How ChinaGate Led to 9/11

As the 9/11 Commission tries to uncover what kept intelligence agencies from preventing September 11, it has overlooked two vital factors: Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton. Gorelick, who has browbeaten the current administration, helped erect the walls between the FBI, CIA and local investigators that made 9/11 inevitable. However, she was merely expanding the policy Bill Clinton established with Presidential Decision Directive 24. What has been little underreported is why the policy came about: to thwart investigations into the Chinese funding of Clinton’s re-election campaign, and the favors he bestowed on them in return.

In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw.

It’s a story the 9/11 Commission may not want to hear, and one that Gorelick – now incredibly a member of that commission – has so far refused to tell. But it is perhaps the most crucial one to understanding the intentional breakdown of intelligence that led to the September 11 disaster.

Nearly from the moment Gorelick took office in the Clinton Justice Department, she began acting as the point woman for a large-scale bureaucratic reorganization of intelligence agencies that ultimately placed the gathering of intelligence, and decisions about what – if anything – would be done with it. This entire operation was under near-direct control of the White House. In the process, more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations underway at the time got caught beneath the heel of the presidential boot, investigations that would ultimately reveal massive Chinese espionage as millions in illegal Chinese donations filled Democratic Party campaign coffers.

When Gorelick took office in 1994, the CIA was reeling from the news that a Russian spy had been found in CIA ranks, and Congress was hungry for a quick fix. A month after Gorelick was sworn in, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 24. PDD 24 put intelligence gathering under the direct control of the president’s National Security Council, and ultimately the White House, through a four-level, top-down chain of command set up to govern (that is, stifle) intelligence sharing and cooperation between intelligence agencies. From the moment the directive was implemented, intelligence sharing became a bureaucratic nightmare that required negotiating a befuddling bureaucracy that stopped directly at the President’s office.

First, the directive effectively neutered the CIA by creating a National Counterintelligence Center (NCI) to oversee the Agency. NCI was staffed by an FBI agent appointed by the Clinton administration. It also brought multiple international investigations underway at the time under direct administrative control. The job of the NCI was to “implement counterintelligence activities,” which meant that virtually everything the CIA did, from a foreign intelligence agent’s report to polygraph test results, now passed through the intelligence center that PDD 24 created.

NCI reported to an administration-appointed National Counterintelligence Operations Board (NCOB) charged with “discussing counterintelligence matters.” The NCOB in turn reported to a National Intelligence Policy Board, which coordinated activities between intelligence agencies attempting to work together. The policy board reported “directly” to the president through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The result was a massive bureaucratic roadblock for the CIA – which at the time had a vast lead on the FBI in foreign intelligence – and for the FBI itself, which was also forced to report to the NCOB. This hampered cooperation between the two entities. All this occurred at a time when both agencies were working separate ends of investigations that would eventually implicate China in technology transfers and the Democratic Party in a Chinese campaign cash grab.

And the woman charged with selling this plan to Congress, convince the media and ultimately implement much of it? Jamie Gorelick.

Many in Congress, including some Democrats, found the changes PDD 24 put in place baffling: they seemed to do nothing to insulate the CIA from infiltration while devastating the agency’s ability to collect information. At the time, Democrat House Intelligence Chairman Dan Glickman referred to the plan as “regulatory gobbledygook." Others questioned how FBI control of CIA intelligence would foster greater communication between the lower levels of the CIA and FBI, now that all information would have to be run through a multi-tier bureaucratic maze that only went upward.

Despite their doubts, Gorelick helped the administration sell the plan on Capitol Hill. The Directive stood.

But that wasn’t good enough for the Clinton administration, which wanted control over every criminal and intelligence investigation, domestic and foreign, for reasons that would become apparent in a few years. For the first time in Justice Department history, a political appointee, Richard Scruggs – an old crony or Attorney General Janet Reno’s from Florida – was put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The court’s activities are kept secret from the public.

A year after PDD 24, with the new bureaucratic structure loaded with administration appointees, Gorelick drafted the 1995 memo Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned while testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The Gorelick memo, and other supporting memos released in recent weeks, not only created walls within the intelligence agencies that prevented information sharing among their own agents, but effectively walled these agencies off from each other and from outside contact with the U.S. prosecutors instrumental in helping them gather the evidence needed to make the case for criminal charges.

The only place left to go with intelligence information – particularly for efforts to share intelligence information or obtain search warrants – was straight up Clinton and Gorelick’s multi-tiered chain of command. Instead, information lethal to the Democratic Party languished inside the Justice Department, trapped behind Gorelick’s walls.

