Posted on 08/14/2005 4:06:35 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
The commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has a critical dual mission to fulfill -- to help our nation understand how the worst assault on our homeland since Pearl Harbor could have occurred and to outline reforms to prevent new acts of terrorism. Under the leadership of former governor Tom Kean and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the commission has acted with professionalism and skill. Its hearings and the reports it has released have been highly informative, if often disturbing. Sept. 11 united this country in shock and grief; the lessons from it must be learned in a spirit of unity, not of partisan rancor.
At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that "the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents" and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo. This is simply not true.
First, I did not invent the "wall," which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it. In a nutshell, that law, as the courts read it, said intelligence investigators could conduct electronic surveillance in the United States against foreign targets under a more lenient standard than is required in ordinary criminal cases, but only if the "primary purpose" of the surveillance were foreign intelligence rather than a criminal prosecution.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1462991/posts?page=30#30
"Gorelick wrote this op-ed while the 9-ll Hearings were going on, in direct response to AG Ashcroft's testimony. In the light of what we now know about Able Danger, that op-ed needs to be thoroughly dissected. Maybe that's why it's no longer available to read."
Unfortunately many links at WaCompost were expired but the one I posted above works.
Ping!
"Unfortunately many links at WaCompost were expired but the one I posted above works."
You can always give http://www.archive.org/ a shot with old stale links. Sometimes they are archived.
If the courts come up with a truly stupid ruling based on an obscure law, YOU REWRITE THE LAW, rather than reinforce it with an official memo governing conduct of national agencies that puts national security at risk. Official Duh! memo from me.
The fox guarding the hen house....thanks for posting, very important to pursue this story.
Prevent new acts of terrorism?
Simply stated "THE BUSH DOCTRINE".
Congressional Record: April 28, 2004 (Senate)
Page S4482-S4483
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized under the
previous order.
Mr. CORNYN. Thank you, Madam President.
The 9/11 Commission
Madam President, earlier, I spoke on the importance of the 9/11
Commission maintaining its credibility given the important mission that
organization has undertaken to determine, first, a factual record of
the events leading up to 9/11, and then to make recommendations to
Congress and various Government agencies on how we can continue to
protect our homeland against any further terrorist attacks on our own
soil.
I spoke about the need of one of the Commissioners, Commissioner
Jamie Gorelick, to provide information about her knowledge of relevant
facts. She, of course, was Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton
administration under Attorney General Janet Reno.
I also made one other point that I think bears repeating here now;
that is, this is not about blame. The only person and the only entity
to blame for the events of 9/11 are al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. This
is not about blaming the Clinton administration or the Bush
administration. This is about getting to the facts. This is about
getting good recommendations based on all the information and then
making the American people safer as a result.
On Monday, Senator Lindsey Graham and I asked the Justice Department
to produce any documents they may have in their possession relating to
Jamie Gorelick's involvement in establishing policies preventing the
sharing of critical terrorism-related information between intelligence
and law enforcement officials. It is the fact that those have now been
made public and, indeed, posted on the Department of Justice's Web site
at www.usdoj.gov which brings me back to the Senate floor to briefly
mention why I think Ms. Gorelick's testimony is even more important to
explaining what she did as a member of the Justice Department under
Janet Reno to erect and buttress this wall that has been the subject of
so much conversation and why it is so much more important that she do
so because the 9/11 Commission's credibility is at stake.
Documents posted today on the Justice Department's Web site
substantially discredit Ms. Gorelick's recent claims that, No. 1, she
was not substantially involved in the development of the new
information-sharing policy, and, No. 2, the Department's policies under
the Clinton-Reno administration enhanced rather than restricted
information sharing.
Madam President, these documents--and they are not particularly
lengthy, but they do raise significant questions about the decision of
the Commission not to have Ms. Gorelick testify in public. Indeed, the
only testimony we know she has given has been in secret or in camera,
to use the technical term. These documents make it even more important
that we get her explanation for these apparent inconsistencies and
contradictions.
Indeed, the document that Attorney General Ashcroft declassified and
released during the course of his testimony --giving his very powerful
testimony about the erection and the buttressing of this wall that
blinded American law enforcement and intelligence agencies from the
threat of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden--these new documents reveal,
indeed, Ms. Gorelick did have a key role in establishing that policy,
which was ultimately signed off on and approved by Attorney General
Janet Reno; indeed, that she received and rejected in part and accepted
in part recommendations made by the U.S. attorney for the Southern
District of New York with regard to this wall.
