The Second Opinion

NC a leader... in the price of gas

According to a recent AAA survey, North Carolina leads the nation in the price of gasoline.  Only DC and Alaska (!) have higher gasoline costs.  Part of this is due to the fact that our state gets most of its fuel from the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.  However, as noted by the AP:

A key reason for that dubious title here is North Carolina's gas tax. The 27 cents paid on each gallon is the highest among Southern states and fifth-highest nationally. By comparison, Virginia's gas tax is 17 cents per gallon and South Carolina's is 16 cents.

Natch, there have been calls on Governor Easley (known without affection as "Tax Hike Mike") to suspend or at least reduce the gas tax.  One would think that this would be a no-brainer.  After all, politicians seem to spend a lot of time and hot air talking about how much they want to do for 'the common man' or 'working families' and even 'the poor'.  Well, there are a few million people here in North Carolina who could use a little help dealing with the high price of fuel.  What does Tax Hike Mike say?

Even as Hurricane Rita appeared poised to disrupt Gulf Coast oil supplies again, Gov. Mike Easley said Wednesday he has no plans to roll back state gas taxes to curb shock at the pumps.

It seems that our governor has been taking lessons from Gov. Blanco.  Though we elected him to govern our state, he won't do what he can to lower gas prices.  Rather, he whines that the feds ought to do something about it:

Instead, Easley joined other Democratic governors who are pressuring the federal government to solve the problem of higher gasoline prices.

"I hope everybody is waking up, that we've got to do something better than we're doing now on energy in this country," he told reporters. "We want to see Washington take up this issue."

In other words, I and my fellow Tar Heels can get stuffed as far as Tax Hike Mike is concerned.  If we start feeling too much of a squeeze at the pump, we can go to Washington to cry on Uncle Sammy's shoulder.

Just remember to fill 'er up before crossing into VA: Tax Hike Mike needs the money.

Bush: No New Taxes

With the cost to clean up Katrina estimated to be some $200 billion, President Bush has stated that he WON'T call for higher taxes.  Instead, he's (gasp!) going to ask Congress to cut spending in other areas.

A good idea, but it's a lot like asking Teddy Kennedy to cut it back to only three bottles a day.

According to the Washington Times' Joseph Curl and Stephen Dinan:

"We're going to have to make sure we cut unnecessary spending," Mr. Bush said. "We've got to maintain economic growth and, therefore, we should not raise taxes.

"Our working people have had to pay a tax, in essence ... by higher gasoline prices, and we don't need to be taking more money out of their pocket," he added.

Makes sense to me.

Part of this is due to the fact that a number of Republicans aren't happy with the idea of Uncle Sugar spending so much money and busting the budget (morese than it's already busted, that is):

Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican and a leading budget hawk, said cutting spending now is the compassionate thing to do because it lessens the burden for future generations.

He said, though, that it remains to be seen whether Mr. Bush will follow through.

"Time will tell. I hope so, but the recent record is not good," he said. He pointed to Mr. Bush initially drawing a line on total spending on the recent highway bill, then letting that line be crossed several times until he finally signed a bill that was much more expensive.

"The record is not encouraging, but maybe it's a new day and this is just so big that perhaps he realizes that there's certainly public support for it," Mr. Flake said. "I think everybody knows this federal government is bloated. It is morbidly obese."

Yes, Congressman, it is, because of a couple of things:

1.  You guys on Capitol Hill just LOVE to bring home the bacon to your home states and districts; that's why the highway bill was so expensive.  Everybody gets something;

2.  Congress wants / needs to be seen as doing SOMETHING when disaster strikes, and that means spending money and maybe even adding more departments and agencies to the government as they did after 9-11.

The dems (natch) have called for HIGHER taxes and a withdrawal from Iraq; that's what they do. 

We'll see if the Republicans in Congress can both curb their own spending habits AND find places to trim to the budget, and if the president has the guts to make them.

Martin Frost on Katrina response

Former Congressman Martin Frost (D-TX) has written an editorial at Fox News today.  My basic reaction to it is that it's more of the same partisan whining that we've seen since about 15 seconds after Katrina made landfall.

I recognize my partisanship.  Frankly, I don't trust the average democrat any further than I could throw him.  As Chris Muir points out in today's "Day by Day" strip, the dems have brought exactly NOTHING to the table except whining and recriminations.  Frankly, it's not helpful... or unexpected.

