http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/politics...ml?pagewanted=1


9/11 Commission's Staff Ignored Military's Early Identification of Chief Hijacker
By DOUGLAS JEHL and PHILIP SHENON
Published: August 11, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - The Sept. 11 commission was warned by a uniformed military officer 10 days before issuing its final report that the account would be incomplete without reference to what he described as a secret military operation that by the summer of 2000 had identified as a potential threat the member of Al Qaeda who would lead the attacks more than a year later, commission officials said on Wednesday.

The officials said that the information had not been included in the report because aspects of the officer's account had sounded inconsistent with what the commission knew about that Qaeda member, Mohammed Atta, the plot's leader.

But aides to the Republican congressman who has sought to call attention to the military unit that conducted the secret operation said such a conclusion relied too much on specific dates involving Mr. Atta's travels and not nearly enough on the operation's broader determination that he was a threat.

The briefing by the military officer is the second known instance in which people on the commission's staff were told by members of the military team about the secret program, called Able Danger.

The meeting, on July 12, 2004, has not been previously disclosed. That it occurred, and that the officer identified Mr. Atta there, were acknowledged by officials of the commission after the congressman, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, provided information about it.

Mr. Weldon has accused the commission of ignoring information that would have forced a rewriting of the history of the Sept. 11 attacks. He has asserted that the Able Danger unit, whose work relied on computer-driven data-mining techniques, sought to call their superiors' attention to Mr. Atta and three other future hijackers in the summer of 2000. Their work, he says, had identified the men as likely members of a Qaeda cell already in the United States.

In a letter sent Wednesday to members of the commission, Mr. Weldon criticized the panel in scathing terms, saying that its "refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose."

Al Felzenberg, who served as the commission's chief spokesman, said earlier this week that staff members who were briefed about Able Danger at a first meeting, in October 2003, did not remember hearing anything about Mr. Atta or an American terrorist cell. On Wednesday, however, Mr. Felzenberg said the uniformed officer who briefed two staff members in July 2004 had indeed mentioned Mr. Atta.

Both Mr. Weldon's office and commission officials said they knew the name, rank and service of the officer, but they declined to make that information public.

Mr. Weldon and a former defense intelligence official who was interviewed on Monday have said that the Able Danger team sought but failed in the summer of 2000 to persuade the military's Special Operations Command, in Tampa, Fla., to pass on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the information they had gathered about Mr. Atta and the three other men. The Pentagon and the Special Operations Command have declined to comment, saying they are still trying to learn more about what may have happened.

Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday that the military was working with the commission's unofficial follow-up group - the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which was formed by the panel's members when it was disbanded - to try to clarify what had occurred.

Mr. Felzenberg said the commission's staff remained convinced that the information provided by the military officer in the July 2004 briefing was inaccurate in a significant way.

"He wasn't brushed off," Mr. Felzenberg said of the officer. "I'm not aware of anybody being brushed off. The information that he provided us did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing" from the commission's investigation.

Mr. Felzenberg said staff investigators had become wary of the officer because he argued that Able Danger had identified Mr. Atta, an Egyptian, as having been in the United States in late 1999 or early 2000. The investigators knew this was impossible, Mr. Felzenberg said, since travel records confirmed that he had not entered the United States until June 2000.

"There was no way that Atta could have been in the United States at that time, which is why the staff didn't give this tremendous weight when they were writing the report," Mr. Felzenberg said. "This information was not meshing with the other information that we had."

But Russell Caso, Mr. Weldon's chief of staff, said that "while the dates may not have meshed" with the commission's information, the central element of the officer's claim was that "Mohammed Atta was identified as being tied to Al Qaeda and a Brooklyn cell more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, and that should have warranted further investigation by the commission."

"Furthermore," Mr. Caso said, "if Mohammed Atta was identified by the Able Danger project, why didn't the Department of Defense provide that information to the F.B.I.?"

Mr. Felzenberg confirmed an account by Mr. Weldon's staff that the briefing, at the commission's offices in Washington, had been conducted by Dietrich L. Snell, one of the panel's lead investigators, and had been attended by a Pentagon employee acting as an observer for the Defense Department; over the commission's protests, the Bush administration had insisted that an administration "minder" attend all the panel's major interviews with executive branch employees. Mr. Snell referred questions to Mr. Felzenberg.

The Sept. 11 commission issued its final report on July 22, 2004. Mr. Felzenberg noted that the interview with the military officer had taken place in the final, hectic days before the commission sent the report to the printers, and said the meeting reflected a willingness by the commission to gather facts, even at the last possible minute.

"Lots of stuff was coming in over the transom," Mr. Felzenberg said. "Lots of stuff was flying around. At the end of the day, when you're writing the report, you have to take facts presented to you."

More importantly is the total omission of WTC 7 from the report. And more importantly than that is the fact that the mainstream media has'nt talked about the omission. In fact they haven't talked about any of the many omissions from the 9/11 commission panel.

"Lots of stuff was coming in over the transom," Mr. Felzenberg said. "Lots of stuff was flying around. At the end of the day, when you're writing the report, you have to take facts presented to you."

Doesn't this quote make you wonder what else was missed? or worse yet, ignored?

Hijack 'suspects' alive and well

Waleed Al Shehri

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well.

The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.

Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September.

His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world.

Hijacking suspects
Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi
Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami
Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour
Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi
Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.

He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.

He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.

But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.

Mistaken identity

Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects, has also been quoted in Arab news reports.

Abdelaziz Al Omari
Abdelaziz Al Omari 'lost his passport in Denver'
He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver.

Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News.

The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says.

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi.

