Posted on 08/09/2005 11:50:47 AM PDT by areafiftyone
More than a year before the 9/11 attacks, Clinton administration intelligence officials had identified four of the 19 9/11 hijackers as a terrorist threat - including al-Qaida team leader Mohamed Atta and his partner Marwan al-Shehhi, whose planes destroyed the World Trade Center and killed over 2,700 people.
But the critical information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton.
In the summer of 2000, a military team, known as Able Danger, had prepared a chart that included visa photographs of Atta and al Shehhi and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rep. Curt Weldon and a former intelligence official told the New York Times.
"We knew these were bad guys, and we wanted to do something about them," the former intelligence official said.
However, the recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, in part, said the Times, because the four suspects had entered the United States on valid entry visas.
But Rep. Weldon and the unnamed intelligence official also cited what the paper described as "a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency."
In fact, such intelligence sharing was strictly prohibited under Ms. Gorelick's policy, known at the Justice Department as "The Wall," which, in the spring of 2000, had also prevented the CIA from tipping off the FBI that two additional 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had entered the country.
Al-Midhar and al-Hamzi were identified by the Able Danger team as well, the Times said.
In its final report, however, the 9/11 Commission made no mention of the fact that the Clinton administration had identified key members of the hijack team, even though, the Times noted, that information had been shared with 9/11 Commission members.
The account by Weldon and the Times intelligence source is the first assertion that Atta and al Shehhi - who caused the most destruction in the worst attack ever suffered on U.S. soil - had been identified by the Clinton administration.
In testimony before the 9/11 Commission last year, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft blasted Gorelick's "Wall," saying, "The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents"
"[Ms. Gorelick] built that wall," said Ashcroft, "through a March 1995 memo."
The Gorelick memo stipulated, in part:
"We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation."
Ms. Gorelick is expected to be a leading candidate for attorney general should Mrs. Clinton win the 2008 presidential election.
And was put on the 9/11 Commission to insure that the facts disclosed in this article did not become public and hurt herself and the Clintons. The Freepers knew all about the Golick connection and the prohibitions put in place by the Clinton Administration but it never broke through to the biased MSM. It was clear that the reason for this prohibition was to make certain that things known about the Clintons by the Intelligence Community did not make it to the desk of some "renegade" FBI agent who just might want to make a fuss. It worked. At the cost of 3000 lives on 9/11.
Of course Clinton having people like Larry Johnson on board telling everyone that al Quaeda was no threat did not help.
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The criminal incompetence and corruption of the left just continues to unfold. I just don't really know who is the bigger enemy...?...the socialist left IN AMERICA, or the terrorists ???
Weldon comes across as a kook to some but he is a well-informed person this country is not taking advantage of....he correctly predicted the election results in Iran a week before the final results.
Rush just covered this today.
It's obvious that the Dems and the Repubs don't want you and me to ever know.
I'm betting it was damning to both parties.
It was on C-span about noon....it will probably be repeated on c-span...keep checking.
The regime of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001" had no CLUE as to the dangerous forces they were dealing with. This was a law enforcement problem, so far as they were concerned, and NOT a priority in their universe. For if laws WERE to be enforced, they would be in SO much trouble, as many of the members of that regime were technically NOT in compliance with some number of statutes or legal requirements at any given time.
Hillary again.
Hmmmm where did I hear that before? Oh yea Mr. French - John Kerry wasn't it?
I bet Janine Pirro will.......( I can't wait). People will have to at one time or another REALIZE the Clinton administation and their band of thugs (I include the MSM in this) posed the utmost danger to this country than any adminstation in my lifetime. They KNEW who to put in positions that would enable them to meet their goals, take the falls to keep them in power at all costs! Hopefully by the grace of God the people will learn and soon!
God help our country if she is ever elected president!
It has to be broadcast more so that the average person knows. Rush is a good start.
>>>>So when will this be splashed across the front page of the Post and Times in big letters?
Well, the article was splashed on the front page of the Times today.
But the critical information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton."
Like any good wife, Hill was just doing her best to keep hubby out of jail. As a backwater ambulance chaser, I'm sure she had no clue what the consequences of manipulating national security agencies might have.
I for one don't really fault Gorelick for refusing to recuse herself. Anyone on that commission with a shred of integrity would have stood up and threatened to resign in disgust if the commission didn't throw her @ss out the door.
I knew that whole 9/11 commission was a farce as soon as they put a couple of mediocre sh!ts like Tom Kean and Bob Kerrey in charge of it.
You're not kidding!
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