WHAT JOHN KERRY KNEW ABOUT LOGAN'S SECURITY

NY POST ^ | 3/23/04 | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

[Liz]

March 23, 2004 -- I am writing to respond to misleading statements made by Paul Sperry in his March 15 Opinion column, "The Warning Kerry Ignored." The column is wrong on the facts and in its assertions. In fact, Sen. John Kerry's office promptly forwarded Brian Sullivan's tape warning of security lapses at Boston's Logan Airport to the Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General and contacted the General Accounting Office. Both of these federal offices have the authority and capacity to investigate security concerns.

[Liz]

THE WARNING KERRY IGNORED

By PAUL SPERRY

NY POST

March 15, 2004 -- Sen. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn't blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them.

Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings.

"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."

Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up. In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit.

The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures.

"With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers?" he warned. "Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely." The toll from such an attack would be economic, as well as human, he predicted with chilling accuracy.

Sullivan followed up by having the undercover videotape hand-delivered to Kerry's office.

More than 11 weeks later, Kerry finally replied to his well-informed and anxious constituent. "I have forwarded your tape to the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General [DOT OIG]," he said in a brief July 24, 2001, letter, a copy of which I've obtained.

Yet Sullivan had made it clear in his letter that going to his old agency was a dead end. He and other agents had complained about security lapses for years and got nowhere. "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA," he told Kerry. Sullivan suggested he show the tape to peers on committees with FAA oversight. He even volunteered to testify before them.

But he never heard from Kerry again.

At that point, Steve Elson, the other agent who'd teamed up on the TV sting, decided to take a crack at the junior senator.

A fiery ex-Navy Seal, Elson spent three years as part of an elite FAA unit called the Red Team, which did covert testing of airport security across the country, before retiring as a field agent in Houston. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports.

But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.

"Enhanced security would have prevented the hijackings, virtually without question," Elson now insists. If nothing else, it might have discouraged ringleader Mohamed Atta, who monitored security procedures at Logan weeks before the hijackings.

Yet the warnings apparently did stick in Kerry's mind: In the days after 9/11, Kerry told the Boston Globe that he'd triggered an undercover probe of Logan security by the General Accounting Office in June 2001.

But he wrote Sullivan no such thing in his July letter, stating only that he passed his warning and tape on to Transportation, not GAO. And GAO, though it is the investigative arm of Congress, didn't seem to know what the senator was talking about. The agency had tested security at two airports before 9/11, but neither one was Logan. And Kerry confessed he didn't know the outcome of the probe he says he triggered.

Some follow-up, senator.

Sullivan and Elson, joined by aviation-security experts David Forbes and Andrew Thomas, want to see Kerry hauled before the 9/11 Commission to answer questions about what he knew about Logan's lapses, and specifically what he did about them, before that fateful day. It's a reasonable request - especially since Kerry has complained that President Bush will only give the panel an hour of his time.

Where was Kerry's sense of urgency? Where was his leadership? These are fair questions to ask of someone vying for Bush's job.

"We don't have to wait for a tragedy to occur to act," Sullivan urged Kerry in his letter. But tragically, that's exactly what happened - at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and on both sides of the aisle.

Paul Sperry is a Washington investigative reporter and author of "Crude Politics."

http://nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20808.htm

[lainde]

But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent".

That's like his response to the CITIZEN inquiring about about foreign leaders: Who did you vote for?..."That's none of your business."

[Liz]

Typical opportunistic liberal.....they don't respect our freedoms or honor our open government.....unless it serves their sinister purposes.

[Enduring Freedom]

Q: The American people, by and large, do not know the name bin Laden, but they soon likely will. Do you have a message for the American people?

Bin Laden: I say to them that they have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton's administration.

Jean Qaerry will be the end of America.

[Liz]

...(Americans) have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton's administration...

We sure don't need any outside help to clue us in on that fact.

