Memo to Bush: Time to hold immigration bureaucrats responsible for letting in 9/11 murderers

What does it take to get fired from a federal job? Apparently, admitting terrorists into the country won't do it, even when they fly into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. National Review investigative reporter and JWR columnist Joel Mowbray produces documentary evidence that State Department employees violated their own rules and procedures -- as well as the law -- by admitting 15 of the 19 hijackers who killed more than 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Yet, to date, no one has been fired as a result of this terrible breach in security.

Mowbray obtained copies of the actual visa applications of 15 of the hijackers, several of which are posted online at www.nationalreview.com. Most of the applications did not pass muster under even the most lenient visa standards. The applications were missing rudimentary information, such as an address in the United States where the applicant intended to live, in some cases even a destination city. Amazingly, one applicant listed his destination simply as "no." As Mowbray points out, "even more amazingly, he got a visa."

In other words, despite missing or suspicious information, consular officials rubber-stamped them anyway. Shouldn't somebody pay for such incompetence, which one expert interviewed by Mowbray called "criminal negligence"? So far, no one has. Although three of the top five State Department officials in charge of the visa program retired earlier this year -- within weeks of an earlier expose written by Mowbray -- that hardly seems sufficient. Heads should roll at State, but they haven't.

Ironically, the administration is pressing for the right to dismiss incompetent workers as part of its proposed Homeland Security legislation. But Senate Democrats have so far blocked the bill -- at the bidding of their patrons in the labor movement, who put union job security above national security.

The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves, but the administration shouldn't be let off the hook, either. The White House has been slow to endorse a full-scale investigation into the lapses in national security that contributed to the September 11 tragedy. We deserve to know what went wrong and why.

If the consular officials processing visa applications had done their job, none of the 15 hijackers profiled in National Review would have been admitted in the first place. Up and down the line, those in charge of protecting American interests were asleep at the switch. But is there any reason to believe that things have changed in the aftermath of the terrible attack on this country?

Not according to Mowbray. The Bush administration's nominee to head Consular Affairs, which oversees the visa program, admits she hasn't looked at the faulty applications of 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers, though surely those applications were more readily available to her than to an outside reporter.

As I have stated before on this forum, I've been serving overseas in our embassies and consulates since 1988. I work for the Dept. of Defense and have naturally come to know hundreds (if not thousands, by now) State Department Foreign Service Officers and employees. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of State Department employees who would be worth the powder it would take to blow them up. The vast, vast majority I've met have been corrupt at worst, incompetent at best; many are not only liberal but open about their anti-American sentiments. I've long been convinced that the State Department was infiltrated a long time ago by bolsheviks; these bolsheviks are now in the senior policy-making positions and they ensure the current status quo continues. Reagan tried to cleanse the State Department but was blocked by Democrats and the media... even, unfortunately, by his own SecState George Shultz.

I agree. I was a Marine Security Guard in Calcutta and Hong Kong and met only one person in the Consular Section that was worth while. Shortly after leaving Hong Kong. One of the officers was arrested for selling visa's to nationals from main land China.

The State Department is filled with PC Peace Corps types.

Bush is missing a golden opportunity. He should send dismissal notices to the employees that processed these applications.

The unions will, of course, raise hell and insist that they cannot be summarily dismissed.

All Bush has to do then is present the union demands and arguments to the American people, most of whom will see the idiocy of the union arguments.

He then can explain that this is the reason he is demanding the right to hire and fire in the homeland security department.

Great article. On this same issue, President Bush has not made a clear case as to why the Homeland Security Bill he wants is being held up by the Democrats. This is a winning issue when explained quite simply and yet no Republican has done this well. They need some repetitive talking points on this issue so the masses 'get it'. All they need to repeat is that the American people deserve a homeland security department in which the right people, regardless of job seniority are placed into the right positions. They need to know that few government employees are fired for incompetence but the HSD is one in which the best and brightest must be employed. I'm so frustrated by the lack of good campaigning.

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