How Sandy Berger Paid Back the GOP

On July 6, 2006, Stonebridge International, a global strategy firm, announced that it had added a new member to its high-profile, five-member advisory board – former Democrat Rep. Lee Hamilton.

True to form, the major media ignored the Hamilton appointment. They should not have. Hamilton, who had served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, had just joined a firm headed by the man who had criminally undermined that very Commission, Stonebridge chairman and founder Samuel "Sandy" Berger.

In the words of a recent House Committee report, Berger had perpetrated "a disturbing breach of trust and protocol that compromised the nation's national security," a breach that had come at the expense of the 9/11 Commission's very mission.

The unseemly nature of this new alliance apparently did not trouble Hamilton, Berger or the Washington media. By the spring of 2006, Berger felt sufficiently comfortable in his relationship with that media to execute a brazen, political drive-by on the one man who most seriously threatened the Clinton legacy and his own reputation, namely Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania.

Berger began his spring offensive in March 2006 with a fund-raiser for Weldon's opponent, Joe Sestak. Almost universally despised by his Naval colleagues, the former vice admiral was forced into retirement for what the U.S. Navy charitably called "poor command climate." Before being recruited to run for Congress, Sestak had not lived in Weldon's district for 30 years.

Although hosted by Berger, the fund-raiser was held at the law offices of Harold Ickes, a veteran Clinton fixer, and Janice Enright, the treasurer of Hillary Clinton's 2006 Senate campaign.

Before the campaign was through, Clinton insiders would enlist Stonebridge's director of communications to serve as Sestak's campaign spokesperson, summon former President Clinton to rally the troops, and finally call in the federales. Their motives were transparent even to the local media.

"A Sestak victory," observed suburban Philadelphia's Delco Times early in the campaign, "would muzzle a Republican congressman who blames Clinton for doing irreparable harm to America's national security during the 1990s."

As the No. 2 Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon had not only exposed the Clinton administration's lethal "Able Danger" breakdown, but he had also catalogued the CIA's failures before Sept. 11 in his book "Countdown to Terror." And he wasn't stopping there.

In late July 2006, I accompanied Mike and Joan Wire to visit Weldon in his D.C. office. The Wires, who live in suburban Philadelphia, had arranged the interview.

I happened to be in New Jersey at the time so we drove down together. The interview lasted two and a half hours and ended only because I had to leave.

Mike Wire just happened to be the most critical of the 270 eyewitnesses to an apparent missile strike on TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996. As is well enough known, the government had argued that a mechanical failure brought down the plane.

To make the story work, however, the FBI and/or the CIA had to manufacture from whole cloth a second interview with Wire that fit their invented scenario.

To get some sense of what Wire and others actually witnessed, I have put two relevant sections of the video "Silenced" on YouTube. The skeptical reader would do well to review these clips: Part 1 and Part 2.

As late as 2001, I was as skeptical about TWA Flight 800 as the next guy. It was then that I met James and Elizabeth Sanders. The Sanders and TWA Capt. Terrel Stacey had been arrested in 1997 and charged with conspiracy.

An investigative reporter, Sanders was doing the job the major media had chosen not to do. Elizabeth, a TWA trainer, had introduced her husband to Stacey, then working inside the investigation; nothing more.

Before committing to co-produce "Silenced," I had flown to Ft. Lauderdale, where the Sanders were living, and spent three days reviewing their evidence and assessing their character. As I learned, the government arrested the three of them – and convicted the Sanderses – only because they had been closing in on the truth.

When the Wires and I met with Weldon and his aide Russ Caso, we showed them sections from "Silenced," but we were not revealing anything they did not know or at least suspect. What most intrigued Weldon was the cast of characters involved in the misdirection of the TWA Flight 800 investigation. Many of those characters were working to unseat him.

Sandy Berger: Col. Buzz Patterson, who carried the nuclear football the summer of 1996, identifies then Deputy National Security Adviser Berger as the one person holed up in the family quarters with the president on the night of July 17, 1996. In addition to his other services, Berger donated $1,000 to the Sestak campaign. Sestak was the only congressional candidate to whom Berger gave money.

Tony Lake: As national security adviser, Lake was Berger's immediate boss. Although he stayed out of the family quarters on July 17, he, too, was in the loop that night. At 3 a.m. he received a call from the president asking that he "dust off the contingency plans." Lake donated $500 to Sestak. It was his only federal donation in 2006.

