Sibel: 911 blueprints and building composites

Holy shit. I'd never noticed this before...

This from Awesome Scott Horton's interview with Sibel, August 22, 2005:

Sibel: I had this press conference last summer and together with 25 national security experts. These sort of people from NSA, CIA, FBI. And we provided the public during this press conference with a list of witnesses that had provided direct information, direct information. Some had to do with finance of al-Qaeda. These are people from NSA, CIA, and FBI to the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission omitted all of this information, even though some of this information had been established as fact. One of them had to do with certain informants in April 2001. This informant provided very specific information about the attacks. The other had to do with certain information the FBI had in July and August 2001, where blueprints and building composites of certain skyscrapers were being sent to certain Middle Eastern countries...

(It isn't clear from the context whether that is something that she personally overheard, or if it came from one of the other whistleblowers, or if she heard one, but not the latter)

For the sake of argument, let's assume that she's talking about the WTC. Why would Osama's cave-dwellers want blueprints and building composites?

They could barely fly planes - so it wasn't a matter of pin-pointing a weak spot in the infrastructure - and even if they could do that, the (dodgy) NIST report basically explained the (identical) collapse of the buildings because the planes somehow stripped the buildings of the fire-retardants at crucial points, leading to the 'pancaking' of the buildings onto their footprint (as did WTC7) - certainly not something that anyone could plan.

Was alqaeda desperate to have the buildings collapse? Or would the effect of flying two passenger-laden into tall buildings and then exploding all over downtown sufficient?

If I'm reading Sibel correctly, it's difficult to imagine they would want the blueprints and building composites for any reason other than planting explosives to ensure that the buildings collapsed. And look at the timing: "July and August 2001" - just weeks before the attacks, and long after the plans (pilot training etc) was in place.


To complicate things just a little, here's an article written by Sibel, June 21, 2005:

Over four years ago, more than four months prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset who had been providing the bureau with information since 1990 provided two FBI agents and a translator with specific information regarding a terrorist attack being planned by Osama bin Laden. This asset/informant was previously a high-level intelligence officer in Iran in charge of intelligence from Afghanistan. Through his contacts in Afghanistan he received information that: (1) Osama bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting four or five major cities; (2) the attack was going to involve airplanes; (3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States; and (4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months.
[snip]
In October 2001, approximately one month after the Sept. 11 attacks, an agent from one field office (city name omitted) re-sent a certain document to the FBI Washington field office, so that it could be retranslated. This special agent, in light of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, rightfully believed that, considering the suspect under surveillance and the issues involved, the original translation might have missed certain information that could prove to be valuable in the investigation of terrorist activities. After this document was received by the FBI Washington field office and retranslated verbatim, the field agent's hunch appeared to be correct. The new translation revealed certain information regarding blueprints, pictures, and building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas (country name omitted)...."

Most likely, these blueprints and building composites were sent both in April, and in "July and August 2001 " and we actually have two different, corroborating accounts. In the first quote at the top, Sibel points to both the April intercept and a July/August intercept.

Regardless, the question remains - why were the plotters of 911 interested in blueprints and the construction materials of these skyscrapers? And perhaps even more interesting, why did they wait until their plot was well underway to source this information - presumably as some sort of afterthought?

(One other issue that I've been meaning revisit forever is that Sibel refers to the "targeting four or five major cities" - I have no idea what happend to that plot, and I haven't seen anyone even raise the issue in regard to Sibel's case.)