Posted on 10/25/2001 7:19:00 AM PDT by LiveFree2000
October 25, 2001
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Behind the facade of cooperation following the Sept. 11 attacks, less than amicable relations between New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the FBI have further deteriorated. According to New York City sources, the mayor has engaged in more than one shouting match with FBI Assistant Director Barry Mawn.
It's the same old problem because it's the same old FBI. Newly appointed, much-acclaimed Director Robert Mueller makes little difference. The bureau refuses to share information with local police agencies. It won't permit security clearances for high local officials. Law enforcement officers around the country say that attitude lent itself to catastrophe Sept. 11 and could permit further disasters.
Last Friday in Washington, Mueller--amiable and agreeable--sat down with big-city police chiefs and promised things will get better. The chiefs doubt whether Mueller or Tom Ridge, the new homeland security director, can change the bureau's culture--described to me by one police chief as ''elitist and arrogant.'' Efforts to enlist members of Congress into pressing for reform find politicians awed by the FBI mystique.
The FBI's big National Security section in New York City long has grappled with the New York Police Department. ''The FBI's attitude has been that if you need to know, we'll tell you,'' one New York police source told me. That ''need'' never occurs, with the FBI adamantly against any local anti-terrorism activity. The locals, in turn, complain about the feds failing to follow important leads.
Giuliani is not venting his outrage in a time of national crisis, but sources report a high decibel level in private by the mayor. The complaint to Mawn is that the NYPD is out of the loop, its senior officers not even granted security clearances.
Such complaints are common across the country, but only a few police chiefs speak publicly--notably Edward Norris of Baltimore (who complained in congressional testimony), Michael Chitwood of Portland, Maine, and Dan Oates of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Chitwood's experience is most bizarre. He was infuriated to learn that the FBI knew of a visit to Portland by two Sept. 11 hijackers but did not inform him. When his police pursued a witness of that visit, the FBI threatened to arrest the chief. ''I ignored them,'' Chitwood told me. Has cooperation with the bureau improved? ''Not a bit,'' he said. Only Tuesday he learned from reading his local newspaper about a plane under federal surveillance parked at the Portland airport for seven weeks.
Oates is familiar with the FBI, having tried to work with the feds during 21 years with the NYPD before retiring this year to go to Ann Arbor. As a deputy chief who was commanding officer of NYPD intelligence, he describes the FBI as ''obsessed with turf.''
Closing doors to police officers particularly infuriates Oates. ''The security clearance issue is a tired old excuse that allows the FBI not to share,'' he told me. ''They should hand out 10,000 security clearances to cops around the country.'' Oates and other police chiefs believe Sept. 11 might have been averted had the FBI alerted local police agencies about a Minnesota flight school's report of an Arab who wanted instructions for steering a big jet, but not for landing or taking off.
Police chiefs would open the FBI to the same probing of decisions and actions that they routinely perform after the fact. They also would like the same rules for the bureau that govern most of the nation's police departments. In the FBI, nobody takes the fall for blundering.
A promise that things will change in the FBI was implicit in Mueller's remarks to city police chiefs last Friday. Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, another NYPD veteran who is more cautious in his criticism of the feds than his former colleague Oates, sounded skeptical after the meeting. ''I'm hopeful,'' he told me, but would make no predictions.
What he hopes for is the safety of the American people. The police chiefs of America want a top-to-bottom cleansing of the FBI that will require leadership from the Oval Office. If George W. Bush doubts the urgency, he should ask Rudy Giuliani.
October 25, 2001
It's time we throw out the leftovers.
Is anyone surprised?
For a Historical comparison, I do not think the 'Roman Praetorian Guards' shared any intelligence with the local Roman law enforcers. (Unless they needed to tap their 'snitch' database)
People can legitimately complain about alot of things Guiliani has done, but corruption isn't one of them. In fact, he has fought harder than any NY Mayor in memory to root out corruption in NYC. For instance, he didn't back down an inch when he was trying to root the mob out of the Fulton Fish Market. As a result, the only thing the mob could do about his efforts to eliminate their influence was to burn down the Fish Market.
Also, you should do your homework on Tammany Hall. That was a Democratic machine and last time I checked Guiliani is a Republican, so I really can't believe that you would claim that Guiliani would be bringing the 'expertise of Tammany Hall' to the FBI.
Talk about "sleepers"!! I'll bet that the FBI is full of Clintoon/Reno/Freeh dreck.
