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.
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