The implications were enormous. In her letter of protest to Attorney General Reno over Gorelick’s memo, United States Attorney Mary Jo White spelled them out: “These instructions leave entirely to OIPR and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage,” White wrote. (Like OIPR, the Criminal Division is also part of the Justice Department.)

Without an enforcer, the walls might Gorelick’s memo put in place might not have held. But Scruggs acted as that enforcer, and he excelled at it. Scruggs maintained Gorelick’s walls between the FBI and Justice's Criminal Division by threatening to automatically reject any FBI request for a wiretap or search warrant if the Bureau contacted the Justice Department's Criminal Division without permission. This deprived the FBI, and ultimately the CIA, of gathering advice and assistance from the Criminal Division that was critical in espionage and terrorist cases.

It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react.

Gorelick’s appointment to the job at Justice in 1994 occurred during a period in which the FBI had begun to systematically investigate technology theft by foreign powers. For the first time, these investigations singled out the U.S. chemical, telecommunications, aircraft and aerospace industries for intelligence collection.

By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning:

In an investigation originally instigated by the CIA, the FBI was beginning its search for the source of the leak of W-88 nuclear warhead technology to China among the more than 1,000 people who had access to the secrets. Despite Justice Department stonewalling and the Department’s refusal to seek wiretap authority in 1997, the investigation eventually led to Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The FBI first collected Extensive evidence in 1995 linking illegal Democratic Party donations to China, according to the Congressional Record. But Congress and the Director of the CIA didn’t find out about the Justice Department’s failure to act upon that evidence until 1997, safely after the 1996 election. According to classified CIA documents leaked to the Washington Times, between 1994 and 1997, the CIA learned that China sold Iran missile technology, a nuclear fission reactor, advanced air-defense radar and chemical agents. The Chinese also provided 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan, used in producing weapons-grade uranium. The Chinese also provided uranium fuel for India's reactors.

In many cases the CIA resorting to leaking classified information to the media, in an effort to bypass the administration’s blackout.

Gorelick knew these facts well. While Clinton may have refused to meet with top CIA officials, Gorelick didn’t. According to a 1996 report by the legal news service American Lawyer Media, Gorelick and then-Deputy Director of the CIA George Tenet met every other week to discuss intelligence and intelligence sharing.

But those in the Clinton administration weren’t the only ones to gain from the secrecy. In 1994, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation transferred military-use machine tools to the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation that ended up in the hands of the Chinese army. The sale occurred despite Defense Department objections. McDonnell Douglas was a client of the Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, L.L.P. (now called Baker Botts), the Washington, D.C., law firm where Gorelick worked for 17 years and was a partner. Ray Larroca, another partner in the firm, represented McDonnell in the Justice Department’s investigation of the technology transfer.

In 1995, General Electric, a former client of Gorelick’s, also had much to lose if the damaging information the CIA and the FBI had reached Congress. At the time, GE was publicly lobbying for a lucrative permit to assist the Chinese in replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear plants. A 1990 law required that the president certify to Congress that China was not aiding in nuclear proliferation before U.S. companies could execute the business agreement.

Moreover, in 1995, Michael Armstrong, then the CEO of Hughes Electronics – a division of General Electric and another client of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin – was publicly lobbying Clinton to switch satellite export controls from the State Department to the Commerce Department. After the controls were lifted, Hughes and another company gave sensitive data to the Chinese, equipment a Pentagon study later concluded would allow China to develop intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles aimed at American targets. Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin partner Randall Turk represented Hughes in the Congressional, State Department, and Justice Department investigations that resulted.

The Cox Report, which detailed Chinese espionage for Congress during the period, revealed that FBI surveillance caught Chinese officials frantically trying to keep Democratic donor Johnny Chung from divulging any information that would be damaging to Hughes Electronics. Chung funneled $300,000 in illegal contributions from the Chinese military to the DNC between 1994 and 1996.

It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her.

Some good info here:

Able Danger Twenty Questions

http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/index.php?p=157

Everything you always wanted to know (but were afraid to ask, or the answers were classified…) about the controversial Able Danger data mining project, which identified four 9/11 hijackers a year before the terror attacks.

1. Did Anthony Shaffer, or anyone on the Able Danger team, obtain a photo of Mohamed Atta from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), as Shaffer’s interview with Government Security News (GSN) states?