Khalid Al-Midhar
Khalid Al-Midhar may also be alive

He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

BBC News

Can you believe this crap...

this is why I believe in light of:

The Valerie Plame Issues renewed visibility

The August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing which was entitled Osama Bin Laden Determined to Attack the US

With the 38 Al Qaeda warnings Bush got of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11

With the 52 FAA warnings regarding hjacking threats posed by Al Qaeda with at least one of them warning that the preferred Al Qaeda hijacking target would be a domestic jet airliner which the White House never followed up on to make certain that they were safe...

With the bad intelligence of how we would be welcomed in Iraq...and the failure to even read the GHW Bush Brent Scowcroft book which stated that one of the primary reasons we never removed Saddam in 1991 was the fear of a protracted insurgency...

With the bad intelligence on WMDs

With the Downing Street Memo plan to manufacture a reason for war...

The Democratic Party should begin an all out offensive against the Bush Administration and their ability to evaluate intelligence --- they are incompetent...and deseve to be called out on it...

I posted this elsewhere as well.


http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.ad...809170009990008

Congressman: Officials monitored 9/11 hijackers in U.S. a year before the attacks
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sept. 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers were identified by defense intelligence officials more than a year before the attacks, but information about possible al-Qaida connections never was sent to law enforcement, Rep. Curt Weldon said Tuesday.

Weldon, R-Pa. and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell.

Weldon said that in September 2000 the unit recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists," Weldon said in an interview.

However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally.

"In fact, I'll tell you how stupid it was, they put stickies on the faces of Mohammed Atta on the chart that the military intelligence unit had completed and they said you can't talk to Atta because he's here" legally, Weldon said.

He did not provide details on how the intelligence officials first identified the future hijackers and determined they might be part of a cell.

The congressman, considered something of a maverick on Capitol Hill, initially made his allegations in a floor speech in June that garnered little attention. His talk came at the end of a legislative day during a period described under House rules as "special orders" - a time slot for lawmakers to get up and speak on issues of their choosing.

The issue resurfaced Monday in a story by the bimonthly Government Security News, which covers national security matters.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he was unaware of the intelligence until the latest reports surfaced.

But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the 9/11 commission looked into the matter during its investigation into government missteps leading to the attacks and chose not to include it in the final report.

Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, confirmed that the panel's investigators had been aware of Able Danger but said they "don't recall any mention of Mohammed Atta" or of cell.

The Sept. 11 commission's final report, issued last year, recounted numerous government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed. Among them was a failure to share intelligence within and among agencies.

The Justice Department inspector general said in a report released in June that the FBI missed at least five opportunities before the Sept. 11 attacks to piece together vital intelligence information about the terrorists. Inspector General Glenn Fine called it "a significant failure" that hindered the FBI's chances of preventing the attacks.


08/09/05 16:53 EDT

and...


http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.ad...809132909990018

9/11 Commission Wants Answers on Hijackers
Congressman Says al-Qaida Ties Known in 1999By KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP

Mohammed Atta and three associates were identified as threats long before the 9/11 attacks, says a GOP congressman.
WASHINGTON (Aug. 10) - Members of the Sept. 11 commission want to know whether defense intelligence officials knew four of the hijackers were part of an al-Qaida cell but failed to tell law enforcement.

Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the panel could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that officials had identified ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers.

"The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohamed Atta or of his cell,'' said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation.''

The commission's report on the terrorist attacks, released last year, traced government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed. Among the problems the commission cited was a lack of coordination across intelligence agencies.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger'' identified the men in 1999.

That's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta if the information, which Weldon said came from multiple intelligence sources, is true.

A group of 9/11 widows called the September 11th Advocates issued a statement Wednesday saying they were "horrified'' to learn that further possible evidence exists, and they are disappointed the 9/11 Commission report is "incomplete and illusory.''

"The revelation of this information demands answers that are forthcoming, clear and concise,'' the statement said. "The 9/11 attacks could have and should have been prevented.''

With the 9/11 commission disbanded for a year under provisions of the legislation that created it, some of the panel's members have said congressional committees should investigate Weldon's assertions.

According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of a cell the unit code-named "Brooklyn'' because of some loose connections to New York City.

Weldon said that in September 2000 Able Danger recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists.'' However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally, so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

Weldon did not provide details on how the intelligence officials identified the future hijackers and determined they might be part of a terrorist cell.

Defense Department documents shown to an Associated Press reporter Tuesday said the Able Danger team was set up in 1999 to identify potential al-Qaida operatives for U.S. Special Operations Command. At some point, information provided to the team by the Army's Information Dominance Center pointed to a possible al-Qaida cell in Brooklyn, the documents said.

However, because of concerns about pursuing information on "U.S. persons'' - a legal term that includes U.S. citizens as well as foreigners admitted to the country for permanent residence - Special Operations Command did not provide the Army information to the FBI. It is unclear whether the Army provided the information to anyone else.

The command instead turned its focus to overseas threats.

The documents provided no information on whether the team identified anyone connected to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

If the team did identify Atta and the others, it's unclear why the information wasn't forwarded. The prohibition against sharing intelligence on "U.S. persons'' should not have applied since they were in the country on visas and did not have permanent resident status.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he was unaware of the intelligence until the latest reports surfaced.

Associated Press Writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this report.


08/10/05 16:42 EDT

And well we deserve answers --- imagine that --- the Pentagon lying to the 9/11 Commission...

I wonder why?

Hmmm...an intelligence effort set up during the Clinton administration --- identifies 4 future hijackers as Al Qaeda oepratives...in the US in early 2001

Richard Clarke ---- the terror czar --- demoted when the Bushies come in...

52 warnings to the FAA with no follow-up from the CIA or NSA Condi Rice to make certain they were taking precautions...

38 warnings to the president...

An August 6th PDB direct and to the point...Bin Laden Determined To Attack The US...

War games taking place on 9/11 in DC to game a hijacking threat to prevent one in the future...

Hmmm....These are undisputed facts that are starting to point toward a conspiracy...

What else is there that we don't know about...

