This is my review of Peter Lance's latest book 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. Peter Lance--a five-time Emmy award-winning investigative journalist--has, in Triple Cross, provided us with yet another eye-opening expose of the U. S. government's multiple "failures" to prevent the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (This is Lance's third book on this subject; his first two being: 1,000 Years for Revenge and Cover-Up.)

In Triple Cross, Lance chronicles the saga of a man you may, once or twice, have heard snippets about, in the media, but who, for all practical purposes, has never been mentioned in connection with 9/11 or with any of the other al Qaeda-related terror attacks (e.g., the U.S.S. Cole bombing and the U. S. embassy bombings in Africa).
I pick-up snippets about this guy on the news, once or twice, and, I must say, after hearing what little I did manage to hear about this guy, he certainly peaked my interest. This man was a former Egyptian military officer and highly trained Egyptian military commando who would take leave from his active duty service with the U. S. Army, while assigned to the JFK Special Warfare Center in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, in order to travel to Afghanistan to help his Muslim brothers fight the Soviets, during the late 1980's.

Have you ever heard of this guy? His name is Ali Mohamed, and Peter Lance has done one hell of a job digging up the truth about him, his terrorist activities, and his long-standing relationship with the FBI, which dates back to 1992, when Ali began working for the FBI as a Foreign Counter Intelligence agent.

The question Lance asks (and answers) in Triple Cross is: What did the FBI know and when did they know it?
Here's just a brief list of what the FBI knew and when they knew it:

They knew Ali Mohamed was training al-Qaeda terrorists in New York in 1992.

They knew about the al Qaeda cell that planned and executed the first attack on the World Trade Center (i.e., the bombing of the WTC in 1993) before it happened.

They knew that Ali Mohamed traveled to Nairobi, Kenya in order to do surveillance on the U. S. embassy located there in preparation for a future al Qaeda terrorist attack (the bombing of which actually occurred in 1998, killing 213 people).

They knew Ali Mohamed traveled to Khartoum, Sudan, in 1993, in order to arrange a terror summit between (Sunni) al Qaeda and (Shiite) Hezbollah leaders, including Osama bin Laden, which led to the Khobar Towers bombing (Saudi Arabia) in 1996, and facilitated the future Sunni-Shiite insurgency alliance in Iraq (2003).

They knew, in 1993, that Ali Mohamed was training al-Qaeda terrorists how to hijack commercial airliners.

They knew, in 1995, that terror mastermind Razi Yousef, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were planning to use airliners as missiles; plotting to hijack and then crash commercial airliners into buildings (e.g., the Transamerica building, the Sears Tower, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center towers) in the U. S.

They knew, in 1995, that terror mastermind Razi Yousef, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were planning to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific by using small, easily concealed, liquid-based, time-activated bombs, which were to be placed near the center fuel tanks of Boeing 747's, causing the airliners' fuel (and the airliner itself) to explode.

They knew, in 1995, that Ali Mohamed had gotten Ayman al-Zawahiri (al Qaeda's number-two man) into the U. S. for an al Qaeda fundraising tour; the purpose of which was to raise funds for the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan.

They knew that Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols had been in contact with al Qaeda members in the Philippines before the bombing of the Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995.

They knew al Qaeda was planning to blow up a U. S. airliner, via a small, liquid-based, time-activated bomb, which was to be placed near the center fuel tank of a Boeing 747 (in order to cause a mistrial) during terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef's federal trial in New York City, during July 1996. (This event actually did occur, when TWA flight 800 blew up in mid-air just after taking off (bound for Paris, France) from JFK International airport (Long Island, New York) on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on-board; including an entire high school French Club, from Pennsylvania, who were on their way to Paris; killing sixteen students and five adults).

They knew of, and were monitoring, the al Qaeda cell (in Africa) that was plotting to bomb, simultaneously, the U. S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 (killing 224 people and injuring thousands) before it happened.

They knew, during late 1999-early 2000, that al Qaeda held a meeting (in the Philippines) to plan the execution of terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef's (9/11 style) airliners-as-missiles plot.

They knew, in 2000, that two of the 9/11 hijackers had entered the U. S. and that they were living in a room they had rented from an FBI informant in San Diego, California.

