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.