Posted on 03/05/2002 11:19:12 AM PST by Elkiejg
She may be America's most famous elected Democrat and a leading contender for her party's 2004 presidential nomination, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting a media pass on her nuclear terror meltdown yesterday.
"This is absolutely incomprehensible to me," a spitting-mad Clinton complained to reporters Monday, after Time magazine reported that New York officials were kept in the dark about an unsourced tip that terrorists might have smuggled a nuclear device into Manhattan last October.
"That is a dereliction of duty on the part of whomever in the federal government knew about the alleged threat," hysterical Hillary ranted.
"And I expect answers! And I don't expect it ever to happen again!" the former first lady continued fuming. "I am asking for - demanding - an explanation about this. ... Somebody owes New York an explanation and I intend to get to the bottom of this!"
While other New York officials expressed regret the feds didn't share the info, they managed to avoid Sen. Clinton's histrionics.
"Maybe it's possible there would have been nothing we could do except just hope and pray," former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told reporters.
Giuliani's successor, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, cautioned that it would have been "totally irresponsible if anytime any kook picked up the phone and said to 911, 'I've got a nuclear bomb' ... we go on television and say there's a nuclear threat."
In fact, the source for Time's report, identified only by his code name, "Dragonfire," reportedly failed four separate lie detector tests when grilled about his nuke tip - a fact that no doubt caused the feds to dismiss his claims as less than credible.
But if Sen. Clinton had her way, the nuclear red alert would have gone out to hundreds of city officials, who would have undoubtedly leaked it to the press. The subsequent reports would have caused widespread panic and a possibly deadly stampede out of the city by frightened New Yorkers running for their lives.
Another detail overlooked by Mrs. Clinton: When the feds came upon credible information on nuclear terrorism in the past, they briefed New York City police.
"A police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that two such 'vague' threats involving a nuclear device in the city were reported to the department by the FBI," reported the New York Daily News on Tuesday.
Still, despite the best efforts of federal officials to act responsibly, Sen. Clinton still isn't satisfied.
In an angry letter to President Bush late Monday, she complained that it was "extraordinary that New York officials were kept in the dark about a potential threat to the security of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans."
"We've created a situation where we've been pretty loosey-goosey [over] the last, at least, 10 years in the country," the former New York FBI director told WABC Radio's John Gambling.
Without mentioning the Clinton administration by name, Kallstrom explained, "We haven't, in my view, done a lot of prudent things at the national level with our immigration policy as to knowing who these people are and [to whom] do they report if they're here on student visas and things like that."
The former New York FBI chief, who was appointed the state's top security czar after 9/11, contended that lax security and the U.S.'s failure during the Clinton years to deal with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization helped fuel the terror group's growth.
"We need better security at the borders. We need better security at the port," he told Gambling. "And when you combine that with the fact that we've let al-Qaeda and these other terrorist cells get so powerful and so muscular around the world and so financially strong, you know, we haven't dealt with them sufficiently in the last decade."
The security czar explicitly rejected recent criticism of the Bush administration by New York politicians, including Sen. Hillary Clinton, who said Monday that the federal government was "derelict" in not notifying local authorities about a bogus tip that a nuclear device had been smuggled into Manhattan.
"I can't fault anybody in this thing. ... I don't see the [reason for a] big hullaballoo," Kallstrom told Gambling.
"There's information [like the nuke tip] all the time, but it's uncorroborated, unsubstantiated and unknown," he explained.
As for Time printing this non story and deliberately leaving out that the informer flunked several lie detector tests, guess they are trying to sabotage New York's fragile recovery. Hurt Pataki and Bloomberg too! This was a non story ramped up by the media.
My sources have confirmed that a device is in place somewhere in the US.
Don't know where for sure, so for safety's sake you should leave the country immediately.
I'll let you know when you can come back.
Trust me.
Hillary! Calm down. Why don't you practice being Presidental [yeah, right] for awhile? Think how you would handle this incident if you were President [lunch SPEW!]. Would you have called on the phone and yelled,Is that what you would have done? Of course.
Don't have Hillery come back unless you know exactly when and where it will go off. (You can figure out the rest...)
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