They knew of, and were monitoring, in 2000, at least four of the 9/11 hijackers who were then living in the U. S., including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, whose picture was also included in a link chart, which was produced by Defense Intelligence Agency analysts (the results of a vast data-mining project which they had developed).

Suffice it to say that Peter Lance has done one hell of a job uncovering the truth concerning what the FBI knew about the 9/11 terror plot and exactly when they knew it.

Many people are simply unaware of the fact that government law-enforcement agencies, like the FBI, aren't caught off-guard very often, especially when it comes to large-scale terrorist attacks. They are well aware of those groups who are plotting acts of terror--they monitor and infiltrate these groups in order to control them and to control the situation. Sadly, what many people fail to realize is that governments often have plans (or laws) that they wish to implement in order for them to be better able to control the general population, and that often they require an event--a crisis--to occur before these plans (laws) can be implemented.

The FBI and its handling of intelligence before 9/11 indicates, to me, that the U. S. government was seeking a crisis of epic proportion in order to implement its plans to invade the Middle East and to pass new, draconian laws (i.e., the USA Patriot Act) so that they might better control the general population.
I highly recommend this book, which is now Lance's third book on this subject.

As Lance says, at the end of Triple Cross:

"For the sake of Ronnie Bucca, Louie Garcia's good friend, and for the sake of every man, woman, and child who died that day, the cold case of 9/11 needs to be reopened, and investigated with tenacity and courage. There has never been a crime in the history of this nation that deserves clearance more than the mass murders of September 11, 2001...I sincerely hope this is my last 9/11 book. I don't want to have to write another one" (Peter Lance, Triple Cross; p 483)

You shouldn't have to write another book Peter; you've already written three excellent books on the subject.

The American people simply need to care enough to read them.

This book was a gift to my son in law who is an avid reader. He was most appreciative of my thoughfulness, but as to contents of the book, I did not read it.

Peter Lance's Triple Cross, both the hard cover and especially the later soft cover, is a must-read for people to understand one of the many areas of incompetence and corruption of certain government employees in the Department of Justice, and the catastrophic consequences of that deep-seated culture. I, as a former federal agent, have a similar book, Crimes of the FBI-DOJ, Mafia, and al Qaeda, that provides evidence from a different perspective that reinforces what Peter Lance has written. Until the public realizes these problems and provides the long-overdue outrage, the decades of tragic consequences will continue.

This book scared the hell out of me. Our country is being run by a bunch of idots! The people in the Clinton and Bush addminastration drop the ball when it came to keeping terrorist out of our country. Even when they are on the list of known terrorist they still let them in and gave them jobs in the places where they could glean the best information. Well worth the read, but be warned, it will hit you right in the gut.

At last not only a sane, but intelligent analysis of the global terrorism problem. I am a political and history buff and have studied everything from Michael Moore to Alex Jones. So many logical holes in so many of their theories. Far left meets far right in their case, closing the "circle" at the top so they meet and to continue to go in circles! They both end up blaming Bush, claiming it is ALL about nasty oil. Oil and pricing is said to be a political weapon. (Well.... yes...only since it was discovered of course!) People "hate" oil till they don't have it. Yet oil is vital to our survival as a country. (I'm still waiting for Moore's oil from Iraq by the way!)

Moore is funded by the globalists and Jones bashes them. Yes, globalism is here. I've watched it rise for 30 years. (And I'n certainly not a fan of it when politicians want to throw away America's sovereignty.) But painting things with broad brushes is dangerous and misleading. Debating explosives at the towers, such a stupid waste of time and focus. (I wasted mine reading it all.) Enter Peter Lance. No axe to grind, no political lens, left right or middle. Just an old-fashioned brilliant journalist with a desire to know the facts and to present them to the world in the hope that correctly identifying the problems will actually lead to solutions! He took on an incredibly complex task, spanning years. Then he laid them out in an understandable way, complete with a cast of characters -- pictures and time lines, so you could follow the "evil." And if you do not believe in evil... but only conspiracies, well you might be part of the problem.

I praise this book and thank Lance for his work. It has essential information. Have an open mind, clear the fog, care that we are probably going to be attacked soon and try to prevent it by at least knowing what is going on. Then hold politicians feet to the fire to change old ways and systems. Cash for clunkers? Fine. How about cash to prevent killing innocent Americans? Instead of evil and ineptness allowing a child to be imprisoned 18 years, evil and ineptness could allow something horrible to come to a city near you-- and soon! READ THIS BOOK AND HAVE OTHERS DO THE SAME.

