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The report of the September 11 Commission, once a best seller and hailed by the news media as the definitive word on the subject, must now be moved to the fiction shelves.
The commission concluded, you'll recall, that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon couldn't have been prevented, and that if there was negligence, it was as much the fault of the Bush administration (for moving slowly on the recommendations of Clinton counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke) than of the Clinton administration.
Able Danger has changed all of that.
Able Danger was a military intelligence unit set up by Special Operations Command in 1999. A year before the September 11 attacks, Able Danger identified hijack leader Mohamed Atta and the other members of his cell. But Clinton administration officials stopped them -- three times -- from sharing this information with the FBI.
The problem was the order Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick made forbidding intelligence operatives from sharing information with criminal investigators.
"They were stopped because the lawyers at that time in 2000 told them Mohamed Atta had a green card (he didn't) and they could not go after someone with a green card," said Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, who brought the existence of Able Danger to light.
The military spooks knew only that Atta and his confederates had links to al Qaeda. They hadn't unearthed their mission. But if the FBI had kept tabs on them (a big if, given the nature of the FBI at the time), September 11 almost certainly could have been prevented.
What may be a bigger scandal is that the staff of the September 11 Commission knew of Able Danger and what it had found, but made no mention of it in its report. This is as if the commission that investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor had written its final report without mentioning the Japanese.
Mr. Weldon unveiled Able Danger in a speech on the House floor June 27, but his remarks didn't attract attention until the New York Times reported on them Tuesday.
When the story broke, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, co-chairman of the September 11 Commission, at first denied the commission had ever been informed of what Able Danger had found, and took a swipe at Mr. Weldon's credibility:
"The September 11 Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of the surveillance of Mohamed Atta or his cell," Mr. Hamilton said. "Had we learned of it, obviously it would have been a major focus of our investigation."
Mr. Hamilton changed his tune after the New York Times reported Thursday, and the Associated Press confirmed, that commission staff had been briefed on Able Danger in October of 2003 and again in July of 2004.
It was in October of 2003 that Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger stole classified documents from the National Archives and destroyed some. Mr. Berger allegedly was studying documents in the archives to help prepare Clinton officials to testify before the September 11 Commission. Was he removing references to Able Danger? Someone should ask him before he is sentenced next month.
After having first denied that staff had been briefed on Able Danger, commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said no reference was made to it in the final report because "it was not consistent with what the commission knew about Atta's whereabouts before the attacks," the AP reported.
The only dispute over Atta's whereabouts is whether he was in Prague on April 9, 2001, to meet with Samir al Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer.
Czech intelligence insists he was. Able Danger, apparently, had information supporting the Czechs.
The CIA, and the September 11 Commission, say Atta wasn't in Prague April 9, because his cell phone was used in Florida that day. But there is no evidence of who used the phone. Atta could have lent it to a confederate. (It wouldn't have worked in Europe anyway.)
But acknowledging that possibility would leave open the likelihood that Saddam's regime was involved in, or at least had foreknowledge of, the September 11 attacks. And that would have been as uncomfortable for Democrats as the revelation that September 11 could have been prevented if it hadn't been for the Clinton administration's wall of separation.
The September 11 Commission wrote history as it wanted it to be, not as it was. The real history of what happened that terrible September day has yet to be written.
AROUND THE WORLD
U.S. was warned about bin Laden in '96
Items compiled from Tribune news services
August 17, 2005
AFGHANISTAN -- State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam, but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.
The analysts said in a top-secret assessment that bin Laden's "prolonged stay in Afghanistan could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.
Hundreds of "Arab mujahedeen" received terrorist training, and key extremist leaders often congregated in Afghanistan, the report said.
The declassified documents were obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.
Kathianne said:Funny thing, first this story looked like it would burst forth. Then there was some back peddaling. Now it looks like it has legs:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050817/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/sept_11_hijackers
Bonnie said:I think mainly because Cong Weldon decided to take this matter up on the floor of Congress and for once the NY Times actually picked it up and ran with it.
Psychoblues said:Clinton did try. His calls for emergency and warnings of imminent danger were completely ignored by the press, the Senate, even by GWB, and by many otherwise intelligent Americans.
