This biography is a shocker from the onset as Peter Lance does more than just look into the life of Al Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed; he asserts this man was the driver behind many of the terrorist attacks over two decades culminating with 9/11. Using chutzpah to a degree unheard of, he became an American citizen after marrying an American, but all that time "Ali the American" served as Chief of Security for bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri. He was an FBI informer and worked with the CIA in Europe while still holding his real job, serving as Chief of Security for bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri (can't say that duality enough). Then there is the Able Danger segue that will have readers floored that this man got away with what he did.

This well written stunner will leave readers wondering about our government claims of protecting us when he was welcomed to top secret information while setting up terrorist missions. Affirming the title of Triple Cross he applies to his subject, Mr. Lance exposes the government agencies whose failures the author asserts fundamentally led to 9/11; a horrific incident that could and should have been prevented. Perhaps the most frightening aspect is the implication of what else is the feds hiding. This is one nonfiction that has to be fiction; as the audience will continually say no way with each new revelation supported by strong evidence of yes way. Why didn't Cheney waterboard Mohammed who is in the Witness Protection Program having never been convicted of his crimes against humanity.

Harriet Klausner

I'd read (and just re-read) "Cover Up" and thought that made one of the most compelling cases for showing what the "official story" completely ignored, whitewashed or didn't go near.

I'm only halfway into this and my jaw is on the floor. The first reviewer was spot-on when they wrote this is the "Woodward and Bernstein" report that one of the Jersey Girls was openly hoping for, but didn't get.

Using this book and the information in Paul Thompson's 9/11 timeline, we finally get at least a CLEARER picture of what led to 9/11, but with more questions unanswered still. And that picture bears no resemblance to that of the official 9/11 report.

This is a MUST-READ for 9/11 historians. I've read dozens of books on the subject but at this point I'd tell people to read this FIRST.

Triple Cross: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI--and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him
The author has written a very disturbing book that proves the management theory about how incompetents seem to rise to the surface in some management positions.
"I'm in charge, you aren't, don't question my abilities or insult me with your suggestions or offer me any of your 'obviously substandard' opinions."
Unfortunately, the management discussed here involves people our government has hired to oversee the safety of our country and its citizens. The author provides us with solid resource documentation for his findings and conclusions. It will both anger as well as frighten you with the examples of government incompetence and collusion designed to cover up the incompetence. This is demonstrated at the field and supervisory levels of action. The Congress and oversight agenciies it creates and the appointees of those agencies aren't interested in finding faults and causing corrections so that future mistakes can be avoided. Instead they use appointees who are actually part of the problem and have selfish personal interests in covering up and shifting blame away from themselves.

A lot, actually an amazing amount, of original hard work went into making Triple Cross. Peter Lance is one of the true remaining gumshoe investigative reporters. Lance talked to so many people directly. This is a landmark, maybe THE landmark, original work of research on September 11. The scope of the effort does not cover everything unanswered about September 11, but where Lance goes, he goes DEEP, very deep, and leaves out nothing. There is so much information, with full references and bibliography of sources, that it is work to even read it all, forget how much work Lance put into getting all this original information in the first place and then writing this book from it. It is almost encyclopedic, and this is a good thing, because we need the facts where there were few facts being shared otherwise.

This book has got to be regarded as one of the key works of REAL investigation of September 11.

Just the fact, ma'am. No bull.

Keep going Lance, keep going. We need this information. We need your help.

Triple Cross is scary when you realize the government
cover ups which could have stopped 9/11. The work done
by Peter Lance to uncover these facts is amazing.

Peter Lance has produced a magnificent book. His work needs to be followed up by multiple congessional committees and numerous on air investigative reports. Patrick Fitzgerald, Jack Cloonan, Dietrick Snell, and other highranking DOJ and FBI officials must testify under oath in primetime on national television. Peter Lance should be the lead investigator for the hearing. Americans have no idea the scope of the war against alqaeda. this is much older than 9/11. We have been at war with them since 1989.

