"Gorelick Wall" being blamed for lack of "Able Danger" action

[zaj]

I'm noticing that that the Wingers are blaming the "Gorelick Wall" for preventing Able Danger's information from being acted upon and possibly preventing 9/11.

[papau]

1. It was Reagan/Bush WALL - not Clinton - that stopped ATTA info in 2000

It was Reagan/Bush WALL - not Clinton or Gorelick - that stopped ATTA info in 2000

The policy, often referred to as a "wall," was established well before Clinton took office and was retained by the Bush administration; it is unclear whether the "wall" played any role in the decision to withhold information about Atta.

The joint House and Senate intelligence committees' report of pre-September 11 intelligence failures did not find that the "wall" originated in the Clinton administration; the report http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/24jul20031400/www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/fullreport_errata.pdf#page=415 states: "The 'wall' is not a single barrier, but a series of restrictions between and within agencies constructed over 60 years as a result of legal, policy, institutional and personal factors." Similarly, a ruling by the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review -- when it met for the first time in 2002 -- traces the origin of the "wall" to "some point during the 1980s."

Nor did enforcement of the "wall" end with the Clinton administration. In his April 12, 2004, testimony before the 9-11 Commission, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft conceded that his own deputy attorney general, Larry Thompson, reauthorized the "wall" in August 2001.

It is unclear whether the "wall" prevented intelligence sharing about Atta during the Able Danger operation; the 9-11 Commission plans to soon investigate why information identifying Atta was withheld from law enforcement agencies.

In the summer of 2000, the military team "Able Danger", prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared,at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas, even though the American law that says United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies does not apply to visa holders.

So despite Rush's assertions, it was not a wall erected by Clinton and Jamie Gorelick that was the problem - and indeed the wall that did exist was erected by Reagan/Bush and reauthorized by George W Bush before 9/11.

[burythehatchet]

2. thanks for the tip.

[leveymg]

3. Actually, there's another "wall" they don't want to talk about.

That's the wall that prevented the FBI from stepping on the toes of an ongoing CIA operation that was tracking al-Qaeda cells as they moved around the world, and into the U.S. For some reason that has yet to be explained, the Agency didn't "pass-off" this operation to FBI, as the law said it had to. This is a very serious breach that had the worst possible consequences, as we all saw on 9/11.

The subject is dealt with in greater detail in the following article: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0302/S00217.htm

Extract below:

1: A Warrantless Domestic Surveillance Operation (01/15/00 – 9/11/01)

Testimony heard by the joint 9/11 committee in September and October revealed that the CIA and FBI had been running a foreign surveillance operation involving several key al-Qaeda hijackers and operations directors, and this covert operation apparently was allowed to spill over into the U.S. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/index.html#joint8>.

Criminal violations of federal law and agency regulations occurred when CIA and FBI counter-terrorism officials assigned to the CIA’s Counterrerrorism Center (CTC) failed to promptly obtain warrants to surveil al-Qaeda operatives who had reentered the US on January 15 2000 after attending a terrorist summit held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That meeting was closely watched by US intelligence, an operation that involved eight CIA stations and a half dozen allied agencies. http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/speeches.html; and, Oral Testimony of George Tenet Before the Joint Inquiry Committee, 17 October 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/ story/0,11209,814749,00.html>

Tenet testified on October 17 that the CIA along with the FBI knew in advance that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi would be traveling to a planned al-Qaeda planning summit in Malaysia, and that the CIA informed the Bureau al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi had been identified as attendees:


“In December 1999, CIA, FBI, and the Department of State received intelligence on the travels of suspected al-Qa'ida operatives to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. CIA saw the Kuala Lumpur gathering as a potential source of intelligence about a possible al-Qa'ida attack in Southeast Asia. We initiated an operation to learn why those suspected terrorists were traveling to Kuala Lumpur” .The Malaysia meeting was seen by CIA as highly important -- senior al-Qaeda figures were in Kuala Lumpur. The operatives there would have routinely been added to the terrorist watch list (denying them entry into the US) -- if they had not already been under surveillance. Tenet acknowledges that al-Midhar was already being surveilled:


“In early January 2000, we managed to obtain a photocopy of al-Mihdhar's passport as he traveled to Kuala Lumpur. It showed a US multiple-entry visa issued in Jeddah on 7 April 1999 and expiring on 6 April 2000. We learned that his full name is Khalid bin Muhammad bin 'Abdallah al-Mihdhar.
“We had at that point the level of detail needed to watchlist him—that is, to nominate him to State Department for refusal of entry into the US or to deny him another visa. Our officers remained focused on the surveillance operation, and did not do this.”
For unexplained reasons, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hamzi, who led the hijacking of AA Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon, were nonetheless subsequently allowed to enter the U.S., where they moved around the country, attending flight training, and in Al-Mindhar’s case, was allowed readmission to the US on July 4, 2001 without a proper trainee visa. CIA Director Tenet testified on October 17:


“Khalid al-Mihdhar returned to the US on 4 July 2001 after nearly a year out of the country. He had spent the past year traveling between Yemen and Afghanistan, with occasional trips to Saudi Arabia. Al-Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia in June and on 13 June obtained a US visa in Jeddah.” <http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,814731,00.html>
According to Tenet, the CIA learned in March 2000 that al-Hazmi had slipped back into the country on a flight from Bangkok to LA on January 15 after having accompanied “Khallad” (an important al-Qaeda director) to a third-country. Other accounts state that the Agency knew of his entry in January. Whichever date actually applies, there is no record of a national security warrant application, and indeed no evidence that federal officers even attempted to obtain one, until mid-summer 2001.