[jojodamofo]

The so-called constitutional morality of the liberal is no morality at all, rather an encouragement to betrayal. The liberal is not smarter than we are, just cleverer and craftier.

Their system cannot be defeated economically - they follow entirely different moral principles than we do. It can only be broken through political means.

[Just mythoughts]

Wasn't Algore on a commission regarding improving airport security?

If I recall correctly algore was the primary reason why nothing was done to change and improve airport security.

This seems as though JFKerry was following the liberal party line and passing along all things regarding airport security to the agency charged with airport security under the clintons/algore administration.

[SpinyNorman]

Yet the warnings apparently did stick in Kerry's mind: In the days after 9/11, Kerry told the Boston Globe that he'd triggered an undercover probe of Logan security by the General Accounting Office in June 2001.

But he wrote Sullivan no such thing in his July letter, stating only that he passed his warning and tape on to Transportation, not GAO. And GAO, though it is the investigative arm of Congress, didn't seem to know what the senator was talking about. The agency had tested security at two airports before 9/11, but neither one was Logan. And Kerry confessed he didn't know the outcome of the probe he says he triggered.

I read that as Kerry is an out an out liar whose inaction played a major role in the 9/11 attack.

I am SOOOOOOO proud to have him and the Great Bloviator, Teddy Kennedy, as my Senators. /sarcasm

The only thing Kerry "triggered" is projectile vomiting in this "constituent!"

[Liz]

Clinton signs airport security measures into law
October 9, 1996

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton on Wednesday signed into law the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 1996, which includes some of the wide-ranging security measures recommended by Vice President Al Gore's aviation security commission.

"(The bill) will improve the security of air travel," the president said at a signing ceremony in the Old Executive Office Building. "It will carry forward our fight against terrorism." (14 sec./160K AIFF or WAV sound)

The measure, combined with a budget bill signed last week, authorizes the installation of new bomb-detection scanners to examine both carry-on and checked baggage at major airports, pays for new FBI agents to be assigned to airport security, increases inspection of mail on board flights, and increases the use of bomb-sniffing dogs.


Gore's commission presented its report and recommendations on September 9. Clinton said Wednesday that the bill he was signing made almost all of those recommendations "the law of the land."

"This bill is an outstanding example of how we can advance our strategy when we work together -- the government and private citizens, the executive branch and Congress, Republicans and Democrats," Clinton said. (6 sec. / 80K AIFF or WAV sound)

The bill also assigns the National Transportation Safety Board the task of dealing with families of those injured or killed by air disasters. That recommendation grew out of complaints from families of victims of TWA Flight 800 that the airline was slow or inadequate in responding to their needs.

TWA Flight 800 exploded shortly after takeoff from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in July, killing all 230 aboard.

The bill authorizes $19 billion for the FAA over the next two years. It also bars unlicensed pilots from setting aeronautical records. This is designed to prevent a situation like this year's crash that killed 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff, who was attempting to become the youngest pilot to complete a cross-country flight.

Reuters contributed to this report.
____________________________________


Looks like Al and Bill noth missed the point of airport secutiry. Why am I not surprised?

[Liz]

I am SOOOOOOO proud to have him and the Great Bloviator, Teddy Kennedy, as my Senators. /sarcasm The only thing Kerry "triggered" is projectile vomiting in this "constituent!"

I feel for you, being from Taxachusetts.

[TruthFactor]

BTTT!!!!!!

Worth reading and re-reading.

[ApesForEvolution]

WOW! bttt

[mewzilla]

Wasn't Argenright doing Logan's security back then?

[mewzilla]

Argenbright.

[Liz]

..... Wasn't Argenbright doing Logan's security back then?......


The Dennenberg Report
November 19, 2001

HOW LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, THE FAA, THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY AND OTHERS WERE BLIND TO THE OBVIOUS BEFORE AND AFTER 9-11.