That being said, these are some of Congressman Frost's thoughts:

If I were still in Congress, here are the type questions I would want posed to the administration, and I would hope that they would be asked by members of both parties.

1.) Is the new Department of Homeland Security simply an unworkable bureaucracy that is incapable of responding to a major domestic disaster in a timely way?

I was a member of the House Select Committee that created the new DHS. Did we make a mistake by submerging the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in this massive new department? FEMA seemed to work well as a stand-alone agency. Now, it appears to be frozen.

"It appears to be frozen." Interesting.  The command and control situation in the Gulf Coast is improving but still pretty chaotic, and reliable news is not easy to get.  It may well be that FEMA could have done much better; we won't know until the water has receeded and we've had time to conduct a (hopefully) sober analysis of what happened.

I suggest two issues to consider:

a)  Part of the problem is that big federal band-aids don't always work well, yet this is the immediate and natural response of politicians to any crisis.  Witness the Patriot Act: almost every member of Congress rushed to pass this legislation after 9-11 in the interests of appearing to be doing SOMETHING, but now many of them have had second thoughts about their votes.  Ditto the invasion of Iraq.  There are times for fast action, and there are times for slow, deliberate, and even cold-blooded analysis.  When we get around to trying to learn lessons from Katrina, it will be time to be careful and not slap a band-aid on the problem;

b)  The erosion of our federal system in the past seventy years has left everybody with the idea that DC is responsible for everything.  While the feds certainly have a BIG role to play in a catastrophe like Katrina, let's also remember that the state and local governments have primary responsibility.  What were they doing?  What might they have done differently or better?

2.) Have we made a terrible mistake by relying so heavily on the National Guard for our Iraqi commitment? As everyone can now see, the National Guard is essential to maintaining order in times of a domestic crisis. Should we have relied more heavily on the Reserves and active duty forces for Iraq and left the National Guard in place to deal with disasters like Katrina?

This is partisan horse s**t and represents a shameless effort by the left to use Katrina to further undermine the Iraq war.  There are PLENTY of National Guard troops around, not only in the affected states but in other states as well.  Had Gov. Blanco bothered to mobilize her NG units in a more timely manner AND make a request of other states to contribute some of their own troops, this wouldn't be an issue.

3.) Did we make a mistake by not committing active duty forces like the 82nd Airborne immediately to New Orleans once the flooding began? We have used active duty Army units to help with disaster relief in the past and there are units like the 82nd Airborne that are not currently fully committed to Iraq.

Frost was a congressman, so it's a little surprising that he doesn't understand the relationship between the US military and the states (OK, maybe it's NOT surprising).  First, the governor has to request active duty troops from the feds; if the president had ordered the 82nd into the Gulf without the governors' permission (absent invoking the Insurrection Act), he would have been breaking the law.  The Posse Comitatus Act also prohibits the use of federal troops in law enforcement duties except under particular circumstances.  Given the looting situation in NO after the storm, federal troops might well have had to fire on civilians in self-defense.  I can just hear the shrieks of outrage now...

As it happens, the military HAS showed up in the area, and most people are grateful for it because at last SOMEBODY - General Russel Honore - is taking charge.  On Sept 1 (three days after the storm struck), the DoD announced the deployment of 30,000 troops to the area in addition to all the National Guard troops the were either already there or on the way.

Finally, I can't resist pointing out how stoutly the dems and libs have always resisted military spending and how critical they've been of the military / DoD in Iraq.  Kind of ironic that now they want the same people who inflicted the 'horrors' of Abu Ghraib turned loose on American citizens.

4.) One of the issues identified immediately after the 9/11 attack on New York and Washington was the local police and fire departments did not have the right communications equipment to talk to each other in times of an emergency. Once again, we have had a failure of communications equipment. Why hasn’t anything been done in the past four years to remedy this situation nationwide?

A good question, Congressman.  Why don't you ask the state and local officials in LA what the hell they've been doing with all the homeland security money they've been getting.  As I understand the law, Uncle Sugar just gets requests from state and local governments and cuts them a check; what they do with the money is up to them.  So, if the various cities and parishes in LA can't communicate with each other because they didn't bother to buy the right communications equipment, it's really their fault.

