Watchman: Declassified Guantanamo Court Document Indicates CIA Recruitment of 9/11 Hijackers Our Trusted Government Is Not on the Side of the People, a 22-Page Unredacted Court Document That HNW Has Copies Of

Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

For the past several days, the media, both the corporate media as well as the alternative media, have been widely reporting news about the alleged “Pentagon leaks” which resulted in an arrest today of a suspect who was charged with espionage.

I have not published anything about this story yet, because I really have not seen anything that was allegedly leaked that was important enough to report on, as other news seems more important, and I was not sure if this alleged “leak” was intentional or not, possibly to control the public narrative.

And while I am still unsure about that, another news item that has been happening almost simultaneously and that has not been widely reported, was brought to my attention today, and from my perspective, is probably a much larger news story.

And that news is that a copy of a previously heavily redacted document filed with the Guantanamo Military Commission was obtained by Seth Hettena of SpyTalk, unredacted, and that this now unredacted court document shows that two 9/11 Saudi hijackers were recruited by the CIA, and then afterwards the CIA tried to keep this information secret from the FBI.

Seth Hettena publishes on Substack, and his profile states that he is “a contributing editor at Rolling Stone,” and that he “writes about national security and politics from San Diego.”

It was published on March 22, 2023, and at the time of my reporting this article has 43 likes but no comments.

As far as I can tell, it was reported the next day on a website called RadarOnline.com as an “exclusive” and also republished on MSN.com the same day as well as a couple of other smaller alternative news sites. The article on RadarOnline.com itself is very brief, although it does give credit to SpyTalk for breaking the story.

Within the past few days, however, much more exhaustive articles have appeared on RT.com and also Floridabulldog.org, which have provided copies of the 22-page unredacted court document, which seems to not be available anymore from SpyTalk.co.

Health Impact News now also has a copy.

This 22-page court document was filed by Donald Canestraro, an investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, part of the Department of Defense’s Military Commissions Defense Organization.

Here is what Donald Canestraro’s bio from his own website states:

Don Canestraro is a seasoned law enforcement professional with over 25 years of experience with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Since retiring from the DEA at the end of 2012, Don has been training law enforcement officers in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean in surveillance, counter surveillance, investigations, major case management, surveillance detection and critical incident management.

Don is certified by the United States Department of State to teach courses in Major Case Management, Interviewing Terrorist Suspects, Interdicting Terrorist Activities, Surveillance Detection, Critical Incident Management and Instructor Development.

Since 2012, Don has served as a volunteer Subject Matter Expert on Interrogations for Human Rights First.

In 2015, he was a member of a team of military, law enforcement and intelligence professionals that successfully lobbied the United States Senate on behalf of Human Rights First to pass legislation outlawing the use of torture in interrogations.

In 2016, Don accepted as position as an investigator at the Military Commissions Defense Organization, which the arm of the Department of Defense tasked with defending the 9/11 conspirators before the Military Tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Source.)

The Florida Bulldog interviewed Canestraro about the work he was doing at Guantanamo Bay.

Canestraro said in a brief interview with Florida Bulldog that he is part of the defense team for Guantanamo detainee Ammar al-Baluchi, a Pakistani citizen who is awaiting trial with four other men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks.

His declaration includes the results of his interviews with 11 ex-FBI agents, 2 ex-CIA agents, a CNN investigative journalist, former deputy National Security Advisor Richard Clarke and former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), co-chair of Congress’s Joint Inquiry into 9/11.

The 22-page declaration, first obtained by the national security website Spytalk, is not confidential, but rather it’s marked CUI – Controlled Unclassified Information.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency defines CUI as “government created or owned information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls consistent with applicable laws, regulations and government wide policies.”

Felix Livshitz, writing for RT.com, also published an investigative report this week about the unredacted court document.

Declassified Guantanamo court filing suggests some 9/11 hijackers were CIA agents

An explosive court filing from the Guantanamo Military Commission – a court considering the cases of defendants accused of carrying out the “9/11” terrorist attacks on New York – has seemingly confirmed the unthinkable.

The document was originally published via a Guantanamo Bay court docket, but while public, it was completely redacted. Independent researchers obtained an unexpurgated copy. It is an account by the Commission’s lead investigator, DEA veteran Don Canestraro, of his personal probe of potential Saudi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, conducted at the request of the defendants’ lawyers.

Two of the hijackers were being closely monitored by the CIA and may, wittingly or not, have been recruited by Langley long before they flew planes into the World Trade Center buildings.

The story of two men

Of the great many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks still unresolved over two decades later, perhaps the biggest and gravest relate to the activities of Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the 18 months leading up to that fateful day. The pair traveled to the US on multi-entry visas in January 2000, despite having repeatedly been flagged by the CIA and NSA previously as likely Al Qaeda terrorists.