Specifically, Madam President, as you will recall, the first attack
on American soil that al-Qaida administered was, in all likelihood, the
World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Indeed, the document that Attorney
General Ashcroft released pointed out that Mary Jo White, the U.S.
attorney for the Southern District of New York, was concerned about an
ongoing criminal investigation ``of certain terrorist acts, including
the bombing of the World Trade Center,'' and that ``[d]uring the course
of those investigations significant counterintelligence information
[had] been developed related to the activities and plans of agents of
foreign powers operating in [the United States] and overseas, including
previously unknown connections between separate terrorist groups.''
Well, in response to some draft proposals for establishing criteria
for both law enforcement and intelligence, counterterrorism officials,
Ms. Gorelick noted that the procedures that were adopted at her
recommendation by the Justice Department under Attorney General Janet
Reno went beyond what is legally required. Indeed, I spoke earlier
about the fact that the USA PATRIOT Act brought down that law that had
been established both by this policy and, indeed, by policies that had
preceded it.
But it is important, in these new documents that have just been
revealed today, in response to my request and Senator Graham's request,
that there is, indeed, a memorandum by Mary Jo White dated June 13,
1995, in which she was given an opportunity to respond to the proposed
procedures that have maintained and buttressed this wall that blinded
America to this terrible threat.
Mary Jo White, in part, said--and the documents are on the website so
anyone who wishes can see the whole document, but she said, in part:
It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to
the FBI prohibiting contact with United States Attorney's
Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required. . .
.
She goes on to say:
Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an
investigation as intelligence or law enforcement can be quite
arbitrary depending upon the personnel involved and that the
most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels
and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right
and left hands are communicating.
Indeed, it was this lack of communication, which I think is
universally acknowledged, that contributed to the blinding of America
to the threat of terrorism leading up to the events of 9/11. So Ms.
White made what she called a very modest compromise and some
recommendations for change to this proposed policy.
In the interest of fairness and completeness, let me just say the
documents reveal there were two memoranda by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo
White, and they contain recommendations for revisions of the
policy, and that Ms. Gorelick, through and in cooperation with Michael
Vatis, Deputy Director of the Executive Office for National Security,
accepted some of those proposed changes and rejected others.
But then in these documents, again, which were finally disclosed
today in response to Senator Graham's and my request, there is a
handwritten note from Ms. Gorelick that says:
To the AG--I have reviewed and concur with the Vatis/
Garland recommendations for the reasons set forth in the
Vatis memo. Jamie.
So it is clear Ms. Gorelick was intimately involved with
consideration of the arguments, both pro and con, on establishing this
policy which, according to her own memo, went well beyond what the law
required. Thus, it becomes even more clear she is a person with
knowledge of facts that are relevant and indeed essential to the
decisionmaking process of the 9/11 Commission.
I wish it stopped there, but it does not. Indeed, it appears these
new documents contradict or at least require clarification by Ms.
Gorelick of subsequent statements that she has made on the 9/11
Commission. For example, in a broadcast on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports,
Wolf Blitzer asked her:
Did you write this memorandum in 1995 . . .
By reference, this was the one that was declassified by Attorney
General Ashcroft that established these procedures building the wall
and blinding America to this terrible threat.
He asked:
[[Page S4483]]
Did you write this memorandum in 1995 that helped establish
the so-called walls between the FBI and CIA?
Ms. Gorelick said:
No. And again, I would refer you back to what others on the
commission have said. The wall was a creature of statute. It
existed since the mid-1980s. And while it is too lengthy to
go into, basically the policy that was put out in the mid
1990s, which I didn't sign, wasn't my policy in any way. It
was the Attorney General's policy, was ratified by Attorney
General Ashcroft's deputy as well on August of 2001.
In other words, Ms. Gorelick, notwithstanding the fact that her
initials as Deputy Attorney General appear on the very memos
considering recommendations, both pro and con, with regard to
establishing these procedures, in spite of the fact she appears by
these documents to have been intimately involved in the adoption and
establishment of these procedures, said: I didn't sign this memorandum
and it wasn't my policy.