Once again, it's an issue of federalism.  State governors and local authorities get pretty irate when Uncle Sam shows up and TELLS them what to do (witness Blanco, who refuses to hand over control of the LA situation to FEMA for blatant political reasons).  Further, one size does NOT fit all.  Some states and municipalities have - or think they have - good systems in place and don't need some guy from Washington telling them that they've got to change their systems to meet some arbitrary national standard.  Others have systems that have good parts and only need help to bring everything up to the same high level of competence.  Finally, there are those whose emergency plans seem to amount to 'mayor leaves for Baton Rouge and hopes for the best'.

If Uncle Sam is going to establish national standards, then it's going to require a SERIOUS overhaul not only of our emergency response systems but also a total change in the relationship between federal and state / local governments.

Congress in recent years has abdicated its responsibility to ensure that the Executive Branch is doing its job effectively. There are people who will view any questions posed in the aftermath of Katrina as simply a partisan attack on the Bush administration. That is not the case, and it would be a disservice to our country for anyone to attempt to muzzle Congress at this time because the questions are being posed to a Republican president.

Well, he's half-right: Congress HAS abdicated a lot of responsibility, and not just in 'oversight'.  Where was Congress before Katrina?  They have committees, huge staffs, the CBO and GAO AND responsibility for the federal budget.  If enough money wasn't being spent on the levees along the Mississippi, where was Congress?  If enough money wasn't being spent on emergency response, where was Congress?  If money was being wasted, where was Congress?  Last time I checked, Lousiana had a congressional delegation; what have they been doing all these years?  Congressmen and Senators are very adept at making sure their pet projects get funded through pork-barrel spending, but when something bad happens they are equally adept at pointing fingers at the White House.

Does it strike anybody else as contradictory that Frost wants Congress to have greater 'oversight' of the executive branch while at the same time wondering if CONGRESS fouled up in forming DHS and putting FEMA under it?

Congress needs to get off its duff and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Well, duh.  Does this mean that funding for DoD will be increased?  Fewer bases will be closed?  Congress will start spending more money on levees?  Will there be a congressional investigation of the role state and local governments played before, during and after the disaster?  Or will Senator Mary Landrieu threaten - again - to punch anybody who criticizes local officials in the nose?

Or, within a few weeks, will we be back to business as usual and our tax dollars will return to funding the Robert KKK Byrd Memorial Submarine Base in West Virgina?

I know where I'd put my bets.

Bush's personal appeal

(hat tip: Powerline via Jo's Cafe)

According to an AP story from August 28, President Bush personally appealed to the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans to evacuate the city:

In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

Jo also has an interesting picture at her blog.  We wonder why so many people were left behind in New Orleans.  I think she's found part of the answer (go see).

Acting locally

Captain Ed at the always excellent Captain's Quarters discusses a Washington Post op-ed that displays remarkable and totally unexpected common sense regarding government response to Katrina.  The WaPo notes:

But if blame is to be laid and lessons are to be drawn, one point stands out as irrefutable: Emergency planners must focus much more on the fate of that part of the population that -- for reasons of poverty, infirmity, distrust of officialdom, lack of transportation or lack of information -- cannot be counted on to leave their homes after an evacuation order.

Captain Ed follows up:

The editorial misses two points that complete the loop. First, we can answer the question about the National Guard troops very easily. They get mobilized on orders from the governor of the state in which they serve. All that was needed was a mobilization order from Governor Blanco before the storm hit to get them in motion. Regarding the Superdome decision, that initially made sense -- until the levees broke, local authorities assumed that their stay would only take twenty-four hours or so. However, they wasted that time without moving transportation assets into position for a potential evacuation, hundreds of unused school buses that now sit under water.

We've got to get past the idea that Uncle Sugar has to do everything in this country.  Not only does the idea make our local and state governments unnecessary, it also overlooks the fact that (typically) the best people to deal with a situation are those closest to it.  The government of the City of New Orleans more than any other agency in the country should have known what they might face if a big one hit the city and taken better precautions rather than assuming that DC would do it all... or just hoping for the best.

