Listen to Lehman - The press attention is on the wrong commissioners.

National Review Online ^ | April 15, 2004 | Michael Smerconish

[So Cal Rocket]

Richard Ben-Veniste and Bob Kerrey received the lion's share of media attention paid to last week's 9/11 Commission hearing with Condoleezza Rice, thanks to their generally intemperate questioning style. But while Ben-Veniste and Kerrey played to the cameras, it was their colleague, John Lehman, who was breaking new ground with the national-security adviser, but few noticed.

Lehman's focus was the transition between the Clinton and Bush administrations. He told Rice that he was "struck by the continuity of the policies rather than the differences," and then he proceeded to ask Rice a series of blunt questions as to what she was told during the transition.

Among Lehman's questions was this: "Were you aware that it was the policy...to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?"

Rice replied: "No, I have to say that the kind of inside arrangements for the FAA are not really in my...." (Lehman quickly followed up: "Well, these are not so inside.")

Watching the hearings on television with the rest of the nation, I wondered what in the world Secretary Lehman was talking about. This, I'd never heard before. Was he saying that the security of our airlines had been sacrificed by political correctness? A few days after the klieg lights had faded, I had the chance to ask him.

"We had testimony a couple of months ago from the past president of United, and current president of American Airlines that kind of shocked us all," Lehman told me. "They said under oath that indeed the Department of Transportation continued to fine any airline that was caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in a secondary line for line for questioning, including and especially, two Arabs."

Wait a minute. So if airline security had three suspicious Arab guys they had had to let one go because they'd reached a quota?

That was it, Lehman said, "because of this political correctness that became so entrenched in the 1990s, and continues in current administration. No one approves of racial profiling, that is not the issue. The fact is that Norwegian women are not, and 85-year-old women with aluminum walkers are not, the source of the terrorist threat. The fact is that our enemy is the violent Islamic extremism and the overwhelming number of people that one need to worry about are young Arab males, and to ask them a couple of extra questions seems to me to be common sense, yet if an airline does that in numbers that are more than proportionate to their number in particular line, then they get fined and that is why you see so many blue haired old ladies and people that are clearly not of Middle Eastern extraction being hauled out in such numbers because otherwise they get fined."

How refreshing to hear somebody tell it like it is. Too bad this critically important subject is not receiving the attention afforded to items like the now-infamous "PDB" of August 6, 2001. Are we certain airlines are not still abiding by this policy?

So I ran all of this by Herb Kelleher, the legendary chairman of Southwest Airlines. Kelleher confirmed it, and that it began during the Clinton administration. The Justice Department said it was "concerned about equality of treatment with respect to screening." Kelleher said, "The random element was put in...where you just choose people at random as opposed to picking them out for some particular reason, and that of course caused a great many more people to be screened."

"So we don't offend?" I asked.

"That was the root of it, yes," he said.

I'm starting to understand why John McCain was insistent that Secretary Lehman be put on the commission. Like McCain, Lehman isn't beholden to the partisan Democrats, or to the administration. This former Navy reserve officer who flew combat missions over Vietnam and was named Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy when he was just 38 years old, seems only to want the truth exposed, without regard for the blame game that has come to characterize the public proceedings of the 9/11 Commission. I only wish we had nine more like him, in which case I'd be much more confident that we're in the process of getting to the bottom of what went wrong and ensuring it doesn't happen again, instead of the high-stakes partisan skirmish that seems to have taken shape.

[jim macomber]

Phew! Sure glad we can be sure they'd never think of assigning two teams to the same flight.

[lilylangtree]

That's why the media wouldn't focus on any others because they wanted the political posturing by Kerrey & Benveniste who were ready to pounce on any Bush Admin. They blame the Bush Admin because they're pubbies, plain and simple. The more blame on the Bush Admin the less focus on the ineptness and corruptness of the Clintoonian Admin. That's why this commission is a joke, a political dog and pony show, completely worthless except to have these former politicos use the media as an outlet for their frustrated personal egos and political convictions. THE TRUTH WILL BE NEVER BE FOUND.

[Just mythoughts]

Sure would be helpful when the exact date this policy was put into place.

We find that it was March 1995 that the Clintons has Gorelick put a cement wall between prosecutors and intel gathers.

[Gorjus]

The problem with the idea of profiling Arab-appearing men is that it underestimates their evil.

Scenario: A little old 'blue-haired grandmother who uses an aluminum walker' is sitting in her home watching TV. Her door is forced open and in walk four men, dragging her daughter, her son-in-law, and her granddaughter. Before her eyes they brutally murder the son-in-law. Then they say, "We'll kill your daughter and granddaughter unless you carry our weapons onboard this airline flight."