I-49, Alec Station and Able Danger need to throughly examined for their inability to connect the dots before 9/11. I-49 was the FBI-DOJ BinLaden taskforce run by Patrick Fitzgerald. Alec Station was the CIA's BinLaden group. Able Danger was the Pentagons data-mining operation that linked Ali Mohammed (top alqeada spy linked with all major cells in the world and the US), Mohammed Atta (lead hijacker on 9/11), Ramzi Yousef (1st WTC bomber and, airliner bombing plots), Egyptian Islamic Jihad Cleric Sheik Abdul Rahman, and Osama BinLaden.

This book proves that the FBI cannot fight terrorism
we need to copy the british domestic intelligence service, MI5.

WE NEED TO HAVE ANSWERS. THIS BOOK IS A GREAT FIRST STEP... MUCH MORE WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE. HIGH RANKING OFFICIALS HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO...

THE ONLY WAY YOU ARE GOING TO GET THE FULL PICTURE OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISH IS TO READ GEORGE TENET'S BOOK AT THE CENTER OF THE STORM AND TRIPLE CROSS. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 1153 PAGES OF READING. AFTER YOU HAVE READ BOTH BOOKS BE SURE TO READ BOB WOODWARDS REVIEW OF AT THE CENTER OF THE STORM. IF YOU ARE NOT UP TO IT I GUESS YOU CAN JUST READ THE REVIEWS OF BOTH BOOKS WHICh IS THE LAZY MANS OUT. AFTER THIS READING ASSIGNMENT BE SURE TO READ VALERIE PLAME'S BOOK WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE PUBLICHED IN OCTORBER. TENET'S APPOINTMENT AS DIRECTOR OF CIA IN 1997, COVERT OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN AND HIS FAILURE TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE PRESIDENT TO WARN OF THE IMPENDING 9/11 ATTACK THE COUNTER ATTACK AGAINST al-Q'aida. TRIPLE CROSS OUTLINES HOW BIN LADENS MASTER SPY PENETRATED THE CIA
THE GREEN BERETS AND THE FBI AND WHY PATRICK FITZGERALS ASSISTANT US ATTORNEY FAILED TO STOPHIM. THE NAME OF THIS MASTER SPY OR AT LEAST THE LATEST NAME IS ALI MOHAMED. HE REMAINS IN CUSTODIAL WITNESS PROTECTION AS FAR AS ABOUT A YEAR AGO.

Convincing me that information gathered by our best intelligence agencies and personnel we Americans trust in the security of our great country could be such idiots is truly scary.What a fantastic insite into not only how these agencies work but who is able to "work" them.

This is the best of many books written in the aftermath of 9/11 because it ties up many loose ends of earlier books as more information has become available. Whether right or left, everyone should value this book, and no one will ever again wonder whether anyone in the government knew or should have known about it before it happened. Although no one should consider this a "hit" piece on the government, Lance provides compelling proof that multiple government officials were either grossly negligent in failing to uncover 9/11 or willfully chose not to investigate matters that would have led them to discover the plot, for their own selfish reasons, for example, to cover up other bad behavior.

...investigative journalist in the world...UN...BE...LIEVE...ABLE. If you have an interest in 911, or even America's national security, force yourself to order this book. This book goes beyond just education, and is rather a unique opportunity to see a master investigator at work. If you have a chance to hear Lance speak, I recommend that too, as he is engaging to say the least.

Lance simply checks out everyone's stories, interviews all the players from all over the world, connects the dots, and leaves nothing to heresay. Five years of investigation by Lance, who seems to be the master of investigative journalism. Lance meticulously collected about 150 volumes of records[see the full 2 hour CSPAN talk]. Lance's facts(which you can see summarized in his website's timeline[right top on [...]) are considerately buffered with valuable context(therefore the 600 pages!).