The photo of Atta came from an information broker who provided it and others. Shaffer’s comments were made to GSN based on his knowledge at the time, which came from his knowledge of what the US Army’s Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) operations center had access to. Shaffer’s interview with GSN took place before civilian analyst JD Smith came forward and clarified the issue. Shaffer did not know in 1999-2000 all the specifics of how Smith and company were doing the detailed data mining – it was Shaffer’s belief at the time that the photo had come from INS records. LIWA did have access to INS documents - and a Defense Department intelligence program called the Foreign Visitor Program, in which not only photos of foreign nationals but also their entire visa application were provided – but Shaffer was not aware of LIWA’s use of information brokers.

2. If Atta was identified as early as January or February of 2000 – as Captain Scott Phillpott has said - when were the other three hijackers (Shehhi, Mihdhar, and Hamzi) identified by Able Danger?

Within the same timeframe, since the missing chart contained the names of all four of the then-future hijackers. They were all listed in what Phillpott had called “the Brooklyn Cell” - not that they were all in Brooklyn, but they met the search criteria that linked them to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

3. Did anyone on the Able Danger team know that any of these four were ever in the US? If so, when did they find out and how?

They did not know, as it was not Able Danger’s job to track individuals in the U.S. (based on legal restrictions.) Once it was determined by Defense Department (DOD) lawyers that the “Brooklyn Cell” information could not be used for offensive planning by the Able Danger planners, the Able Danger team then attempted to pass the information to the FBI for its use. At any given time, there was no specific knowledge of where the terrorists were regarding the continental United States. The Able Danger effort, and targeting of specific individuals, was focused on overseas locations.

4. By early June 2000, these four were the only ones to have entered the US. Most of the hijackers entered the US after May 2001. Is it reasonable to predict that Able Danger could have identified the others, had it not been shut down by then?

When the 2.5 terabytes of data were destroyed by LIWA in the summer of 2000, all information relating to the terrorists was destroyed as well. However, Able Danger II, which started from scratch (i.e. a 90 day full time search of the open Internet and open data sources to re-create the data base), did detect the same basic information about the Brooklyn Cell - and in addition discovered the Al Qaeda activity in the Port of Aden in Yemen.

5. Was there any effort by the Able Danger team not only to identify those individuals’ link to Al Qaeda, but also to keep track of where they were located and what they were going?

Yes, but not in the continental United States. Able Danger was extensively targeting specific individuals and activities that were located overseas - and there were “options” prepared for Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to take action against these individuals and groups. The specifics of this remain highly classified.

6. Shaffer’s attorney Mark Zaid told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Able Danger never identified Mohamed Atta as being physically present in the US. Does that mean that no one on the team knew he was in the US, or simply that they found out from someone else?

The Able Danger team could not and did not ascertain Atta’s presence in the U.S. for two reasons: first, his ID came up as part of the “Brooklyn Cell” and therefore the Able Danger team could not look at him based on the legal guidance they were forced to follow; and second, the focus was on overseas targets. There were specific individuals and activities, which Able Danger could pursue, such as information relating to the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, and the Able Danger team did provide the specific details of the threat days before the attack on the Cole.

7. Did anyone on the Able Danger team know Atta was in contact with the other three hijackers, as Mike Kelly of the Bergen Record reported? If so, when did Able Danger learn of contact between Atta and the others and how?

There were linkages discovered between multiple “clusters” of individuals. The clusters were tested to see if they were functioning as “cells.” The connections between the individuals and the cells cannot be known without looking at the original chart and data. Therefore, at this point it is not possible to re-create how the four were linked. They were on the chart and in the “Brooklyn Cell” cluster. There was contact between cells - the contacts were examined and “tested” using classified methods - but this was done focused on overseas locations.

8. When Able Danger attempted to share information with the FBI, did this information include the names, photos, or any other information about Atta, Shehhi, Mihdhar, or Hamzi? Did it include their location in the US or any other specific information?

At the time that SOCOM wanted to pass “all data relating to the Brooklyn Cell” (since the SOCOM/DOD lawyers would not allow the Able Danger team to pursue them as a target), Shaffer attempted to set up meetings to pass this information. But SOCOM lawyers stopped the Able Danger officers from attending these meetings, and therefore prevented the passage of the information to the FBI. There were other disclosures made to the FBI on other targets within the continental United States, from LIWA (not Able Danger) to the FBI regarding other US locations of known terrorist activity. Both Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI head Louis Freeh were briefed on these other locations and the FBI did take action and make arrests based on the information. The specifics of this remain classified.