Psychoblues
Adam's Apple said:I read this column yesterday and am absolutely stunned that the national press is leaving this story alone. Clinton just didn't want to deal with the terrorism threat and didn't, although it was the biggest outside threat facing the U.S. during his terms as President. It's clear why Clinton chose to have only two meetings with his CIA Director during his entire 8-year tenure. This kind of business just wasn't an interest of his, and eventually 3,000 innocent Americans paid the price for this lack of interest and action against the terrorists.
Adam's Apple said:This is not bullshit, even if you want to believe that it is. Clinton would NEVER have used the military for anything, except he was desperately trying to save his ass from a justified impeachment, and he was more than happy to pitch around a few bombs to refocus the news.
Regarding the Afghan-Russian war, my best recollection is that the Reagan Administration supported the Afghan freedom fighters against the Russian military invasion to keep Russian from taking permanent control of Afghanistan. Should we have stayed out of it and let Russia get control of Afghanistan?
From your post: "The 9/11 report confirmed Clinton's view of the story in suggesting that the CIA, FBI, and other law enforcement units, here and abroad, had more than enough information, but they weren't sharing the information. Had all the information been put together and placed before Clinton, he would have prevented 9/11." What a crock of poo-poo! Surely you do not believe this statement after all the information that has come out about the wall erected by Clinton to prevent this from ever happening? As far as that 9/11 Commission Report is concerned, it's becoming increasingly clearer that very significant information was made available to them that was not thoroughly investigated. Makes one wonder if the report is worth the paper it was written on now. How much other informatioin did they choose to ignore?
"Do you really think that a liberal president, with knowledge aforethought, will allow 3,000 people to die?" Well, I think President Clinton had much more information about Al Quada as a threat to the US mainland than we were ever permitted to believe, and I think he took all steps necessary to protect himself against having to deal with that threat while president. The threat was there while he was President; he just chose not to deal with it.
That's your opinion, not a fact!
hylandrdet said:I can't believe I'm about to do this...
I feel so naked; I feel like a whore, after a gang bang, because I ask for a link. I need to take shower; I feel dirty.
Clinton - Gorelick Wall, 9/11, and the "Jersey Girls"
Conservative Thoughts ^ | August 10, 2005 | John Kuethe
Posted on 08/10/2005 12:06:38 PM PDT by Wrangler22
Jamie Gorelick was #2 at the justice department while Janet Reno was Attorney General . She was the one who erected a wall between law enforcement agencies because the Clinton administration determined that they were going to fight terrorism not as a war but as a legal matter. They were going to use indictments, and they were going to use grand jury testimony to try to prosecute terrorists and, of course, grand jury testimony is, by law, confidential, and so any information gathered by the CIA or the FBI had to be turned over to the Justice Department. When they got it and took it to the grand jury, it became confidential, could not be shared with any of the other branches. This then is one of the reasons why we couldn't "connect the dots," to prevent 9/11, why the phone calls made by military officials with Able Danger to the commission staff went unreturned.
The next question is whether or not that is what Sandy Berger was shredding. Wasn't it convenient that he did this and that Jamie Gorelick was on the 9/11 commission. Now, staff assistants of the Sept. 11 commission are going to the National Archives to retrieve their notes on a U.S. military unit's information that four of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers were inside the United States a year before the attacks. It appears that a new investigation into what was known before the Bush Administration took office is afoot. Will the "Jersey Girls" retract their condemnation of the Bush admiistration on all the talk shows they were on? Probably not.
Kathianne said:Clinton built that wall, after his Justice Dept. screwed up at Waco and Ruby Ridge:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1460717/posts
hylandrdet said:I'll drink the kool aid! :cof:
Ahhh, needs more sugar!
The clinton administration, from that perspective, is only guilty of putting a dumb bitch in charge!
You haven't proven that Clinton had the knowledge of what was happening. I pay attention to detail Kathy; your link does not suggest that Bill Clinton knew that 9/11 was coming and ignored it.
I WANT A LINK THAT CONFIRMS THAT CLINTON KNEW THAT ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTERS WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!!!
