CHAPTER
23

DICK CHENEY, FEMA, AND “PERSONS OF INTEREST”

The discovery of the Tripod II exercise in Manhattan being “set up” on September 11^th changed the entire dynamic of who, or what, might have been coordinating the war-games of 9/11. Looking for a person or entity inside the Pentagon was pointless now that we had to account for the coordination of an additional exercise involving civilian federal agencies working in concert with state and local agencies. The answer — the White House — seemed obvious, but it needed verification.

The problematic, but enormously useful Barbara Honegger, provided, among her many postings to the 9/11 Truthalliance list, still another crucial piece of evidence in the spring of 2004 when she pointed to a White House press release issued in May 2001. This document placed Dick Cheney in charge of planning, preparing for, and coordinating all US response to a terror attack. Following up, I was able to add other material that placed Cheney in a quiet but unequivocal hands-on management role, before, during, and after 9/11. In that process I came across two powerful, but little-known, men who would soon be among my top “persons-of-interest” in the crimes of 9/11.

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 8, 2001
Statement by the President
Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction
Protecting America’s homeland and citizens from the threat of weapons of mass destruction is one of our Nation’s important national security challenges. Today, more nations possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons than ever before. Still others seek to join them. Most troubling of all, the list of these countries includes some of the world’s least-responsible states — states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life. Some non-state terrorist groups have also demonstrated an interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Against this backdrop, it is clear that the threat of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons being used against the United States — while not immediate — is very real. That is why our Nation actively seeks to deny chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to those seeking to acquire them. That is why, together with our allies, we seek to deter anyone who would contemplate their use. And that is also why we must ensure that our Nation is prepared to defend against the harm they can inflict.

Should our efforts to reduce the threat to our country from weapons of mass destruction be less than fully successful, prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being used here on our soil.

Today, numerous Federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon in the United States. Many of these Federal programs offer training, planning, and assistance to state and local governments. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious, and comprehensive.

Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management. Specifically it will coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. The Office of National Preparedness will work closely with state and local governments to ensure their planning, training, and equipment needs are addressed. FEMA will also work closely with the Department of Justice, in its lead role for crisis management, to ensure that all facets of our response to the threat from weapons of mass destruction are coordinated and cohesive. I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.

No governmental responsibility is more fundamental than protecting the physical safety of our Nation and its citizens. In today’s world, this obligation includes protection against the use of weapons of mass destruction. I look forward to working closely with Congress so that together we can meet this challenge.¹ [emphasis added]

This press release was issued May 8, 2001, about a month prior to the change in NORAD’s intercept protocols. While a bit vague in some areas, it does establish certain things. Dick Cheney was charged to oversee the creation of an approach that was “seamlessly integrated and harmonious.” He was also placed in a supervisory management role over the activities of the entire effort, which were operational under FEMA’s supreme command. “Planning and training” were specifically addressed so this would automatically include war game exercises like Tripod II and all the NORAD/Joint Chiefs wargames of 9/11: Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Vigilance, etc.

Although the announcement focused on weapons of mass destruction, the central issue and rationale for Cheney’s management role was “seamless” communication and coordination of responses. The Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services were specifically included in the mandate and placed under Cheney’s control. This will become critical for understanding the significance of the roles played by two new names in our 9/11 investigation.

If seamless and coordinated response was the priority, then (by definition) this mandate would create overlap to include all military wargame exercises having to do with terrorism, even if they did not specifically deal with weapons of mass destruction. It would make no sense to have everything integrated except multiple terrorist hijackings or “routine” explosive devices. We have already documented an abundance of warnings on this front (certainly more than on WMD attacks) and shown that concern about multiple hijackings and planes-into-buildings was widespread before 9/11.

The White House left absolutely no doubt as to who was running the show.

I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management.² [emphasis added]

Implementing means command. FEMA was tasked to do Cheney’s bidding.

FEMA

Most Americans think of FEMA as a nice, benevolent agency that comes to help out when there is an earthquake, fire, or flood. It is much, much more than that.