Why did the Clinton controled Pentagon provide this information to the Clinton controled FBI?

Again if WJC and Clarke had been all over this shaking the trees, this would have come out sooner.

It is interesting to me that Garelick (sp) was controling the Justice Department and also on the 9/11 commission. Then it comes out that the JD could not do anything about the people because they had not broken any laws.

I am incensed at what is at a minimum the total ineptitude of the Bush administration. When Condi Rice testified before the commission about the existence and the title of the August 6th PDB, I was aghast, and then she testified that it was "historical" in nature, I was appalled and furious. Yeah, right!

And what did Bush do on August 6, 2001, after getting this memo? He continued his vacation. Anyone else would have cut the vacation short and given top priority to finding out what Bin Laden was up to.

And maybe the most telling fact about Bush is WE STILL HAVE NOT CAUGHT OSAMA BIN LADEN! Does this not bother Congress or the public? Why have we not caught him?! Our military had him cornered but then Bush pulled the plug on them and sent our forces to invade Iraq on totally false premises. Why does this not bother Congress or the public? Bush and his minions are delusional nut-cases, and anyone who supports him is either misguided/misinformed or plain flat stupid.

My question too...

Good points.

It is critical to determine if the 9/11 commission was indeed told of this. And if so why did they not cover the information in their report.

This is a very important issue.

vadiver --- good to have you back where you belong...hope you're returning from some tropical vacation or something

Mac2 - I can tell is licking some chops right about now...
(Go ahead taz --- make my day.)

Mr. Felzenberg said staff investigators had become wary of the officer because he argued that Able Danger had identified Mr. Atta, an Egyptian, as having been in the United States in late 1999 or early 2000. The investigators knew this was impossible, Mr. Felzenberg said, since travel records confirmed that he had not entered the United States until June 2000.

First, I have no idea why the Clinton controlled Pentagon did not provide the Clinton controlled FBI wiht this information. This was an obvious oversight -- but one that Bush could have remedied once a threat presented itself in the form of increased chatter during 2001. However, many of these oversights occur --- the issue is what do you do to correct that. The Clintion Administration devised an answer which the Bush Administration promptly dismissed.

Second, I think you misunderstand two apsects regarding the "shaking the trees" effort. First, it occurs when you get a heightened credible threat report that something is going to happen -- without the chatter --- no need to "shake the trees" presents itself. We have evidence of the heightened threat in 2001 from the 52 FAA notices regarding hijacking and the 38 times that Al Qaeda was mentioned to Bush in PDBs. If nothing else alerted Bush to the need to "shake the trees" --- the august 6th PDB entitled Bin Laden Determined To Attack The United States should have (IMHO).

In addition, it has to come from the top --- at a minimum one of the principals has to order it but probably the president --- Clark wanted to brief the president and principals so that he could articulate the threat - he knew he was just getting the run around from Condi who hadn't even a clue what Al Qaeda was. A subordinate White House staffer has no authority to order CIA -- FBI -- NSC and any of the other intelligence operations to reassign their resources or set new priorities. The chatter only reached the point of demanding attention in early 2001 --- when Bush was in office.

tazvil:
"First, I have no idea why the Clinton controlled Pentagon did not provide the Clinton controlled FBI wiht this information. "

My understanding that Gorelick herself had instituted the policies that prohibited this sharing of information. I never quite understood why she was on the 911 commission. Be she sinner or saint, she was part of the group of people being investigated by the Commission = big time conflict of interest.

TYPO CORRECTION

Thanks for the insight. I was never a big fan of hers. She was as you suggest part of the problem and probably put there to stop blame from going to DOJ or the Clinton Administration in return for reciprocity with the Bushies.

Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005
Was Mohammed Atta Overlooked?
New questions about whether the U.S. had information about the 9/11 mastermind years before the attacks

http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0...1093694,00.html

By BRIAN BENNETT, TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND DOUGLAS WALLER

Just how damning are allegations by Congressman Curt Weldon that a secret Pentagon intelligence operation pegged hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat nearly two years before he led the 9/11 attacks? When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention, but perhaps due to the August heat or the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks, the accusation ignited controversy last week.

The question is whether it has any substance. Weldon says a data-mining exercise, called Able Danger, spotted Atta and other hijackers in 1999, but Pentagon lawyers in September 2000 blocked officials running the program from handing the tip to the FBI. Weldon’s further allegation that the 9/11 commission was alerted to the alleged oversight but ignored it prompted the defunct panel to conduct an investigation last week before issuing a statement late Friday saying members had received only an 11th-hour mention of Atta that “was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation.” Meanwhile, at Weldon’s request, House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra told TIME he is investigating the matter but cautioned against “hyperventilating” before the completion of a “thorough” probe.

In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document. The congressman says he handed Hadley his only copy. Still, last week he referred reporters to a recently reconstructed version of the chart in his office where, among dozens of names and photos of terrorists from around the world, there was a color mug shot of Mohammad Atta, circled in black marker.

Pentagon officials are playing down any controversy. They say they can find nothing produced by the Able Danger program, which involved fewer than half a dozen intelligence analysts, mentioning Atta’s name. A senior Pentagon official briefed on the program told TIME, “This is much ado about nothing.” a source close to the former 9/11 commission aides who chased down the story last week said they had been led to believe the Pentagon would issue a statement along these lines on Friday. But as of Sunday, this had not occurred. "We have been working with the 9/11 public discourse project to gain more clarity into this issue," said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Air Force Lieut. Col. Ellen Krenke. "Clearly there was information that was developed through this program, but it is unclear what was provided to the 9/11 Commission." Krenke said she did not know about any statement planned that would say no information had been developed about Atta before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Complicit to Cover-Up
By Geoff Metcalf (08/14/05)

Who Knew What and When?

http://www.americandaily.com/article/8731

Once again, ‘the official government story’ is leaking like a colander. I just read the August 12th ‘Kean-Hamilton statement on ABLE DANGER’ from the 9/11 Commission…henceforth to be referred to as ‘Commission CYA Addendum (Revised)’.