It sickens me to understand one self-financed journalist could do so much while the FBI did so little. Although Lance asserts there is no Oliver Stone parrallel government type conspiracy and chalks up all the FBI fiascos as incompetence and covering up their embarrassment; one has to question whether the possibility of a real conspiracy should be left open, considering the enormous breadth of the incompetence...and considering that rank-and-file FBI [and others] hollered so loudly while their superiors quieted them. Lance of course also connects the dots[and outlines how others in the government that connected the embarrassing dots were punished]. I originally was turned onto his book after seeing his two hour jaw dropping talk on CSPAN. This guy deserves a special medal higher than the Medal of Freedom for his service to Truth and people everywhere. I'd like to see Mel Gibson or some other independent produce this into a movie.

...investigative journalist in the world...UN...BE...LIEVE...ABLE. If you have an interest in 911, or even America's national security, force yourself to order this book. This book goes beyond just education, and is rather a unique opportunity to see a master investigator at work. If you have a chance to hear Lance speak, I recommend that too, as he is engaging to say the least.

Lance simply checks out everyone's stories, interviews all the players from all over the world, connects the dots, and leaves nothing to heresay. Five years of investigation by Lance, who seems to be the master of investigative journalism. Lance meticulously collected about 150 volumes of records[see the full 2 hour CSPAN talk]. Lance's facts(which you can see summarized in his website's timeline[right top on [...]) are considerately buffered with valuable context(therefore the 600 pages!).

It sickens me to understand one self-financed journalist could do so much while the FBI did so little. Although Lance asserts there is no Oliver Stone parrallel government type conspiracy and chalks up all the FBI fiascos as incompetence and covering up their embarrassment; one has to question whether the possibility of a real conspiracy should be left open, considering the enormous breadth of the incompetence...and considering that rank-and-file FBI [and others] hollered so loudly while their superiors quieted them. Lance of course also connects the dots[and outlines how others in the government that connected the embarrassing dots were punished]. I originally was turned onto his book after seeing his two hour jaw dropping talk on CSPAN. This guy deserves a special medal higher than the Medal of Freedom for his service to Truth and people everywhere. I'd like to see Mel Gibson or some other independent produce this into a movie.

...investigative journalist in the world...UN...BE...LIEVE...ABLE. If you have an interest in 911, or even America's national security, force yourself to order this book. This book goes beyond just education, and is rather a unique opportunity to see a master investigator at work. If you have a chance to hear Lance speak, I recommend that too, as he is engaging to say the least.

Lance simply checks out everyone's stories, interviews all the players from all over the world, connects the dots, and leaves nothing to heresay. Five years of investigation by Lance, who seems to be the master of investigative journalism. Lance meticulously collected about 150 volumes of records[see the full 2 hour CSPAN talk]. Lance's facts are considerately buffered with valuable context(therefore the 600 pages!).

It sickens me to understand one self-financed journalist could do so much while the FBI did so little. Although Lance asserts there is no Oliver Stone parrallel government type conspiracy and chalks up all the FBI fiascos as incompetence and covering up their embarrassment; one has to question whether the possibility of a real conspiracy should be left open, considering the enormous breadth of the incompetence. Lance of course also connects the dots[and outlines how others in the government that connected the embarrassing dots were punished]. I originally was turned onto his book after seeing his two hour jaw dropping talk on CSPAN. This guy deserves a special medal higher than the Medal of Freedom for his service to Truth and people everywhere. I'd like to see Mel Gibson or some other independent produce this into a movie.

With out a Doubt the best single book on Terrorism in print. triple Cross by Peter Lance out paces the 9-11 commission report, the Looming Tower, and the Cell by a long shot (those sources all have value, But Lance shows us what they left out). Lance does an excellent investigated job hear (the book is well source and documented), of explaining the raise of OBL, and AlQuada, he shows us what the FBI knew and didn't know, what The Clinton Administration knew did not know and the Bush Administration as well. lance shows us the mistakes and outright incompetence in our government (especially the FBI). Lance names names and holds nothing back. The book is worth ten times the price for the 23 page timeline on terrorism alone. This is a must read for anyone wanted to know the whole story of 9-11 and beyond.

Let me get this straight, as far back as the 1980s we had good intelligence that al Qaeda had sleeper cells in the US, and all the Federal Bereau of Ignorance can come up with is "WE MISSED IT". So those in charge remain in place, continue to play "Musical Chairs" for promotions, and Americans are dying at the hands of al Qaeda.