FEMA is an enormously powerful federal agency tasked with, among other things, ensuring the Continuity of Government (COG) in the event of a crisis or “neutralization” of key governmental leaders or institutions. It also maintains dozens of secret governmental command centers, like Pennsylvania’s “Site R” to which Dick Cheney was whisked right after 9/11 and where he spent much of his time in the months following 9/11. Collectively, the Continuity of Government operations under FEMA command have come to be known as the “shadow government.” In a declared major emergency, arising from events even more devastating than 9/11, FEMA’s authority divides the US into ten regions (p. 417) under FEMA control, which then operate semi-autonomously with the full cooperation of the military.

Long a hot topic among many researchers concerned with a “New World Order,” FEMA’s evolution is the product of three-decades of legislation, executive orders, and Presidential Decision Directives (PDD’s). The powers granted to FEMA are astonishing in their breadth and magnitude, and can even include seizure of private vehicles, forced civilian labor on government projects, and appropriation of food and fresh water supplies.

Contrary to spin issued by government and media that FEMA is a favored theme only of right-wing extremists,³ FEMA and its supra-constitutional authority have been of intense interest to investigators from all over the political spectrum in America for many years. Since 1995 I have read more than a dozen of these executive orders and PDDs and concluded that, in the event that all the stops were pulled and a full emergency declared, only God would have more power.

On July 13, 2004, after it was disclosed that the White House, Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice were investigating procedures for delaying, postponing, or canceling the 2004 presidential election (in the event of a terror attack), Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa produced a detailed record establishing that the authorities necessary to cancel elections, place the country under martial law and suspend the Constitution were already in place. In spite of spin suggesting that the administration was exploring what needed to be done “in case,” the fact was that nothing needed to be done at all. What Secretary Ridge and the White House were doing was only theater.⁴ The elections could be cancelled at will, possibly even on the mere “threat” of a terror attack. All it would take would be to raise the threat level to Code Red.

Interestingly, Code Red indicates only a “severe risk of imminent terror attacks.” If the elections were postponed under a Code Red, then a mere threat of a terrorist incident would suffice. The threat level is set by the White House through the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Chossudovsky, the steps necessary to suspend and/or nullify the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement, had been completed over 30 years.

In other words, the possibility of an impending attack on America by this “outside enemy” has been accepted by the American public; this tacit acceptance has set the stage for the adoption of “the highest threat level”: Code Red alert.

What the US public is not aware of is that a Code Red alert suspends civilian government; it triggers a whole series of emergency procedures. It is tantamount to a coup d’etat. (Although in many regards the coup d’etat has already taken place under the post-9/11 anti-terrorist legislation and the rigging of the 2000 elections that brought George W. Bush into the White House) .…

A Code Red alert, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), would create conditions for the (“temporary” we are told) suspension of the normal functions of civilian government, implying the cancellation or postponement of federal and state elections.

According to FEMA, Code Red would:

Increase or redirect personnel to address critical emergency needs; Assign emergency response personnel and pre-position and mobilize specially trained teams or resources; Monitor, redirect, or constrain transportation systems; and Close public and government facilities not critical for continuity of essential operations, especially public safety.

(FEMA, <www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/security.pdf>)⁵

Truthout columnist William Rivers Pitt agreed substantially with Chossudovsky in a column published one day later:

FEMA was created by Executive Order during the Nixon administration, and became unbelievably powerful during the Reagan years. Ostensibly, FEMA was created to ensure the continuation of government after a nuclear strike. Subsequent Executive Orders over the last thirty years give FEMA, with a Presidential declaration of a national state of emergency, absolute power over all modes of transportation including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind, total control of highways, seaports, airports, aircraft, the national media, all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals, along with all food resources and farms.

In a time of crisis, FEMA would also have absolute power over all health, education and welfare functions, and can develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in US financial institutions in any undefined national emergency.

Executive Order 11051 gives FEMA the authority to execute all Executive Orders granting the above-described powers in the event of a crisis. Executive Order 11310 requires the Justice Department to enforce any and all powers granted to FEMA in a crisis. Executive Order 11921 declares that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

There are some fifteen Executive Orders which outline the powers of FEMA, should the President set them in motion after a disaster or an attack. Several of them are nebulous enough to encompass the decision to cancel a national election. Whether the legislatures, per Title 3 of the US Code, are allowed to participate in any subsequent election preparations will certainly depend on whether the federal government wants to cut them in on the action.

Enacting any or all of these Executive Orders would essentially remove the Constitution and the Bill of Rights from the table.