Recently two separate groups of 9/11 widows articulated their shock and horror that the 9/11 Commission ignored significant and critical evidence. Duh! Hell-o?

The 9/11 Commission’s decision to flat out ignore testimony that military intelligence had identified Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi in 1999 as terrorist threats already in the U.S. but was specifically ordered not to tell the FBI suffers an adequate adjectives to replace contemptible, reprehensible, monumentally malfeasant, or freaking crazy…

The Commission says, ‘nuh-uh’…but a reasonable person would conclude they are being less than forthcoming (translation: they are lying).

Last year, Regan Books published ‘Cover Up/What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror’ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846 . Author Peter Lance http://www.peterlance.com has shown how the government repeatedly, chronically, and outrageously sacrificed national security for petty personal and political preferences.

As one of the widows said, "Now the truth is our intelligence agencies did not fail…They were tracking them. Now the question is why did we perpetrate that myth and why were we not able to unravel the plot, especially in light of the fact that we had Mohamed Atta in our sights."

Good question. Perhaps Jaimie Gorelick and Dieter Snell should be asked, under oath?

Rep. Curt Weldon, blames the so-called "firewall" erected by the Clinton Justice Department that myopically prohibited sharing intelligence with law enforcement. He is not the Lone Ranger. Such a territorial imperative exceeds even the most egregious bureaucratic brain flatulence.

According to Weldon, a year before 9/11, Clinton lawyers told a group of military intelligence officers that information they had developed on 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta could not be shared with the FBI. Reportedly, they said of Atta: "You can't even touch him - it doesn't matter what information you have." Huh?!?!

Before we rip Weldon for the long stall, give him points for ‘trying’. He told Sean Hannity, “In September of 2000 we tried on three occasions to take the information we had developed and pass it along to the FBI so they could follow up and take action against this [al-Qaida] cell and perhaps bring in Atta and question him and do whatever else was necessary.”

Three times they tried and three times they were blown off by administration lawyers.

According to Weldon the lawyers said, "He's here legally. He's either got a green card or he's got a visa. So you can't even touch him - it doesn't matter what information you have."

BULLfeathers! I am not a lawyer and never played on TV or radio, however, this doesn’t pass the smell test.

Hell, the government arrested, tried, and ACQUITTED former IRS Special Agent Joseph Banister http://www.freedomabovefortune.com/ just because he asked questions they didn’t like and is a credible albeit embarrassing pain in the government’s butt.

For a known bad guy with known links to known bad guys (see pages 362-362 in Lance’s ‘1000 Years For Revenge ’ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846 ) to get a pass from government lawyers is nuts…even by Clinton administration standards.

I have done considerable research, talked to hundreds of people, and interviewed dozens of experts, and I still can’t fathom how Jamie Gorelick and Dieter Snell were not called as witnesses, let alone the galactically epic ‘whoops’ of their working for the very commission allegedly investigating their work product?

In 1995 U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White warned in a memo that the directive by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick "could cost lives"…and it did! The 9/11 Commission is still concealing that memo. Why?

Gorelick refused to recluse herself from parts of the 9/11 investigation that covered the now infamous "wall" she erected that prevented intelligence and law enforcement agencies from cooperating in the war on terror. And none of her ‘esteemed colleagues’ did ‘Jack-spit’ to complain? How come?

"It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," White wrote on June 13, 1995, in a memo reported recently by the New York Post's Deborah Orin.

Orin reports that White was big time ticked off, "White was so upset that she bitterly protested with another memo - a scathing one" - blasting Gorelick's wall of separation. So how come the commissioners have failed to make the second memo public?

Jaimie Gorelick and Dieter Snell (among other Clinton aides) should be investigated…not tasked with guarding the chicken coop.

Meanwhile, once again, ‘the official government story’ (like a long list of ‘official’ stories) does not and will not bear scrutiny.


Ed: Views are those of individual authors and not necessarily those of American Daily.



Geoff Metcalf is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host for LIBERTY BROADCASTING originating on 50,000 watt WMET in Washington D.C. He is a veteran media performer with an eclectic professional background covering a wide spectrum of radio, television, magazine, and newspapers, A former Green Beret and retired Army officer he is in great demand as a speaker.

Deadly tale of incompetence
Sunday, August 14, 2005

By MIKE KELLY

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=e...2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk5


IT STILL SEEMS all so close.

Here, on Route 23, bathed in the August morning sun and only a short drive from Route 80 and the Willowbrook Mall, a roadside motel bears silent witness to a police bust that might have been.

For a year before the 9/11 attacks, the Wayne Inn was home to Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaida mastermind behind the hijacking plot that killed almost 3,000 people.

In those horrific weeks after the attacks, the official story line was that U.S. counterterror officials had no idea who Atta was before that murderous plot unfolded - or where he was before 9/11. Only after the attacks could authorities track Atta's movements.

Now that story seems to be false.

Federal officials confirmed last week that a year before the attacks, a top-secret military intelligence team was following Atta and three suspected terrorists who turned out to be hijackers. The intelligence operatives tried to sound an alarm but were rebuffed by government lawyers who feared possible legal complications of using military spying techniques to keep tabs on foreign visitors in the United States with legal visas even though they might be terrorists.

A former member of the military intelligence team told me in an interview that it had enough data to raise suspicions. "But we were blocked from passing it to the FBI."

The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was - to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops.

This new piece of 9/11 history, revealed only last week by a Pennsylvania congressman and confirmed by two former members of the intelligence team, could turn out to be one of the most explosive revelations since the publication last summer of the 9/11 commission report.

The information not only undermines key commission findings that Atta and others were undetected, but it again raises a question that continues to haunt the 9/11 tragedy:

Why is our government so incompetent?

