NYP: 9/11 WARNING IGNORED - Gore failed to fix air-security rules

New York Post ^ | Dick Morris

[OESY]

...Gore's work was entirely based on the belief that nobody would commit suicide while hijacking a plane. So the only purpose of CAPPS [Civil Aviation Passenger Protection System] was to assure that these passengers boarded the airplane with their checked baggage — since the feds assumed that the checked bags couldn't have a bomb in if the terrorist was on the plane himself.

As naive and shortsighted as this assumption was — and as disastrous as it turned out to be — until now we have only been able to chalk it up to Al Gore's particular brand of myopia. But now we have evidence that one year after his report was issued, the White House received a warning that a suicide mission was a distinct possibility.

Why did Gore or Clinton not spring into action and undertake a review of the 1997 Commission report to adjust its conclusions to take account of this new possibility?

This oversight led to the horrendous lack of preparedness on 9/11....

Had Gore and Clinton acted as they should have, all kinds of changes might have been made that could have forestalled 9/11. Boxcutters and small knives could have been barred from planes (after being specifically permitted in a change in FAA rules early in the Clinton years). Passengers identified by the CAPPS system could be investigated and barred from planes without special pat downs and screening. The entire system could have been refocused to take account of the suicide option in a way that it never was before 9/11.

The blame, of course, should fall not only on a Clinton administration distracted by impeachment and fighting for its political life, but also on the Bush Administration — which is why the paragraph was initially redacted from the published version of the 9/11 report.

[Puppage]

Gore failed to fix air-security rules

Doesn't anyone recall that Gore & the rats took political donations in lieu of having the airlines pay huge dollars to correct the security issues?

[Piquaboy]

He was busy working on the internet.

[Phrostie]

Gore failed to fix air-security rules

Did Gore ever fix anything?

[houeto]

He was busy working on the internet.

Yup, and after seeing the effectiveness of FreeRepublic, I bet he regrets 'inventing' it! LMAO...

[Puppage]

Did Gore ever fix anything?

Good point

[AngieGOP]

"Did Gore ever fix anything?"

He tried to fix the 2000 Presidential election and failed there too.

[Tigen]

Gore could ruin an anvil with a rubber hammer too and it would be Bush's fault.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Yup. He fixed those overseas military absentee votes so they couldn't be counted.

[silverleaf]

...Gore's work was entirely based on the belief that nobody would commit suicide while hijacking a plane. So the only purpose of CAPPS [Civil Aviation Passenger Protection System] was to assure that these passengers boarded the airplane with their checked baggage — since the feds assumed that the checked bags couldn't have a bomb in if the terrorist was on the plane himself.

As naive and shortsighted as this assumption was — and as disastrous as it turned out to be — until now we have only been able to chalk it up to Al Gore's particular brand of myopia. But now we have evidence that one year after his report was issued, the White House received a warning that a suicide mission was a distinct possibility.

Umm NO. Poor reporting.

The Gore Airline Security Commission was formed AFTER a 1995 anti-terrorist raid in the Philippines uncovered a terrorist PC with plans for a massive al Qaeda plot to simultaneously commandeer 11 American jetliners and bomb them or crash them into buildings (code named "Bojinka"). Bojinka targets identified included the WTC and the Pentagon. When captured a year later in Pakistan, terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammed boasted of this plot to his FBI escorts

It's clear that "Bojinka" contained enough detail mirroring the attack that came on 9-11, that the Gore Commission failed to act on rather detailed captured intelligence. Had the Gore Commission simply required the airlines to reinforce cockpit doors to prevent a hijacker fomr storming the cockpit, the outcome of 9-11 oculd have been much different, or the plan aborted entirely.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I disagree with Morris's last paragraph. Clinton had 8 years to fix this problem, while Bush had 8 onths and not even the benefit of a transition period. Instead, Clinton staffers were too busy trashing offices and writing executive orders to bother briefing the new President.

[mass55th]

"Did Gore ever fix anything?"

Well, he did teach us what hanging chads, pregnant chads, retarded chads, bloated chads, and myopic chads were.

[Calpernia]

There was also documents discovered in Ramsey Yousef's apartment that was searched after WTC'93 that indicated the same.

[LurkedLongEnough]

You bet. It all goes back to "It's the Economy, Stupid".

Gore must have been ~so pleased~ to have been appointed to head the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security after TWA 800. /s

Quote from the Final Report from VP Gore:

"In the wake of concerns over the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, President Clinton asked the Commission to focus its attention first on the issue of security. He asked for an initial report on aviation security in 45 days, including an action plan to deploy new hightechnology machines to detect the most sophisticated explosives."

[ravingnutter]

On Sept. 20, one mainstream newspaper released the story of how the so-called Gore Commission failed conspicuously to address airline safety. The paper claimed that this failure "represents the clearest recent public example of the success that airlines have long had in defeating calls for more oversight."

The paper traced that failure to a series of campaign donations from the airlines to the Democratic National Committee in 1996 in the wake of the crash of TWA Flight 800, donations likely solicited by Al Gore himself. That newspaper just happened to be John Kerry's hometown Boston Globe.

Yes, Clinton and Gore did abandon airport security planning for sake of campaign cash. But worse, they concealed the real cause of the crash, in no small part to justify that abandonment.

In fact, on the same day in September of 1996 that Al Gore sent the airline's lobbyist a letter signaling his intent to roll over, the National Transportation Safety Board reversed its spin and all but ruled out a bomb or missile strike [on TWA 800].

WND

In our book, "First Strike," James Sanders and I make this arguably prophetic comment:

John Kerry seemed to have his sights on Al Gore's Achilles' heel. After the events of Sept. 11, the story of how Al Gore helped subvert the investigation into TWA 800 and undermine airport security may yet prove to be a career-killer. Kerry's "slips" may have put Gore out of the race even before he got in.

Two weeks after advanced copies of "First Strike" started circulating around Washington, Gore withdrew from the presidential race. His withdrawal shocked Washington. It did not shock Sanders and me. We expected it. Kerry plays hardball, too.

Source

See also:

Why John Kerry talks about TWA 800

[WorkingClassFilth]

I remember that. In fact, at the time, it was another huge scandal that refused to go anywhere in the news. I believe that the WSJ did a pretty good piece on the Algore/X42 donation shakedown from the airlines. I have wished I could locate that article on a couple occasions, but I have not.