There are a thousand other questions in the mix. What constitutes a state of emergency? What kind of attack would precipitate such a decision? If it is a truck bombing against a building, does that rise to the threshold? Why would an attack in Boston require the balloting in West Virginia or Idaho to be ceased [sic]? Is the threat of an attack enough to precipitate a cancellation?⁶ [emphasis added]

FEMA and 9/11

I checked my files for events immediately following September 11^th and found the following press release which I had saved on September 11^th, 2001:

FEMA Fully Activated in Response to Apparent Terrorist Events http://www.fema.gov/nwz01/nwz01_92.htm

Washington, DC September 11, 2001 — In response to the apparent terrorist events, FEMA’s Washington-based Emergency Response Team (EST) has [been] fully activated and on 24-hour operations. All 10 of the FEMA regions — headquartered in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Denton, TX, Denver, San Francisco and Bothell, Wash. — are also fully activated.

FEMA has activated the Federal Response Plan, which brings together 28 federal agencies and the American Red Cross to assist local and state governments in response to national emergencies and disasters. Already, FEMA has deployed eight Urban Search & Rescue teams (US&R) to New York City to search for victims in the affected buildings. US&R teams are specially trained teams that include engineers and other technical experts as well as specially trained search dogs. Another four teams have been deployed to the Pentagon, for search and rescue efforts there….

FEMA support is working closely with the White House to ensure coordination and management of the consequences of the events….⁷ [emphasis added]

So if FEMA was in New York, setting up for a biowarfare exercise the day before the attacks, it is hard to imagine that Dick Cheney was not aware of it. FEMA’s head, Joe Allbaugh, was reporting directly to him.

The Kean Commission Final Report also placed FEMA in the communications mix on the day of 9/11.

OEM Initial Response

By 8:48, officials in OEM headquarters on the 23^rd floor of 7 WTC — just to the north of the North Tower — began to activate the Emergency Operations Center by calling such agencies as the FDNY, NYPD, Department of Health, and the Greater Hospital Association and instructing them to send their designated representatives to the OEM. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was called and asked to send at least five federal Urban Search and Rescue Teams (such teams are located throughout the United States). At approximately 8:50, a senior representative from the OEM arrived in the lobby of the North Tower and began to act as the OEM field responder to the incident. He soon was joined by several other OEM officials, including the OEM Director. [emphasis added]⁸

Abbot and Hauer

“Stealthy” is perhaps the best word to describe two men who establish Dick Cheney’s “seamless” control over terrorism response before and since 9/11. Both Admiral Steven Abbot and bioterror expert and creator of New York’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Jerome Hauer, now make our detective’s list of “persons of interest” with regard to the attacks. They join the likes of “Rick” Inderfurth, Dave Frasca, Rudolph Giuliani, Richard Myers, Ralph Eberhart, and Dick Cheney as persons who have much to explain about 9/11.

Too bad no one asked them.

Admiral Charles S. “Steven” Abbot

Abbot surfaced for the first time with the publication of the Kean Commission’s final report on July 22, 2004, and then only in an obscure footnote to chapter Ten where the commission addressed immediate 9/11 responses, preparation for terrorist attacks, and organizational responses during the day.

The section that led me to Abbot’s name was one of the few places in the 9/11 report that even mentioned Cheney’s activities during the day.

The very process of reviewing these issues underscored the absence of an effective government organization dedicated to assessing vulnerabilities and handling problems of protection and preparedness. Though a number of agencies had some part of the task, none had security as its primary mission. By September 14, Vice President Cheney had decided to recommend, at least as a first step, a new White House entity to coordinate all the relevant agencies rather than tackle the challenge of combining them in a new department. This new White House entity would be a homeland security adviser and Homeland Security Council — paralleling the National Security Council system. Vice President Cheney reviewed the proposal with President Bush and other advisers. President Bush announced the new post and its first occupant — Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge — in his address to a joint session of Congress on September 20. [emphasis added]⁹

The footnote from that passage led me to the following:

16. Brill, After, pp. 53-55, 89-91. Following interim reports in 1999 and 2000, a congressional commission chaired by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, and directed by retired general Charles Boyd, had, in January 2001, recommended the creation of a cabinet department dedicated to “homeland security.” In May 2001, President Bush named Vice President Cheney to head a task force on problems of national preparedness. His recently hired coordinator, Admiral Steven Abbot, had started work just before the 9/11 attack. [emphasis added]¹⁰

A look at Abbot’s career showed experience with flying, liaison with law enforcement, and anti-terror work. It also disclosed that he had also previously served as the NMCC’s Deputy Director of Operations (DDO), the role filled temporarily by Navy Captain Charles Leidig on September 11. Leidig had been in the operational command hot seat (for the first time ever) during the attacks when his boss, General Winfield, asked him to fill in just before the attacks.