Richard Clarke: The anti-terror honcho takes credit for discovering the exploding fuel tank theory that provided a mechanical explanation, however contrived, for TWA Flight 800's demise. He is likely also responsible for bringing the FBI and CIA together to create the "zoom-climb" animation seen in the YouTube clip, which was used to discredit the eyewitnesses. Clarke donated $2,100 to Sestak. It was the only federal donation he made in 2006.

John Deutch: Deutch was serving as CIA director the night TWA Flight 800 went down. Several months later, in a scandal that foreshadowed Berger's own, Deutch was discovered to have loaded classified documents onto to his personal computer and taken them home. His motives were never made clear. He eventually signed a plea agreement and agreed to pay a $5,000 fine only to be pardoned the next day by President Clinton. Deutch donated $500 to Sestak, one of of only two congressional candidates he supported in 2006.

Mary O. McCarthy: In 1996, McCarthy, a CIA analyst, served as an intelligence officer on the National Security Council. In 1998, Berger appointed her as special assistant to the president. In 2006, the CIA fired her for allegedly leaking secret information about overseas prisons to the Washington Post. The only federal candidate to whom she donated in 2006 was Joe Sestak. To give some sense of the politicized nature of the CIA, McCarthy donated $2,000 to John Kerry in 2004.

Jamie Gorelick: Gorelick does not have the excuse of knowing Sestak from his work on the National Security Council. Gorelick served as deputy attorney general in the Justice Department. Still she donated $3,000 to the Sestak campaign, the most she gave to any candidate in 2006.

Gorelick, of course, was one of five Democrats appointed to the 9/11 Commission – and for no more obvious reason than her stake in keeping talk of TWA Flight 800 out of the commission room.

On Aug. 22, 1996, the politically reliable Gorelick met with the FBI brass and directed their efforts away from any serious terror or missile leads. From this point on, the FBI was tasked with finding an alternative explanation for the explosive residue found throughout the plane and duly reported to the New York Times for the previous month.

This FBI search culminated in an exculpatory tale of a sloppy dog-training exercise aboard the Flight 800 plane five weeks before the crash. Though easily disproved, the story satisfied a painfully incurious media.

Unfortunately for America, by suppressing talk of TWA Flight 800, the Clinton administration had to suppress talk of a very real terror plot against the United States that culminated in the events of Sept. 11.

In the way of background, in January 1995, the Philippine police shared with the FBI detailed plans for an aerial terrorist assault on the United States. Those plans called for the use of hijacked airliners and/or explosives-filled private aircraft as flying bombs to attack the United States.

The architect of those plans was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing and a cohort of 9-11 chief strategist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his alleged uncle.

Richard Clarke obviously took Yousef's planes-as-bombs plots seriously. In planning security for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Clarke warned of the possibility of terrorists hijacking a 747 and flying it into a packed Olympic stadium.

The U.S. Navy apparently took Yousef's plans seriously as well. On July 17, 1996, National Liberation Day in Saddam's Iraq and two days before the start of the Atlanta Olympics, a small fleet of ships and subs, some perhaps NATO, cruised off the coast of Long Island, locked and loaded.

One of two things happened next: Either Navy missiles intercepted a terrorist plane and inadvertently took out TWA Flight 800 in the process; or, more likely, while practicing to intercept a terrorist plane in the kind of crowded air corridor where such an attack would likely occur, Navy missiles accidentally destroyed the 747.

In either case, the U.S. Navy did not have the will or the wherewithal to conceal this on its own. That decision would have been made in the family quarters of the White House in the early morning hours of July 18.

Those few subordinates in the know would have been told that the decision was made for reasons of national security. A more urgent reason, of course, was to secure Clinton's re-election a few months hence.

The evidence for Navy involvement has been greatly enhanced by the research of Capt. Ray Lahr on the west coast and the legal work in the federal courts by his counsel, John Clarke. Highly useful, too, has been a new and stunningly sophisticated crash analysis drafted by an apparent insider (or insiders), whose identity remains stubbornly unknown.

As a result of Lahr's work in particular, the NTSB and FBI have quietly abandoned the CIA zoom-climb scenario shown in the YouTube clip and rely now only on a quiescent media to ignore the un-rebutted testimony of some 270 eyewitnesses to a missile strike.

In the summer of 1996, President Clinton had a keen interest in the planes-as-bombs plot as well. Soon after the destruction of TWA Flight 800, Col. Buzz Patterson was returning a daily intelligence update from the Oval Office to the National Security Council when he "keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons."

"I can state for a fact that this information was circulated within the U.S. intelligence community," Patterson writes, "and that in late 1996 the president was aware of it." The president's handwritten comments on the documents verified the same.

