Posted on 05/30/2002 8:36:48 PM PDT by tgslTakoma
"I just heard on FOXNEWS from their military adviser, Robert Passalaqua,that he announced in a speech he gave recently,that TWA Flight 800 was hit by a Stinger and that the government wanted it out because they are afraid that it is going to happpen again!" THis could be why Passalaqua said what he said about Stingers:
Missiles smuggled into U.S.
Washington Times | 5/31/02 | Bill Gertz
Posted on 5/30/02 11:29 PM Pacific by kattracks
The U.S. government has alerted airlines and law enforcement agencies that new intelligence indicates that Islamic terrorists have smuggled shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles into the United States.
Classified intelligence reports circulated among top Bush administration policymakers during the past two weeks identified the missiles as Russian-made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles or U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles obtained covertly in Afghanistan, said intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Authorities are looking for three types of "manpads," or man-portable, air-defense systems, including SA-7s and Stingers, the officials said.
The SA-7s have a range of more than 3 miles and can hit aircraft flying at 13,500 feet. Stinger missiles can hit aircraft flying at 10,000 feet and 5 miles away.
The FBI sent out an intelligence alert two weeks ago warning about the missiles. The officials said the warning is based on intelligence and not a specific threat that the missiles are in the United States.
"We don't have information that al Qaeda is planning to use these against commercial aircraft in the United States," an FBI official said. "However, we are passing the information along for people to remain alert to the potential use."
The official said an FBI intelligence alert was sent to law-enforcement authorities about two weeks ago and that airlines were notified on May 22.
As a result of the "recent apparent targeting of U.S.-led military forces in Saudi Arabia, law-enforcement agencies in the United States should remain alert to potential use of manpads against U.S. aircraft," the FBI said.
Other intelligence officials spoke of concerns that the missiles had been smuggled into the United States. Senior Pentagon officials also were briefed recently on the threat posed by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles smuggled into the United States.
Officials said the intelligence reports followed the discovery earlier this month of an empty SA-7 launcher near a desert base used by U.S. air forces in Saudi Arabia. The launcher was found by Saudi security police near Prince Sultan Air Base, near Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
The Saudis could not determine whether the launcher had fired a missile, and they destroyed it before U.S. military or intelligence officials could examine it.
One official said that intelligence report was given credence by Abu Zubaydah, the al Qaeda organization's operations chief, who was captured in Pakistan in March and who has been providing information about the terrorist group.
A U.S. official also said the portable missiles, which can be carried in small crates, "are fairly light and not difficult to obtain on the gray market."
"It's conceivable that terrorists could get them," the official said. "It is one of a number of possible threats that we need to be mindful and concerned about."
Officials said another worry was an interview in an Arabic-language newspaper with a senior al Qaeda terrorist. Abd-al-Azim al-Muhajir, a senior commander, told a reporter for London's Al-Sharq al Awsat in Pakistan last week that the terrorist group is planning a major attack against the United States.
Al-Muhajir said U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have "changed the nature of the action in the field, media appearances and training centers." However, he insisted, al Qaeda is not "finished."
Asked about new attacks against the United States, al-Muhajir said: "We pray to God, the glorified and exalted, to help us in the coming stage, that is the 'guerrilla warfare,' and in dealing with the aircraft. Thanks be to God that we have taken big strides in this."
Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that U.S. military forces are on alert for attacks by portable missiles.
"We take very seriously the fact that our opponents do have surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-fired surface-to-air-missiles," Gen. Pace said. "And we take precautions on the ground and in the air any time we have our aircraft arriving or departing."
He said there were no reports of U.S. aircraft taking surface-to-air missile fire in Saudi Arabia after the discovery of the SA-7 launcher.
"That does not mean it was not fired; it simply means we do not know if that particular weapon was fired at that location or simply dropped off there," he said.
I've no problem with that - but we'd better check with the first lady, just to make sure :-)
The FBI 302 Form Interview Procedure
Routinely, two agents conduct the interview, usually one asking the questions while the other takes notes on a pocket pad and sometime later dictates a summary of the interview which dictation is sometime later transcribed on a 302 form which is eventually returned to the agent for review and signature (or any corrections, additions or deletions he might consider appropriate). It's not evidence of what the agents or the person interviewed actually said. At best, it's the agent's recollection of what was said. At worst, it's an invitation to skullduggery and - keeping in mind the information is Intelligence - potentially horrendous peril for all Americans as the obvious Intelligence breakdown prior to the events of 11 September 2001 dramatized.