To understand that question, it's important to understand how close counter-terror officials came to finding Mohammed Atta. And once you understand the closeness, you have to wonder how anyone could mess up so badly with information that was so tangible?

The story begins a year before the attacks. A top-secret team of Pentagon military counter-terror computer sleuths, who worked for a special operations commando group, was well into a project to monitor al-Qaida operations.

The 11-person group called itself "Project Able Danger." Think of them as a super-secret Delta Force or SEAL team. But instead of guns, they relied on advanced math training as their key weapons. And instead of traditional spying methods or bust-down-the-door commando tactics, the Able Danger group booted up a set of high-speed, super-computers and collected vast amounts of data.

The technique is called "data mining." The Able Danger team swept together information from al-Qaida chat rooms, news accounts, Web sites and financial records. Then they connected the dots, comparing the information with visa applications by foreign tourists and other government records.

From there, the computer sleuths noticed four names - Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

All four turned out to be hijackers. Atta and al-Shehhi took a room at the Wayne Inn. They rented a Wayne mail drop, too, and even went to Willowbrook Mall. Al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi took rooms at a motel on Route 46 in South Hackensack.

What is interesting about this information now is that a CIA team, working separately from the Able Danger Team, had set its sights on al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi. The two were already on a CIA terror watch list and still had managed to obtain U.S. visas.

The CIA feared al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi might try to slip into the United States. But the CIA lost track of them after they left a terror meeting in Malaysia in early 2000 for Bangkok. Worse, the CIA waited until the summer of 2001 to tell the FBI that two suspected terrorists had visas to enter the United States - and might be here.

The story of the lack of cooperation between the CIA and FBI is well-known - and well-documented by the 9/11 commission. But the story is even more troublesome with the revelation that even before the CIA knew of suspected terrorists trying to enter the United States that the Able Danger team had its own set of information.

Imagine what might have happened if Able Danger was cooperating with the CIA and the FBI.

On the phone last week, the former Able Team member I interviewed told a depressing story of that cooperation that never took place.

His story, he says, tells us just how close U.S. officials could have come to breaking up the 9/11 plot before it unfolded. But there was one problem: The U.S. government did not want to hear what this sleuth and his 10 teammates had to say - before and even after the 9/11 plot.

By mid-2000, the Able Danger team knew it had important information about a possible terrorist plot. Because of a peculiar series of computer links that went through Brooklyn, the team began referring to the four future hijackers as the "Brooklyn cell." Their movements and communications were raising too many suspicions.

The Able Danger sleuth, whose interview with me was arranged by the staff of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., asked that his name not be revealed so he could maintain his top-secret counter-terror role. He emerged from the shadows of spying and intelligence analysis last week because he wanted to set the record straight.

One of his targets is the 9/11 commission. The commission's staff, he says, ignored him when he approached them on two occasions to spell out Able Danger's work.

Another target are Pentagon lawyers. The sleuth says he and other Able Danger team members became so concerned during the summer of 2000 that they asked their superiors in the Pentagon's special operations command for permission to approach the FBI. Their superiors approached Pentagon legal experts. Those experts turned down the request.

Sticking to his partisan, Republican roots, Rep. Weldon singles out the Clinton administration for being too lax. He also blames the 9/11 commission for a possible coverup.

The bipartisan 9/11 commission denies any coverup. But it also went out of its way to avoid pointing fingers at the Clinton or Bush administrations. The deeper question is whether this desire to avoid blame also led the commission to ignore important facts.

"They definitely blew it," Weldon said of the commission's failure to look into the Able Danger's work and the legal issues it raises. "The question is whether it was deliberate."

We may never know. The commission says it may be a victim of the very same problem it sought to expose - that there is not enough sharing of information among federal counterterror officials.

Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: "Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?"

Again, the Able Danger member had no answer.

Which brings us to this haunting question:

Is silence a form of incompetence or it is just the way things are?

Recently I was able to obtain the first 5 hours of ABC coverage of the 9/11 attacks with Peter Jennings from the moment they went to breaking news. There are so many oddities of that day I can't count them all.

Peter Jennings boss kept calling in with little tidbits of information that he was getting from an unspecified government source. Just after the first tower fell Jennings stated,"As we all know the only way a building can come down like that is when the bottom is blown out first". The direktor of ABC called immediately and said, "No Peter, no Peter, the building fell from its own weight. There was no explosion at the base." About two hours later they were interviewing people from the streets and they all said they heard explosions coming from INSIDE and around the WTC site just before the first building went down. Even the firemen interviewed that managed to get out said they thought there were bombs set in the building.

If you know how to download bittorrents you can get the footage here. It's a long download but well worth it. I recommend the Azureus bittorrent. The file is in Real Media so you will need that viewer to play.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/87977

Taz,

this is one of the opinon/conspiricy topics that I generally stay away from. I do not blame either the WJC or the GWB administration for what happened on 9/11/01. The only people to blame are the people that did the planning and completed the task.

I do think there is a huge conflic of intrest with Gorelic. I do not blame her for the propblems with the DOJ/Mil. She was working in a pre 9/11 world. This is the same world that the GWB administration was working in with the 8/6 pdb and the "52" warnings. But she should not have been on the 911 commision.

I do not think many people had thought about an attack in the contenintal, or even all 50 United States as probable. This dates back to 1983. And even includes an attack in 1993 on the very same towers that were attacked eight years later. Many people have awakened that we can be attacked and we need to do more to try and prevent it from happening again. There are other people that still do not want to do what is necessary to try and prevent it from happening again.

Even if Clinton should be blamed too, so what?
Blame both of them. What's the difference to the outcome that on August of 2001 Bush was vacationing while the world was about to end?

And obviously in the first WTC bombing, then blame Bush41 because intellegence was known that would happen a mere few months after Clinton took office.