Most likely to keep the subject of TWA Flight 800 off the table, all talk of planes as bombs ended in the summer of 1996. Incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was not even warned about the possibility. Richard Clarke verified as much when he testified before the 9/11 Commission.

"Knowledge about al-Qaida having thought of using aircraft as weapons," admitted Clarke, was "5-years, 6-years old." He asked that intelligence analysts "be forgiven for not thinking about it given the fact that they hadn't seen a lot in the five or six years intervening about it."

As to President Clinton's legacy-killing notes on the Yousef plot documents, they obviously did not find their way to the 9/11 Commission. Not surprisingly, according to the National Archives staff, "Berger was especially interested in White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke's personal office files." Berger reviewed these and "original NSC numbered documents" on his first visit to the Archives.

The House report noted, "Had Berger seen 'a smoking gun' or other documents he did not want brought to an investigatory panel's attention, he could have removed it on this visit."

When the Wires and I left Weldon in July 2006, he was on his way to review the Berger evidence. Weldon was the one man in Washington willing and able to put all the pieces together of what loomed as the most serious scandal in American political history. But this was not to be. The Clintons and their cronies had other plans.

During the now legendary Chris Wallace interview with President Clinton in late September 2006 on Fox News, the nation saw just how potent were the guns aimed at Weldon.

"A three-star admiral," Clinton announced out of nowhere, "who was on my National Security Council staff, who also fought terror, by the way, is running for the seat of Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania." He did not even mention Sestak by name. He may not have known it. Other than President Bush, Clinton mentioned no other Republican than Weldon.

It is not easy to take out a popular 10-term congressman. Weldon's enemies, however, had a nasty little ace up their sleeves. A week after President Clinton visited Weldon's district to fire up the troops, the McClatchy Newspapers broke a story attributed to two anonymous sources, namely that Weldon had "traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter."

Alleging a need to act quickly because of the leak, the FBI raided the homes of Weldon's daughter and a friend on Monday, Oct. 16. By noon of that same day, a group of nearly 20 Democrat protesters were milling outside Weldon's district office in Upper Darby, carrying matching signs that read "Caught Red-Handed." The story received a great deal of unreflective attention from a media desperate for a Democrat win, and Weldon went down to defeat.

The move against Weldon was naturally attributed to the Bush Justice Department. As the Berger case proved, however, there are powerful forces operating in the Justice Department and FBI that seem to have no greater goal than protecting the Clinton legacy and advancing the Democrat agenda. The idea that Karl Rove somehow orchestrated the Weldon hit makes sense only in the nether reaches of the liberal blogosphere.

Sometimes, as in the case of Watergate, conspiracy is not a theory. It's a crime. Still, the major media will use the "conspiracy theory" mantra as an excuse to ignore this story.

To this point, the "respectable" conservative media have been intimidated into following their lead. It is past time for those media to show some sand.

"Shortly after the event the WSJ (not a crackpot publication) printed a story that I've never forgotten and never seen repeated. It said that radar showed one single boat in the area speeding away from the crash site while all the other boats in the area raced to the site (for possible rescue work.) The article said serious attempts to identify that boat were undertaken but were unsuccessful. The suspicion was that people on this boat fired a missile and then fled the scene."

Yes. And Cashill neglects to mention the intercepted converstion between no less than Ramzi Yousef (an Iraqi) and his "uncle", Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in which Yousef appeared to claim credit for the downing of TWA800, which he attempted to use as a way to disrupt his trial which was then underway. His request for a mistrial the day after TWA800 was denied.

Cashill knows about this and has written about this but obviously prefers the Navy-accident theory, which could be credible were it not for the hundreds, maybe even thousands of Naval personnel who would have to be kept silent. Can't happen.

...That leaves a terrorist missile, and the plane was out of the envelope for engagement by a shoulder-fired IR surface-to-air missile.

But not out of range for a variety of larger, longer-range missiles which could easily be fired from a vehicle-mounted launcher (such as a boat, as aculeus notes below).

Shortly after the event the WSJ (not a crackpot publication) printed a story that I've never forgotten and never seen repeated. It said that radar showed one single boat in the area speeding away from the crash site while all the other boats in the area raced to the site (for possible rescue work.) The article said serious attempts to identify that boat were undertaken but were unsuccessful. The suspicion was that people on this boat fired a missile and then fled the scene.

Or sank the boat, and themselves with it. (Of course, our enemies would never commit suicide to attack us. /sarc) In the few instances where this radar track was ever discussed, it was "dismissed" because it was claimed they couldn't find the boat, and that it would be impossible to hide a boat that size. (My comment - it's not impossible if no one is seriously looking for it.)

