that day, lead to mass confusion at all levels within the government, that prevented the proper response that could have thwarted these attacks.

The drills in place on and before 9/11, in conjunction with high level personnel in the Bush Administration involved with the COG for decades, poses a question that many Americans find hard to accept. Did these members of the "Shadow Government" allow this to happen in order to thrust us into a war for dominance in the Middle East, billion dollar defense contracts for the Military Industrial Complex, and passage of draconian legislation such as the Patriot Act and Homeland Security? It's clear with other credible evidence that links the hijackers as key assets in U.S. intelligence operations, that there was foreknowledge about these events occurring, and they could not have been accomplished without help from rogue elements operating from within the U.S government.