Sept. 11 Report To Fill In Details Of Missed Chances

WASHINGTON - The final report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will not conclude definitively that the terrorist strike could have been prevented, but it is clear that U.S. officials missed a series of opportunities to stop some of the hijackers, disrupt the plot and perhaps save lives.

The most significant signal appears to have come in April 2000,when Niaz Khan, a Briton of Pakistani heritage, walked into the FBI’s office in Newark, N.J.

Khan told agents that he had been trained by al-Qaida, the terrorist network that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, and that there would be a hijacking in the United States or on a U.S. airline.

He said he had been sent to the United States to join al-Qaida operatives here. Even though he passed two polygraph tests, FBI headquarters did not believe him and let him go.

So the demos are crying about the "curious timing" of the Sloppy Berger story leaking 2 days before the 911 Commission report is issued, yet look at the main points listed here:

"Preliminary findings expected in the Sept. 11 commission’s final report

— The CIA missed the significance of “telltale indicators” of impending attacks, partly because of its piecemeal intelligence analysis, especially a July 2001 FBI report of terrorist interest in aircraft training and the August 2001 arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui.

— Some of the 19 hijackers were able to enter the United States even though they lacked proper documentation. Two were on a terrorist watch list but were allowed on airplanes because the FAA had not been told.

— The Clinton and Bush administrations pursued diplomacy rather than military strikes to deal with the growing al-Qaida threat.

— The United States passed up several chances to kill Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s because the CIA said it never received a clear directive to do so.

— FAA officials trained to respond to a traditional hijacking, not a suicide attack, were slow to alert the military during the attacks, and some military fighter pilots were never told why they were scrambled.

— Flaws in New York’s 911 phone system denied people inside the World Trade Center potentially lifesaving information."

90% of this happened on CLINTON'S watch, not Bush's. Clinton was in office for eight YEARS, Bush eight MONTHS. Notice it says the CIA passed on several opportunities to kill OBL in the late 90s because they didn't it was OK for them to do so. This is absolutely devastating for Clinton if you think about it. If Clinton was really after AQ and OBL, I think the CIA would have known.

WHO is hurt more by all this? Bush or Clinton/demos? It's quite clear to me that it is Clinton and democrats. The republicans have nothing to hide here, but the dems should running for cover. Could it be the DEMS released the Berger story NOW to deflect attention from this scathing report? Why release it now or at all? Because that is EXACTLY how Clinton always operated in the White House - if there's bad news coming out, release it and get ahead of it, so you can put your own spin on it. By releasing it now, they can dismiss it as GOP politics, hope it's soon forgotten along with the 911 report before the demo convention.

I won't forget.

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