The FBI Allowed the 1993
WTC Bombing to Happen
WTC Bombing to Happen
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THE
NEW YORK TIMES
* * *
* *
Thursday
October 28, 1993 Page A1
"Tapes
Depict Proposal to Thwart
Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast"
By
Ralph Blumenthal
Law-enforcement
officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually
used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the
plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an
informer said after the blast.
The
informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake
powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other
ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.
The
account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape
recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement
agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than
previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest
towers.
The
explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people injured, and
damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in
Manhattan Federal Court [on charges of involvement] in that attack.
Mr.
Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used by the Government
[of the United States] to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists who are now
charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled
plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other New
York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case,
but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the World
Trade Center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.
Supervisor
`Messed It Up'
After
the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a
conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier
with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and
messed it up."
"He
requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.
"He
requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't push for that, we'll be
going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was
involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."
The
transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I.
Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing,
but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.
Mr.
Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,
"He
said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the
New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."
Another
agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but
rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the `New York people':
"Well,
of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed."
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See also:
Mossad Link to First WTC Bombing
Raises Eyebrows
Damage Caused by the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis
Damage Caused by the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis
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