You can't have it both ways as the Bush people often try.

Bush has blood on his hands, and it gets bloodier and bloodier every day.

I understand --- but my feeling is that we have a National Security Council to protect us from just such circumstances. We had Richard Clarke sounding the alarm and begging to brief the president.

We had all of these warnings --- and we had a National Security Council which fed the CIA warnings to the FAA --- but never followed up on them --- now -- plenty of blame has been spead around at the FBI and the CIA -- my only point is that the National Security Advisor and the president deserve some of the blame as well --- because they were the recipients of the intelligence.

In addition, you made a statement regarding why Clarke wasn't shaking the trees --- well I explained to you why he was not --- and the Bush Administration bears significant responsibility for why he was not...

Do you accept that?

You made a statement regarding why Clinton wasn't shaking the trees since the intelligence was received on his watch -- and I explained to you that the Al Qaeda intelligence which would have prompted a shaking of the trees occurred on Bush's watch.

Do you accept that?

Do you accept that while we have terrorists plotting against us -- there are government instrumentalities designed to counter those efforts --- who -- when they ignore certain warnings bear some responsibility?

Do you accept that Condoleezza Rice bears any responsbility for not securing the U.S. against the terror attacks and following up on the FAA warnings to make certain they took precautionary steps of some kind? Do you believe that this is a role that the National Security Advisor should play?

Do you accept when other government officials have not fulfilled their responsibilities that they have been fired in other Administrations --- but in the Bush Administration they are promoted?

Just trying to get some perspective on where you stand on some issues.

Thanks.

I think you missed my point.

I was taking it back to 1983. This would include RWR, GHWB, WJC, and GWB.

But there was no way the American people would have stood for what needed to be done starting all the way back in 1983. Then in 1993, we, the American people, did not press our elected officials to do anything to protect us. Whether that was we thought we were insolated, or did not want to give up "freedoms" that would have protected us. If on 911 we had two military men sitting on each side of the cockpit door of all flights, holding M-16s and would shoot anyTHING that came near them, the attack would not have happend the way it did. There is no way that the American people would have stood for that.

As for GWB being on vaction and not doing anything before the . Show me where in the PDB there was any information that indicated 911 was about to happen. Then we get Taz shaking trees finding these cells. We would never stand for what it takes. We like our civil liberties too much, regarless if a criminal is about to kill us. They have their rights.

Having it both ways, the non-Bush people, appear to want it both ways as well. WJC had 15 months to capture these cells, and we do not seem to hear much about that, do we?

If we could ever realize that the people to blame are the hijackers and planners, we might begin to do something.

I don't care go ahead blame Clinton. I am not a bill clinton fan. Doesn't take away from the fact that on 9-11-01 George Bush was having an alibi reading to some kids doing nothing while the world as we knew it ended. Doesn't matter
what happened yesterday. (You are blaming BC for the 1993 blast, well, that was months after he took office. So if you say BC is to blame for 2001, then GHWB41
is to blame for 1993...you want it both ways.

Me, I do not care if Clinton is blamed. or not.

I for one don't understand Waco, on his watch.
I don't understand Elian on his watch.
I don't understand Oklahoma City on his watch.
go ahead, blame him, fine by me.

But you cannot take the blame away from Bush on 9-11-01. (except that I myself believe Bush's team actually did all of them to achieve what they did, so that is the blame I assign. He couldn't protect us at the same time he had goals to achieve.
To me, Bush did 9-11.

Bush is still the only one better off on 9-12-01 than he was on 9-10-01
No one else in the world can say that

This is the easiest one. GWB was wrong on this. On 9/12/01 it was obvious someone (s) missed something big time. My intial thought wat Tenent and the CIA, possibly the FBI, Rice, whomever. As more has come out, particulary this past couple of weeks, it was probably a larger problem then we know or realize. But still why someone was not fired was beyond me. Being on the outside looking in, I thought both Rice and Tenent would be gone.


Yes and no. As I have stated several times, there is no way prior to 9/11 we would have stood for what needed to be done to protect us from what happend. The TSA is thinking aobut lifting the restricions on razors and knives. That is because we are complaining. I agree that it is kind of silly on what we can and cannot take on a plane, but to allow "box cutters" back on planes does not seem the smartest to me.


To a point, yes.

We are all on the outside here. We hear that Clarke was jumping up and down screaming at the top of his lungs and GWB/Rice fired him. Well the way I look at it, particularly since we knew about this in 9/2000. Why was there not more done upto 1/20/2001 if this was so important? Why was there nothing mentioned in the 2000 campain.

As it turns out Clarke was right. But I could very easily see a new administration that has just been briefed on what has been going on and nothing had been done about it to blow Clarke off.

The problem here is what do you do to whom. Do we just fire people in the GWB administration, to we prosecute them, what do we do to the people in the same positions in the WJC, GHWB, RWR administrations that ignored the same information?

And to boot we have Berger shreading documents from when he was in the positon.


Sep 2000 and the Cole Feb 2003 were both under WJC. Again, it appears that you want to think that on Jan 20, 2001, OBL sudenly decided to attack the US on our soil.

So no, I do not accept this.


Previously ansered. No, I do not accept this.

Again, the only people to blame are the people that acted out. Could this have been prevented if the US had done anything since 1983. This could have, but similar acts would not be stopped. We have no idea how many "attacks" have been stopped. We know how many attaks have been successfull.

Do you want to give up fredoms and rights to be totaly protected? It could be done.

all you want to do is blame Clinton. Go ahead.

It was on Bush's watch. And he knew about it. As he had briefs about it.
(Condie knew.) And she didn't care.
Becasue Condie was old school and never heard of Bin-laden at all.
She is incompetent and should have been fired.

Again, I think you let your dislike for WJC and hatered for GWB to cloud what I am saying.

The blame beging with RWR back in 1983 if you want to blame a US CIC. It spans all administrations all the way to today.

