The FAA had to know it was a domestic problem too - I want to know what else is in these reports in the redacted version - Congress should form a committee of former generals and CIA directors and federal judges to examine these reports and the redacted version and determine if there is culpability and if so - who - and whether or not we truly were duped by the Bush Administration into believing there was not more to this...

Rice should fry!

They actually were not free to lie. This is why I found it weird that they were not testifying under oath - I think it was because Bush was too nervous to do that.

Federal officials I read somewhere when this all was being discussed - federal officials appearing in their official capacity must tell the truth whether under oath or not.

So it does not matter - if they lied - they are culpable for perjury whether or not they were under oath.

US officials ignored many warnings about attacks before 9/11:
[World News]: New York, Feb 10 : US aviation officials ignored dozens of intelligence reports that warned of al-Qaeda plots, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, just months before the September 11 strikes, a report said today.

Aviation officials received and reviewed warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the report said quoting a previously undisclosed findings by a panel which probed the 9/11 attacks.

But officials were "lulled into a false sense of security" and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report said, The New York Times reported.

The commission report discloses that the FAA, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."

The report also takes the FAA to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Septemver 11, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. PTI

Bush lied - plain and simple - clearly he lied.

I hope his supporters start asking questions.

I hope Republicans and Democrats start demanding answers...

The man is a disaster

Friday, February 11, 2005

Truth held hostage

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

It's difficult to decide which is more outrageous -- federal aviation officials' failure to follow through on intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, that warned of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden using airliner hijackings and suicide operations, or the Bush administration's refusal to let the American public know about it before the November election.

The administration has for five months blocked public release of the full version of the 9/11 commission report, even though former commission members insist that it provides what The New York Times calls a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system that contributed to the atrocities.

This revelation perhaps would not have changed the outcome of the presidential election. But that could not have been clear to the administration in the months between the report's completion and the resolution at the polls of what was widely presumed to be a very tight race with Sen. John Kerry.

In April last year, President Bush said, "Had I any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country. ..." The 9/11 commission report apparently found that there were indeed such inklings, which should have "raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990s and into the new century."

We're left with a pretty good inkling as to why the president moved heaven and earth to keep it quiet before the election.

Bush team tried to suppress pre-9/11 report into al-Qa'ida
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
11 February 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...sp?story=609895

Federal officials were repeatedly warned in the months before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks that Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida were planning aircraft hijackings and suicide attacks, according to a new report that the Bush administration has been suppressing.

Critics say the new information undermines the government's claim that intelligence about al-Qa'ida's ambitions was "historical" in nature.

The independent commission investigating the attacks on New York and Washington concluded that while officials at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) did receive warnings, they were "lulled into a false sense of security". As a result, "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures".

The report, withheld from the public for months, says the FAA was primarily focused on the likelihood of an incident overseas. However, in spring 2001, it warned US airports that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable".

Kristin Bretweiser, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Centre, said yesterday the newly released details undermined testimony from Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser, who told the commission that information about al-Qa'ida's threats seen by the administration was "historical in nature".

She told The Independent: "There were 52 threats that were mentioned. These were present threats - they were not historical. There were steps that could have been taken. Marshals could have been put on planes that spring. Condoleezza Rice's testimony is undermined." To the consternation of members of the commission who published the original report last year, the administration has been blocking the release of the latest information. An unclassified copy of this additional appendix was passed to the National Archives two weeks ago with large portions blacked out.

The latest pages note that of the FAA's 105 daily intelligence summaries between 1 April 2001 and 10 September 2001, 52 of them mentioned Osama bin Laden, al-Qa'ida, or both. The report also concludes that officials did not expand the use of in-flight air marshals or tighten airport screening for weapons. It said FAA officials were more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays and easing air carriers' financial problems than thwarting a terrorist attack.

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA, said the agency received intelligence from other agencies, which it passed on to airlines and airports. "[But] we had no specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures," she said. "We were spending $100m a year to deploy explosive detection equipment."

The commission's report, issued last summer, detailed missed opportunities that, had law enforcement agencies acted differently, may have provided a chance to prevent the attacks. It also listed recommendations to prevent further attacks. It said the administrations of George Bush and Bill Clinton could have done more to stand up to al-Qa'ida.