Well, at the very least it is clear that it was the policy of the
Attorney General, based on her explicit recommendation, and that she
consciously adopted in some cases and rejected in others the
recommendation of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New
York with regard to sharing of information between law enforcement and
counterintelligence authorities.
Finally, another example of an apparent contradiction, and maybe one
that Ms. Gorelick could explain if she would testify in public, as I
and others have requested, before the Commission, she said in an op-ed
that appeared in the Washington Post, April 18, 2004, entitled ``The
Truth About the Wall,'' in giving the various reasons for her side of
the story in response to the testimony of Attorney General Ashcroft and
the revelation of this previously classified document:
Nothing in the 1995 guidelines prevented the sharing of
information between criminal and intelligence investigators.
That appears to directly contradict what is contained in these
documents. I would imagine if asked to provide her own testimony, Mary
Jo White, the now retired former U.S. attorney for the Southern
District of New York, would beg to differ.
The primary purpose of this is not to cast blame. We know where the
blame lies. But it is important the 9/11 Commission get an accurate
record, a historical record of the events leading up to September 11.
If, in fact, there is a way for Ms. Gorelick to shed some light on this
subject, indeed, if there is a way for her to clarify or reconcile the
apparent contradictions between what these newly released records
demonstrate and her public statements and writings, then she ought to
be given a chance to do so.
If she does not avail herself of that opportunity, if the Commission
refuses to hear from this person in public and to give the American
people the benefit of this testimony in public in a way that they have
done with Attorney General Janet Reno and former FBI Director Louis
Freeh, current FBI Director Robert Mueller, George Tenet, Director of
Central Intelligence, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, if they
refuse, if they continue to refuse to avail themselves of this public
testimony and the opportunity for questions to be asked about these
apparent contradictions, they will have administered a self-inflicted
wound. The public will be left, at the conclusion of the 9/11
Commission, with grave doubts about the impartiality and the judgment
of the Commissioners who have refused to allow the American people the
benefit of this relevant and important testimony.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
"No controlling legal authority......"
In June 1995, U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District Mary Jo White warned the Justice Department that Gorelick's prohibition against intelligence sharing would hamper U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
"It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," White wrote on June 13, 1995, in a memo reported Friday by the New York Post's Deborah Orin.
"The most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating," advised White, who was then in the midst of prosecuting the 1993 World Trade Center bombers.
According to Orin, however, "White was so upset that she bitterly protested with another memo - a scathing one" - blasting Gorelick's wall of separation.
While the former Clinton official and her fellow 9/11 commissioners have so far declined to make the second memo public, the Post reports that White used it to warn that Gorelick's wall "hindered law enforcement and could cost lives."
The 9/11 Commission omitted any mention of White's scathing second warning to Gorelick from its final report.
"Nor does the report include the transcript of its staff interview with White," the Post said.
The revelation that the 9/11 Commission covered up White's full account comes on the heels of news that Gorelick's wall may have prevented the FBI from learning that lead 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had entered the U.S. and had been identified by military intelligence as terrorist threats a year before the attacks.
On Wednesday, Rep. Curt Weldon, who uncovered the Atta-al-Shehhi revelation, complained: "There was no reason not to share this information with the FBI, except that the firewalls that existed back then were so severe that they wouldn't let these agencies talk to one another."
As I sat there, I wondered how Alan would react if Clinton did NOT change the no-abortions-on-military-bases policy (which was already there!), or if I told him "Hey, Alan, once ONE person abused prisoners at Abu Grahbe, the others were just continuing the practice!"
I predict the DUmmie crowd will say that "attacking" Sheehan and Gorelick is just a rightwing antifeminist blah blah blah, which of course ignores their demonization of Condi Rice, various female Bush judicial appointees, etc. etc.
When Gorelick took office in 1994, the CIA was reeling from the news that a Russian spy had been found in CIA ranks, and Congress was hungry for a quick fix. A month after Gorelick was sworn in, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 24. PDD 24 put intelligence gathering under the direct control of the president’s National Security Council, and ultimately the White House, through a four-level, top-down chain of command set up to govern (that is, stifle) intelligence sharing and cooperation between intelligence agencies. From the moment the directive was implemented, intelligence sharing became a bureaucratic nightmare that required negotiating a befuddling bureaucracy that stopped directly at the President’s office.