9. After the attack on the USS Cole, was there any attempt to use the information Able Danger had based its prediction on - either to investigate the attack, or to determine how they had been so accurate - in order to replicate their efforts?

Yes - there was an “after action” forensic investigation and briefing of the Able Danger data, which is still extant but highly classified.

10. Was Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) terrorism intelligence analyst Kie Fallis, who resigned in protest after the Able Danger warnings about the USS Cole were ignored, ever involved with the Able Danger program in any way?

Kie Fallis’ superiors Bob Pecha and Greg Pruett were both aware of Able Danger since Shaffer briefed them on the program in the spring of 2000. In addition, DIA official Cal Temple (who worked Al Qaeda as a target) was aware and even made a visit to Garland, Texas to observe the Able Danger project. The intelligence data being produced by Able Danger was shared with Temple. It is possible he later shared this information with Fallis. Cal Temple, by his own admission, was sent to “spy” on the Able Danger effort so that he could secretly get the information for DIA and then learn the method and technology involved so that DIA could build its own version. DIA did have Cal build a version in secret, since DIA officials did not want SOCOM to know that they were creating a DIA model.

11. Others have said privately that the Cole attack had a “chilling effect” on anything related to “warnings” after Fallis quit. Was this also true of the Able Danger team?

The Able Danger effort culminated in a two-hour briefing to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which General Shelton now publicly acknowledges he received in January of 2001. It was very clear that once General Peter Schoomaker departed as the Commander in Chief of SOCOM in the fall of 2000, and Air Force General Holland took over, there was a diminution of focus and priority on the Able Danger effort. The Able Danger team was disbanded despite the best efforts of the team to continue the work and push to implement the offensive “options” that were derived from the intelligence information.

12. Did the correct prediction (in effect) of the Cole attack play any role, positive or negative, in the discussions when the program was shut down only months later?

Nothing was ever said directly linking the ‘prediction’ of the Cole attack or its after-action briefing with the demise of the Able Danger project. No one in Able Danger has a clear answer as to why Able Danger was shut down - all they know is that they fought to keep it going and lost.

13. After the Cole attack, did Able Danger make any further discoveries or predictions?

After the January 2001 briefing to General Shelton, the project was changed. There was no clear “ending” - just a quiet and deliberate dismantling of the personnel and capability. As the project was moved from Garland, Texas in January 2001 and dismantled, there was no opportunity to continue to exploit the intelligence information. Therefore, there were no new predictions.

14. When did Shaffer’s last conversation with Scott Phillpott before 9/11 take place, when Phillpott was “desperately” trying to preserve the data so that someone could use it, even though Able Danger was being shut down?

The conversation occurred in the May 2001 timeframe. Shaffer was jogging outside the Pentagon at the outdoor portion of the Pentagon Athletic Center. Phillpott called Shaffer on his mobile phone to ask if he (Phillpott) could move the data to a clandestine facility in the area – one of four under Shaffer’s control. This one in particular was used for other highly classified intelligence operations and Phillpott had toured it before. Shaffer had already been directed by Major General Rod Isler to “cease all support to Able Danger. ” Shaffer said that he’d love to let Phillpott “use the facility” but felt that his leadership would say no. When Shaffer asked his boss, Colonel Mary Moffitt, she not only said no but also began the process of moving Shaffer from his leadership position to a “desk job” on the Latin America desk of DIA.

15. When were Phillpott and his team members reassigned to other work? Were they each reassigned to different projects or was their unit assigned a new task?

Everyone went back to his “normal” job as Able Danger was disbanded - Able Danger was a form of standing “Task Force". There was some DIA leadership retaliation against the DIA members of Able Danger, but that cannot be fully addressed until the DOD Inspector general completes his current investigation.

16. Raytheon’s Robert Johnson has told Congressman Curt Weldon that data was transferred to SOCOM, including data the Garland unit used to identify Mohamed Atta, separate from the LIWA effort. When was this transferred and how much data was involved?

A new open Internet data run was conducted from about July to September 2000 - this consisted of “spiders” doing whole searches and downloading of web based information, as well as the integration of all available open sources of data. In addition, copies of the full DIA and NSA data bases were moved by STRATUS IVY (Shaffer’s unit) to Garland, Texas - in essence the entire LIWA capability was re-created from scratch and began to function in earnest in early September 2000.

17. While not physical cells, Able Danger identified five cells of Al Qaeda worldwide. Who was identified as a member of which cells?