Mr. Lance's three books, along with the 911 Report, are an important addition to a better understanding of how our government failed to protect us from a series of terrorist disasters, including from the historic 911-attack. This, the third in a trilogy of carefully researched attempts to expose, not just the ineptness of those agencies sworn to protect us from terrorists' attacks, but more importantly, it is an expose' of their almost willful and almost sinister engagement in cover-ups of their own colossal and unforgiveable mistakes, mistakes, had they not been made, could have allowed us to connect the dots of al Qaeda as early as 1995.

I have read only the first and third of Mr. Lance's three books. And while there is a great deal of duplication in them, that is not my main criticism. It is that in both books, the author seems to "over use" 20-20 hindsight as the centerpiece of his case, and then proceeds to "milk it for all it is worth" as he then begins to lose sight of the fact that his case is being built up mainly "after the fact." He becomes entangled in his own "time switchbacks," and eventually loses sight of what is important in the larger picture: how al Qaeda evolved. Repeatedly, he gets himself stuck in a swarm of side details that begin to take on the character of a "Hollywood style movie script:" with exaggerated superheroes, double and triple agents, conspiracies around every corner, and all.

A pivotal fact ignored throughout both books is that until the February 1993 bombing of the Twin Towers, al Qaeda itself was only a loosely formulated, amorphous proto-organizational entity, still trying to define itself and find its way. Up until that time, investigating it was like investigating Jello. It was hardly a distinct entity -- not to mention not yet a clear threat that one could get his hands around. And as for connecting the dots, until the arrest of key double and triple agents such as Ali Mohammed, and the result of court records and latter confessions, the dots too were a very inchoate amorphous blob, hanging loosely somewhere out in an ill-defined "conspiratorial data space."

However, without taking into account this time warp, the author's story, told simply, without the distracting script-like embellishments, is that the US allowed an al Qaeda mole, (an Islamist radical and an Egyptian Army General, Ali Mohammed, implicated in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat), to enter its anti-terrorist ranks as a high level FBI (and possibly CIA) informant. The USG relied on Ali Mohammed despite the raising of many red flags including Egypt's own cancelation of joint military exercises because of Ali's presence in the US military; a warning from their own West coast FBI office where Mohammed's "control," FBI agent Zant, had uncovered him and al Qaeda; and a swelter of cross-confirming intelligence data coming from other independent sources.

It turns out that Ali Mohammed was an al Qaeda "superstar," who not only was bin Laden's right-hand man, but was also the number one trainer for al Qaeda's bomb squads, including for the Nairobi bombing, the bombing of the USS Cole, the attack against US forces in Somalia, and both bombings of the Twin Towers. Predictably Ali did a lot of damage while still a paid USG informant that someone still has to answer for: He stole top secret and other sensitive US government documents that gave bin Laden a leg up; he deflected us from al Qaeda's main purposes; he gave us a great deal of partial if not a lot of disinformation; he trained the next generation of al Qaeda bomb makers. But all that is only prelude to the much larger more sordid tableau that unfolds here involving a catastrophic string of mishaps, misinterpretations, mistranslations, and missed opportunities that repeatedly fell into the CIA and FBI laps, opportunities that, had the dots been connected earlier, and had they been acted on properly, could at least have save us from the second 911 attack.

As both of Mr. Lance's books make clear, it was not as if U.S. authorities were not constantly "on the terrorists case." They were indeed on their case, and did so full time, and had been on it since as early as 1989. Theirs was a case of being inefficient to the point of being completely lost. The CIA and FBI had been tracking and carefully surveilling and repeatedly filming "al Qaeda elements" from their very inception, but they simply did not know what it was they were surveilling: They watched them as they practiced at New York shooting ranges; they listened to the fiery sermons of the radical Imam, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman at al Qaeda's Brooklyn Mosque; they received detailed overseas reports on al Qaeda training camps and strategy sessions; they received repeated warning from their own informants about impending terrorists acts.

