Gore Commission: Is the 911 Commission looking at the wrong problem?

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence sources have been warning that the threat of terrorism is changing in two important ways. First, it is no longer just an overseas threat from foreign terrorists. People and places in the United States have joined the list of targets, and Americans have joined the ranks of terrorists. The bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Federal Building in Oklahoma City are clear examples of the shift, as is the conviction of Ramzi Yousef for attempting to bomb twelve American airliners out of the sky over the Pacific Ocean. The second change is that in addition to well-known, established terrorist groups, it is becoming more common to find terrorists working alone or in ad-hoc groups, some of whom are not afraid to die in carrying out their designs. …. The terrorist threat is changing and growing. Therefore, it is important to improve security not just against familiar threats, such as explosives in checked baggage, but also to explore means of assessing and countering emerging threats, such as the use of biological or chemical agents, or the use of missiles. While these do not present significant threats at present, it would be short-sighted not to plan for their possible use and take prudent steps to counter them. “

The 911 commission is looking at the problem the wrong way. The problem was not an intelligence failure. It was a failure of enforcement and prevention. Why? Because we had the intellignece. See the full Gore Commission report. They knew about plots to hijack planes. In fact the government knew about hijacking since the 1960's. That is why we have metal detectors, baggage screeners and Air Marshall's. The Gore commission made 18 recommendations to improve security. Including the use of PROFILING. How come they were not implemented? (Could it be the recommendation of the Gore Commission were dropped after some heavy lobbying and substantail campaign contributions?) A single armed air marshall could have stopped this disaster. In fact, if air marshalls were in place it is likely the terrorist would not even attempted to use this method to bring about their destruction. Proof? Unarmed citizens of the US stopped them once they found out what was happening. The reason 911 happened is we, all americans, let our guard down. Thomas Jefferson said "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance". We have become more worried about a 60 billion education department than a 4 billion dollar air marshall program. For the full report go to http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/212fin~1.html

Did Al Gore let the airlines off the hook so he and Bill Clinton could have a little more campaign cash?

Here's the story, according to NewsMax.com and the Boston Globe.

After TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996, Al Gore was named chairman of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety. It came to be known as the "Gore commission."

So, on Sept. 9 of that year, the Gore commission produced a preliminary report – one that proposed several measures to improve security at airports. The proposals included matching every piece of baggage to a passenger and better training for airport screeners.

But the airlines complained. They said the new procedures would cost too much money. They said that more rigorous screening and baggage matching would take too much time, causing more delays and missed connections.

Ten days after the preliminary report came out, Gore sent a letter to Carol Hallett, an airline lobbyist. He promised her that the commission's findings would not result in any loss of revenue.

Within the next two weeks, the Democratic National Committee received a series of contributions from the following airlines:

TWA: $40,000 American: $265,000 Delta: $120,000 United: $115,000 Northwest: $87,000

That's a total of $627,000 for the 1996 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. The Boston Globe notes that "over the preceding 10-week period, the airlines gave the Democrats less than half that sum."

Then, after the election, Gore issued a draft of his final report. All of the security measures from the preliminary report were gone, according to one insider. Two members of the Gore commission balked. So did CIA Director John Deutch. Gore pulled the draft final report.

The final report came out a month later. It included the tough security requirements of the preliminary report – but gave no deadline for meeting them. Basically, without a timetable, the report wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

It doesn't end there. Gore capped his commission's report with a lie. In a meeting with other commission members in 1997, Gore said he would allow room for dissent by those who disagreed with the report. But, minutes later, he announced to Bill Clinton and the public that the report was the work of a unanimous commission!

The true Clinton-Gore legacy is starting to emerge, my friends, and it ain't pretty. It's a legacy that includes gutting intelligence budgets and letting the airlines off the hook in exchange for political contributions. Would 6,700 people be alive today if the CIA had the necessary resources and the airlines weren't so damned lax on security? We'll never know.

Newsmax

Your post is the key to it all. Someone today asked Rush's guest host, Roger Hedgecock, why GWB didn't read the 1996 PDB to Clinton describing Bojinka. As ridiculous as that question is on its face, someone in the administration was aware of that PDB: Dick Clarke. GWB held over much of Clinton's team in the hopes of getting just such continuity. Clarke and others let him and the country down in that respect. The current testimony proves that.

My guess about the '96 briefing is that even if GWB did read it, he would see it marked as "handled" by the Gore commission. But Gore traded effective measures for campaign contributions from the airlines as ravingnutter's post shows. As far as I'm concerned, the dots connect right back to AlGore. And Clarke should have been waving the original draft around saying that we had to implement the recommendations.

Actually, this problem was identified well before Gore came on the scene. After the PN103 tragedy a Presidential commission held hearings and made strong recommendations to President Bush in 1990.

The Wash Post had a good article on the findings and recommendations. Worth reading.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/panam103/stories/lax0590.htm

From the article: "The seven-member Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism also called for an official policy of "zero tolerance" for terrorism, including preparation for "preemptive or retaliatory military strikes against terrorist enclaves in nations that harbor them."

Nothing changed.

Interesting read if you havent seen it. You just cant please some people.

AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY (from Gregg Easterbrook's Easterblogg)

Washington, April 9, 2004. A hush fell over the city as George W. Bush today became the first president of the United States ever to be removed from office by impeachment. Meeting late into the night, the Senate unanimously voted to convict Bush following a trial on his bill of impeachment from the House.

Moments after being sworn in as the 44th president, Dick Cheney said that disgraced former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would be turned over to the Hague for trial in the International Court of Justice as a war criminal. Cheney said Washington would "firmly resist" international demands that Bush be extradited for prosecution as well. < snip >

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