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.
Our former impeached president Clinton was probably paid to keep his mouth shut about the coming terrorist attack.
Our former impeached president Clinton was probably paid to keep his mouth shut about the coming terrorist attack.
Frankly even if they were known prior to 911 and still had legal visas what could have been done to keep them off the planes? Yeah they had boxcutters but I assume they knew they may get caught with them and would have left them behind if caught and overpowered the planes without them.
Also they were obeying the US laws for all intentions so how could they have been profiled before 911 when boarding the planes?
This illustrates one of the key recent failures of the Republican Party to not effectively expose Gorelick and Clinton for their part in the 9/11 security failures.
/sarcasm
Whether The Toothy One can win (she can't) or not may not, in the end, be the goal. The goal may be the nastiest Fight with The Beast as possible. The Beast doesn't take stress too well. It shows in her face. Go Pirro!
Someone could have made it a priority that these guys were either quitely watched like hawks or very noisily made their lives hell.
Someone could have made it a priority that these guys were either quitely watched like hawks or very noisily made their lives hell.
But that would have been illegal.
But first let’s bring in the Sandy Berger angle just to establish it within this overall timeline. According to the Washington Post and Dick Clark (yes, I know he prefers Richard Clark) we have this timeline for the memo’s Burger burglared:
The missing copies, according to Breuer and their author, Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration and early in President Bush’s administration, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said last night.
So these reports Burger destroyed were originally developed in the spring of 2000 at the latest. The problem is they could have been worked on for months and months, and reviewed for up to 6 months easily. So they could still be in circulation when Able Danger made its report. And this is reasonable given this other Washington Post article: More
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/487
August 09, 2005
Malfeasance, Cover-up, or Fantasy?
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/08/malfeasance_cov.html
Gorelick Wall Prevented Us from Foiling 9/11
August 9, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to take you back in time, not just to the 9/11 Committee hearings but shortly after 9/11 itself, when everybody was talking about, "Why didn't we connect the dot? Why didn't we connect the dots!" and I said, "You know why we didn't connect the dots -- meaning the FBI and the CIA, military intelligence, "Why couldn't we share information with each others? There's one reason. The Clinton administration -- and most importantly, Jamie Gorelick." Jamie Gorelick -- who was #2 at the justice department; she really ran the place while Janet Reno was the face of the justice department -- erected a wall, and because the Clinton administration determined that they were going to fight terrorism not as a war but as a legal matter, and they were going to use indictments, and they were going to use grand jury testimony to try to nail these people -- and, of course, grand jury testimony is, by law, confidential -- and so any information gathered by, say, the CIA or the FBI had to be turned over to justice, and when justice got it and took it to the grand jury, it became confidential, could not be shared with any of the other branches, and that's one of the reasons why we couldn't "connect the dots," because strategery that the Clinton administration used to fight terrorism -- when they cared about it. Well, get this from no less than the New York Times. It's a story that's headlined this way: "Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Al-Qaeda in 2000." This story is all about how we knew four of the 19 hijackers and we were tracking them. We knew who they were in 2000 but we couldn't do anything about it because the information that was known couldn't be shared.
"More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress." This is about Curt Weldon and his book, and remember how the left tried to cream Curt Weldon and his book? "In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger..." In the summer of 2000, who was president? Who was president in the summer of 2000? Somebody help me out, here. I think it was this guy Clinton was president, yeah, because the campaign of 2000, the election of 2000 wasn't until November, and Bush wasn't inaugurated until January. Of course, that election wasn't decided until December. Remember that, Brian? So the summer of 2000 would be Bill Clinton was president, and this military team, Able Danger, "...prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation... The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared [Representative Curt Weldon and a former intelligence official] said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency. A former spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission, Al Felzenberg, confirmed that members of its staff, including Philip Zelikow, the executive director, were told about the program on an overseas trip in October 2003 that included stops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Mr. Felzenberg said the briefers did not mention Mr. Atta's name.
"The report produced by the commission last year does not mention the episode. [the 9/11 Report] Mr. Weldon first spoke publicly about the episode in June, in a little-noticed speech on the House floor and in an interview with The Times-Herald in Norristown, Pa.... The account is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks. Among the 19 hijackers, only Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been identified as potential threats by the Central Intelligence Agency before the summer of 2000, and information about them was not provided to the F.B.I. until the spring of 2001." Now, this story does not say what I just said to you. This story does not go on to talk about the wall that Jamie Gorelick erected and that the 9/11 Commission was not interested in hearing about, but it does cite the fact that Atta was known and that military intelligence was not allowed to share the information with the FBI. They don't say why. The why was because of the wall. They're trying to hide this under some visa law but it has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the fact that the Clinton administration had laws on the books that these agencies couldn't share information with one way or another, i.e., connect the dots, because of the need to maintain the privacy and secrecy of grand jury testimony. I kid you not -- and I don't know where Richard Clarke was on this, and I don't know where "the Jersey Girls" are on this now, since the Jersey Girls out there leading the charge that Bush didn't do enough, and Bush didn't act fast, and Bush didn't connect the dots, and, of course, we all know now. We've known it for a while. I find it fascinating that the New York Times actually runs with the story, especially considering Curt Weldon is one of the sources. But it's just another See, I Told You So.
bookmark
Since when is it illegal to put a tail on someone? Cops harass criminals all the time.
"I heard it Txsleuth and now it will be on Fox News"
It was on Fox News this morning. I watched before I left for work.
And it was just on FoxandFriends this morn too. Let it roll! The Clintons and their thugs need to be held accountable.
One of the discussions on GOPUSA:
Clinton: US cannot isolate itself to fight terror
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