Richard Clarke told the 9/11 commission that the FBI knew 2 of the 9/11 hi-jackers were already in the U.S. prior to 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission knew.
Posted on 08/12/2005 1:12:05 AM PDT by Southack
Wednesday, May 19, 2004 Posted: 1:16 AM EDT (0516 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's former counterterrorism chief testified Wednesday that the administration did not consider terrorism an urgent priority before the September 11, 2001, attacks, despite his repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden's terror network.
"I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue," Richard Clarke told a commission investigating the September 11 attacks.
...
He said that prior to 9/11, people within the FBI knew that two of the 19 hijackers were in the country, but that information never made its way up to the highest levels of power.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Richard Clarke told the 9/11 commission that the FBI knew 2 of the 9/11 hi-jackers were already in the U.S. prior to 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission knew.
i thought they knew 4 of them...
The spin begins: "It's Bush's fault."
Soon after 9/11 we had the idenities and their whereabouts. Prior to 9/11 we couldn't do anything because of the restrictions put in place by Jamie what's her name during the Clinton administration.
here is clark covering his ass again. Why was berger trying to get to clarks memos again???? hmm
Then why wasn't that tidbit in the 9/11 Commission's report?
The trail leads back to Bill and Hill, loke so many other screw ups that have come to light. Two for the price of one, RIGHT!!! Two traitors for the price of one!!
The pigeons are coming home to roost!!
The "bomb plot" message placing a grid pattern on the harbor and "Kita" messages were intercepted and decoded in Washington before the Pearl Harbor attack.
So it goes ...
Wow...Bush had about 9 months after a bruising election and recount etc. He couldn't get any of his people in place thanks to the business as usual obstructionism of the Democrats...hm what about Clinton who had 8 years in office? If the first WTC had been investigated and dealt with properly, Osama would have been locked up long before 9-11.
HillaryGate.
Aw, sh*t!
Clarke AND Berger testifying before the committee? Do the committee members have shovels?
Oh. This is old stuff. Never mind.
They were NOT prohibited from reporting to the NSC, whose duty was to collect and distill intelligence information for President Clinton.
It seems to me that Clarke was the recipient of this information from Able Danger. And what did he do?
Nothing.
Why didn't Bush have Karl Rove going from FBI office to FBI office ferretting out all the good intel? /s
By Sean Osborne, Senior Analyst & Military Affairs Expert
& Douglas J. Hagmann,Director
10 August 2005: Hey America… do you remember the strange actions of President Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger during the 9/11 Commission investigation when he removed highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to that independent commission? Did you ever wonder what Berger was attempting to hide and even more importantly, why? Did you also wonder why, even though he committed a felony, he received nothing more than a slap on the wrist while various political and intelligence officials played down his actions, wanting them to disappear as quickly as possible? It appears that we just might have discovered the answers to these and other troubling questions: Able Danger.
Able Danger is the code name of a secret team of U.S. Army military intelligence operatives created in 1999 under a directive signed by General Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assemble information about al Qaeda networks around the world. In mid-2000, the Able Danger team discovered the existence of the key 9/11 terror cell of Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawar al-Hamzi inside the U.S. and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania House member and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. That information was presented in the summer of 2000 in the form of a chart complete with photographs of the terrorists to the Pentagon's Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Our intelligence was dead-on accurate, but was not acted upon a full year before the 9/11 attacks.
In fact, Representative Weldon said Able Danger members had recommended that the information they uncovered be shared with the FBI, but the idea was rejected and they “were directed to take those 3M yellow stickers and place them over the faces of Atta and the other terrorists and pretend they didn’t exist.”
Despite the findings of Able Danger, absolutely no action was pursued to take out the cell during the weeks leading up to the 2000 presidential election, said Weldon. The reason? Mohammed Atta possessed a “green card” at the time. Under the rules of the Clinton Justice Department, lawyers working for Special Operations decided that anyone holding a green card had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. They did not want to recommend that the FBI go after someone holding a green card, Weldon told his House colleagues on June 27, 2005 during a speech, known as a “special order,” which he delivered on the House floor. Defense Department lawyers were also said to be reluctant to suggest a bold action by FBI agents after the bureau’s disastrous 1993 strike against the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas.
Read Curt Weldon’s June 27, 2005 Testimony This week, Representative Weldon and a former defense intelligence official said they had spoken with three Able Danger team members, all still working in the government, including two in the military, and that they were consistent in asserting that Mohammed Atta's affiliation with a Qaeda terrorism cell in the United States was known within the Defense Department by mid-2000 but was not acted upon. Further and after the fact, the 9-11 Commission was reportedly never told about Able Danger or its findings.
Enter Sandy Berger – During the 9/11 Commission
While the investigation by the 9/11 Commission was in progress, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of President's Clinton’s second term, was caught removing documents from the national Archives – the very same documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Berger ultimately admitted to intentionally taking and destroying various classified documents relating to terrorism collected under the Clinton administration. Berger and his lawyer said on July 19, 2004 that he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also “inadvertently” took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. Those documents reportedly included an assessment of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports, something very relevant to Able Danger’s findings and key to the 9/11 attacks. What Sandy Berger did was a felony, yet was allowed a generous plea agreement of a fine and a three-year suspension of his security clearance.
Under the prism of Able Danger, we are now able to make sense out of the previously curious actions of Sandy Berger.
Able Danger & the Saga of the 9/11 Commission; Warren Commission Redux
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