Directly before the 11 SEP attacks, the FBI was futilely trying to dig its way out of a LaBrea tarpit of incompetence, scandal and Clinton-favoring stonewalling. Then - "Voila!" - they're great again because we were attacked.
Sorry folks, things don't change that fast in a bureaucracy, and that's is exactly what Clinton, Reno and Freeeh made the FBI into, a tame police force.
prambo
Excellent suggestion. Rudy would clean up the pink panty wearing, affirmative action oriented, diverisity quilting oriented Clinton/Reno road blocks to having an effective FBI!
The mind set of these perverse/mentally ill FBIers is that Microsoft was more a danger to America, than terrorist from outside. Then re terrorists, the White Male Christian, who served honorably in military service and believed in the first and second amendment was the dangerous terrorist.
To begin with, use lie detector tests on all hired and promoted during the Clinton/Reno era of destroying America. Establish when they are telling the truth or lying. Then ask them to repeat their loyalty oath and oath to protect this country from enemies outside and within! As soon as they show any lying during the new oath, lock them up and investigate them and their files, bank accounts and run a new security check on them!
90% of those hired and promoted from 1993 to Jan 2002, would probably flunk this simple test. If they flunk this simple test, they should be fired, locked up and then investigated for acts of sedition and/or treason against America! Those found to be guilty should be shot as traitors!
We have just found out that Jake Reno banned any FBI investigation of the eco terrorists groups like Alf, Elf, Earth First, the Anarchists operating and living in the open in Eugene and Portland, Oregon!
Robert Novak nails it again.
could not agree with you more. Mueller was one of those Bush appointments made to be pleasing to both parties. He is a bureaucrat, politically correct and obviously slow in getting started. In 6 weeks since 9/11 there has not been one significant arrest or even slowing down of the terrorism happening in our land. Do we have 13,000 agents pounding the pavement like a good NYC Detective would be doing, or do we have a bunch of bureaucrats worrying about being politically correct, holding meetings, more meetings and more meetings while they drink their 8 cups of coffee per day.
We are at war guys. Lets get going!!
Could this mystique have anything to do with the files maintained by the FBI, I wonder?
Don't forget about loners living in the woods with sawed-off shotguns, and their wives, children, and pets.
The most recent increase in the number of offences for which a person can be executed was directed solely at offences against the federal bureaucracy.
The newly formed "Homeland Security" bureaucracy will be devoted to rooting out any white resistance to the total globalization of the country. It can be no other way. All other minority groups have developed too strong an ethnic identity--supported by the government in most cases--to be routinely "penetrated". Peaceful Islam--which some bigoted reactionaries might suggest represents a far greater threat than the Soviet Union ever did--cannot be inflitrated by the Police State for a host of reasons.
So that leaves the miserable dregs of "white resistance". Whenever two or more of them are gathered, there you will find 40 or so Feds, making the country safe for---The Feds, of course. And "conservatives" are just sooo supportive 'cause we're bombing the Taliban back to the Pleistocene age.
Tote that barge!! Lift that bale!! Life is funny isn't it?
This is why Rudy would be a good man to appoint! He is angry with the failures of the Former Bureau of Investigation. He is not enamored with their petty BS and attempts to scare the innocent while not investigating the criminals!
Rudy will never forget the Firement, Police and the other 5,000 mass murder victims of the WTC. He would be the Avenging Angel for these victims at the FBI! If he became director, the good agents, management, and lab people who left in droves during 93-2000, would volunteer to come back to clean up the dung heap that the Former Bureau of Investigation has become!
Anything else, is frowned upon.
Seen-it-before.
We have just found out that Jake Reno banned any FBI investigation of the eco terrorists groups like Alf, Elf, Earth First, the Anarchists operating and living in the open in Eugene and Portland, Oregon!
Hadn't heard that. Can you point me to a reference for this?
All rhetorical questions and observations, not meant for anyone in particular whatsoever, just put it here under the initial post of the article.
Mueller isn't going to change a thing. He's a goon, part of the long standing, carved in stone, cover-up faction in the fibbers. Bad mistake bush getting him in, real bad mistake. Guys like mueller are part of the major bad abuses that have gone on in that agency, so, things ain't gonna change. That's my opinion anyway. The fibbers have been an out of control rogue agency for years and years and years, there's no "fix" available there. Many agents are probably decent guys and patriots, deal is, those guys ain't in charge of squat.
