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September 08, 2005

Wrong millennium guys

Well, AJ Strata among others, might have their britches all in a bunch over Sandy Berger's latest slap on the wrist, but AJ Strata at least seems to have forgotten that the Millenium bombing blot was broken up on December 14, 1999 not December 14, 2000. No one has claimed Able Danger created any charts identifying Al Qaeda cells before January or February of 2000, and General Hugh Shelton was never shown such a chart or even briefed on the outcome of the planning and targeting effort until January 2001, after Berger was shown the door.

If you think Sandy Berger is responsible for letting Able Danger die on the vine, you are simply barking up the wrong tree: "You see the sliver in your friend's eye, but you don't see the timber in your own eye. When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's eye."

Berger to Pay $50,000 Fine for Taking Papers:

The sentencing capped a bizarre sequence of events in which Berger admitted to sneaking classified documents out of the Archives in his suit, later destroying some of them in his office and then lying about it.

After initially saying it was an "honest mistake," Berger pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, which contained information relating to terror threats in the United States during the 2000 millennium celebration.

The Millenium Plot:

On December 31, 1999, an Algerian/Jordanian terrorist cell with cooperation from Al-Qaeda planned to execute two thwarted terrorist attacks. One an attack on Los Angeles International Airport, and the other on biblical sites in the Middle East and a hotel in Amman Jordan. In late 1998 two Palestinians, Raed Hijazi and Abu Hoshar settled on a plan to attack multiple targets throughout the middle east. They would first attack four targets: the SAS Radisson Hotel in downtown Amman, the border crossings from Jordan into Israel, and two Christian holy sites, at a time when all these locations were likely to be thronged with American and other tourists. Next, they would target a local airport and other religious and cultural sites. Hijazi and Abu Hoshar cased the intended targets and sent reports to Abu Zubaydah, a longtime ally of Osama Bin-Ladin, who approved their plan....

On December 14, 1999, Ressam drove his rental car onto the ferry from Victoria, Canada, to Port Angeles,Washington. Ressam planned to drive to Seattle and meet Meskini, with whom he would travel to Los Angeles and case LAX. They planned to detonate the bomb on or around January 1, 2000. At the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) preinspection station in Victoria, Ressam presented officials with his genuine but fraudulently obtained Canadian passport, from which he had torn the Afghanistan entry and exit stamps.The INS agent on duty ran the passport through a variety of databases but, since it was not in Ressam’s name, he did not pick up the pending Canadian arrest warrants. After a cursory examination of Ressam’s car, the INS agents allowed Ressam to board the ferry. Late in the afternoon of December 14, Ressam arrived in Port Angeles. He waited for all the other cars to depart the ferry, assuming (incorrectly) that the last car off would draw less scrutiny. Customs officers assigned to the port, noticing Ressam’s nervousness, referred him to secondary inspection. When asked for additional identification, Ressam handed the Customs agent a Price Costco membership card in the same false name as his passport. As that agent began an initial pat-down, Ressam panicked and tried to run away.

Just a friendly reminder, from the 9/11 Commission Staff:

Brian Sheridan—the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD—never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower-level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing assistant secretary left on January 20, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11.

Posted by Mike at September 8, 2005 05:47 PM

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Posted by: Captain V at September 8, 2005 09:45 PM

Posted by: topdog08 at September 9, 2005 01:23 PM

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