The most complete bio I could find of Abbot came from a White House release.

Admiral Steve Abbot
Deputy Director of the Office of Homeland Security
Born in Pensacola, Florida, Admiral Abbot graduated from the United States Naval Academy in June 1966. Admiral Abbot’s graduate studies include Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and the Program for Senior Officials in National Security at Harvard University. Admiral Abbot also completed US Air Force Test Pilot School and Naval Nuclear Power training.

After being designated a Naval Aviator in 1972, Admiral Abbot completed A-7E training and squadron assignments with VA 27 on board USS Enterprise (CVN 65), VA 46 on board USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67), and VA 86 as Executive Officer and as Commanding Officer, embarked in USS Nimitz (CVN 68). As a test pilot, Admiral Abbot was assigned to the Strike Test Directorate at Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, and participated in the early flights of the T-34C, TA-7C, and F/A-18.

Shipboard assignments include USS Henry B. Wilson (DDG 7) as a newly commissioned Ensign, Executive Officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), Commanding Officer of USS Caloosahatchee (AO 98), and Commanding Officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) from February 1990 until August 1992, a period that included Operation Desert Storm.

Admiral Abbot then served as the Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group Commander while assigned as Commander, Carrier Group Eight, and as Commander, Joint Task Force 120.

Admiral Abbot’s staff assignments include: Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations for Commander Second Fleet; Director, Aircraft Carrier and Air- Station Programs Division (N885) on the OPNAV Staff; Deputy Director for Operations (Current Operations) on the Joint Staff; and Director of Operations, US European Command.

Admiral Abbot also served as Commander, US Sixth Fleet and Commander, Naval Striking and Support Forces, Southern Europe. During this period he was the Joint Task Force Commander of Operation Silver Wake, the non-combatant evacuation of Albania.

Admiral Abbot’s last assignment was Deputy Commander in Chief, US European Command, Stuttgart, Germany. He oversaw the daily activities of a Unified Command with an area of responsibility encompassing 89 countries and more than 13 million square miles… Abbot is currently serving as Executive Director of the Vice President’s National Preparedness Review. Last May, the President asked the Vice President to review and make recommendations to strengthen preparedness against an act of domestic terrorism, particularly one using a weapon of mass destruction. [emphasis added]

Abbot led the staff that supported the Vice President in this effort. The Naval Academy graduate and Rhodes Scholar served in the United States Navy from 1966 until his retirement as a four-star admiral in 2000. His final military assignment was serving as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the US European Command during the recent conflict in Kosovo. He was a naval aviator, commanding a carrier-based squadron and serving as a test pilot for the F-18 and other aircraft. He commanded the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt from 1990 to 1992, a period that included the Persian Gulf War. He subsequently commanded the Roosevelt Carrier Battle Group.”¹¹

My first response was to wonder if Leidig and Abbot had ever served together or if Abbot had had any influence in Leidig’s placement in the NMCC. I was not able to pursue an answer to that question in time for the publication of this book.

Abbot had been working for Cheney since “just before” the 9/11 attack. In that capacity Abbot served as the Executive Director of Cheney’s National Preparedness Review, and thus he would certainly have had a hands-on role in any exercises co-coordinated by Cheney’s office.¹² Immediately after 9/11 Abbot was appointed as Deputy Director of the Office of Homeland Security under Ridge before the office became a cabinet-level department in November of 2002.¹³

In January of 2004 Abbot delivered the keynote address at a disaster response exercise at the University of Missouri’s Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs. The first presentation at that event was a discussion of “Lessons Learned from the [1992] Los Angeles Riots” by a retired Army Lieutenant General.¹⁴

Abbot’s speech that day showed that he also had an overlapping interest in biological warfare with Jerome Hauer (below).