I however do not place that much blame on these four CICs.

How would you have responded if GWB had a primetime press conference on 9/10/2001. In that conference, he said that on August 6 2001 I received a briefing that AQ would be attacking us in the US, I have 52 FAA warnings to indicate that our air trafic could be used. As a result, people will no longer be allowed to cary this long list of items on planes. There will be a $6 fee to fly, you will need to get to the airport two hours in advance to clear security, you will be required to remove your shoes, coats belts etc. prior to screening, You will not be able to stand 30 out of an airport. On and on and on with where we are today.

And then nothing happened on 9/11 or even up to today? Be cause 20 people got caught at various check points with 99 cent box cutters. The people were allowed to board but they lost their cutters?

What would you be saying today?

You might want to read one of my posts here.

The only people that I am blaming are the people who planned and acted out the plan.

What would the world have been saying if for the last 20 years, we had helped these poor people over "there" become a thriving market.
Thrown them dollars instead of bombs.

What would you be saying if George Bush had been tossed in the brig for stealing an election and Al Gore was seated and there was no 9-11.

I feel if Clinton resigned, Gore was seated, 9-11 would not have happened at all.
IMHO of course.

You cannot stop suicide bombers at all, that is impossible. If someone is willing to die,that person will kill others.
What you can change is their outlook on us.

And GWB has made it worse. Given a further reason for them to hate us.

Throw a few more dollars their way, not had so many ulterior motives with regard to oil, and none of this would be possible.
As some say, it was all about Saddam signing a deal to give China "our" oil that brought it all along.

And then Bush decided to do 9-11 to get us to out Saddam.

You see, I don't buy the different stories. So you cannot convince me 19 bumbling pilots did what they did. It is impossible.
And the boxcutters is the "story" they told us. By same token, Atta or the others could have just said they had an explosive on their body and done the same thing as the passengers would have been scared that way too.
But no one knows the real story.
It was all manufactured,as is the whole world political scene.

I did.
I don't believe they are the ones that did it.(See my post above).
They are the ones who "they" told us to blame. It is impossible to believe "they"
did it, but as stated above, 19 bumblers could not have done what they did.

And this and the next post is why I generally stay out of the conspiricy therory posts.

I do agree with you that if AG would have won the election 9/11 would not have happened the way it did.

again, let's say it happened the same way, truthfully, it is impossible to stop a suicide bomber who will die for doing it. Impossible(which I already said above).

But- if the press could ignore it, then there would be no publicity, and no fear.
But in a free society that is not good either. So in reality, there is no answer at all.

And no, I for one was scared into thinking they should do whatever the first few weeks after 9-11. That was wrong, and I hate myself for thinking like that, because it allowed Bush to set in place the downfall of the constitution.(whether he did it or not.) Because in the end, 9-11 was not the worst thing that ever happened. It was a bad event, but lots of things have been worse, and if Bush
lets democracy roll away in the USA, that as a whole will indeed be worse.

Common ground. Here --- I do not blame Bush for not preventing it --- I think that it was probably impossible to prevent, but I believe that something could have been done -- more could have been done. Also --- the Bush wall to briefings by subordinate staff --- was a management style decision and did contribute to his failing to realize the gravity of the Al Qaeda problem -- and as you suggest this is the fault of his advisors -- Tenent --- Rice --- and maybe even Cheney and Rumsfeld who were probably in lock step during principals meetings suggesting that they saw no threat here.



Here we part ways a little bit. You contend that the public would have had a problem with the searches pre-9/11 === and use as eviddence of that the fact that the TSA wants to eliminate its restrictions. I, on the other hand, contend that the TSA does not want to do that because passengers complain, but because there is a serious expense associated with such security which the TSA -- acting on behalf of the FAA who is in the pocket of the airlines -- is trying to defray. Poll - after poll ---- after poll that I have seen shows that the people do not mind --- are they inconvenienced --- yes --- do they get annoyed -- yes --- but when given the choice between no search --- no inconvenience --- and the potential for a terrorist act -- they would prefer the search.

And this is why -- IMHO -- I believe if the FAA warnings had been made public in 2001 --- the public would have agreed to the searches. However, the Bush Administration --- siding with the TSA -- acting on behalf of the FAA -- and the airlines --- based on economic issues --- decided against the added security measures --- using as an excuse the threat of public complaints. I guess we still have a disagreement here.



Did we have the al Qaeda threats and the FAA warnings in 2000?

No. They only surfaced in 2001 --- so the threat only materialized in 2001 -- on Bush's watch. The 9/11 report does not include 38 mentions of Al Qaeda in PDBs that Clinton received in 2000. The 9/11 report does not include 52 warnings that the FAA So the impetus to shake the trees did not exist in 2000. Remember --- had Gore been elected -- Clinton had prepared a respons to the Cole bombing --- and was prepared to go after Al Qaeda militarily --- but did not because he did not want Bush II to have to deal with a problem he had faced when Bush I handed him Somalia which would become Mogadishu on Clinton's watch.



I hear you here you here.

I just don't think a promotion or receiving the Global War on Terror medal or whatever for their service was the wisest move. But that's Bush's way --- he wants no acknowledgement of any mistake that could hurt his reelection campaign and the best way to show that is when someone resigns -- give them a medal.



Berger's no angel --- but I didn't believe that that document shredding thing came to anything did it? I thought they were copies or something --- and not originals ---



I answered those above. Cole --- we were going to respond --- but Clinton did not want to tie the hands of an incoming Administration --- and we all agree we had a dysfunctional intelligence system in September 2000 --- there was no need to shake the trees until the Al Qaeda warnings started coming in in 2001...