Mere days before their arrival, they attended an Al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, during which key details of the 9/11 attacks are likely to have been discussed and agreed. The meeting was secretly photographed and videotaped by Malaysian authorities at the direct request of the CIA’s Alec Station, a special unit set up to track Osama bin Laden, although oddly, no audio was captured.

Still, this background should’ve been sufficient to prevent Hazmi and Midhar from entering the US – or at least enough for the FBI to be informed of their presence in the country. As it was, they were admitted for a six-month period at Los Angeles International airport without incident, and Bureau representatives within Alec Station were blocked from sharing this information with their superiors by the CIA.

“We’ve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are bad. One of them, at least, has a multiple-entry visa to the US. We’ve got to tell the FBI,” Mark Rossini, a member of Alec Station, has recalled discussing with his colleagues. “[But the CIA] said to me, ‘No, it’s not the FBI’s case, not the FBI’s jurisdiction.’”

Dan Christensen of the Florida Bulldog reports how the CIA apparently tried to hide the fact that they were working with Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the U.S. from the FBI, as it is illegal for the CIA to recruit and work with spies in the U.S.

Weeks before 9/11, an angry New York FBI agent nearly “came over the table” at CIA officials who were blocking him from obtaining intelligence about two al Qaeda terrorists who would soon take part in hijacking an American Airlines passenger jet and crashing it into the Pentagon.

“Someone is going to die,” the counterterrorism agent wrote in a bitter email shortly after the 2001 encounter.

That astonishing account, and many others, are contained in a sworn declaration by Donald Canestraro, an investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, part of the Department of Defense’s Military Commissions Defense Organization. It is dated July 20, 2021.

A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT

It is nevertheless remarkable for its accounts supporting the veracity of long public, yet highly disturbing allegations that top CIA officials, including Director George Tenet, intentionally withheld vital intelligence from the FBI that might have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

Specifically, that known operatives and future hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar had entered the U.S. in Los Angeles shortly after attending an al Qaeda summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in early January 2000.

The new accounts, mostly obtained during interviews in 2016 and 2018, flesh out that narrative. They also support the ominous theory, never fully explored by either the 9/11 Commission or Congress, that the CIA kept silent because it was secretly working hand in glove with its Saudi Arabian counterpart to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar as informants.

Except for Clarke and Graham, the people interviewed are not named or identified by gender because they spoke on condition of anonymity. Canestraro states that he knows who they are, and he declined to identify them to Florida Bulldog. Enough descriptive information is provided in the text, however, that it’s possible to identify several interviewees.

The un-redacted declaration is remarkable for another reason: it comes from litigation in the U.S. Military Court at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp – where government censors routinely scrub and/or withhold court filings and transcripts in the name of national security.

Its disclosure raises questions about what other information about September 11^th is being kept secret at Guantanamo – from the 9/11 families and the American public?

CIA SPIED ON THE FBI

The CIA’s lack of cooperation with the FBI is discussed in detail in the declaration. One ex-FBI agent who worked under CIA control at Usama Bin Laden (UBL) Station, also known as ALEC Station, discussed how a colleague had prepared a Central Intelligence Report “outlining the possible presence of Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar in the U.S., but was not allowed to forward it to the FBI for action.”

Two former FBI agents stated that the CIA even spied on the FBI as it investigated 9/11.

Canestraro’s declaration says that in the spring of 2021 a former agent with “extensive experience in terrorism and counterintelligence matters,” explained that after the attacks “it became impossible for the FBI to unilaterally conduct a terrorism or counterintelligence investigation without the tacit approval of the CIA.” (Source.)

In Felix Livshitz’s article on RT.com, he also reports how CIA agents who observed Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur prior to their arrival in LA, wanted to warn the FBI about their arrival, but were allegedly prevented from doing so by the CIA.

Of the great many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks still unresolved over two decades later, perhaps the biggest and gravest relate to the activities of Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the 18 months leading up to that fateful day. The pair traveled to the US on multi-entry visas in January 2000, despite having repeatedly been flagged by the CIA and NSA previously as likely Al Qaeda terrorists.

Mere days before their arrival, they attended an Al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, during which key details of the 9/11 attacks are likely to have been discussed and agreed. The meeting was secretly photographed and videotaped by Malaysian authorities at the direct request of the CIA’s Alec Station, a special unit set up to track Osama bin Laden, although oddly, no audio was captured.

Still, this background should’ve been sufficient to prevent Hazmi and Midhar from entering the US – or at least enough for the FBI to be informed of their presence in the country. As it was, they were admitted for a six-month period at Los Angeles International airport without incident, and Bureau representatives within Alec Station were blocked from sharing this information with their superiors by the CIA.

“We’ve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are bad. One of them, at least, has a multiple-entry visa to the US. We’ve got to tell the FBI,” Mark Rossini, a member of Alec Station, has recalled discussing with his colleagues. “[But the CIA] said to me, ‘No, it’s not the FBI’s case, not the FBI’s jurisdiction.’”