If there's one thing that the recent World Trade Center catastrophe proves, it is that there has to be responsibility and accountability for failures, or those failures will be repeated and compounded. The case of airport security proves it all, having provided a long-running national disgrace with every aspect of its failures for many years. Yet nothing was done about it, and those responsible were not brought to book. As a result, four planes could be hijacked on September 11, 2001, in one of the greatest and most inexcusable and preventable security failures in history.


That whole catastrophe can be easily explained. Airline security was always virtually non-existent and no one did anything about it despite endless warnings. Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration, the airports, the airlines, and the security firms tolerated the intolerable until their negligence and stupidity caused the unthinkable.


Unfortunately, the evidence is clear that the lessons of September 11 are yet to be learned. Even after September 11, all the parties in question were slow to act, and permitted one fiasco after another, without speedy and dramatic remedies. As one of many examples, take the case of Logan International Airport, where the two planes that were flown into the World Trade Center were later hijacked.


On November 16, over two months after the catastrophe, Logan International Airport finally barred Argenbright Security from the airport. It acted, according to its own account, because it learned that Argenbright, which has 40 percent of the market for airport security, had pleaded guilty to felony charges in Philadelphia last year (for failure to do criminal checks of screeners, for failure to give exams to screeners, for covering up its wrongdoing, etc.) Although this matter had been in the national media and with special intensity after September 11, it took the management at Logan International Airport until November 15 to figure out something was amiss with Argenbright. Can anyone be so dense as to miss all the red flags flying on airport security and on Argenbright for many years before November 15?


The airport's interim security chief, Col. John DiFava, explained this long over-due epiphany on security this way, "After a while, it's like enough is enough when you just hear 'Argenbright, Argenbright' all the time. It's a drastic move, but I think it's the right move." It may be the right move, but it is certainly not drastic in view of what has been going on, and it calls into question the decision-making at Logan International Airport and the rest of the security system in recent years.


Even before the brain trust at Logan International Airport finally got the word on the felony conviction of Argenbright, there had already been security lapses at Logan that should have led to action. According to published reports, that same week an Argenbright employee left an airport exit door unattended for four minutes. That, of course, led to delayed flights and travelers being forced to go though the screening process again. The very next day, an Argenright employee abandoned an elevator post that was part of the airport's perimeter security.


What's more, even earlier, there were two highly publicized reports of Argenbright security lapses at Chicago, involving two travelers who got by Argenbright security with everything from tear gas and stun guns to knives and cleavers. But Logan, like the rest of the airport security system, apparently are in the tradition of the three monkeys that see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.


As I've noted, I tested Argenbright security and other security companies at the Philadelphia International Airport and found nothing resembling security. In fact, I sent an undercover employee to the airport, who got a job on the screening line for Argenbright. That security company did not even bother to check her employment references. That security lapse was worse than the other allegations against Argenbright, as they involved failure to check criminal background information. But in this case, they did not even check employment references.


So why isn't someone asking Logan International Airport why they weren't doing some checking on their own? Why weren't they aware of dozens of media reports over the years on airport security failures? Why weren't they aware of the findings of the FAA and other government agencies on airport security failures? Why were they in the dark about the obvious until September 11 and even thereafter? Why did it take them until November 16, 2001 to take action? This is a case of the incompetent watching the incompetent, and in turn being regulated by the still more incompetent FAA.


--SNIP----

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:bcUmgEgw0VEJ:www.thedenenbergreport.org/article.php%3Findex%3D195


Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, professor at the Wharton School, and Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner. He is an adjunct professor of insurance and information science and technology at Cabrini College. You can e-mail him at hdenenberg@aol.com (as of Nov 2001).

[onyx]

It just keeps unraveling.
Good work, Liz.

[Fracas]

Excellent info!

KERRY KNEW!!!

[terilyn]

So Kerry only wants to talk to Democrats from Massachusetts. I wish him luck winning an election that way. If some brainiac from the RNC wanted to, this would make a great centerpiece for a campaign ad. Add the comment he made at the rally and it sure demonstrates his arrogance.