Jo on whining about Katrina

Trelaina at Jo's Cafe has also noticed the whining about the 'poor' or 'slow' response by the government to the hurricane.  She's got some great comments, including:

Why is 36-48 hours response time so horrible? There was a time when you couldn’t have expected such response at all, or if you did it would take weeks or months. There was a time when a levee breach such as we saw would have meant certain death, either immediately or later via disease, etc, for anyone still in the city. These improvements have happened within my lifetime (and I’m in my 30s). We have come a long way in terms of disaster response.

Exactly.

CIA Inspector General's Report: The CIA dropped the ball on 9-11

(hat tip: Captain's Quarters)

Yesterday, I wrote about the LA Time's hack job on Karl Rove and the Valerie Plame affair.  One of the paranoid ramblings contentions of the article was that Dick Cheney and a number of his staff didn't trust the CIA when it came to intelligence matters.  How unfair!

Well, the CIA's own Inspector General, John Helgerson, has finished his own investigation into the CIA's performance before 9-11, and has possible DISCPLINARY ACTION against CIA analysts and other officials for their abysmal failure to deal with al Qaeda prior to 9-11.  According to the AP's Katherine Schrader:

Following a two-year review into what went wrong before the suicide hijackings, people familiar with the report say Helgerson harshly criticizes a number of the agency's most senior officials. Among them are former CIA Director George Tenet, former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt and former counterterrorism center head Cofer Black. The former officials are likely candidates for proceedings before an accountability board.

The [disciplinary] boards could take a number of actions, including letters of reprimand or dismissal. They could also clear them of wrongdoing.

The problem is that the CIA's morale is not exactly sky-high these days.  The Agency came in for a lot of criticism during both the blue-ribbon 9-11 Commission hearings and the Senate Intelligence Committee's Iraq report.  It's never easy to go after former big-shots like George Tenent, because they are political appointees and attempting to discipline them can quickly become a political cat fight.  Not only is it thus unfair to discipline the lower-level CIA employees, but that also raises problems of its own:

Despite public outcries for accountability, many in the intelligence community believe [CIA Director] Goss would be loath to try to discipline popular former senior officials and cause unrest within the agency.

He may not want to go after less senior people still in the CIA's employ. Intelligence veterans say these CIA employees are the government's mostly highly trained in counterterrorism and before the Sept. 11 attacks, devoted their time to trying to stop al-Qaida. The hearings would force them to defend their careers rather than working against extremist groups.

I must say that it's also hard to criticize anybody for honest mistakes, no matter how terrible the consequences.  Was the CIA lax and even stupid in dealing with the issue of terrorism?  Unquestionably.  Should the CIA have done more before 9-11 to get bin Laden and al Qaeda?  Certainly, but that raises the questions of 'what' and 'how'?  In a post-9-11 world, it's easy to say that we should have bent every effort to kill bin Laden and broken up al Qaeda.  Before 9-11, however, it would have been difficult to summon the political will to do so, and even more difficult to have withstood the firestorm of criticism that would have followed.  Imagine headlines like these:

CIA Assassinates Former Mujahadeen Leader

Afghan Government Accuses US of Plotting Coup Attempt

ACLU Files Lawsuit to Stop CIA Spying on Immigrants

Privacy Groups Demand End to CIA / FBI Domestic Intelligence Operations

Even after 9-11, we've seen a great deal of debate on how best to combat terrorism.  Can you imagine what it would have been like in 1998?

I hope that the CIA takes the report to heart and undertakes an internal program to correct the problems that plagued the Agency before 9-11.  However, Congress and the American people also ought to take heed and give this issue a good deal of consideration: what do we want the CIA to do to stop terrorism?  How far should it go?  And what will we do when / if they foul up?

Another brick in the wall?

A few days ago, I wrote in connection with the Able Danger story about a memo sent by US Attorney Mary Jo White to then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick that questioned the legal 'wall' that Gorelick had erected between various US agencies responsible for investigating terrorism.  White was concerned that the wall would prevent the agencies from communicating valuable information with each other, and it seems now that the wall may well have prevented US intelligence and law enforcement from 'connecting the dots' about the 9-11 attacks.

The New York Post has uncovered another memo from White to Gorelick that raised even more alarms about the wall.  According to Deborah Orin:

President Bill Clinton's team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was "very dangerous" and could have "deadly results," according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post.

...

"This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities," wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee.

"The single biggest mistake we can make in attempting to combat terrorism is to insulate the criminal side of the house from the intelligence side of the house, unless such insulation is absolutely necessary. Excessive conservatism . . . can have deadly results."