Next we play misdirection with the military, Iraq, instead of Afganistan, but the "Bumpkins" over at the FBI play business as usual. I guess they are emulating our fearless leader, who sits in the White House. We would have been a lot safer with the "Keystone Cops" on the job. What a mess.

This plot has seen at least four Presidents come and three go without so much as a dent in the door. Our intelligence agencies appear more like a plate full of spaghetti, going nowhere, and in all directions at once. All this and I am supposed to get on another Airliner? You think?

We as Americans have been lulled into believing our government has done all that can possibly be done to secure this nation from yet another "Terrorist Attack", and what is so bad too many of us believe this "Fairy Tale". Understand nowhere in this world is completely safe, and all safety measures have flaws, but from what I have read here, we are not really doing what we can do to keep the citizens of this nation safe, from the "NUTTS" who have twisted Islam into a call for terror.

Yet we boast there has not been another terror attack on the Homeland because we have taken the fight to them. Please! What has been done to correct the problems that led up to the first attack on the WTC? All warnings were ignored, as the author expresses, and the "Bell Ringers" were the people who were chastised, and those who were supposed to hear the bells, continue to sit and await a pension. What have we come to?

This aint fiction folks, this is reality, the worse horror novel could not be more frightening. Our ports, our borders, immigration in general remain as open as ever, and the government is looking for ways to keep things in a business as usual mode, while we have this false sense of security, because we have a patient enemy. Look at the years between the first WTC attack, and the second.

Read the book, the things nightmares are made of, only thing is this is real baby.

Well-documented narrative of events and people leading up to the terrorists attacks of 9/11/01. Follows through with research and background regarding the 9/11 commission report and what is NOT in it. Includes many little-known facts that shed a great deal of light on the history of terrorism in the US.

Peter Lance has done an excellent independent investigative report. Although hindsight is 20/20 if even a small percentage of what he reveals is true, even with mitigating factors, much reporting about the runup to 9/11 has been a whitewash. Politicians and government employees were more interested in CYA and career advancement (and political infighting) than in learning from their mistakes.

This is not a conspiracy theory book. Peter Lance does not appear to have an agenda, and admits the shortcomings of this type of after-the-fact report. However, much of what is in this book should have been in the 9/11 commission's report. There have been many mistakes and bad decisions, and Americans deserve to know the truth.

Read it!!!

TRIPLE CROSS: HOW BIN LADEN'S MASTER SPY PENETRATED THE CIA, THE GREEN BERETS, AND THE FBI - AND WHY PATRICK FITZGERALD FAILED TO STOP HIM is no light read: over 600 pages chart the evolution of one of the most dangerous men in history: a single agent of al Qaeda who compromised some of the top forces in U.S. intelligence. TRIPLE CROSS traces the untold story of al Qaeda's rise and the evolution of Ali Mohamed, who led a successful double life. In-depth chapters chart his espionage and pack in details missing in more general surveys of al Qaeda, making TRIPLE CROSS top pick for any library strong in either contemporary espionage in general or al Qaeda events in particular.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Very well written account, alot of chronological events that were strung together without confusion. I highly reccomend this book

Everyone should read this excellent book. Peter Lance has provided a comprehensive review of the cover up. Lots of backup of this period of history. Also read "Cover Up" for more exciting reading.

Peter Lance's BRILLIANT tour de force is multi-layered.

Like peeling a onion with no center, layer after layer is laid bare by Mr. Lance's investigative prowess.

If you are a conspiracy buff, this will not strengthen your case!

No conspiracy needed here, as the upper echelons of government showcase their inability to track the progress of any other agency, much less map its own.

Two months after November 4, 1998, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was charged with an Embassy bombing in Africa along with ten others. He was in custody by the Feds at that time.

Obviously he was released at some point, because he was most recently targeted by a US airstrike in Southern Somalia on January 9th of this year, 2007. TRIPLE CROSS proves this type of gross negligence over and over again throughout its 600 pages.