The Joint Inquiry staff director, Eleanor Hill, concluded in her prepared statement of October 8 that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi had apparently never actually been the subject of a FISA warrant investigation, although they had been handled at CTC as if they were. Hill stated:


“ CIA employee advised two FBI employees in January 2000 regarding what the CIA knew about the activities of future hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar in Malaysia, but not the fact that al-Mihdhar had a multiple entry U.S. visa. The CIA officer stated in an e-mail at the time that the FBI would be brought "into the loop" immediately as soon as "something concrete" was developed "leading us to the criminal arena or to known FBI cases." Perhaps reflecting the deadening effect of the long standing wall between CIA and FBI, the FBI agents reportedly thanked the CIA employee and "stated that this was a fine approach" even though the FISA wall did not apply in this case.
“Even in late August 2001, when the CIA advised the FBI, State Department, INS, and Customs that al-Mihdhar, al-Hazmi, and two other "Bin Laden-related individuals" were in the United States, FBI headquarters refused to accede to the New York field office's recommendation that a criminal investigation be opened, which would allow greater resources to be dedicated to the search for al-Mlhdhar. This was based on the reluctance of FBI headquarters to utilize intelligence information to draw the connection between al-Mihdhar and U.S.S. Cole bombing that would be necessary for a criminal investigation. FBI headquarters lawyers took the position that criminal investigators "CAN NOT" be involved and that any substantial criminal information that might be discovered would be "passed over the wall" according to proper procedures. Again, the FBI apparently applied the FISA "wall" procedures to a non-FISA case.” <http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/100802hill.html>There are a couple reasonable explanations for why the FBI acted as it did: 1 ) the FBI, or some parts of it, knew about the surveillance of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi (who by some accounts were already in the US in late 1999)(see, Newsweek, "The Hijackers We Let Escape", June 5, 2002) – these FBI counter-terrorism officers may have believed that FISA warrants had already been obtained, which would allow continued surveillance after al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi returned from Malaysia on January 15; or, 2) ranking FBI and CIA officers at CTC agreed that the operation should remain within the purvey of the Agency, which is legally prohibited from conducting solo domestic counter-terrorism operations – this would mean that the surveillance of the pair (and others they made contact with) would continue to be conducted without a warrant.

Note to mod - author's post.

[blm]

4. They should look at BCCI and how Bush1 and cronies PROTECTED terrorists

and their international financiers cronies AND their banking institutions that FUNDED them KNOWINGLY.

Why did Bush1 fight so hard against revealing the terrorist connections and those who funded them?

Why did they work so hard AGAINST Kerry's investigation into the terrorist bank?

[JHB]

5. Just wondering...

...if any part of "the wall" was enacted to absolve the CIA of any responsibility to report illegal domestic activities by any of its associates during the Reagan tema's Contra heyday in the '80s (drug smuggling, bribery, weapons trafficking, etc.)?

[pdxmom]

6. The Dems need to make it clear where that "wall" came from.

I heard former Secretary of Defense William Cohen talking about this on Wolf Blitzer on Sunday. He made it clear that the "wall" existed before Clinton came to office and had developed over decades.

Weldon is out there now, very specifically laying it at the feet of the Clinton Administration. He hadn't been quite so specific about that until just this week.

And no one ever seems to ask "Okay, if this "wall" was such a problem, and if the Bush administration had been specfically warned about Al Qaida (which they clearly were), why didn't Bush do anything about that in the first 8 months they were in office?"

I am so sick of no one taking any blame for anything that has happened between 2000 and now.

[Skidmore]

8. Where, oh, where are the Dems. I haven't seen more than

Biden for days now. Don't these people pay attention to what is being said? So much for the coordinated message.

[leveymg]

7. The real question is not why wasn't FBI notified. It's why did that info

remain compartmentalized too long?

Compartmentalization and overclassification of special access programs -- like the domestic al-Qaeda cells mapping program (which overlapped with the CIA's WMD proliferation and financial monitoring/money laundering operations) -- are a risk factor that contributed to the loss of operational control over the 9/11 hijackers by US intelligence.

We all need to admit that Clinton's national security team had some responsibility for creating the pre-conditions for an attack inside the US. We should not ignore the fact that Atta & Co. were allowed in to begin with. However -- AND UNDERLINE THIS -- actual responsibility for 9/11 falls onto the Bush Administration, which was too incompetent, and too compromised politically with the Saudis to effectively administer this type of high-risk non-disclosed operation. Even when it became clear during the summer of 2001 that it was time to roll up the UBL cells, the President refused to issue the order. Ultimately, it was Bush's call, and he blew it in the worst possible way.

A risky counter-terrorism program that was managable by the Clinton Administration became a bomb that was dropped by the clumsier hands of BushCo.