…I’ll talk about another specific vulnerability we have addressed early on, which is the vulnerability to biological warfare. All of us lived through the anthrax events of last fall, and we recognize that this is not a theoretical issue, this is one in which we need to strengthen the public health and medical systems. We need to enhance our medical communications and surveillance, disease surveillance capabilities, build up the national stockpiles of vaccines and pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies and promote the scientific research and development that will give us a condition in which we are truly prepared, if required…¹⁵

Filling in the blanks in Abbot’s career proved revealing, if challenging.

From the establishment of the Homeland Security Department until June of 2003, Abbot served as “Acting Homeland Security Advisor” to the president.¹⁶ In other words, he stayed in the White House — close to Cheney and Bush. In that capacity he attended White House meetings with Bush, Cheney, and CEO’s from the largest defense and communications companies in the country.¹⁷

Abbot seems to have dropped off the map since the summer of 2003.

Jerome Hauer

In many respects, Jerome Hauer is “A Man for All Seasons” as far as the subject matter of this book is concerned. Not only does he have extensive credentials in governmental and leadership roles, he is also in many respects the embodiment of all the corporate and economic issues discussed in the initial chapters. He was apparently in New York City on 9/11, was a close friend of the recently retired FBI Osama-catcher John O’Neill who was killed that day, and he has many other links which make him of unique interest in any 9/11 investigation.

His most current bio, found at the website of George Washington University, tells only part of the story. The fact that there is no available record of his specific activities on 9/11 is a black hole in what we have been told about government response that day.

Jerome M. Hauer
Director, Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute Highlights:

Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs John F. Williams appointed Jerome M. Hauer as the first Director of the Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute (READI) at The George Washington University in November 2003.

Hauer is working with the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate and deliver first responder, medical, and public health training for the National Capital Region (NCR). READI will provide cross-discipline training and assist in exercise design and execution in the NCR. Hauer is also an assistant professor in the School of Public Health & Health Services. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson named Jerome M. Hauer as Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness on June 28, 2002. In this role, Hauer was responsible for coordinating the country’s medical and public health preparedness in response to emergencies, including acts of biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorism. The office oversees over $1 billion dollars per year in bioterrorism preparedness grant funding for state and local governments. Before his appointment as Acting Assistant Secretary in June, Hauer had served as Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness. Hauer also served as senior advisor to the Secretary for National Security and Emergency Management during the events of September 11, 2001, and the nation’s anthrax crisis.

Before coming to HHS, Hauer was the first Director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) for New York City. During his tenure at OEM, Hauer was charged with coordinating the city’s planning for and response to natural and man-made events, including acts of terrorism. New York became the first city to develop a bioterrorism response plan and to do large-scale bioterrorism exercises. New York City, under Hauer’s leadership, also pioneered surveillance systems for detecting unusual health events. New York has, for years, been recognized as being in the forefront of preparedness for terrorism. A television documentary chronicled the work Hauer and his team did in New York, and has been aired worldwide .…¹⁸ [emphasis added]

Hauer was well-known in New York City where he created New York’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) for Giuliani. He even appeared with Giuliani to testify before the Kean Commission on May 19, 2004, but he was not questioned and submitted only a brief written statement about New York’s early preparations for a terror attack. I have been able to find no account of his activities that day. This is unusual since there is reason to believe that Hauer was in New York on that day and he had — at the time — direct responsibilities for crisis management. He also had connections to FEMA. As soon as the crisis began he should have been in the immediate command loop. Was he at Pier 92 with Tripod II?

Remember that Tripod II was a biowarfare exercise and, as we shall see, Hauer’s forté is biological warfare.

Apparently Jerome Hauer was wearing two hats on September 11^th.

According to HHS, after leaving as head of New York’s OEM in the late 1990s, Hauer, by February of 2001, was serving as a “senior advisor to the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, for national security and emergency management.”¹⁹ At the same time, however, he was also the Managing Director of Kroll, Inc., one of the nation’s most powerful private investigative and security firms, which has long-standing involvement with executive protection of US government officials including the president.²⁰ This would require close liaison with the Secret Service.²¹

Interestingly, in June 2002, Kroll (formerly named Kroll, O’Gara, Eisenhardt) purchased the German firm Convar, which had been hired after September 11^th to recover data from damaged computer hard, drives recovered from the WTC wreckage.²² Kroll’s corporate staff is a Who’s Who of high-level retired law enforcement, Secret Service, CIA, FBI, and other intelligence personnel. The company provides substantial services to the Saudi government. Its CEO, Michael G. Cherkasky, is the former chief investigator for the New York County District Attorney’s Office where he led the investigation into the first World Trade Center bombing. Part ownership of the firm was acquired by the American International Group (AIG) in the late 1990s, and its board of directors includes Frank G. Wisner Jr., also an AIG board member, who is the son of one of the CIA’s creators, Frank Wisner Sr.