I don't want to hear a report about some IDIOT making unauthorized moves. Your link reinforces my point that Bill didn't know!!!
so let's add it up
1. Reagan financed our future terrorists
2. Bush Sr., failed to secure Iraq
3. Republican congress distracts Clinton over a blow job
4. Jamie Gorelick, while the Clinton administration was distracted, came up with her own way of handling the terrorist information.
So where does all this lead to...my previous thread!
Hey kathy! I have some Lays potato chips to go with the SHIT sandwich we ALL have to eat...need a pickle?
Despite recent evidence that Bill Clinton knew by 1996 that al-Qaida terrorists who had tried to topple the World Trade Center in 1993 had plans to hijack commercial planes and crash them into buildings on American soil, this evidence was ignored by the recent Congressional report on the causes of the September 11, 2001 aerial attack on the WTC.
On May 20, 2002, David Horowitz, the Editor-in-Chief of this website, wrote an article entitled Why Bush Is Innocent and the Democrats Are Guilty. The article discussed Operation Bojinka, which came to the attention of U.S. authorities in 1995 when Abdul Hakim Murad, a terrorist, was captured in the Philippines. As reported by Maria Ressa in her September 18, 2001 article U.S. Warned In 1995 Of Plot To Hijack Planes, Attack Buildings on CNNs website:
The FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN.
Philippine authorities learned of the plot after a small fire in a Manila apartment, which turned out to be the hideout of Ramzi Yousef, who was later convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef escaped at the time, but agents caught his right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, who told them a chilling tale.
Murad narrated to us about a plan by the Ramzi cell in the continental U.S. to hijack a commercial plane and ram it into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and also the Pentagon," said Rodolfo Mendoza, a Philippine intelligence investigator.
Philippine investigators also found evidence targeting commercial towers in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.
They said they passed that information on to the FBI in 1995, but it's not clear what was done with it.
As reported by Doug Struck, Howard Schneider, Karl Vick and Peter Baker in their article Borderless Network of Terror in the Washington Post on September 23, 2001:
Arrested and tortured by Philippine intelligence agents, Murad told the story of 'Bojinka' -- 'loud bang' -- the code name bin Laden operatives had given to an audacious plan to bomb 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and fly an airplane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. -- all after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II.
Luis H. Francia reported in his article Local Is Global in the September 26, 2001 edition of the Village Voice that despite the FBIs post-9/11 denial of any warning signs for the airborne attack on the World Trade Center, much of the information about Bojinka was found on the terrorists laptop computer years earlier:
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller, there were "no warning signs" of the kamikaze assaults. But somewhere in its files there is information indicating that as early as 1995 there existed a chilling plot code-named "Project Bojinka," which included mid-air bombings of planes headed to the United States from Asian countries on a single day, as well as hijacking airliners and crashing them into targets like the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. According to Philippine authorities, this information was passed on that year to the U.S. Embassy in Manila and to the U.S. Joint Task Force on Terrorism.
Evidence of the plot surfaced when Ramzi Yousefone of three men convicted subsequently for the 1993 WTC bombing and sentenced to 240 years in prisonhastily fled a burning Manila apartment (and the country) just 200 yards from the Vatican Embassy. Cops found Manila street maps and clothing remarkably similar to that of Pope John Paul's entouragethe pontiff was due for a visit a week from the discoverysuggesting a planned attempt on his life. They also discovered bomb materials and a laptop whose disks revealed plans for Project Bojinkawhich means "loud explosion" in Arabic.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a computer expert who regularly assists the National Bureau of Investigation (the Philippine FBI counterpart) and the Philippine National Police in their investigations of computer-related crimes said he downloaded the files, revealing the terrorists' diabolical project. One plan called for the hijacking of U.S.-bound commercial airliners from various Asian capitals and then, according to him, crashing them into "key structures in the United States: The World Trade Center, the White House, the Pentagon, the Transamerican [sic] Tower, and the Sears Tower were among the prominent structures that had been identified in the plans that we had decoded." The expert pointed out that in fact a dry run had been conducted in 1994, on a Tokyo-bound Philippine Airlines flight, when a small bomb under a passenger seat went off, killing a Japanese tourist.
