Absolutely Everything Else: Author: Fitzgerald libel threat aimed at censoring key 9/11 tale

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Author: Fitzgerald libel threat aimed at censoring key 9/11 tale

Powerful prosecutor's efforts to suppress book virtually guarantees elevated sales

Peter Lance should be thanking Patrick Fitzgerald right now, even as the attorney's checks are being signed.

If it were not for the U.S. Attorney who famously prosecuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Vice President's Chief of Staff, the re-release of Lance's stunning tale of mishandled espionage leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, might be overlooked.

The former ABC News investigative reporter's book Triple Cross hit relatively few shelves in 2006 as a hardcover and left retail quietly, almost completely ignored. Now, with its paperback release looming, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is threatening to sue over material which he calls "defamatory" and "easily proven to be objectively false," some of which touches on little known information relating to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Because of the threat, the reissue of Triple Cross received attention from The Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, among others.

"That's the lesson of censorship," chided Lance, speaking to RAW STORY.

The dark plots of Ali Mohamed

Ali Mohamed, according to Lance, was something of an al Qaeda super-spy who managed to work with terrorists, the Green Berets, the CIA and become an FBI informant, even while ensuring Osama bin Laden's safe passage around the middle east. For years, Triple Cross alleges, the FBI and specifically Fitzgerald, knew about him but allowed Mohamed's activities to continue unchecked.

Mohamed, Lance wrote, was actually responsible for writing portions of the terror network's training manual and played a key role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa which left over 200 dead.

"While some contend that Mohamed's intimate relations with the FBI and CIA are proof of government involvement in a 9/11 plot, Lance says that it was instead embarrassment and ass-covering on the part of Justice and Pentagon officials over the mishandling of Ali Mohammed that led first to a conspiracy of silence and then to a conspiracy to cover up their incompetence and deception," noted author Rory O'Connor in November, 2006. "He believes that chagrin over the fact that bin Laden's spy stole top-secret intelligence (including, for example, the positions of all Green Beret and SEAL units worldwide) led to a decision on high to bury the entire Able Danger intelligence program, which identified the Al Qaeda cell active in Brooklyn months before the 9/11 attacks, and also identified Ali Mohamed as a member of bin Laden's inner circle as early as March 2000."