Immediately upon arrival, Hazmi and Midhar encountered a Saudi national residing in California named Omar al-Bayoumi in an airport restaurant.

Over the next two weeks, he helped them find an apartment in San Diego, co-signed their lease, gave them $1,500 towards their rent, and introduced them to Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam at a local mosque. Al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011. (Source.)

Anwar al-Awlaki, the former imam from the San Diego mosque, was a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico. He became the first U.S. citizen to be killed by the U.S. Government with no charges filed against him, and no trial by a jury, by a drone strike issued by then President Obama in 2011.

The U.S. Government also killed his 16-year-old son, who was also a U.S. Citizen, with no due process of law afforded to U.S. citizens a few weeks later.

In the days before a CIA drone strike killed al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki last month, his 16-year-old son ran away from the family home in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa to try to find him, relatives say. When he, too, was killed in a U.S. airstrike Friday, the Awlaki family decided to speak out for the first time since the attacks.

“To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It’s nonsense,” said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki’s father and the boy’s grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. “They want to justify his killing, that’s all.”

The teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver in 1995, and his 17-year-old Yemeni cousin were killed in a U.S. military strike that left nine people dead in southeastern Yemen. (Source.)

And then in January of 2017, just a few days after Donald Trump became the President of the U.S., Trump sent U.S. forces into Yemen to kill more people, including Anwar al-Awlaki’s 8-year-old daughter, also a U.S. citizen.

SANAA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. commando died and three others were wounded carrying out a deadly dawn raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, in the first military operation authorized by President Donald Trump.

The U.S. military said it killed 14 militants in a raid on a powerful al Qaeda branch that has been a frequent target of U.S. drone strikes. Medics at the scene, however, said around 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

Two more U.S. servicemen were injured when an American military aircraft was sent to evacuate the wounded commandos but came under fire and had to be “intentionally destroyed in place,” the Pentagon said.

The new U.S. president called the operation a success and said intelligence gathered during the operation would help the United States fight terrorism.

“Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said in a statement.

Eight-year-old Anwar al-Awlaki, the daughter of U.S.-born Yemeni preacher and al Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, was among the children killed in the raid, according to her grandfather. Her father was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

“She was hit with a bullet in her neck and suffered for two hours,” Nasser al-Awlaki told Reuters. “Why kill children? This is the new (U.S.) administration – it’s very sad, a big crime.” (Source.)

Is the CIA the Largest Terrorist Organization in the World?

It has been widely reported in the past 2 weeks that the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East is rapidly changing, most significantly with Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni branch of Islam, making peace and starting diplomatic relations with Iran, the leader of the Shi’a branch of Islam.

Saudi Arabia is also reaching out to Syria, where the U.S. has a strong military presence.

To make matters even worse from the U.S. perspective, most of these peace initiatives are being brokered by China and Russia.

This greatly upset the U.S., who has been a long-time ally of Saudi Arabia and has “helped” them develop their oil industry for the past many decades.

What is telling is who they decided to send to Saudi Arabia to express their dissatisfaction that they were normalizing relationships with Iran and Syria.

The U.S. did not send anyone from the Biden Administration, nor any leading members of Congress, but instead sent CIA Director William Burns.

CIA director visited Saudi Arabia, aired ‘frustration’ over Iran, Syria thaw

CIA Director Bill Burns made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia this week where he reportedly aired Washington’s frustrations over Riyadh’s opening to Iran and Syria through mediation brokered by US rivals China and Russia.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US official confirmed the trip to Al-Monitor. “Director Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia where he met with intelligence counterparts and country leaders on issues of shared interest,” the US official said.

The official did not disclose the exact day of the trip but said that Burns discussed intelligence cooperation, especially in the area of counterterrorism. The CIA director met the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. (Source.)

This is strong evidence that the CIA runs this country, and not “elected” politicians, and when the Globalists who run this country really want something done, they turn to their henchmen in the CIA to take care of their interests.

Those “Globalists” in the U.S. who use the CIA to protect their interests, have been linked to the Rockefeller’s oil empire for many years now. Some have speculated that Trump’s Secretary of State during his last year in office when COVID was unleashed, former CIA director Mike Pompeo, was probably the main person calling the shots in the Trump administration in 2020.

Some believe that Pompeo tripped up on live camera during one of the President’s task force meetings, where he admits that the “pandemic” was a “live exercise,” while you can hear President Trump in the background say that they should have let him know.

The CIA is most certainly actively involved in the war between Ukraine and Russia, and if the Globalists decide that they cannot win this war which is really between NATO and Russia, and if their banking system faces collapse as the U.S. dollar loses its status as the World’s main currency, will they make the decision to go nuclear and take down as many people as they can?

Will the CIA Orchestrate a Nuclear War in 2023?