Yet, while other police agencies, such as the Philippines, were able to crack the al Qaeda code and were able to connect the dots the USG could not. Even after the Philippines handed over to US authorities (on a silver platter) what they had learned in the aftermath of the attempt on the Pope's life, still, the FBI and the CIA -- with an impenetrable wall built between the intelligence and law enforcement functions -- were simply unable to "put the whole thing together." Repeatedly, they lacked the ability to see a coherent picture of what the terrorists and al Qaeda ultimately were up to. They simply could not connect the dots in order to protect the country. And yet, that in the end was their only job.

After the shock of the first bombing of the Twin Towers on February 26, 1993, the pace and the urgency for concerted action understandably quickened. Ramiz Yousef, who had done his dirty work and then split, left a trail of clues that implicated his closest confederates, all of whom were quickly rounded up. And even though Yousef himself was not captured until a year later (as a result of a $2 million bounty on his head), while he was on the lam, he went on to plan the failed attack on the Pope in the Philippines, brought down a Japanese airliner, was involved in the planning of the attack on the USS Cole, and was the architect of the successful second 911 attack on the Twin Towers. Once this "one-man terrorist wrecking crew" was captured in February 1994, our key anti-terrorist agencies paused to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. They willingly and shamelessly took credit for his capture even though both agencies had opposed the "matchbook picture campaign" that advertised the $2 million bounty on Yousef's head actually responsible for his capture! But little did they know that with his capture, their troubles were only just beginning. This is when things really began to get interesting and began to unravel for them. The revelations unfolding at Yousef's trial exposed the utter inability of our anti-terrorist agencies to cope with the al Qaeda problem.

On top of all this, in December, 1999, in walks the program called "Operation Able Danger," a 2.5 terabyte data mining exercise that presented hard cold facts that exposed the negligence and ineptness of the CIA and the FBI once and for all: For these agencies, the jig was finally up. The data emerging from "Operation Able Danger," had finally shown how the pieces of al Qaeda were put together, and at the same time what they discovered, put a metaphorical nail in the coffin of our anti-terrorists fighting arrangements.

For the USG, including the White House, the news from "Operation Able Danger" could not have been worse. It revealed not only that our key al Qaeda informants were high-level al Qaeda operatives, that is, double and triple agents, but also that as a result of their duplicity, misdirection and disinformation, we had missed a slew of important clues leading up to the attacks. Moreover it revealed also, that much of the information pointing directly to 911, either had been missed, dismissed as useless, ignored, had been "walled off" from each other, or had not been passed on to the proper agencies for further analysis and processing. As a result of "Operation Able Danger," and as Ramiz Yousef's trial concluded, it was CYA big time for the U.S. government's anti-terrorist groups. The overriding imperative for them was that the results of "Operation Able Danger" could not see the light of day. And it didn't. In fact, the program merited only a brief footnote in the government's own congressionally mandated 911 Report. Those who leaked its results, despite a blanket in-house ban, were dealt with harshly. And yet, even while Ramiz Yousef was safely locked up behind bars in solitary confinement, the 911-attack occurred on schedule as he had planned it, and as he had predicted to his capturers would happen on the plane ride back from Pakistan enroute to jail.

There is a lot more here, all professionally documented. What this and the other books in Lance's trilogy reveal is that our terrorist agencies are still in a royal mess. Four Stars

I found Triple Cross to be compelling even through a litany of middle eastern names and titles that makes a westerner's head swim. Lance seems to be able to connect dots that the FBI and CIA and DOJ either were unable or unwilling to connect in the terrorist activities emanating from the middle east over the last 2 or 3 decades culminating with the WTC attack. Which then begs the question of U.S. complicity in the event as well as other global terrorist events that could have been prevented had "the wall" not existed between all U.S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies.

Peter Lance's 3rd installment with further research into 'who knew what and when they knew it' surrounding Al Qaeda's planning and subsequent attacks on the U.S. culminating in the mass murder referred to simply as 9/11 is a must read. Peter Lance thoroughly "connects the dots" that every intelligence agency in the U.S. publicly claimed an inability to do. If one half of what Lance documents is true his book is an alarming revelation. There was no "wall" between the intelligence agencies regarding the attacks on the the World Trade Center (2), East African U.S. Embassies, the "Cole",... The official 9/11 commission was essentially a staged event reaching scripted conclusions. Peter Lance covers over 20 years of recent history. Read this book.

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.