NORTHWEST FLIGHT 327 (Reinhard)

Thirteen Middle Eastern men -- 12 from Syria, one a permanent U.S. resident from Lebanon -- had one-way tickets for the weekday nonstop from Detroit to Los Angeles. The men, a musical group and their U.S. promoter, took seats all over the plane. Takeoff was delayed when one man with a limp refused to move from an emergency row, pretending he did not understand English.

In flight, one or two of the men walked the aisle, seeming to count passengers. One rushed to the front of the plane in the direction of the cockpit, peeling off at the last moment into the first-class restroom. There he remained for 20 minutes. One of the men went into a lavatory with a large McDonald's bag and made a thumbs-up sign to another man upon returning. Another made a "slashing motion across his throat, appearing to say "No." Several of the men spent "excessive time" in the lavatories, and one returned to his seat reeking of toilet bowl chemicals. Several of the men got up when the seat belt sign came on in preparation for landing.

We know all this, not from one of the Flight 327 passengers, though passenger Annie Jacobsen did post an Internet article on the behavior she witnessed and the terror she felt that day. We know all this and more, because of a recent report by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security -- a report only made public thanks to The Washington Times' doggedness over two years.

When Jacobsen recounted these suspicious doings a few weeks later and suggested they might be a "dry run" for a terror hit, she became the issue. The government not only denied anything was amiss -- nothing here but a bunch of Syrian musicians on their way to a gig, move along now -- but air marshals let it be known that she was really more of a concern than the 13 men. And that was the least of it. Some writers mocked Jacobsen as a hysteric, a bigot and a bad writer to boot.

The inspector general report didn't look into her writing, but it makes clear she was on to something.

It turns out that air marshals were concerned about the men even before they boarded. Six arrived at the gate as a group and proceeded to split and act as if they didn't know each other. An air marshal said they were sweaty and nervous. Their behavior was, according to one marshal, "unusual." It also turns out that Jacobsen and other passengers weren't the first folks on the plane troubled by the men's behavior. Well before Jacobsen approached the flight attendants about the men, the attendants and marshals were on the case. Law-enforcement officials were waiting for Flight 327 when it landed. They detained all 13 for a short time, releasing them after questioning only two.

Homeland Security officials failed to report the incident to the Homeland Security Operations Center, the nation's nexus for information sharing and domestic incident management. This despite earlier FBI warnings that terrorists were planning to use ready-to-build bombs that could be assembled in airplane bathrooms. This despite an FBI warning in April 2004 that terrorists may try to use cultural and sports visas to enter the United States. This despite the fact that the Syrians were traveling on entertainment visas.

Not until two days after the Washington Times reported on the flight and White House terrorism officials asked about the incident did Homeland Security folks enter it in the Operations Center's logs.

The incident never made it into the government's National Threat and Incident Database.

In a background check for a visa-extension prior to the flight, eight of the 12 Syrians had "positive hits" for past criminal records or suspicious behavior.

Only when government agencies started investigating the incident did they discover the promoter had been involved in a similar incident with seven other men on a January Frontier Airlines flight from Houston to San Francisco. He was detained in September on a return trip from Turkey, the report says, though the details are redacted.

Was this a dry run or an aborted attack? The Washington Times showed the redacted report to former air marshals. Their conclusion: It could be either. In addition, Flight 327 is not the first such probe.

The inspector general's report reveals a system breakdown -- if there was a system to break down. And the fact that the incident was deemed worthy of investigation only after media reports and White House inquiries suggests it might be worse than that.

"I think it now merits an investigation of a cover-up," terrorism expert Steve Emerson told me week.

Every time I read an editorial by this gentleman, David Reinhard. I am surprised that he was hired and still works for the Hate America Oregonian. Below is one of his hard hitting editorials against the NY Slimes traitors:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1657984/posts

Who died and left you president of the United States? (NYT)
Oregonian ^ | 6-29-06 | David Reinhard, Associate Editor

Posted on 06/29/2006 1:54:16 PM PDT by veronica

Dear Bill Keller:

Remember me? We met in the elevator here at The Oregonian recently. Your decision to expose a secret program to track terrorist funding got me to thinking I had better write and apologize. I don’t think I was sufficiently deferential on our brief ride together. I treated you like the executive editor of The New York Times who used to work for The Oregonian. I had no idea I was riding with the man who decides what classified programs will be made public during a war on terror. I had no idea the American people had elected you president and commander in chief.

Yes, I’m being sarcastic. What’s that they say — sarcasm is anger’s ugly cousin? I’m angry, Bill.

I get angry when a few unauthorized individuals take it upon themselves to undermine an anti-terror program that even your own paper deems legal and successful. I get angry when the same people decide to blow the lid on a secret program designed to keep Islamic terrorists from killing Americans en masse.

“The disclosure of this program,” President Bush said Monday, “is disgraceful.”

Strong words, but not strong enough, Bill.

Your decision was contemptible, but your Sunday letter explaining the Times’ decision only undermined your case for disclosure.

“It’s an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press . . .,” you wrote. “[T]he people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy. . . . They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.”

Too true, but the issue here is your judgment. It would be one thing if you ran this story because the program was illegal, abusive or feckless. Yet your paper established nothing of the kind. In the end, your patronizing and lame letter offered only press-convention bromides (”a matter of public interest”).

“Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it’s the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong disagreements,” you write, after providing a tutorial on how the government only wants the press to publish the official line and the press believes “citizens can be entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news.”

But this is a false and self-serving choice. The issue is your decision to publish classified information that can only aid our enemies. The founders didn’t give the media or unnamed sources a license to expose secret national security operations in wartime. They set up a Congress to pass laws against disclosing state secrets and an executive branch to conduct secret operations so the new nation could actually defend itself from enemies, foreign and domestic.

Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it’s the kind of elementary stuff that can get lost in the heat of strong disagreements. And get more people killed in the United States or Iraq.

Not to worry, you tell us, terrorists already know we track their funding, and disclosure won’t undercut the program. (Contradictory claims, but what the heck.) You at the Times know better. You know better than government officials who said disclosing the program’s methods and means would jeopardize a successful enterprise. You know better than the 9/11 Commission chairmen who urged you not to run the story. Better than Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were briefed on the program. Better than the Supreme Court, which has held since 1976 that bank records are not constitutionally protected. Better than Congress, which established the administrative subpoenas used in this program.

Maybe you do. But whether you do or not, there’s no accountability. If you’re wrong and we fail to stop a terror plot and people die because of your story, who’s going to know, much less hold you accountable? No, the government will be blamed — oh, happy day, maybe Bush’s White House! — for not connecting dots or crippling terror networks. The Times might even run the kind of editorial it ran on Sept. 24, 2001. Remember? The one that said “much more is needed” to track terror loot, including “greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities”?

Keep up the good work — for al-Qaida.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.