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JUDICIAL WATCH INTERVIEW Gerald Posner, Author, While America Slept Jane Chastain, Host, Judicial Watch Report: Our next guest is Gerald Posner, who has got one of the hottest new books out. It's called While America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9-11. Gerald, I have to tell you that I have always admired your work. You have jumped into some of the biggest mysteries that we've ever had in this country, including the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. But I think perhaps your stock went up all across America when you wrote a column shortly after 9-11 called, "Why I was wrong about George W. Bush." It takes a mighty big person to go out on a limb and say, "I made a mistake." Gerald Posner: Well, you know, Jane, I certainly have strong opinions and I use them. But if I determine later that I'm wrong, the least I owe is that bit of public embarrassment. In the case of something as important as 9-11 and George Bush's response to it, when I saw a man in the White House that I did not ever judge him to be, I had to say, "I definitely was wrong." And while you say a lot of people admired that, I will say that some of my hardcore Democratic friends in New York became a little chillier to me for a while. Chastain: Does that bother you? Because certainly defense of this country has to be the primary business of our federal government. Posner: I agree wholeheartedly and you just hit the key. It doesn't bother me. And if it did, I wouldn't be doing this for a living. You were just talking a moment ago about the book. Look it has made the Saudis, Pakistanis, the Clinton Administration and the German government furious. I guess the type of reporting that I do get people hot under the collar, but I wouldn't know how to do it any other way. Chastain: Well, your book has broken some important ground. In fact, you've given us the identity of two countries that might have had prior knowledge that a terrorist attack was scheduled on September 11th on our soil. You've told us a startling account of the interrogation of a leading al Qaeda captive. And I want to begin with that because it is one of the most shocking chapters in your book. Posner: Abu Zubida was one of the leading ranking al Qaeda terrorists, a number three person to bin Laden, a trusted lieutenant. He had run the attack from the USS Cole in the millennium plot and we, the Americans, tracked him down. We staged a raid and got him in the middle of the night, wounding him three times. The first thing we wanted to know is what he knew about an upcoming attack. And even though he was wounded and in pain, he did not break. So they moved him out to Afghanistan to a compound, which they set as a fake Saudi jail with two Arab-American Special Operations officers playing Saudis. Zubida gave the officers the private cell phone number to the nephew of the King of Saudi Arabia -- a man who owned the largest publishing empire in the entire Saudi kingdom. The Americans were shocked. He also gave up the names of two other princes, both of them related to the royal family, who he said were his long-time terrorist contacts. And then, playing the ultimate "get of jail free" card, he threw in the name of the head of the Pakistan Air Force. Zubida said both the princes and the head of the Pakistani Air Force knew before 9-11 that there would be an al Qaeda action on American soil around that date. They didn't know what it would be. They didn't know it would be two planes flying into the twin towers, but they knew there would be an action and they told no one, obviously. Now, after Zubida was confronted with the fact that he had been duped, and that it was really Americans holding him, he recanted the whole story. Incidentally, the nephew of the king died of a heart attack, they say, a couple of days after intestinal surgery. The second prince died in a car wreck on the way to that funeral. The third prince died of dehydration in the middle of the dessert a few days later. And the head of the Pakistani Air Force went down in his own military plane with his wife and 15 others in clear weather after the plane had recently passed an inspection. Witnesses heard an explosion before it went down. All the key people named by Zubida are dead. Chastain: Gerald, in the time we have left, I want you to tell us about the revelations in your book about our friends, the Germans. Posner: Before 9-11, the CIA and FBI were actually suspicious of a Syrian living in Hamburg who they felt was a financier for al Qaeda. Many people may forget that the 9-11 plot was actually developed in Hamburg, Germany. Not in Saudi Arabia, not in Pakistan, not in the U.S., but there in Hamburg where Mohammed Atta and some of the other ring leaders were living. Well, the Germans came back and said, "We really don't have anything on this guy. There's nothing to him." Well, it turns out that [the Syrian] knew all the hijackers. He knew Mohammed Atta and the rest of them. He associated with them. After 9-11, the Germans picked him up, questioned him, and then let him go. Nobody over here in the CIA and FBI can figure out why he's still free. But it turns out, as I disclose in the book, that he's actually an informant for the German FBI. So what they have done is to put Germany's interest first. They never followed up on the investigation before the terrorist strike and they haven't adequately followed up after to give us some of the secrets about what may have been happening inside of Hamburg. And so it is extremely frustrating that our so-called German allies have not come through. We don't know, we'll never know, if they could have gotten lucky and actually stumbled onto the plot. Chastain: Well I have just enough time to let you give us a final thought, Gerald Posner. What one last thing would you like Americans to know that is inside the pages of Why America Slept? Posner: The last thing I'd like you to know is that inside the FBI and CIA, to the extent you've heard about it, it's much worse than you could imagine. Much worse than I imagined. These two agencies that are supposed to protect us, were stumbling over each other fighting for turf and budgets and competing theories. And in the end, we unwittingly helped Osama bin Laden and the terrorists pull off 9-11. They had opportunity after opportunity to crack this plot and they missed them because of the rivalry between them. When you read my book, it will get your blood boiling. President Bush is trying to get these two organizations to work together. This is the only way we will ever be able to have a good crack at stopping terrorism. Chastain: Alright, Gerald, thank you so much for being with us today. Again, the book is called, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9-11. It's available at your local bookstores. Run out and get it. Gerald, thank you so much and just a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, the pursuit of liberty is a full-time job by each and every American. We can no longer to hit the snooze button.
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