What's she going to do?

And that's why we need to make it clear to the terrorists that using somone who appears innocent as a 'mule' is not a good tactic. Of course, the 'two-man' limit is stupid, but you can't set up a 'significantly-less-likely-to-be-checked' group either.

(My own solution would be essentially the opposite. Let anyone with a valid concealed-carry permit bypass security entirely - and hang a sign near each gate that says, "Ultimately, you passengers are responsible for your own safety.")

[Defiant]

Do you really think Granny would kill 200 people to save her daughter? Maybe some sick people would, but if I were a terrorist, I would try to think of a better plan.

We need to profile the Arabs like Israel does on el Al, and we can do other things to all passengers, like metal detectors and baggage scans, that will be sufficient for general security.

[ravingnutter]

The Justice Department said it was "concerned about equality of treatment with respect to screening." Kelleher said, "The random element was put in...where you just choose people at random as opposed to picking them out for some particular reason, and that of course caused a great many more people to be screened."

Hmmmm...maybe another Gorelick maneuver? Interesting.

[Gorjus]

Do you really think Granny would kill 200 people to save her daughter?

Do I think she would do something that would instantly kill 200 people to save her daughter? Maybe not. But do I think a little old lady might go along for a while - hoping all the while that something would happen to make things 'okay? Or perhaps tell herself that carrying some 'box cutters' wasn't that bad - at least, not against the murder of her daughter and granddaughter.

The real question is, would she tell them to kill her daughter and granddaughter, right there and then, or would she go along in a 'put off the bad news until later' desperate hope?

And most of all, do we ever want to take the chance that some terrorist might think that we cowardly Americans would bow to their threat?

[dalebert]

Just see how much publicity this gets.

[Diddle E. Squat]

They said under oath that indeed the Department of Transportation continued to fine any airline that was caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in a secondary line for line for questioning, including and especially, two Arabs." Wait a minute. So if airline security had three suspicious Arab guys they had had to let one go because they'd reached a quota? That was it, Lehman said

[hchutch]

You know, Rumsfeld is not a bad SECDEF.

John Lehman, though, has the potential to be just as good, if not better. He was, IMHO, a superb Secretary of the Navy. I think he'd be an excellent choice for either Dubya's second term or for when Jeb takes office in January, 2009.

[GeorgiaYankee]

bump

[Timocrat]

They said under oath that indeed the Department of Transportation continued to fine any airline that was caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in a secondary line for line for questioning, including and especially, two Arabs."

So in other words when a bunch of Saudis fly in from Maine on a connector flight to Bostons Logan and the airline doesn't like the look of them they can only detain one otherwise they get fined. So if the airline had tried to detain the 9/11 highjackers they would have been fined. What I want to know is "who was the individual who introduced this policy and why is it still in place". If it really was introduced under Clinton it becomes much clearer why J'aime Gore Lick is on the commission she's been sent in to cover-up what went on under Clinton.

[Two-Bits]

So in other words when a bunch of Saudis fly in from Maine on a connector flight to Bostons Logan and the airline doesn't like the look of them they can only detain one otherwise they get fined. So if the airline had tried to detain the 9/11 highjackers they would have been fined. What I want to know is "who was the individual who introduced this policy and why is it still in place". If it really was introduced under Clinton it becomes much clearer why J'aime

I think you hit the nail on the head. This whole things smells to high heavens. The lefties are really going to the extremes to take the light off of the Clinton years. Hillary is running - No two ways about it. She has already been away from power the last four years and there is no way she is going to wait another four....

[Argus]

Lehman's focus was the transition between the Clinton and Bush administrations. He told Rice that he was "struck by the continuity of the policies rather than the differences,"

So am I. Especially policies like these at the DOT, and the equally boneheaded decision to give the leftist bureaucrats at the State Department responsibility for the occupation of Iraq, which is at the root of most of the difficulty we're having there right now.

President Bush should realize by now that his project to "change the world" will never have a prayer so long as he leaves the same people who've screwed everything up in charge.

[AuntB]

I tried to listen to all the testimony, but missed this!! Thanks.

Lehman also got into this with Freeh:


OKC BOMBING FALLOUT: 9-11 panel confronts Freeh on Iraq link
worldnetdaily.com ^ | Posted: April 14, 2004 | worldnetdaily.com

Posted on 04/14/2004 7:21:18 PM PDT by ovrtaxt

Sept. 11 Commission testimony by former FBI Director Louis Freeh yesterday lent credibility to a theory that Iraq was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, according to an investigative reporter whose new book on the subject was addressed at the hearing.