There were multiple data runs done with the technology, and cells were produced based on the search criteria. The chart that contained Atta and the Brooklyn cell also contained a German cell, a Mauritania cell, a Malaysia cell, and a cell in Yemen. The members on those cells would be on the charts that were produced, but the charts are not available, at least at this point.

18. Did the network of centers originally used to raise funds for the mujahadeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan have any relation to these cells?

There were connections to Afghanistan that the Able Danger team were targeting - this was then and remains classified. This information has been provided to Congress in closed discussions.

19. Shaffer told the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified “two of the three cells” that carried out the 9/11 attacks. Which two of the three and who had the Able Danger team identified with what cells?

Shaffer did not know the specific membership of each terrorist to each cell - he knew from his work on Able Danger that the team had found two of the three cells - and the only name he remembered after the 9/11 attacks was Atta (due to seeing his picture on the news and hearing his name repeatedly.)

20. Was Able Danger a Top Secret code name, or was it just an operational name - which may or may not have itself been classified?

There are three categories of “names” in the Pentagon - Able Danger was the unclassified “nickname.” Codenames are different and they are classified - there are also “trigraphs,” which are three letters that stand for a three letter classified program. Other codenames and trigraphs were associated with Able Danger - but which ones and their names and associations are still classified.

Dear Anny:

I disagree with the main thesis of this article.

A few observations, if I may. Please note, a virus wiped out my system and I am doing a lot of this from memory, but AlamoGirl will attest to my credentials as I am one of the people who put together Free Republic's Chinagate Report.

First, within months of the Clinton Administration coming into office, they began focusing on the Commerce Department (remember John Huang?). Dual use technology tranfers were, at that time, under the direction of COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Controls), a set of standards established by friendly nations during the Cold War. COCOM expired, and the Commerce Department (then under the direction of Clinton cronies) implemented GLX instead (general license transfer) which SIGNIFICANTLY eased export guidelines.

In excrutiating detail, here is what transpired:

http://www.freerepublic.com/china/11.htm

In short, the continual easing of restrictions by Clinton appointees, and through direct and continual action by the President (in the form of waivers and EOs), made is possible for China to LEGALLY purchase exactly what they needed to eventually produce launch vehicles for their payloads.

Second, China's legal purchase of and then illegal transfer of dual-use technology to unapproved countries was public knowledge. The Federation of American Scientists had copies of Congressional Research Service Reports (available on line at www.fas.org) detailing many of these exchanges long before they hit the papers. This information was not necessarily secret, it simply wasn't trumpeted by the media. They are too busy promoting their leftist agenda to be bothered reading anything as tedious as CRS reports or nuclear threat assessments.

How do we know? China violated every single nuclear non-proliferation treaty it ever signed, including its own White Papers. The Clinton Administration had the ability to end these tranfers and impose sanctions, but only chose to do so three times - despite REPEATED violations - once against China (which would have prevented purchases and transfers), and twice against individual companies, and only for very short periods of time. Bottom line, our intelligence folks were telling the White House about the violations, and the White House said, "So what?"

My point is this: the "wall of separation" was not necessary to allow China its access to our information and technology. Clinton's cronies were selling it wholesale to the Chinese, ignoring repeated warnings by DOD and other agencies, and issuing special waivers in exchange for campaign cash. What they weren't selling, they were declassifying like crazy and giving away for FREE. Finally, whatever else China needed, they STOLE (see Slow Poke nuclear reaction for a prime example).

Here's the kicker. A few years back, China launched a vehicle into orbit, and everyone in the media fawned over how they were joining the "space age." Very few bothered to make the connection that the separation technology required to launch this vehicle was almost identical in nature to an ICBM.

What really hurt our intelligence gathering and led to the travesty that was 9-11 was Congress' overreaction to the Aldrich Aimes spy case, and a certain Senator (whose name escapes me) making such a fuss about "dirty sources" that the focus went from shoes on the street to eyes in the sky. Also, more Clinton appointees did a hatchet job at the CIA and cut field staff to the bare bones. Morale at the CIA dropped to an all-time low during The Rapist's Romp in our White House. Finally, Clinton's complete unwillingness to effectively address almost a decade of terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad emboldened Al Queada and other groups. Bin Laden thought America would fold like a house of cards after 9-11, but THANK GOD we had Bush in the White House, instead of a sh*t-for-brains TRAITOR.

Lots of great details in this article though. Excellent research!

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