DOWD: OUR MAN IN ARIZONA

DRUDGE REPORT ^ | MAY 18, 2002 | Matt Drudge

[bigdog]

XXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT MAY 18, 2002 14:31:25 ET XXXXX

DOWD: OUR MAN IN ARIZONA

"He hasn't been featured in any of the flinty-eyed, lantern-jawed photo shoots where the Bush team preened as war heroes. Annie Leibovitz has never laid eyes on him."

NY TIMES op-ed queen Maureen Dowd is set to pass out the medals on Sunday, according to publishing sources, in a column paying tribute to the Phoenix-based FBI agent who warned about Islamic extremists in U.S. flight schools prior to 9/11.

The agent, Kenneth Williams, named by the LOS ANGELES TIMES on Saturday, gets full Dowd affection, just as she slaps around Bush officials for not living up "to their own billing."

"The Bushies were still fixated on their Maginot line of missile defense in the sky when the threat was Qaida freaks with box cutters. They cast themselves as the pros from Dover, the generals of the Gulf War with the right stuff," slaps Dowd.

"Now comes Mullah Omar spouting off that he and Osama will bring 'fire and hell' on America. Even the unshakable Condi seems shaky."

Dowd plants a tough-left: "Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats asking questions were unpatriotic. But that suggestion is anti-American. Maybe there has been too much bipartisanship lately. You can't get the truth that way."

Developing late Saturday...

[The Great Satan]

Nevertheless, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack, the rejection of the FISA warrant has produced tension between field agents in Minneapolis and their Justice Department and FBI superiors in Washington. Officials in Washington are adamant that there was insufficient grounds to approve the warrant based on what was produced by Minneapolis agents. “There does not seem to be any disagreement that the legal standards [for a FISA warrant] weren’t met,” said one top U.S. law enforcement official. The law requires the bureau to show evidence that the suspect is an “agent” of a foreign power or terrorist group, something the Minneapolis field agents never had, the officials said.

Access Denied

[takenoprisoner]

I know. I just don't believe it the case.

Ok let's say this agent was following protocol. Why? Once convinced that American lives are at stake, I would hope that most would defy protocol to save our lives from foreign aggressors. I know I would. I would have looked inside that foreign bastards computer without their approval. It's in my possession and on my desk. It's owner, a foreigner, and suspected terrorist, is in jail. I'm lookin.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

A lot of these warnings were in the public domain-what stopped Mo Dowd from issuing her own alerts??!! By her own logic, she is also to blame.

[scotiamor]

Citation that Arizona students not linked to 9/11 FBI Director Discusses Aviation Memo By JESSE J. HOLLAND .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI Director Robert Mueller says a memo about several Arabs who were training at a U.S. aviation school wouldn't have led officials to the Sept. 11 hijackers. The Associated Press reported last week that an FBI agent in Arizona told Washington in July of suspicions about several Arabs who were training at a U.S. aviation school. He urged that agents contact other schools where Middle Easterners might be studying. The FBI sent the memo to its terrorism experts and was considering a nationwide canvass of flight schools when the hijackers struck. The bureau had not yet alerted other federal agencies. ``Did we discern from that that there was a plot that would have led us to the Sept. 11 (attackers)? No,'' Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. ``Could we have? I rather doubt it. But should we have done more in regard to the Phoenix (memo)? Yes.'' ``I believe the Phoenix memo is going to come to be one of the most important documents in our national discussion about whether we did enough to protect America from the attacks of Sept. 11,'' said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. Mueller said it was unlikely that the FBI could have investigated all 2,000 aviation academies and their 20,000 students between July and September . ``It was perceived that this would be a monumental undertaking without any specificity as to particular persons,'' Mueller said. None of the people being investigated in Arizona were involved in the Sept. 11 attack, Mueller said, although he admitted that one or two might have had connections to terror organizations. Mueller said he did not believe that heads of the CIA or the FBI ever saw the contents of the Phoenix memo, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called ``much more consequential'' than the briefings she gets as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ``I think that recommendations of the agent are something that we should have more aggressively pursued,'' Mueller emphasized. ``I do not believe that it gave the signpost of that which would happen on Sept. 11.'' Mueller also said: The Sept. 11 hijackers left no paper trail for law enforcers to pick up on. ``We have not yet uncovered a single piece of information, either here or in the treasure-trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot,'' Mueller said. ``As best as we can determine, the actual hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind.''