Jayna Davis, author of "The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing," told WorldNetDaily Freeh's "carefully parsed" response to a question about her findings "expressed his belief that the book is a credible source."


The new release by WND Books presents substantial evidence of Iraqi involvement and a refusal by federal government agents to investigate the bombing that killed nearly 170 people in April 19, 1995.


Davis repeatedly has tried since 1997, with no success, to convince the FBI to examine her investigation.


Yesterday, however, Lehman brought the issue before the 9-11 Commission with the former FBI director on the witness stand.


LEHMAN: One last question. The Oklahoma City case – again, one of the criticisms has been that one of the problems of the case law approach to intelligence is that, once you focus on a convicting particular terrorists, that there has to be a hypothesis of the case and that's where all of the investigative resources are put in. In the case of Oklahoma City, the hypothesis was that there were two Americans and they acted alone. There's a new book out now, as you probably know, called The Third Terrorist, that has new information that begs for further investigation showing the links or purporting very significant links between Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines, and also links between the two perpetrators and Hussein al-Husseini, the Iraqi, perhaps, agent. Are you satisfied that you ran all of these potential Al Qaida links to ground with McVeigh and Nichols?

FREEH: Well, other than that book, which I haven't read, you know, I don't know any other credible source with respect to that kind of a link. No, I have not run those links myself. I certainly was not aware of them when I was FBI director. I know that there is a review going on with respect to some of the matters that have been raised by his attorney in connection with the state murder prosecution that's ongoing. I guess I don't want to say anything with respect to that case as it's being tried now by a judge and a jury. But I don't know of any connections, except the one you've just mentioned, between Ramzi Yousef and that terrorist act.


Davis noted Freeh was careful to say he knew of no other "credible source," instead of dismissing the premise of the book outright.


"I find it very encouraging," she said, "because every time the FBI has been asked to officially comment in any fashion about my research, we have the same canned response that the Department of Justice is confident that all those responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing have been arrested, charged and prosecuted."


Or we hear, she continued, "that the FBI dedicated an untold number of resource and manpower into the largest criminal investigation of the 20th century and turned up no credible evidence of a Middle East connection."


Freeh's response, Davis emphasized, is "huge."


"He would not rule it out," she said.


Davis said it's possible Freeh was not aware during his time as FBI director of any credible sources linking Iraq to the bombing.


"It was my impression he was being sincere," she said. "According to my sources in the FBI, he was last to know anything."


Davis's reporting was vetted by former CIA director James Woolsey and given credibility by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals last April when it dismissed a lawsuit filed against her after finding "defendants did not recklessly disregard the truth" in reporting on an Iraqi soldier's alleged involvement in the bombing.


"After eight years of oppressive litigation, the courts have vindicated my work ethic as a dedicated journalist," Davis told WorldNetDaily at the time. "The lawsuit was obviously designed to silence a legitimate investigation into Middle Eastern complicity in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing."


In an interview with WND in October 2001, attorney David Schippers, who prosecuted the House of Representatives' impeachment case against Bill Clinton, said his examination of the evidence Davis presented him was conclusive.


"I am thoroughly convinced that there was a dead-bang Middle Eastern connection in the Oklahoma City bombing," he said.


Read WorldNetDaily's extensive coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing case.

[TC Rider]

This is the first I've heard of this.

I am absolutely gobsmacked!!

[bvw]

I thought I heard Smerconish today at the end of his AM radio show that he had links to the Airline executives testimony on his website (http://www.mastalk.com/default.asp). I could not find those links.

This is the testimony of the three airline executives before the 9-11 kangaroos sitting in chambers. The executives testified under oath that the airlines after 9-11 were still subject to a foolish tyranny of political correctness imposed by the petty bastards and sinecurees Federales at DOT.

This tyranny amounts to arbitary fines whenever the captains and flight staff of the airlines pull passangers they feel might be problems.

Lord High Admiral Brassy-Brass-Many-Gold-Stripes-On-My-Arm of the DOT has denied those claims.

[prognostigaator]

Yeah- a bump it so it does.....

[Geritol]

"So if the airline had tried to detain the 9/11 hijackers they would have been fined. "

At this point the situation is even worse. The policy must be immediately rescinded if it is not already. Since the policy is now published, if it is not immediately changed, it can be actively used to put otherwise caught people onto the plane.

All they would have to do is have 1 or 2 overly suspicious but otherwise legal people fill the quota for their persuasion, then have the real illegal materials carried by the following fellow ethnics.

Of course since the screeners have been federalized, the policy of fining the airlines is already gone, but does anyone know if the current screeners are operating under the same guidelines?