But the details, first obtained by The New York Times, are the strongest evidence yet of the widespread warnings and officials' failure to take action. They also support claims by whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who said she saw evidence that showed officials were aware of the al-Qa'ida threat before 9/11.
11 February 2005 14:13

September 11 warnings ignored: report
By Deborah Charles in Washington
February 11, 2005
From: Reuters
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12216136-23109,00.html

US aviation officials failed to respond to dozens of warnings of a possible terrorist threat months before September 11, 2001, according to a previously undisclosed report by the panel that probed the attacks.

The report, which was recently declassified and obtained by Reuters yesterday, said federal aviation officials reviewed 52 intelligence reports between April 1, 2001, and September 10, 2001, that warned about Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda.
Most of the intelligence summaries created by the Federal Aviation Administration's security branch dealt with overseas threats, the document said. It noted there was no evidence the FAA knew of a plot to hijack commercial planes in the United States to use as weapons.

Advertisement:
"Nevertheless the FAA had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," the August 2004 staff report said. It gave more details on what the FAA knew than were included in the September 11 commission's overall report released in July.

The staff report, not officially released but censored and given to the National Archives, took the FAA to task for failing to take steps to deter the attacks. The report was first disclosed in The New York Times in editions yesterday.

It said FAA officials had enough information to hold classified briefings between March 2001 and May 2001 at 19 of the busiest US airports to warn of the danger of an attack, including bin Laden's threats against aviation.

The agency also distributed an unclassified CD-ROM presentation to air carriers and airports citing the possibility terrorists might conduct suicide hijackings, but said "fortunately we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction".

The CD-ROM briefings said a domestic hijacking would be difficult.

"We don't rule it out ... If however, the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable," the report cited the CD-ROM as saying.

Still, it concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem. At the time, it said, the FAA seemed more concerned about airport congestion, delays and safety than about security.

An FAA spokeswoman said the agency had been making improvements in aviation security before the attacks.

"Without specific information about means and methods, there was no way we could tailor the countermeasures specifically to deal with the threat that we learned about on September 11," Laura Brown told Reuters.

Before September 11, the airport security system was run by the airlines but overseen by the FAA.

After September 11, the Government ordered cockpit doors hardened, took over screening of passengers and bags at airports and co-ordinated "watch lists" among intelligence agencies of known or suspected terrorists.

The panel's account said before the attacks, aviation officials had a false sense of security because there had been no attack on US soil and the threat seemed to be overseas.

"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the FAA's own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation," the report said.

You cannot tell me that Bush would not have been defeated if this was released to the public showing the complete and utter incompetence of Condoleezza Rice and there is no doubt that she would not have been confirmed - at least not by the margin she was had this information been available.

February 11, 2005
Critics Want Full Report of 9/11 Panel
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/politics...print&position=

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 - The Bush administration came under pressure on Thursday to make public the full classified version of a report from the 9/11 commission that is critical of the government's failure to heed aviation threats before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Former members of the commission, victims' families, open-government advocates and a leading Democrat called on the administration to release the entire report on aviation problems surrounding the attacks.

The commission completed the report in August, and commission members said the administration blocked their efforts to release the report.

The administration delivered a declassified version of the report to the National Archives two weeks ago with numerous deletions of material it considered too sensitive for the public to see.

Commissioners from the 9/11 panel said they believed that the entire report should be public.

"We want this report declassified, and we hope the government will work to get it out as soon as possible," Al Felzenberg, who was the spokesman for the commission, said.

Administration officials said declassifying the report had been slowed by the fact that the commission no longer existed and that it was unclear who was authorized to work on the declassification.

The commission said several members and staff members who maintained security clearances were in a position to work on the declassification.

In a letter on Thursday, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, asked that the report be made public and called for a Congressional hearing into whether the administration had "misused the classification process" to withhold it.

The letter, responding to an article on Thursday in The New York Times reporting the existence of the commission report, questioned whether the administration had kept the report secret for political reasons "until after the November elections."

Administration officials denied that.

Well, at least Waxman is doing something...