Hauer’s other corporate affiliations include SAIC, Batelle, DynCorp (Now CSC-DynCorp)²³ and, in his role as a bioterror expert/consultant/US government official, has had a direct hand in making decisions about elevated threat levels from the Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control.²⁴ He serves on the board of Hollis-Eden, a prime beneficiary of the multi-billion dollar Project Bioshield, a 2004 law signed by George W. Bush granting huge vaccine and research contracts to the pharmaceutical industry.²⁵

In 2003, according to CNN, in a wargame exercise (TopOff2) conducted simultaneously in Seattle and Chicago, Hauer played the role of the head of FEMA.²⁶ He has also been the go-to guy for every epidemiological or biowarfare issue since September 11^th. These include anthrax, smallpox, West Nile Virus, and SARS. During his time as head of New York’s OEM, he had a confrontation with the FBI’s chief person-of-interest in the anthrax cases, Steven Hatfill, when Hatfill reportedly disclosed too much information about methods of biological attack. That confrontation was even reported on in the Washington Post.²⁷ My newsletter FTW has reported on Hatfill’s well-documented (if unmentioned) history of involvement with covert intelligence operations and offensive biological warfare research.²⁸

Jerome Hauer, John O’Neill, and September 11^th

Jerome Hauer and John O’Neill were very close friends. So close, in fact, that Hauer had drinks with O’Neill on the night of September 10^th 2001, at least until well after midnight. He also was asked to identify O’Neill’s remains when they were located more than a week after the attacks.

A long article on John O’Neill in the January 14, 2002, issue of the New Yorker contained some revealing information about both Hauer and O’Neill.

On September 10^th, O’Neill called Robert Tucker, a friend and security-company executive, and arranged to get together that evening to talk about security issues at the Trade Center. Tucker met O’Neill in the lobby of the North Tower, and the two men rode the elevator up to O’Neill’s new office, on the thirty-fourth floor. “He was incredibly proud of what he was doing,” Tucker told me. Then they went to a bar at the top of the tower for a drink. Afterward, they headed uptown to Elaine’s, where they were joined by their friend Jerry Hauer. Around midnight, the three men dropped in on the China Club, a nightspot in midtown. “John made the statement that he thought something big was going to happen,” Hauer recalled.

At 8:46 A.M., when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower, John P. O’Neill Jr., was on a train to New York, to install some computer equipment and visit his father’s new office. From the window of the train he saw smoke coming from the Trade Center. He called his father on his cell phone. “He said he was O.K. He was on his way out to assess the damage,” John Jr., recalled.

Valerie James was arranging flowers in her office when “the phones started ringing off the hook.” A second airliner had just hit the South Tower. “At 9:17, John calls,” James remembered. He said, “Honey, I want you to know I’m O.K. My God, Val, it’s terrible. There are body parts everywhere. Are you crying?” he asked. She was. Then he said, “Val, I think my employers are dead. I can’t lose this job.”

“They’re going to need you more than ever,” she told him.

At 9:25, Anna DiBattista, who was driving to Philadelphia on business, received a call from O’Neill. “The connection was good at the beginning,” she recalled. “He was safe and outside. He said he was O.K. I said, ‘Are you sure you’re out of the building?’ He told me he loved me. I knew he was going to go back in.”²⁹

Thus we know that Hauer was in New York until the early morning hours of September 11^th having drinks with O’Neill. If the account is correct, then O’Neill didn’t get home until approximately 2:30 yet was able to drop off his girlfriend at 8:17 (How could anyone know the exact time of that?) the next morning. Assuming a reasonable time for what the military calls The Three Ss plus time to pick up James, it is not possible that O’Neill was able to get more than four and half hours sleep. There was likely still alcohol in his bloodstream as the attacks began. O’Neill was born in 1952. How much different would the reactions of a 49-year-old man have been after a long night of drinking and four hours sleep than had he been rested and completely sober?³⁰

I ask this question because LAPD personnel used a similar tactic against me during a night of fateful burglaries of my residence and of my car in 1977. I was taken “out of action” in bar by “a friendly officer” of LAPD’s METRO Division until last call at 2 a.m. Fortunately, at the time I was only 26, and I recovered fairly quickly. But it was still grueling, and those crimes had been accomplished while it was certain that I could not interrupt them.