When I noted the discrepancy between blowing up the planes in flight and crashing them into buildings, the expert said, "When we searched the files in the archive, there was a specific plan to blow planes up, but there were several other plans. One of them was to crash [the planes] into specific targets." Abdul Hakim Murad, also convicted in the 1993 bombing and Yousef's Manila roommate, admitted to Philippine investigators that he suggested to Yousef hijacking a U.S. airliner and crashing it into the CIA building. Also, according to a Washington Post article, his interrogators learned that Murad had taken flying lessons at aviation schools in San Antonio, Schenectady, New York, and in New Bern, North Carolina.
Steve Fainaru reported in his article Clues Pointed to Changing Terrorist Tactics in the May 19, 2002 Washington Post:
A broad array of signals -- from foiled plots to FBI field interviews -- suggested for years that al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups had considered employing airplanes as missiles and U.S. flight schools as pilot training grounds.
The clues included a 1995 plot to blow up 11 American jetliners over the Pacific Ocean, then crash a light plane into CIA headquarters -- a suicide mission to have been carried out by a Pakistani pilot who had trained at flight schools in North Carolina, Texas and New York.
FBI investigators visited two of the flight schools in 1996 after the plot was uncovered in the Philippines, school operators said. In 1998 and 1999, analysts warned federal officials that terrorists might crash hijacked aircraft into landmarks such as the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Then, last July, the Italian government closed airspace over Genoa and mounted antiaircraft batteries based on information that Islamic extremists were planning to use an airplane to kill President Bush.
hylandrdet said:I'll drink the kool aid! :cof:
Ahhh, needs more sugar!
The clinton administration, from that perspective, is only guilty of putting a dumb bitch in charge!
You haven't proven that Clinton had the knowledge of what was happening. I pay attention to detail Kathy; your link does not suggest that Bill Clinton knew that 9/11 was coming and ignored it.
I WANT A LINK THAT CONFIRMS THAT CLINTON KNEW THAT ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTERS WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!!!
I don't want to hear a report about some IDIOT making unauthorized moves. Your link reinforces my point that Bill didn't know!!!
so let's add it up
1. Reagan financed our future terrorists
2. Bush Sr., failed to secure Iraq
3. Republican congress distracts Clinton over a blow job
4. Jamie Gorelick, while the Clinton administration was distracted, came up with her own way of handling the terrorist information.
So where does all this lead to...my previous thread!
Hey kathy! I have some Lays potato chips to go with the SHIT sandwich we ALL have to eat...need a pickle?
Clinton Admin. Knew of 9/11 Hijackers
More than a year before the 9/11 attacks, Clinton administration intelligence officials had identified four of the 19 9/11 hijackers as a terrorist threat - including al-Qaida team leader Mohamed Atta and his partner Marwan al-Shehhi, whose planes destroyed the World Trade Center and killed over 2,700 people.
But the critical information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton.
In the summer of 2000, a military team, known as Able Danger, had prepared a chart that included visa photographs of Atta and al Shehhi and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rep. Curt Weldon and a former intelligence official told the New York Times.
"We knew these were bad guys, and we wanted to do something about them," the former intelligence official said.
However, the recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, in part, said the Times, because the four suspects had entered the United States on valid entry visas.
But Rep. Weldon and the unnamed intelligence official also cited what the paper described as "a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency."
In fact, such intelligence sharing was strictly prohibited under Ms. Gorelick's policy, known at the Justice Department as "The Wall," which, in the spring of 2000, had also prevented the CIA from tipping off the FBI that two additional 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had entered the country.
Al-Midhar and al-Hamzi were identified by the Able Danger team as well, the Times said.
In its final report, however, the 9/11 Commission made no mention of the fact that the Clinton administration had identified key members of the hijack team, even though, the Times noted, that information had been shared with 9/11 Commission members.
The account by Weldon and the Times intelligence source is the first assertion that Atta and al Shehhi - who caused the most destruction in the worst attack ever suffered on U.S. soil - had been identified by the Clinton administration.
In testimony before the 9/11 Commission last year, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft blasted Gorelick's "Wall," saying, "The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents"
"[Ms. Gorelick] built that wall," said Ashcroft, "through a March 1995 memo."
The Gorelick memo stipulated, in part:
"We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation."
Ms. Gorelick is expected to be a leading candidate for attorney general should Mrs. Clinton win the 2008 presidential election.
