That is exactly what happened by the way. Back in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden called Ahmed Jibril "a hero" and "the greatest fighter against Israel who ever lived."
Sure enough, my own extensive sources in the Middle East have repeatedly told me that Ahmed Jibril was the true mastermind of Lockerbie-And so we find the 9/11 puzzle fits together exactly.
Collins: When did your concern jump from "hypothetical scenario" to the belief that an attack was actively being planned?
Lindauer: I remember it all vividly. In April, 2001 I received a summons to visit Dr. Fuisz at his office in Virginia. We met almost weekly anyway. On this occasion, he phoned my home and asked me to come right away. He also inquired how quickly I was making my next trip to New York to see the Embassies. He wanted to talk to me before I left, and he wanted me to go soon.
Of course I visited him immediately. Dr. Fuisz demanded that I must warn diplomats at the Iraqi and Libyan Missions that their nations would suffer a major military offensive if it was discovered that either had possessed intelligence about possible airplane attacks, and failed to notify the United States through my back channel.
I was reluctant to deliver such a harsh message. I have always been an anti-war activist. That's a major reason for my success in dealing with the Arabs, because they appreciate the consistency of my opposition to violence on both sides. So, on my next trip to New York, I soft pedaled Dr. Fuisz's warning. I requested that diplomats send messages to Baghdad and Tripoli seeking intelligence on possible airplane attacks. But I made no threats of violent reprisal against them.
When I got home to Washington, I met with Dr. Fuisz, who demanded to know how diplomats had responded to his threat. I had to admit that I had stopped short of actually threatening them. But I assured him that I had requested their cooperation.
At that point, Dr. Fuisz became enraged. As I recall, in all our years together, there was never any other time that he lost his temper and yelled at me. He stormed up and down the room. He demanded that I must return to New York immediately, and I must tell diplomats "the United States will bomb them into the Stone Age, worse than they've ever been bombed before, if they don't help us identify any terrorist conspiracies involving airplanes. They will lose everything. We will destroy them." He was not pacified until I promised to deliver that message exactly as he had communicated it. He expressed great satisfaction when I promised that I would make sure they understood the warning came from him, not me, backed by forces above him.
Dr. Fuisz was determined the Arabs should know the threat was deadly serious.
Right then I knew terrorists were actively plotting an attack. This was more than checking our trap lines, or putting out inquiries. Something was moving. Dr. Fuisz was firing back to stop cooperation.
Reinforcing that tension, throughout the summer of 2001, Dr. Fuisz continued to prod and push hard for any fragment of intelligence from Iraq or Libya involving airplane hijackings or airplane bombings. He urged me not to filter intelligence or test its accuracy before informing him. During numerous meetings, he tried to explain how urgently he needed to collect even fragments of intelligence, whether it appeared to make sense to me or not. He begged me to hold nothing back.
That's when I knew that something bigger was going on. Dr. Fuisz was already onto it. Again and again, our talks turned to airplane hijackings and/or airplane bombings in a reprise of the 1993 World Trade Center attack. It sounds uncanny but we all understood exactly what was going to happen.
In turn, I shared those fears and dangers with other friends and family, including Dr. Parke Godfrey.
All of us took the danger very seriously. Our team was strong, proactive and fiercely protective of American security.
Collins: Ultimately, did Libya or Iraq provide any intelligence regarding the attack?
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