She added: "We must face the reality that the way we are proceeding now is inherently and in actuality very dangerous."

Orin's column comes on the same day that the New York Times (1) reports that declassified documents show that the State Department warned the Clinton administration in 1996 of the danger posed by bin Laden.  According to Eric Lichtblau (hat tip: Captain's Quarters):

In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

...

The State Department assessment, written July 18, 1996, after Mr. bin Laden had been expelled from Sudan and was thought to be relocating to Afghanistan, said Afghanistan would make an "ideal haven" for Mr. bin Laden to run his financial networks and attract support from radicalized Muslims. Moreover, his wealth, his personal plane and many passports "allow him considerable freedom to travel with little fear of being intercepted or tracked," and his public statements suggested an "emboldened" man capable of "increased terrorism," the assessment said.

The article goes on to cite the preposterous claim by the 9-11 Commission that there was no evidence that the Sudanese had offered to turn bin Laden over to us in 1996 - preposterous because Bill Clinton IS ON AUDIO TAPE after 9-11 explaining that the Sudanese offered bin Laden to him but that, because bin Laden hadn't done anything to us, Clinton couldn't accept the offer.

To some extent, I am inclined to forgive the Clintonistas for their foolish (and even deadly stupid) policy decisions, though naturally I don't think any of them should be in a position of authority concerning national security ever again.(2)  Contrary to what some people seem to think, there is no magic crystal ball in the Oval Office.  The president can't see the future, and indeed often doesn't have complete and absolutely true information about the past or present.  I'm sure that Clinton and his team would have done whatever was necessary to get bin Laden and his minions if they had known what would happen on 9-11, even if this had cut into Bill's 'cigar time'.

I don't have as much sympathy for the 9-11 Commission.  Their job - which they did with tremendous fanfare, ostentation, and self-congratulation - was to find out what happened that led up to 9-11.  Were there missed opportunities?  Did the present and past administrations do everything they could reasonably have done to have averted the catastrophe?  What mistakes were made?  How can we avoid them in the future?

Now, in the space of just a few days, we've had allegations that the Army tried to sound the alarm about Atta in 2000, that the State Department issued warnings about bin Laden in 1996, and that Mary Jo White, who was PROSECUTING a previous terrorist attack case (i.e. the World Trade Center bombing of 1993), warned that Justice Department guidelines would make it more difficult to 'connect the dots'.  These things are either not mentioned in the 9-11 Commission's report, or are given very short shrift.  The new White memo makes me wonder anew just what Jamie Gorelick was doing on the 9-11 Commission: she clearly should have been a WITNESS, not a commissioner.  Certainly the commissioners have some explaining to do: if the Able Danger allegations are true, and if the State Department memos and the Mary Jo White memo are authentic, why were they not included in the report?  Or, more to the point, were these omissions due to simple errors, outright incompetence, or a concerted attempt to shift blame away from decision-makers in DC onto anonymous intelligence analysts?

I hope that the BM stays after this story and gets to the truth.

(1) Yes, I know: it's in the Times, so who knows if it's actually true?  I must say, however that the fact that the Times didn't dig this story up itself (the documents were obtained by Judicial Watch) lends credibility to the story.  Also, I can't imagine the Times running a story critical of the Clinton administration unless they were absolutely, positively, 100% convinced that it was accurate.

(2) Take, for example, Jamie Gorelick and Sandy Berger.  Gorelick displayed an incredible lack of judgement when she wrote 'the wall' memo, and a complete lack of ethics when she didn't recuse herself from the 9-11 Commission.  Berger committed an actual felony when he stole and destroyed classified documents from the National Archives, though we were supposed to believe at the time that it was an accident because he's just that sloppy. 

It seems that the entire Clinton team has engaged in CYA: Clinton trying to claim that he was 'obsessed' with getting bin Laden; that dumpy little troll Madeline Albright claiming that the administration was on an 'upward trajectory' to understanding bin Laden and al Qaeda; and all of them preening about how THEY 'went to battle stations' and caught the millenium bomber, who was actually caught by an alert customs agent without any warning from the White House. 

Able Danger (pt II)

The plot thickens...