This article proves once again the media is more interested in seeing GWB lose this election than they are in reporting facts.

Can you imagine the ruckus if this information had been given to a Republican senator? Just think it was given to DeLay or Lott??

They will dig decades back to investigate an AWOL rumor...from a man who admits he has the beginnings of Alzheimers... yet can't be bothered to give something like this more than a distainful stiff.

[onyx]

I can only praise what you've written.
You're exactly right.

[armymarinemom]

Exactly what sized weapon was one allowed to carry on to a flight before 9/11. I was amazed that my bag was X-Rayed there and nobody asked to see my Gerber AP tool. I carried the thing through Logan, and Memphis in July 2001.

[AnAmericanMother]

yet can't be bothered to give something like this more than a distainful stiff.

J F'in Kerry IS a disdainful stiff!

;-) sorry - couldn't resist.

[terilyn]

LOL! That'll teach me to preview.

'effin probably sniffs stiff!

[AnAmericanMother]

The Dems who are supporting Kerry must be blind. How can such a stuck-up, snobbish hanger-on (and the wannabees on the fringes of the "elite" are always the most stuck-up and snobbish) appeal to voters who supposedly are for the "common man". The "common man" can't get past Kerry's front door (although I suppose he might show up at the service entrance.) I guess the man's got a permanent inferiority complex from being the poor cousin.

[Liz]

Excellent info! KERRY KNEW!!! ...... It just keeps unraveling.

It's clear Dims reside in a parallel universe, and have been running a supersecret government. They seemingly loathe Americans, and everything America stands for. They would tear it all down to satisfy their egotistical ambitions. Kerry most certainly has a deity complex.

Democray dies behind closed doors. Voters better wake up and derail the Kerry freight train taking them to reeducation camp.

[armymarinemom]

Logan security July 2001

[Liz]

ping

[Ramius]

Actually, your question is a good one, and it's part of the fallacy that's grown up about airport security, and Logan in particular about 9/11.

Before 9/11 it was perfectly legal to carry knives (and box cutters) on airplanes. I carried a leatherman tool and a boxcutter in my regular carry on stuff for years.

Regarding Logan... the 9/11 hijackers didn't go through security at Logan. They flew in on a small commuter plane from somewhere else (Portland, Maine, I think?) to Logan. They would have already been inside the terminal and would not have had to go through security again.

They remain, for some reason, a couple of commonly repeated misconceptions about 9/11 and it's about time to get them out of the way.

All that said... I still maintain that the basic problem on 9/11 wasn't that there were too many weapons on those planes-- but that there were too few. A couple of hundred passengers on a jet that have some kind of weapons to use would make any future hijacking completely unthinkable.

[armymarinemom]

Regarding Logan... the 9/11 hijackers didn't go through security at Logan. They flew in on a small commuter plane from somewhere else (Portland, Maine, I think?) to Logan. They would have already been inside the terminal and would not have had to go through security again.

Logan has always done scans per gates or groups of gates. Whenever I fly in I into Logan I still have to go through security before I board another flight. It makes flights a bore and always has.

I have always wanted to know the blade length pre 9/11. It's been bugging me for two years. Six years ago they didn't let me carry the tape measure through but backed off on that just one year later when I flew through Logan.

[Libloather]

But Kerry's office responded to his warning promptly and responsibly and delivered the tape to those able to directly investigate it further. It appears that many others ignored Sullivan's warning altogether. David McKean Chief of Staff to Sen. John F. Kerry Washington, D.C.

Eleven weeks is prompt? Maybe for the Postal Service, but not in too many other places...

[lainde]

bttt

[nutmeg]

See posts 25 and 40 on this thread: Gore 1996 Airline Commission brought to the attention of the 9/11 family members (DC Chapter Report)

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Massachusetts ping list.

[mickie]

I would like to go to the original Sperry article....to email it to several people I know. Is there a link?

Great article!

[SGCOS]

.. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports.

But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings.