Peter's Time Line is incredibly detailed in both words and pictures. This work is so detailed that it required me to read some section severals times in order to grasp the significance of the bungling that has transpired in the last 25 years.

Peter Lance was interviewed expertly and extensively by Ian Punnett on Coast to Coast Live in December 0f 2006. I suggest that the reader acquire the audio of that interview to add frosting to this layered cake of information.

This book will give you the wisdom to question whatever you hear in the media. I leave this Magna Opus next to my favorite chair. It provides a virtual Who's Who in the anals of modern terrorism.

Not only should you read this for yourself, you should get as many copies as you can afford and pass them to everyone you care about.

There is no better investigative journal of this scope available in the world today.

My hat is off to Mr. Lance for his courage to pursue this historical information.

The author details decades of widespread incompetence, conflict of interest, poor judgement, political infighting, three blind mice syndrome and other problems that allowed Ali Mohammed to roam the country, work with the Army Special Forces, make frequent overseas trips to meet with other Al Qaeda members and to play a significant role in supporting terrorists in the US. Part of this can be explained by Monday Morning Quarterbacking, however, too much is simply an example of the height of incompetence or something more sinister.

It is not a book for the faint of heart. After reading this you are bound to wonder how we missed so many chances to stop 9-11 and to follow up on the earlier bombing of the WTC.

One question I was left with was, could there be a relationship between some of the issues in the book and Sandy Berger's willingness to commit multiple felonies to get materials out of the NSC files and Richard Clark's non-indexed files. Perhaps one day we will know.

As an investigative resporter the author does a great job. I gave it only 4 stars as I thought it needed more effort at linking the pieces to the big picture.

Highly recommended.

The author details decades of widespread incompetence, conflict of interest, poor judgement, political infighting, three blind mice syndrome and other problems that allowed Ali Mohammed to roam the country, work with the Army Special Forces, make frequent overseas trips to meet with other Al Qaeda members and to play a significant role in supporting terrorists in the US. Part of this can be explained by Monday Morning Quarterbacking, however, too much is simply an example of the height of incompetence or something more sinister.

As an investigative resporter the author does a great job. I gave it only 4 stars as I thought it needed more effort at linking the pieces to the big picture.

Highly recommended.

'Triple Cross' postulates that the tragedy of 9/11/01 was not the actions of any conspiracy on the part of those working inside the United States government as many millions of Americans believe but was instead the result of massive incompetence by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in tracking the presumed Islamic suspects who perpetrated that act of terrorism which claimed almost 3000 American lives.

That is the opinion of investigative journalist Peter Lance who has spent the last five years examining those many aspects of the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks and reports the details of his discovery in the new book `Triple Cross' that is published by Regan Books.

Lance is a five-time Emmy Award winning TV and print reporter who has also written television screenplays and a novel. He obtained a Masters Degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a law degree from Fordham University Law School. His other books that looked into America's recent terror attacks were `1000 Years For Revenge' and `Cover-Up.'

He is currently promoting his new non-fiction expose on a nationwide publicity tour to raise awareness of the many missed opportunities those working in the federal government had regarding Al-Qaeda in this country and the world that date back to the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He states the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented if the FBI had done their job and not drop the ball, either by missing obvious opportunities or on purpose to hide their botched and tainted investigation into an unrelated case involving many of the same agents conducting an observation on the members of a New York organized crime family when the two matters became intertwined.

Lance writes that the FBI was hoodwinked by Ali Abdel Saoud Mohamed, an Egyptian national turned American citizen, who ostensibly came to the United States in the mid-1980's to become an informant for the Bureau. But he actually was a confidant to Osama Bin Laden once Al-Qaeda made plans to attack the United States! Lance states that Mohamed was allowed to remain free for years, despite the suspicions of many of those involved in the hunt for terrorists at the FBI and CIA of his true intent, while he planned and executed multiple acts of terror including the 1998 dual African Embassy bombings that killed over 200 people.