After the 9-11 Commission spent a weekend getting its story straight determining that Able Danger didn't warrant inclusion in their report, a former member of Able Danger has come forward publicly and claims that the Army DID know about Mohammed Atta in the summer of 2000, but military lawyers told his unit that they couldn't share this information with the FBI.  According to the AP:

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said the small intelligence unit, called "Able Danger," had identified Atta and three of the other future Sept. 11 hijackers as al-Qaida members by mid-2000. He said military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI.

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks left the Able Danger claims out of its official report.

Why? 

Well, apparently because the 9-11 Commission didn't have all the information about Able Danger:

"I'm told confidently by the person who did move the material over that the 9/11 commission received two briefcase-size containers of documents," Shaffer said in the interview, part of which was aired by Fox News Tuesday night. "I can tell you for a fact that would not be ... one-20th of the information that Able Danger consisted of during the time we spent."

Again, why?  Were the two briefcases allegedly given to the Commission mere summary information that the Army assumed would trigger a request for more documents?  Did the 9-11 Commission look at the information, or was is buried in the avalanche of documents they had?  Or (WARNING: Conspiracy theory follows) did somebody deliberately bury the information for political purposes?

The 9-11 Commission has claimed that Rep. Curt Weldon and the officers from Able Danger have no documentary proof of their allegations.  In my opinion, this is far from a satisfactory response; it smacks of a smug, "Prove it!" on the part of the commissioners.

We'll see where this story goes, if anywhere.  Right now, the 9-11 Commission certainly isn't looking too good.

Able Danger

Thanks to Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), we may have found another piece of the 9-11 puzzle, and it's a big one.  According to a congressional Special Order from the congressman:

Mr. Speaker, I rise because information has come to my attention over the past several months that is very disturbing. I have learned that, in fact, one of our Federal agencies had, in fact, identified the major New York cell of Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11; and I have learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, that Federal agency actually was prepared to bring the FBI in and prepared to work with the FBI to take down the cell that Mohamed Atta was involved in in New York City, along with two of the other terrorists.

I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that when that recommendation was discussed within that Federal agency, the lawyers in the administration at that time said, you cannot pursue contact with the FBI against that cell. Mohamed Atta is in the U.S. on a green card, and we are fearful of the fallout from the Waco incident. So we did not allow that Federal agency to proceed.  [emphasis mine - dj505]

Mr. Speaker, what this now means is that prior to September 11, we had employees of the Federal Government in one of our agencies who actually identified the Mohamed Atta cell and made a specific recommendation to act on that cell, but were denied the ability to go forward. Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the operation that killed 3,000 people in America.

Natch, some dems and their BM mouthpieces are attacking Weldon as some sort of kook.  But it looked like he's on to something.

According to the New York Times' Douglas Jehl, an Army intelligence unit code-named Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9-11 hijackers in the summer of 2000, more than a year before they launched their attack.  The Army didn't know what Atta was planning, but they as you see from Rep. Weldon's statement, they knew he was a member of al Qaeda and recommended that data be forwarded to the FBI for action.

They were told 'no'.

You probably recall the 'wall' that 9-11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick put up when she was Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration (1994 - 1997).  In a March 5, 1995 memo to US Attorney Mary Jo White, Director of the FBI Louis Freeh, and several other government officials, Gorelick wrote:

Because the counterintelligence investigation will involve the use of surveillance techniques authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) against targets that, in some instances, had been subject to surveillance under Title III, and because it will involve some of the same sources and targets as the criminal investigation, we believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly seperate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations.  The procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation. [emphasis mine - dj505]

According the CNSNews' Scott Wheeler:

White was concerned that Gorelick's new guidelines for investigations had made it too complicated for the FBI to contact the U.S. attorney's office and launch a probe of suspicious activity. White suggested that only the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Department of Justice needed to approve such an investigation, and not the department's criminal division.

However, the Vatis/Gorelick memo offered a blunt reply.

"I recommend rejecting this change," the June 19, 1995 document stated. "[A] USAO (U.S. attorney's office) should not be notified of a national security investigation -- particularly one that has not yet developed into a criminal case -- without the approval of the AAG (assistant attorney general), Criminal Division."

The Vatis/Gorelick memo also addressed White's reservations over how the new investigative guidelines would impact a probe under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). White contended that once the Justice Department's Criminal Division had decided that criminal law enforcement concerns existed in a FISA investigation, the appropriate U.S. attorney should be contacted.