Let me understand what you do not agree with with Clarke --- you think a subordinate in government can order other Departments and Agencies to shift resources -- ie -- shake the trees? I tried to explain to you that Clarke wanted the trees shook --- but in order to do that he had to persuade the principals and the President to reallocate resources so the trees could be shook --- and he could not get the meeting even with Rice to make the argument --- how could he reallocate resources to get the FBI --- CIA --- and all the other intelligence agencies in the Pentagon to shake the trees as a White House staffer? Do you understand what shaking the trees is?

The other point was timing.

You do not shake the trees until you have a threat. Here we have in September 2000 --- a Clinton Administration established data mining operation --- within our dysfunctional intelligence system --- in the past when a terrorist threat rose in the US after the 1993 bombing -- Clarke would "shake the trees" --- now in 2000 --- no threat has arisen.

Suddenly -- in 2001 --- the threats start to emerge -- there is chatter --- something is happening --- we have terrorist chatter that causes the President --- who at this time is George W. Bush to be briefed 38 times on Al Qaeda --- and 52 FAA warnings to be sent out -- we have an identified threat -- a threat similar to that which occurred during the Clinton Administration when the trees were shaken --- once the threat appeared and the attack was stopped.

The Bush Administration --- demotes Clarke --- puts off his requests to brief the President --- and refuses to let him brief the principals until September.

And you do not see any fault...



I am talking about culpability here by the Bush Adminstration...what does that have to do with giving up rights and freedoms?

A lot of what you say here I agree with. And this is why I do not blame RWR, GHWB, WJC, GWB. At lunch I was even thinkng that JC could also be to blame if we want to blame US CICs. When the original hostages were kidnapped in the 70s the US should have done more to prevent all of this.

That however would start to erode the constitution as we know it today. There are many liberties I would give up to improve the odds that another 9/11, Ok City,93 WTC, etc. did not happen. But at that point where do the consessions end. I do not know, and actually would prefer not to find out.

Jimmy Carter did the perfect thing- all came back ALIVE.
Not one America was killed by enemy fire

and some can say the helicppters were sabatoged by Oliver"Traitor" North a convicted felon pardoned by Bush41 and let off on a technicallity

Thanks -- this ghelps to clarify my question regarding why a reference to our civil liberties was mentioned.

I agree.

I think that G4A's point above about how we really overreacted to 9/11 with the patriot act --- and really where we should have reacted is in securing our ports --- chemical plants and nuclear facilities -- securing the homeland --- rather than pushing for the erosiion of our civil liberties because --- frankly --- even if we lived in a police state --- terrorism could still occur --- so there is only so much protection secured from the elimination of the rights and freedoms...

The most security comes from those businesses which can provide the greatest damage being secured --- whether its sewage and chemical and nuclear and other plants --- and ports --- etc.

The real threat is from a nuclear device getting in and only with more stringent protection of our ports can this be prevented...

And wasn't Iran ready to give them back on carter's watch but Reagan wanted their release delayed or something like that?

Agreed



Agreed again. We differ on our opinions of how the USA would have accepted the pre 911 warnings.

IMHO, it would be unlikely that WE would have accepted the warnings. And if we had, and nothing happened, how long would we have put up with the measures put in place. Remember a good 30% plus of the population thinks GWB is the worst thing that ever was placed on the face of the earth, would their be any support for what would need to be done?

They were begining that is what has started this discussion. Who is Atta, who is he connected with?

The not retaliating the hit on the Cole because GWB was elected does not hold water with me. I want my CIC to act on what they and their staff think is the right thing to do, not because it would make life easier for their predissor. If we should retaliate January 19 2009, 13, 17... we shoulr retaliate. By wanting to avoid Mogadishu all overagain, only allowed OBL to suggest the USA really is a paper tiger and gain more support for his cause.




Again we agree, but this is how our society works. Go figure.


I do not know what was shreaded, or the reason any thing was shreaded or even illegally removed. I could put on my conspiricy hat here but I personally thing conspiricies are a waste of time.



I do not disagree with Clarke. I just can see why it all happened the way it did. I think people in the GWB administration thought Clarke was a "nut". (trying to read minds here) If Clarke was creditable, the WJC adminstration would be doing more. Since they were not he must be a "nut" and lets ignore him.

As it turns out Clarke was not a "nut" and should have been heard, not demoted. But if have seen this happen before in other situations. It is wrong, but it does happen.



Back to rewriting history (by me). IF GWB had proposed doing things to protect us, we would start to loose some of our rights and freedoms. I liked being able to carry a "letherman" on board a flight . I lost that freedom after 9/11. I have no problem with that, again I think it is silly, but I have no problem with that. I do not think I would be as accomodating had 9/11 not happened.

That is one theroy

I agree that whenever we cannot shed blood the better off we are.

But if the bully in the play ground is always taking your lunch money, the come a point when the bully needs a bloody nose.

I do not think JC should have invade Iran at the time. But thinking of VN and the US pull-out, then Iran, then eveything else the the US allowed to happen from the 80s on. There could be a very convicing case that the USA does not have what it takes to fight back, hence we reallly are a paper tiger.

I agree with that assessment --- and I think Pat Buchanan's column makes that point clearer -- but about my follow-up post?

Your obvious hate for North doesn't excuse your defamation of him, if you knew much about him (not the crap fed to the public) you'd know how despicable your comment is and how divorced from reality both your comment and nickname for him are. It probably hasn't even entered one of the few open areas in your mind that he wasn't even really right wing until the aftermath of Iran Contra and that shift was caused by the left being his enemies by THEIR choice.

The "technicality" was the rule of law, do you hate the constitution too or only when it protects people you hate? Of course he was pardoned, he was breaking the law no matter which way he went (which makes guilt impossible since both sets of laws can't be obeyed) except for accepting a gift of a security system which the government should have provided for his family but refused to.

By the way, it isn't public at this point but he was vitally important in saving hundreds of thousands of innocent lives before that, how many have YOU saved?

Didn't know some of those things about North.

Thanks for t