no big surprise, but...
... a recent ny times article reveals that the FAA and other govt. officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark". there you have it, folks - it doesnt get much more specific than that.
the information comes from previously secret (to protect national security interests, of course) portions of the 9/11 comission report. the specific warnings about al qaeda strikes and security lapses are interesting enough in and of themselves, but what really intrigues me is looking at what information was censored in the first release of the report, and wondering what information is still being witheld.
from the article:
Commission officials said they were perplexed by the administration's original attempts to black out material they said struck them as trivial or mundane.
One previously deleted section showed, for instance, that flights carrying the author Salman Rushdie were subjected to heightened security in the summer of 2001 because of a fatwa of violence against him, while a previously deleted footnote showed that "sewing scissors" would be allowed in the hands of a woman with sewing equipment, but prohibited "in the possession of a man who possessed no other sewing equipment."
Other deletions, however, highlighted more serious security concerns. A footnote that was originally deleted from the report showed that a quarter of the security screeners used in 2001 by Argenbright Security for United Airlines flights at Dulles Airport had not completed required criminal background checks, the commission report said. Another previously deleted footnote, related to the lack of security for cockpit doors, criticized American Airlines for security lapses.
Much of the material now restored in the public version of the commission's report centered on the warnings the F.A.A. received about the threat of hijackings, including 52 intelligence documents in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that mentioned Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.
A 1995 National Intelligence Estimate, a report prepared by intelligence officials, "highlighted the growing domestic threat of terrorist attack, including a risk to civil aviation," the commission found in a blacked-out portion of the report.
transparency has never been a forte of the bush administration (it hasnt been a administration for that matter, but bushco. is perhaps the worst) but one cant help but wonder (hmmm...) how much of the secrecy is simply an attempt to obsure the facts of what went wrong and why - and specficially why the bush admin. didnt do more to prevent the situation.
as fellow texan molly ivins has said about dubya -
"the trouble with the guy is that while he is good at politics, he stinks at governance. It bores him, he's not interested, he thinks government is bad to begin with and everything would be done better if it were contracted out to corporations."
again and again, we pay the price.
the information comes from previously secret (to protect national security interests, of course) portions of the 9/11 comission report. the specific warnings about al qaeda strikes and security lapses are interesting enough in and of themselves, but what really intrigues me is looking at what information was censored in the first release of the report, and wondering what information is still being witheld.
from the article:
Commission officials said they were perplexed by the administration's original attempts to black out material they said struck them as trivial or mundane.
One previously deleted section showed, for instance, that flights carrying the author Salman Rushdie were subjected to heightened security in the summer of 2001 because of a fatwa of violence against him, while a previously deleted footnote showed that "sewing scissors" would be allowed in the hands of a woman with sewing equipment, but prohibited "in the possession of a man who possessed no other sewing equipment."
Other deletions, however, highlighted more serious security concerns. A footnote that was originally deleted from the report showed that a quarter of the security screeners used in 2001 by Argenbright Security for United Airlines flights at Dulles Airport had not completed required criminal background checks, the commission report said. Another previously deleted footnote, related to the lack of security for cockpit doors, criticized American Airlines for security lapses.
Much of the material now restored in the public version of the commission's report centered on the warnings the F.A.A. received about the threat of hijackings, including 52 intelligence documents in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that mentioned Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.
A 1995 National Intelligence Estimate, a report prepared by intelligence officials, "highlighted the growing domestic threat of terrorist attack, including a risk to civil aviation," the commission found in a blacked-out portion of the report.
transparency has never been a forte of the bush administration (it hasnt been a administration for that matter, but bushco. is perhaps the worst) but one cant help but wonder (hmmm...) how much of the secrecy is simply an attempt to obsure the facts of what went wrong and why - and specficially why the bush admin. didnt do more to prevent the situation.
as fellow texan molly ivins has said about dubya -
"the trouble with the guy is that while he is good at politics, he stinks at governance. It bores him, he's not interested, he thinks government is bad to begin with and everything would be done better if it were contracted out to corporations."
again and again, we pay the price.
posted by andy at 8:06 PM
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