He reports that Mohamed had been on the FBI's radar since at least 1989 when that agency's Special Operations Group photographed an enclave of Mohamed's trainees firing AK-47's at a Long Island, New York shooting range. Yet, despite their prior knowledge of this cell, the Bureau ended its investigation of those suspects and conducted no follow-up inquiries. That missed opportunity paved the way for multiple acts of terror by these same participants in the years that followed.

Lance reveals in the tome that of all those personally trained by Mohamed to commit terrorist acts that were filmed by the FBI that year, one went on to kill Rabbi Meier Kahane in 1990, three were convicted in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 that killed six and another was jailed in a failed plot to blow up bridges and tunnels in Manhattan in 1995.

He begins the book by stating the 9/11 investigation has become a cold case five years after that crime took place in hunting for additional suspects, with no criminal convictions of those believed to be involved who are still alive nor are any additional inquiries regarding the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil currently planned.

He then focuses on Mohamed who, according to Lance, is the key to most of the Al-Qaeda attacks in America during the last 15 years.

Lance saves his best criticism on what went wrong in preventing 9/11 for Patrick Fitzgerald and the many missed opportunities those in the FBI and CIA had for the decade Mohamed was on the loose and doesn't mince words in his complaints of Fitzgerald. He points out that Mohamed told Fitzgerald in 1997 that he had hundreds of Al-Qaeda sleeper agents ready to go operational but the FBI has yet to locate any of these potential terrorists. Fitzgerald also allowed Mohammed to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty but Mohamed never revealed the 9/11 plot to the U.S. Attorney despite the arranged plea agreement and pledge to cooperate with government officials.

The author also discloses that Fitzgerald and other top government law enforcement officials destroyed evidence of what Al-Qaeda was planning back in 1996. The material purged included plans the organization had made for a liquid-based airliner bomb plot that could have been a precursor to the August, 2006 scare that was revealed by the British and affected worldwide civilian passenger commuting for weeks.
Lance claims this and the many other missed opportunities revealed in the book show that there was no government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, just a massive cover-up by many in the federal law enforcement bureaucracy to hide their own incompetence and tainted personnel.

While I was deciding how I should start a review of Peter Lance's new book - I remembered a quote from Monica Gabrielle, one of the 9/11 widows, in a documentary about 9/11: "The one thing that I personally was hoping for was another Woodward and Bernstein with regard to 9/11. Someone, anyone that was willing to put their teeth into this."

Well, we have found that person, and his name is Peter Lance. In his third book on the origins of the 9/11 plot and the failures of the FBI and others to stop the attack, Lance focuses on Ali Mohamed - yet another figure relegated to footnotes in the "9/11 Report" who Lance shows played a central role in Al Qaeda's plan of attack. Not only did he help create the "Brooklyn Cell" which supported the 9/11 hijackers, but he wrote the training manual for Al Qaeda and created training camps for hijackers, all while the FBI thought he was on their side as an informant!

The best part of Triple Cross is the way Lance weaves together the different strands of the 9/11 story and enhances them with his own original reporting on each. For example, the book quotes from numerous interviews Lance conducted with Tony Shaffer, Curt Weldon, and other members of the Able Danger team. While not a full history of Able Danger, it has by far the most complete version in any book published to date.

Some have expressed frustration at the delays in publication, but I can attest to the fact that Lance needed the extra time in order to include all of the latest details from the interviews National Geographic conducted for their documentary based on his book, and the latest developments in the Able Danger and Greg Scarpa Jr. scandals. It is a great read, and uncovers a lot of new information about the 9/11 plot.

Perhaps the only thing that outdoes the scope of this shattering history of a master spy in our midst is the documentation that Peter Lance provides. After reading his first two books on 9/11 and the FBI, ONE THOUSAND YEARS FOR REVENGE and COVER UP, I wondered what else could be uncovered by this intrepid reporter. Reading TRIPLE CROSS is to experience one "wow" after another and to have the rare sense that this author continues to go to the endth degree to get the facts. As a result, we are finally getting the truth that millions of Americans have longed for.