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It was Kerry, not Bush, Who Failed to Act to Prevent 9/11 !
self
| 03-25-04
| WL-Law
Posted on 03/25/2004 6:44:27 AM PST by WL-law
Was it Kerry, not Bush, who was inattentive and negligent about terrorist threats in early 2001? Let's check the record.
Heres what the Bush administration was doing in May, 2001, based on suspicions of increased terrorist chatter:
Forcefully rebutting Clarke's testimony Wednesday to the 9/11 commission, Rice called reporters to her West Wing office and said that on July 5, 2001 -- two months before the terrorist attacks -- she personally ordered Clarke to alert domestic agencies that they needed to be on alert for the possibility of a terror strike.
Rice said she did so because of a "threat spike" in U.S. intelligence. While the intelligence suggested al Qaeda attacks in the Persian Gulf region or Israel, Rice said she and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card decided to ask Clarke to take some precautions domestically.
Now, contrast this with the actions of John F. Kerry, Senator from Massachusetts/Logan Airport:
Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings.
"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."
Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up.In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit.
The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures.
...
More than 11 weeks later, Kerry finally replied to his well-informed and anxious constituent. "I have forwarded your tape to the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General [DOT OIG]," he said in a brief July 24, 2001, letter, a copy of which I've obtained.
Yet Sullivan had made it clear in his letter that going to his old agency was a dead end. He and other agents had complained about security lapses for years and got nowhere. "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA," he told Kerry. Sullivan suggested he show the tape to peers on committees with FAA oversight. He even volunteered to testify before them.
But he never heard from Kerry again.
...
But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.
TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 911commission; bos; condoleezzarice; kerry; lga; logan; terrorist; warned
1
posted on
03/25/2004 6:44:27 AM PST
by
WL-law
To: WL-law
"But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175."
Bump. . .
2
posted on
03/25/2004 6:54:58 AM PST
by
cricket
To: WL-law
Please compile and list sources! This needs to be crammed down the Media's craw!
3
posted on
03/25/2004 6:59:32 AM PST
by
Solamente
To: Solamente
When you figure out how to do that and get it published, let me know!
4
posted on
03/25/2004 7:05:09 AM PST
by
Piquaboy
To: WL-law
Excellent work. If you can give us sources, we can contact the media with this little bombshell.
5
posted on
03/25/2004 7:11:05 AM PST
by
kitkat
To: Piquaboy
Here's the Kerry article by Paul Sperry, published in the NY Post on Marh 15:
http://nypost.com/seven/03152004/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20808.htm THE WARNING KERRY IGNORED
By PAUL SPERRY
March 15, 2004 -- SEN. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn't blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them.
Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings.
"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."
Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up. In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit.
The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures.
"With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers?" he warned. "Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely." The toll from such an attack would be economic, as well as human, he predicted with chilling accuracy.
Sullivan followed up by having the undercover videotape hand-delivered to Kerry's office.
More than 11 weeks later, Kerry finally replied to his well-informed and anxious constituent. "I have forwarded your tape to the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General [DOT OIG]," he said in a brief July 24, 2001, letter, a copy of which I've obtained.
Yet Sullivan had made it clear in his letter that going to his old agency was a dead end. He and other agents had complained about security lapses for years and got nowhere. "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA," he told Kerry. Sullivan suggested he show the tape to peers on committees with FAA oversight. He even volunteered to testify before them.
But he never heard from Kerry again.
At that point, Steve Elson, the other agent who'd teamed up on the TV sting, decided to take a crack at the junior senator.
A fiery ex-Navy Seal, Elson spent three years as part of an elite FAA unit called the Red Team, which did covert testing of airport security across the country, before retiring as a field agent in Houston. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports.
But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.
"Enhanced security would have prevented the hijackings, virtually without question," Elson now insists. If nothing else, it might have discouraged ringleader Mohamed Atta, who monitored security procedures at Logan weeks before the hijackings.
Yet the warnings apparently did stick in Kerry's mind: In the days after 9/11, Kerry told the Boston Globe that he'd triggered an undercover probe of Logan security by the General Accounting Office in June 2001.
But he wrote Sullivan no such thing in his July letter, stating only that he passed his warning and tape on to Transportation, not GAO. And GAO, though it is the investigative arm of Congress, didn't seem to know what the senator was talking about. The agency had tested security at two airports before 9/11, but neither one was Logan. And Kerry confessed he didn't know the outcome of the probe he says he triggered.
Some follow-up, senator.
Sullivan and Elson, joined by aviation-security experts David Forbes and Andrew Thomas, want to see Kerry hauled before the 9/11 Commission to answer questions about what he knew about Logan's lapses, and specifically what he did about them, before that fateful day. It's a reasonable request - especially since Kerry has complained that President Bush will only give the panel an hour of his time.
Where was Kerry's sense of urgency? Where was his leadership? These are fair questions to ask of someone vying for Bush's job.
"We don't have to wait for a tragedy to occur to act," Sullivan urged Kerry in his letter. But tragically, that's exactly what happened - at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and on both sides of the aisle.
6
posted on
03/25/2004 7:12:14 AM PST
by
WL-law
To: WL-law
Kerry and Clarke only act "courageously" when they know the Dems will provide them with Capitol microphones.
John Kerry speaks out against government "mistakes" --Thursday, April 22, 1971
Dick Clarke speaks out against government "mistakes" -- Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Congressional microphones can be seen as a metallic version of viagra, useful for men looking to enhance their chances of getting ahead in their careers.
7
posted on
03/25/2004 7:14:14 AM PST
by
syriacus
(Clarke and Kerry found courage to speak out when they knew Dems would give them the Capitol mike.)
To: WL-law
Whose fault?
I would say any Federal office holder or bureaucrat in a position of authority who did not place the country's security at the top of the priority list.
I would add that any office holder who put his/her interests above the security of the country and who did not provide the necessary funds/tools for the military and security agencies to do their jobs is most at fault.
8
posted on
03/25/2004 7:22:39 AM PST
by
Loyal Buckeye
((Kerry is a flake))
To: Loyal Buckeye
I contend that it was the fault of Islamic terrorists.
To: tractorman
I have wanted for a while to add this comment to a relevant thread:
Prior to 9/11, the left criminalized the ONE GUARANTEED method by which 9/11 could have been prevented:
PROFILING.
10
posted on
03/25/2004 7:37:08 AM PST
by
gg188
To: gg188
So true. Political Correctness played a part in the 9/11 attack.
11
posted on
03/25/2004 8:19:37 AM PST
by
arasina
(So there.)
To: WL-law
WL, please add your sources to this so we can spread it around, it's too good not to gain some legs...thanks.
12
posted on
03/26/2004 10:50:44 AM PST
by
yoe
(The worse it is – the better it is!!)
To: WL-law
Thanks - Paul Sperry is always good!
13
posted on
03/26/2004 11:00:08 AM PST
by
yoe
(The worse it is – the better it is!!)
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