That pretty much sums it up. Kerry had more info available than anybody else (except for Osama) and he passed the buck because 'you're ont a constituent'.

[Cboldt]

Regarding Logan... the 9/11 hijackers didn't go through security at Logan. They flew in on a small commuter plane from somewhere else (Portland, Maine, I think?) to Logan.

Atta and one other entered secure space in PWM (Portland, Maine). Some of the hijackers entered at BOS (Logan). I fly out of PWM on a regular basis, and was shocked/angry/saddened viewing picture of Atta and his buddy passing over the same piece of carpet that'd I'd been over, scores of times.

Once through security, most of Logan passenger secure space is accessible to passengers without passing through Logan security. There is no need to go through security again, unless leaving a terminal building and entering another. Even in that case, there are (and were) a number of passenger corridors, between terminal buildings, in secure space.

[Liz]

NY Post runs an archive. Why not search the article on the web NYP site by clicking on source above (red Ny Post).

Or search FR. Original was probably posted here.

[Liz]

Betcha there's a lotta Mass. constituents he didn't listen to, either. They oughta sue his **s off.

[Liz]

See if this original link works.

http://nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20808.htm

[sauropod]

Having had to deal with the GAO in a former life, i can tell you there should be an "entrance letter" that Kerry or his staff wrote concerning initiating any investigation. I think it could be produced if the reporters started asking for it.... 'Pod.

[Liz]

.....there should be an "entrance letter" that Kerry or his staff wrote concerning initiating any investigation. I think it could be produced if reporters started asking for it....

We'd best debrief Britt Hume over at Fox on this, pronto.

It's OK by me if Carl Cameron or Jim Angle start asking around. OK by you all?

[onyx]

Yep. Fine by me.
Prefer Britt, but Angle is GOOD also.
Carl Cameron is assigned to Kerry campaign.
Wouldn't that he a hoot?

[Fracas]

"As predicted, the Kerry campaign, in response to the recent New York Post article about him having been warned about vulnerabilities at Logan Airport pre 9/11, has cited a September 16, 2001 Dateline/MSNBC report in which I was quoted as saying "I think Sen. Kerry did get it to the right people and they were about to take action."

My rebuttal follows:

I was being told by Kerry's office (Mr. Jamie Wise) prior to 9/11 that, as a result of his (Kerry's) inquiry, the GAO began an undercover investigation, to incorporate Logan Airport. I didn't find out until much later that his claim was untrue. At the time, I had no reason to feel that his office was lying to me and assumed that, in fact, an undercover investigation had begun. That's why I stated what I did in the Dateline/MSNBC interview.

To substantiate that claim let me cite the following from a September 15, 2001 article in the Boston Globe:

Kerry: GAO probed security at LoganBy Brian C. Mooney and Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff, 9/15/2001 The US General Accounting Office conducted an undercover investigation of airport security measures after Senator John F. Kerry provided a tape of a Boston television station report on lapses earlier this year at Logan International Airport, Kerry said. ''They began an undercover investigation in response, specifically, to our inquiry,'' Kerry told reporters at the State House.Kerry said he did not know the outcome of the probe.His press secretary, Kelley Benander, said the GAO told the senator's office about the investigation in June.


Thank you,
Brian F. Sullivan"

http://sayanythingblog.com/archives/001075.php

[onyx]

Man.
Where are we going to keep all this inofrmation?
I'm bookmarking so many threads, I need a "system."

[ApesForEvolution]

Go fur it...

[Little Bill]

Howie Carr has brought this up in detail on his show on many occasions, I will hit his web site and see if he has it posted, Lovey, Lovey, these nasty republicans are picking on me again.

[eternity]

I think they all better come clean. http://www.letsroll911.org

[Pagey]

Liz, What an absolutely great thread. BUMP for Historical memorization and unanswered questions that undoubtedly should be answered.

[Liz]

Thanks, Pagey. Kerry can't spin or flip this no how, no way.