Finally, someone besides Richard Clarke takes responsibility for 9/11

Moussaoui apparently is trying to commit suicide by testimony.

After years of denying involvement in 9/11, suddenly he says he was in the very midst of it, and not just as some dumb old 20th hijacker. No, he was going to get his very own plane, and he was going to get to fly it into the White House, and he was going to have his buddy, that famous shoe-bomber guy, help him. Because Osama told him he could.

I swear I've heard 5-year-olds who are better liars.

Moussaoui will almost certainly get the death penalty now, and his wish for martyrdom will be fulfilled, and the prosecution will declare victory, even though they botched the case badly, and even though their central argument, that the FBI would have foiled 9/11 if Moussaoui had told them the truth, is pretty much unintentionally hilarious.

Don't believe me? Check this out:

Before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a "very high interest" al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers.

The official, a senior figure in the CIA's Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again.

As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI.

The official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record. "John's" testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot.

His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie's e-mail said "there's no indication that (Moussaoui) had plans for any nefarious activity." He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft.

Oh yeah. The FBI so would have caught them if it wasn't for that stupid Moussaoui.