As I said, one WSJ article followed by silence.

And, curiously, the recordings of those radar tracks disappeared, and the statements of those who actually observed them were then breezily "dismissed" or "discounted". (Those are SUCH useful media weasel-words; they are endlessly used to imply the same meaning as "disproven", but they actually mean no such thing!)

"I'd like to know how Richard Clarke, the incompetent "terror czar" (never stopped a single attack), became the hero of 9/11. There's a doctoral thesis in public relations there for somebody."

There's a doctoral thesis in Machiavellian backstabbing, that much is for certain.

I'm sure you'll agree that Clarke is best-known for his Bush-bashing. Well, here's an illuminating article from when he was plumping for a promotion (which he didn't get, whereupon he changed his tune just a bit, don't you agree?):

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040325-091451-8041r.htm

Excerpts from the August 2002 press briefing by Richard A. Clarke:

RICHARD CLARKE: There was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration ... In January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. [They] decided to ... vigorously pursue the existing policy [and] ... initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years.

In their first meeting [the principles] changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding [for covert action against al Qaeda] five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance. [They] then changed the strategy from one of rollback with al Qaeda ... to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda.

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against ... the foreign policy?

CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with [the] terrorism issue ... There was never a plan [in the Clinton administration].

QUESTION: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?

CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. In the spring [of 2001], the Bush administration ... began to change Pakistani policy. We began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis ... [to] join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.

QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration ... prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way?

CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points ... to think about it. And they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.

QUESTION: You're saying ... there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it ...The other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the [policy] from one of rollback to one of elimination.

In addition to the report of speeding boat leaving the scene, as reported by the WSJ, I vividly remembered seeing
a low level production on C-SPAN. It was unusually small and short. A committee of ?? had investigated the TWA 800 crash. It was filmed in a small narrow room, with people standing up around a long conference table. The gist of the short report was that is was NOT an internal explosion.
Somewhere in C-SPAN's achieves, is film with faces and statements of record.
Somewhere in the WSJ's archieves is a reporters notebook that needs to be reviewed.

The novel "Night Fall" by Nelson DeMille (2004) is based on
the TWA crash and an excellent read!

re:They hair stood up on my neck, as I read this...but, then the little guy on my shoulder was saying that the conspiracy theorists that believe that Pres. Bush had something to do with planning and executing 9/11 are true believers...

PMJI, FRiends, but I felt a comment was necessary.

And I know how crazy they sound.

And some of them are crazy. However, they have the right to make their case, as we have the right to make our rebuttals and counter-arguments. It is through this adversarial process that we hope to reveal the truth. It is this same process that is ostensibly (but no longer in reality, sadly) the basis of our legal system. When one side allows the other to shut-down that process the search for truth is short-circuited, and the truth can then be easily concealed.

This is what has been done to the meaning of the word "conspiracy". The enemy has successfully defined it, at least as far as the general public is concerned, as being practiced solely by "crazy" people. We have allowed them to go unchallenged when they level their accusations that "only crazy people or nuts believe in conspiracies". The FACT is, the word conspiracy simply means plans made in secret. The conspirators themselves can be crazy as bedbugs, e.g. the SECRET MEETINGS of the Congressional Democratic Caucus, or they can be quite sane, as demonstrated by the Founding Fathers. /grin

The simple, incontrovertible fact is that "conspiracies" have played a major role in many of the most momentous, civilization-changing events in human history. The Roman Empire was established through the competing conspiracies of powerful insiders (remember the First Triumvirate, the Second Triumvirate, etc. ad nauseum). The conspiracies of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks brought about the Soviet Union. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The history of human civilization is littered with conspiracies, some successful, some not, some harmless, some devastating in lives and destruction, some we know about, and most likely many we never heard of. It is an undeniable FACT, yet we allow our enemies to intimidate us into silence about them.

No one on our side ever has the guts to get in their face and reply, when accused of "believing in conspiracies": "Do you mean like Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams, or maybe Patrick Henry"? The FACT is, this country was founded in a conspiracy. The Patriots, the Founding Fathers, including those mentioned above, the Sons of Liberty, the Committees of Correspondence, and yes, even the signers of the Declaration of Independence operated much of the time in secret, for the simple reason that they were engaged in a CONSPIRACY against the British Crown, a conspiracy which could have gotten any one of them hanged.

I don't want to put myself in that category.

And thus you, and we, are already defeated, because we have allowed ourselves to be intimidated into forfeiting our God-given right to freedom of thought and expression. We have allowed our enemies to mis-define the meaning of words and then use those lies to bludgeon us into submission and silence.

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