This is part of that article, "Is the FBI investigating the possibility? Probably not. Under former Attorney General Janet Reno, the FBI was under direct orders to leave such groups alone. As a result, to date, the FBI has few records on Earth First!, ALF or ELF."
Earth First, Elf, Alf?, and the anarchists who destroyed part of Seattle two years ago have operated freely in Oregon and Washington since the two present enviral governors were elected.
Oregon is the worst of the two. The anarchists live and operate openingly in Eugene and Portland, Or.. 60% of the admitted Elf terrorism in the US has happened in Oregon. With the current enviral hand puppet governor, the OSP, have been made to look away from investigating the open and rampant econ terrorism committed by Elf and the Anarchists. Rumors have been rampant that the OSP was given orders to back off of any real investigation of these enviral terrorist groups just like the FBI was so ordered. Those orders or implied orders could only come from the Governor!
Why invoke half measures?
Why not just have the military kick all the scum out of Washington. Rudy Giuliani could be appointed Protector and get on with doing what's right, rather than doing whatever the heck the leftist scum can persuade Blue Nation America to riot (or threaten to riot) about?
Mark W.
Yes, I believe it was, the 'Earth First' fellow was the one that released the captive dinosaurs, enabling them to destroy the 'rotten' Ingen people's camp, and 'Earth First' was the one that brought the wrath of the Tyrannosaurs down upon the rest of the people on the Island.
Seen-it-before.
Loggers started to use metal detectors to search for the metal spikes before they cut a tree. A couple of year ago, eco terrorists started putting ceramic spikes in trees. Metal detectors can not detect the ceramic spikes. The ceramic spikes in trees scheduled for logging are as dangerous as the original metal spikes!
This is the reality not a movie. These are criminal terrorists who hate people who dare to live a house with wood!
I thought J. Edgar Hoover was dead?
Maybe too many "important leads" lead back to the FBI. Maybe they're "obsessed with turf" because they're doing so many things they should be ashamed of that they can't afford to let anybody know anything.
The most important time to control an investigation is when your own hands are dirty in the crime being investigated.
I really have to laugh when the media talks about what a good governor Kitzhaber is! We have our economy tanking, unemployment is among the highest in the nation, the schools are terrible, roads are a joke, the state budget is bloated in areas it doesn't need money and lacking where it does. And now, our Secretary of State has been upheld in a blatantly partisan redistricting plan that will ensure that the Demoncrats will control this state for at least the next 10 years.
Oh well, at least we are finally getting some rain.
For those who may not remember, Guliani was the Federal Prosecutor for the Southern District, US Supreme Court. (NYC, more specifically Manhattan) He is singlehandedly credited with putting more Maffia Dons and underlings in jail then any Federal Prosecutor in history. Guliani may have become somehat politically oriented since those days, but he still has savvy and perseverance to do the job. Most important is the fact that he is a political renegade whose main thrust is his job, not the political ramifications of his actions. With Mueller, we have a politically correct bureaucrat that will always be crippled by his political correctness. In retrospect he was a good appointment for Bush who was looking to heal the country in a bipartison way early on in his term. Now, he (Mueller) has become a very bad choice.
The FBI. Very bad. Still crippled by the Clintonoids who control the local offices and major departments within the bureau. what the FBI needs is a purge of Reno's gang of Clinton protectors.
About 4-5 years ago, Andy Kerr, then director of ONRC said that there were too many jobs and too many people working and living in Oregon. They had to eliminate the bad jobs and force some people to move from Oregon! Katznslobber was at that left wing enviral meeting and basically agreed!
So the last 3-4 years of his term has been aimed making businesses the evil people as well as the evil logging/wood businesses. The attempted Rural Cleansing of the Klamath Basin Farmers cost the state about $300 million in lost revenue. The closure of the aluminum factories along the Columbia River has cost close to 10,000 jobs. The evil green enviralists have just about finished off the lumber/logging business in Oregon. The Intel CEO was so po at the anti business atmosphere, he said no more Intel investments in Oregon.
Heavy duty construction companies are either going broke or leaving Oregon! Five plus years ago, Oregon had so much heavy duty construction going on, it was the hub of heavy construction on the west coast!
Your brother who lives in Eugene, know all about the anarchists who burn and destroy and live operate in the open in Eugene! ELF demanded free campus time to show how to commit terrorist activities in Portland.
Glad to hear about the rain, the state was in a full blown drought most of this year!
Be careful up there!
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