First, the directive effectively neutered the CIA by creating a National Counterintelligence Center (NCI) to oversee the Agency. NCI was staffed by an FBI agent appointed by the Clinton administration. It also brought multiple international investigations underway at the time under direct administrative control. The job of the NCI was to “implement counterintelligence activities,” which meant that virtually everything the CIA did, from a foreign intelligence agent’s report to polygraph test results, now passed through the intelligence center that PDD 24 created.
NCI reported to an administration-appointed National Counterintelligence Operations Board (NCOB) charged with “discussing counterintelligence matters.” The NCOB in turn reported to a National Intelligence Policy Board, which coordinated activities between intelligence agencies attempting to work together. The policy board reported “directly” to the president through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
The result was a massive bureaucratic roadblock for the CIA – which at the time had a vast lead on the FBI in foreign intelligence – and for the FBI itself, which was also forced to report to the NCOB. This hampered cooperation between the two entities. All this occurred at a time when both agencies were working separate ends of investigations that would eventually implicate China in technology transfers and the Democratic Party in a Chinese campaign cash grab.
And the woman charged with selling this plan to Congress, convincing the media and ultimately implementing much of it? Jamie Gorelick.
Many in Congress, including some Democrats, found the changes PDD 24 put in place baffling: they seemed to do nothing to insulate the CIA from infiltration while devastating the agency’s ability to collect information. At the time, Democrat House Intelligence Chairman Dan Glickman referred to the plan as “regulatory gobbledygook." Others questioned how FBI control of CIA intelligence would foster greater communication between the lower levels of the CIA and FBI, now that all information would have to be run through a multi-tier bureaucratic maze that only went upward.
Despite their doubts, Gorelick helped the administration sell the plan on Capitol Hill. The Directive stood.
But that wasn’t good enough for the Clinton administration, which wanted control over every criminal and intelligence investigation, domestic and foreign, for reasons that would become apparent in a few years. For the first time in Justice Department history, a political appointee, Richard Scruggs – an old crony or Attorney General Janet Reno’s from Florida – was put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The court’s activities are kept secret from the public.
A year after PDD 24, with the new bureaucratic structure loaded with administration appointees, Gorelick drafted the 1995 memo Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned while testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The Gorelick memo, and other supporting memos released in recent weeks, not only created walls within the intelligence agencies that prevented information sharing among their own agents, but effectively walled these agencies off from each other and from outside contact with the U.S. prosecutors instrumental in helping them gather the evidence needed to make the case for criminal charges.
The only place left to go with intelligence information – particularly for efforts to share intelligence information or obtain search warrants – was straight up Clinton and Gorelick’s multi-tiered chain of command. Instead, information lethal to the Democratic Party languished inside the Justice Department, trapped behind Gorelick’s walls.
The implications were enormous. In her letter of protest to Attorney General Reno over Gorelick’s memo, United States Attorney Mary Jo White spelled them out: “These instructions leave entirely to OIPR and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage,” White wrote. (Like OIPR, the Criminal Division is also part of the Justice Department.)
Without an enforcer, the walls Gorelick’s memo put in place might not have held. But Scruggs acted as that enforcer, and he excelled at it. Scruggs maintained Gorelick’s walls between the FBI and Justice's Criminal Division by threatening to automatically reject any FBI request for a wiretap or search warrant if the Bureau contacted the Justice Department's Criminal Division without permission. This deprived the FBI, and ultimately the CIA, of gathering advice and assistance from the Criminal Division that was critical in espionage and terrorist cases.
It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react.
Gorelick’s appointment to the job at Justice in 1994 occurred during a period in which the FBI had begun to systematically investigate technology theft by foreign powers. For the first time, these investigations singled out the U.S. chemical, telecommunications, aircraft and aerospace industries for intelligence collection.
By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13516
Good find, Stellar.
""Hey, Alan, once ONE person abused prisoners at Abu Grahbe, the others were just continuing the practice!""
LOL
As others have pointed out, even without Able Danger,
the very fact that Gorelick felt it necessary to write
this op-ed proves that her proper role in the 9/11
investigation was as hostile material witness, and
absolutely not as a member of the Commission.
thanks much for posting gorelick's WashPost op ed.
I keep checking drudge's page...no sign of able danger. If he doesn't cover this story, he's a total phony.
It's the biggest story in the country, and Drudge is 100% mute on the subject. Shameful.
Able Danger, the 9/11 Commission & the Strange (But Now Explainable) Actions of Sandy Berger
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