Vatis rejected this notion as well.

"Notifying the USAO as soon as law enforcement concerns exist -- but before Crim. thinks that the investigation should 'go criminal' -- is simply too early," the document stated.

In this kind of legal environment, government lawyers were reluctant to allow the Army to share its counterintelligence information with DOJ, and so the Army filed away its information on Atta.

One wonders if there wasn't more than one Army intelligence officer shouting a frustrated "son of a BITCH!" on 9-11.

Now, the question becomes why the 9-11 Commission did not address the issue of ignored Army intelligence in their report.  Apparently, it's because THEY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT.

Apparently, the 9-11 Commission staffers WERE told, but decided that it wasn't important enough to bring to the attention of the commissioners.  As Michelle Malkin notes:

According to the New York Times, the 9/11 Commission officials said that Able Danger had not been included in their report because some of the information sounded inconsistent with what they thought they knew about Atta.

In other words, the Commission staffers were told about the project but ignored it because it didn't fit their pre-conceived conclusions. [emphasis mine - dj505]

The redoubtable Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters also comments on what can only be described as a massive botch by the Commission:

First we hear that no such meeting [to discuss Able Danger] occurred. After that, the Commission says one might have occurred in October 2003 but that no one remembered it. Now we find out that the Commission had two meetings where the heard about Able Danger and its identification of Mohammed Atta, including one just before they completed their report. Instead of saying to themselves, "Hey, wait a minute -- this changes the picture substantially," and postponing the report until they could look further into Able Danger, they simply shrugged their shoulders and published what they had.

Why? Able Danger proved that at least some of the intelligence work done by the US provided the information that could have helped prevent or at least reduce the attacks on 9/11. They had identified the ringleader of the conspiracy as a terrorist agent, even if they didn't know what mission he had at the time.

What does that mean for the Commission's findings? It meant that the cornerstone of their conclusions no longer fit the facts. Able Danger showed that the US had enough intelligence to take action -- if the government had allowed law enforcement and intelligence operations to cooperate with each other. It also showed that data mining could effectively identify terrorist agents.

Captain Ed agrees with Michelle Malkin:

It ignored those facts which did not fit within its predetermined conclusions. It never bothered to mention Able Danger even one time in its final report, even though that absolutely refuted the notion that the government had no awareness that Atta constituted a terrorist threat. It endorsed the idea of data mining (which would die in Congress as the Total Information Awareness program) without ever explaining why. And while the Clinton policy of enforcing a quarantine between law enforcement and intelligence operations came under general criticism, their report never included the fact that the "wall" for which Commission member Jamie S. Gorelick had so much responsibility specifically contributed to Atta's ability to come and go as he pleased, building the teams that would kill almost 3,000 Americans. [emphasis original - dj505]

Let me state here that, while I think Gorelick had no business being on the 9-11 Commission and should never hold a place of authority in the US government again, I don't neccessarily blame her for the 'wall memo'.  Her motivation - to avoid the appearance of impropriety - was not especially good, but given both the scandal-rocked administration in which she worked AND the democrat's traditional fear that the government is out to get them, it is at least understandable.  Further, I'm sure that it never crossed her mind that her memo would keep different parts of the government from cooperating on REALLY important things.(1)  I'm willing to believe that she simply underestimated the stupidity of the bureaucracy and the natural tendency of bureaucrats, no matter how intelligent or well-intentioned, to play it strictly by the rules to avoid sticking their own necks out.

Hopefully, people in the government concerned with counterterrorism have learned that they MUST be willing to bend the rules now and then.

Oh, and doesn't this make you wonder anew WHAT was in those documents that Sandy Berger stole and destroyed?

(1) Let's face it: this is a Hollywood cliche.  Some bright officer or civil servant in the Pentagon or the CIA sees some intelligence that he thinks should be brought to the attention of the FBI or even the president, but 'the rules' say he can't go outside his own department.  Fortunately, he has an old college buddy who works in the Director's office or has the ear of a presidential aide.  Over lunch, he lowers his voice and says, "I shouldn't tell you this, because it would mean my job if it got out.  But SOMEBODY'S gotta tell the president about ..."

Then Jack Ryan or Bruce Willis swings into action and thwarts the nasty ol' terrorist plan with 2 seconds left on the clock.