Posted on 06/13/2005 7:00:13 PM PDT by wagglebee
My colleagues in the news media are dutifully reporting a breakdown in the FBI that led directly to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijacking disaster.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of the FBI. And I have no doubts incompetence, bad judgment and bureaucratic snafus plagued the FBI leading up to the al-Qaida attack that killed 3,000 Americans.
But neither the Justice Department inspector general's report, nor the press coverage of it, are connecting some very obvious dots that point the finger directly at political decisions by political appointees in the Clinton White House.
Here are the facts as laid out by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in a report written over a year ago and released publicly last week at the urging of Senate Democrats: The FBI missed at least five chances to detect the presence of the suicide hijackers in the country. In his 371-page report, Fine also criticized the CIA, which knew the hijackers were in California 20 months before the 9-11 attacks, but never told the FBI. One CIA agent tried desperately to alert the FBI, but was told to stop by his superiors.
This facet of the report raises an obvious and glaring question – one not addressed in the Fine report, the FBI reports nor the 9-11 commission report: Why did top-level CIA officials decline to alert the FBI of the potential for terrorism by these suspects?
There is an obvious and glaring answer to this question – one ignored by all of the press coverage of the Fine report: The CIA had been ordered not to share information with the FBI and vice versa.
The FBI and CIA were blocked from this kind of cooperation by the "wall" erected between them through a set of Justice Department directives issued by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. In effect, the Clinton Justice Department had made it illegal for that kind of sharing of information between the agencies.
"We believe it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations," Gorelick wrote. "These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation."
Gorelick wasn't some flunky in the Justice Department. She had been selected for the job by Hillary Clinton and had assumed the role held by Webster Hubbell before he was forced from his position to face Whitewater-related charges that landed him in prison. Gorelick, like Hubbell before her, essentially ran the Justice Department because of the gross incompetence of Attorney General Janet Reno.
It seems the Fine report is yet another effort to whitewash the role of Gorelick and the Clinton administration in the 9-11 debacle.
And that should surprise no one given the fact that Fine, too, was appointed by Bill Clinton.
Ironic that Gorelick herself was Johnny-on-the-spot to comment on the Fine report – and quickly dump on the FBI.
"I think they [the FBI] believe they have made significant progress, but there is still quite a bit of work to be done," she said.
Gorelick, as a member of the 9-11 commission, was caught in an obvious conflict of interest – in the position of reviewing her own shoddy work as the top deputy in the Clinton Justice Department. Now Fine, another Clinton appointee, has taken the cover-up a step further.
This is the real story of the report we all heard about last week. It's a case of the politicians pointing fingers at the FBI – an FBI whose own well-documented shortcomings in the 9-11 affairs were largely the result of its own politicization under the Clinton administration.
It's worth repeating becuase it is the truth...
the world is safer now that the 9/11 commission was able to get the bottom of such shortcomings as these. /cynical
The lower level worker bees in both the FBI and the CIA were Gorelicked before they started.
Why should that day be any different from the rest?.
Is Gorelick still within the government? If she is, she should be fired immediately!!! 3,000 people's worth!
Is Gorelick still within the government?
She was on the 9/11 panel....and IIRC..the lawfirm she is hooked up with was representing a saudi in a 9/11 lawsuit...
She was also a big player in the flight 800 story...
Coulnt pick a more appropriate name for a cronie like this....gore..lick...
Hijackings have been around since the 60s. The Israelis took counter measures and we did not. Aircraft have been used to crash into buildings since at least WW2 regardless of what Condi thought. One even crashed into the White House but missed Clinton.
The reason for 9/11 is that the bean counters of both of our political parties decided it would be cheaper to have it happen than putting Air Marshalls on every flight.
Plain and simple.
It's also worth BUMPING because it is the truth.
"The reason for 9/11 is that the bean counters of both of our political parties decided it would be cheaper to have it happen than putting Air Marshalls on every flight."
The same bean counters also thought it would be simpler to continue flawed immigration and asylum policies than be called racist or anti-immigrant. Let's not forget that the 19 hijackers all entered legally with temporary visas. That gets swept aside, too.
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