The 302 procedure guarantees that even the interviewing agents' Supervisors have no way of knowing what was actually said - and not said - by any of those present, much less whether the interview was thorough and complete.</font size>
http://www.ntsb.gov/events/TWA800/Transcript_8_23_3.htm
[excerpt][quote] " . . . . . the FBI did not make any transcripts or recordings of these interviews. Documents are written in the words of the FBI agents who prepared them. Some of the documents contain incomplete information or are vaguely worded. In other words, the documents may not always say what the witness said." [end quote]
http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/june96/945902.p.html
[excerpt][quote] "Thus, when a government agent interviews a witness and takes contemporaneous notes of the witness' responses, the notes do not become the witness' statement- - despite the agent's best efforts to be accurate- - if the agent "does not read back, or the witness does not read, what the [agent] has written." Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 110- 11 n.19 (1976). And a government agent's interview notes that "merely select portions, albeit accurately, from a lengthy oral recital" do not satisfy the Jencks Act's requirement of a "substantially verbatim recital." Palermo, 360 U.S. at 352. [end quote]
In short, the FBI 302 form interview summaries are not "witness reports" or "witness statements" or "witness declarations" and don't document anything said during the interviews.
Why does the FBI cling to the 302 interview procedure?
To tilt the playing field in the prosecutions' favor in the event of an arrest by avoiding the documentation of any suggestive "leading" questions by the agents and any exculpatory statements that might be made by those being interviewed or even the agents themselves.
Trial lawyers dealing with cases involving FBI 302 form interview summaries instead of recorded interviews and the transcripts of those recorded interviews routinely raise hell about it not just those reasons but also for the the obvious reason that they can neither hear for themselves everything both the witness and the interviewer actually said nor read everything both the witness and the interviewer actually said.
The press is well aware of the problem, as the following documents, but have done a poor job of bringing it to the attention of the public.
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/1998/jan1598.htm
[quote]
QUESTION: After the Nichols trial, there was some concern on the part of some of the jurors there about the fact -- and this comes up from time to time -- that the FBI does not transcribe interviews, it does this form 302. And every once in a while somebody says, you know, that it is not the best evidence, 302's are summaries of what something thinks somebody said. And people, every once in a while, look at whether the FBI should change that.
Is that anything that is being looked at? During the time you have been Attorney General, has anyone ever suggested that the FBI ought to change that practice?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I have heard it on occasions and have discussed it with Director Freeh. I cannot discuss it in the context of this particular case.
QUESTION: But as a general matter, is that something that is pretty much a dead letter now?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: As always, we continue to review each issues, the circumstances of the issue in the context it arises, to see what is appropriate. But, again, with respect to this matter, in this case, I cannot discuss it.
QUESTION: Yes, but as a general matter, does it strike you as a good idea, the way the FBI does the 302's? Do you see any need to change that?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I think, each case, you have got to look at it on a case-by-case basis, and I think that is what the Bureau does.
QUESTION: Are you saying that they sometimes use a tape recorder?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: Again, I think you have to look at the specific examples of each case and make the best judgment of what is right in that case.
QUESTION: (Off microphone) -- some have suggested the FBI should no longer use this form 302, and should go to a transcription of interviews. Would that be a good idea, in your view?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: Again, you are going to have to look at the whole matter: each case, when you interview, who you interview, what the circumstances are.
QUESTION: But the FBI has a policy that applies to all cases all the time, that they do not tape record their interviews.
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I will be happy to check with Director Freeh and clarify anything that I have said. But, again, I cannot comment on this particular case. And I think you have got to look at the larger picture. [end quote]
Janet Reno obviously chose to engage in wiggleworming when publicly confronted with the indefensible FBI 302 form interview procedure.
Los Angeles Times 7-31-2001 Hearings Open on Mueller
Senate: Bush's pick to head the FBI tells panel his "highest priority" is to restore public's trust in the battle-weary bureau. [excerpt] " . . . . . he said he would consider expanded tape-recording of FBI interviews to give its investigations greater credibility--another idea the bureau has resisted through the years." [end excerpt]
Why should Bush have to make an excuse, he was not President in 1996.
He became Leader then.
He must be honest and trustworthy.
He must now be all those things he took an Oath of Office to be.
He must tell the relatives and all Americans the truth.
He hasnt.
Shame on him and all his minions.
Luckily, the threat remained just that. But the idea sounds chillingly familiar to the events of 11 September, when hijackers used three fuel-laden jetliners to attack and destroy New York's twin towers and part of the Pentagon, near Washington.
One nuclear expert, in fact, suggests that the fourth plane hijacked on 11 September may have been bound for a nuclear facility.
Former threat
The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York brought back memories of the hijacking of a Southern Airways DC-9 in November 1972. The three Americans who hijacked the plane after a stopover in Birmingham, Alabama, threatened to force the pilots to crash the plane into the Oak Ridge facilities. (One of the hijackers had worked at Oak Ridge.) They demanded $10 million “ransom.” Promised $2 million, they forced the pilots to fly to Havana, where the plane landed safely. (Frank Munger, Knoxville News-Sentinel, 9/14/01; Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press, 9/19/01)
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