O’Neill’s remark that “something big was going to happen” could not have been more prophetic. He should have listened to his well-honed “cop” instincts.

More questions: Is it likely that Jerry Hauer hopped on an airplane and went to Washington or someplace else that night? Unlikely, because the Kroll headquarters are in New York. Hauer lived there. Tripod II, a biowarfare exercise involving HHS — where Hauer was acting as an advisor to Secretary Thompson — was “setting up” the next morning.

The New Yorker story must be taken seriously. It included (aside from some serious disinformation about terror history and the facts surrounding TWA 800) interviews with Richard Clarke and retired FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Newsday staff writer Laurie Garrett, writing on her personal website 12 days after the attacks added more information about Hauer and O’Neill:

“There is very little you can do to protect yourselves from bioterrorism,” Jerry Hauer told the faculty of Rockefeller University yesterday. “There is very little you can do to protect yourself if a plane crashes into a building. If it happens, it happens. We have to go on.”

Hauer, who created New York’s emergency response system — which performed remarkably well last week — is now a bioterrorism advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. With intelligence pouring in that indicated the terrorist network is allied with Saddam Hussein’s bioweapons laboratory personnel, as well as missing Russian BW scientists, Hauer said they are scrambling in Washington to get ready. (See today’s Newsday website for my article on why we are totally vulnerable to BT and have no solid preparedness policy in place.) As horrific as the deaths of more than 7,000 people in the WTC disaster and two other plane crashes may be, a bioweapon release would be orders of magnitude worse. And we are not ready, in any way, shape, or form, for such an eventuality.

Yesterday Hauer spoke in the famous Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome auditorium on the Rockefeller campus. Security was tight. The scientists, an elite group at Rockefeller that includes several Nobel Prize winners, listened carefully to every word Hauer uttered. He told them what most these laboratory men and women already knew, if they’d thought about it: That microbes are the ultimate weapon .…

Before the lecture Hauer, who [sic] I have known for years, confided that he had just been involved that morning in identifying the body of a close friend, John O’Neill, who died in the WTC. Hauer said “body,” but from what else he indicated it was obvious O’Neill’s remains were nothing the family ought to view. Hauer hasn’t slept in days. He is haggard and jittery. Distraught.

“John O’Neill was head of the FBI’s counterterrorism branch in Washington,” Hauer told me privately. “He led every important investigation you can name — the USS Cole, Tanzania, Kenya bombings. He retired three weeks ago. I helped him get the job as head of security for the World Trade Center. And the irony is, the guy he chased for most of his career killed him.”³¹ [emphasis added]

Hold it! It is now the summer of 2004, and we know that Saddam Hussein had no bioweapons laboratories and that all the intelligence put forth by the White House was cooked. The White House has even admitted the claims were unfounded, and no Iraqi bioweapons or even moderately advanced bioweapon research has been found in post-occupation Iraq.³²

In a September 22, 2001, Newsday story by Garret (published the same day as her missive), Hauer parroted the company line on the threat posed by Saddam:

Friday, Hauer told Newsday that in the wake of the events of September 11, there is a new sense of urgency in Washington on the bioterrorism issue. He said there is intelligence information that terrorist Osama “bin Laden wants to acquire these agents, and we know he has links to Saddam. And Saddam Hussein has them,” Hauer said.³³

On reading this I thought of a legendary quotation attributed to one of the CIA’s founding leaders, Frank Wisner Sr., who headed the Office of Policy Coordination (an offshoot of World War II’s Office of Strategic Services) until it was folded into the agency in the early 1950s. Wisner is reported to have said, “I can play the media like a Mighty Wurlitzer.”³⁴

Dick Cheney was in the loop on 9/11, much more so than any press account or testimony had revealed. Now, I had found two men — Steve Abbot and Jerome Hauer — who had demonstrable connection to Cheney, FEMA, wargames, and much more.

One question remained: How would Dick Cheney have actually carried out the role of “maestro” on 9/11?