9/11 Commission - Page 3 - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 06-17-2004, 06:12 PM

By TERENCE HUNT

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...88.htm&sc=1110

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly authorized U.S. fighters to shoot down hijacked airliners as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks unfolded but his orders did not reach military pilots until the last of the four planes had already crashed, the commission investigating the terrorist attacks said Thursday.

Cheney at one point believed incorrectly that his orders had resulted in the shoot-down of a couple aircraft.

The commission's report documented a day of confusion and miscommunication at the White House, Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

President Bush, at an elementary school in Florida to talk about education, was initially told that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. He thought it was a case of pilot error. At the White House, Cheney was wondering ``how the hell a plane could hit the World Trade Center'' when he saw on television the second aircraft strike the South Tower.

When it became clear that the nation was under attack, Bush decided to continue his remarks to a classroom of second graders. ``The president told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis.'' Fifty minutes later, he was on Air Force One as it climbed into the sky with no certain destination. The objective was to get into the air as fast as possible and decide where to go, the commission said.

Cheney, in an underground bunker at the White House, held a series of telephone calls with Bush. He asked the president to decide the rules of engagement for combat planes being scrambled over Washington. Bush said he authorized that hijacked planes be shot down.

Cheney's command post received word at 10:02 a.m. that a plane, presumably hijacked, was heading for Washington. It was United flight 93 which crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside at 10:03 a.m. But the White House was unaware of the crash and was told the plane was still bearing down on Washington.

Sometime between 10:10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m., a military aide said the aircraft was 80 miles out and Cheney was asked for authority to shoot down the plane. He issued the order, the commission said. Minutes later, the military aide reported that the plane was 60 miles out and Cheney again was asked for authorization. Again, he said yes.

White House deputy chief of staff Joshua Bolten, at the conference table with Cheney, suggested that the vice president contact Bush and confirm his authorization. Cheney called the president and got the confirmation, the commission said. Cheney's group received word that a plane was down in Pennsylvania, and people in the conference room wondered if it had been shot down at Cheney's direction.

About 10:30 a.m., officials with Cheney began receiving reports of another hijacked plane, five to 10 miles out. Cheney issued yet another order to engage the aircraft but it turned out to be a Medevac helicopter.

In most cases, the commission said, the chain of command in authorizing the use of force runs from the president to the secretary of defense and from the secretary to military commanders. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was briefed by Cheney at 10:39 a.m. that he had been authorized by Bush to instruct fighters to shoot down hijacked planes.

``And it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out,'' Cheney told Rumsfeld, according to the commission. Rumsfeld replied, ``We can't confirm that. We're told that one aircraft is down but we do not have a pilot report that they did it.''

06/17/04 11:42

Jolie Rouge · 06-17-2004, 06:18 PM

By EILEEN PUTMAN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...040617XNTSB111

WASHINGTON (AP) - Chilling radio transmissions by the Sept. 11 hijackers from the planes they commandeered were played publicly for the first time Thursday, providing a vivid and horrifying portrait as they unfolded on that fateful day before confused air traffic officials and military personnel.

``We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport,'' a hijacker, believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, told the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11. The tape was played for the audience at the commission's hearing.

That transmission was the first inkling federal air traffic controllers had of the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 shortly after takeoff from Boston's Logan Airport at 8 a.m. EDT. Atta had been speaking to the plane's passengers, but the radio transmission was received at the FAA's Boston Center.

As FAA controllers tried desperately to contact the plane, which had changed its transponder code, they picked up another transmission, also apparently from Atta.

``Nobody move. Everything will be O.K. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.''

Controllers tried to contact the military, even trying to raise a military alert center in Atlantic City, N.J., unaware that facility had been phased out. The FAA finally reached the appropriate military office at 8:37 a.m.

``We have a problem here,'' the FAA's Boston Center told NEADS, the North East Air Defense Sector. ``We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.''

``Is this real-world or exercise?'' asked the incredulous NEADS officer.

``No, this is not an exercise, not a test,'' the FAA responded.

F-15 fighter jets were ordered scrambled from Otis Air Force Base at 8:46 a.m. Forty seconds later, Flight 11 hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.

For United Flight 175, the second plane hijacked from Logan, the situation was similarly disjointed. That plane took off at 8:14 a.m. from Boston's Logan Airport. At 8:47 a.m., almost the same time as Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center, Flight 175 changed its transponder code.

At 8:58 a.m., a controller at the FAA's New York Center told another New York controller, ``We might have a hijack over here, two of them.'' At 9 a.m., a New York Center manager tells the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Va., ``We have several situations going on here. It's escalating big, big time. We need to get the military involved with us.''

Flight 175 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m.

The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, had left Dulles International Airport near Washington at 8:20 a.m. At 8:54 a.m., the plane deviated from its flight plan. It was tracked by an Indianapolis-based controller, then unaware of the other hijackings. When the controller couldn't raise the aircraft, it notified other agencies that it was missing and may have crashed.

The military did not know about the search for Flight 77. Instead, it was mistakenly told by the FAA's Boston Center that American's Flight 11 was still in the air and headed toward Washington. Fighter jets were ordered scrambled from Langley Air Force Base at 9:24 a.m.

Instead of heading north to Washington, the fighter jets headed east over the ocean because the initial scramble order didn't include the target's location or distance. A ``generic'' flight plan incorrectly led the fighter jet pilots to believe they were to fly east for 60 miles, the report said.

FAA radar, meanwhile, had apparently been able to track Flight 77, but for what the commission said were technical reasons, the information was not immediately displayed to controllers at the Indianapolis center. It eventually re-emerged on radar, and by 9:32 a.m. controllers at Dulles observed that it was headed to Washington.

The FAA asked an unarmed military cargo plane to identify and follow the airliner. At 9:38 a.m., the pilot of that plane reported to the Washington control tower that it ``looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir.''

United Airlines Flight 93 had taken off from Newark at 8:42 a.m. Its last transmission was at 9:28 a.m. A minute later, the Cleveland-based FAA controller heard ``a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin.''

There was a second transmission, with sounds of screaming someone yelling, ``Get out of here, get out of here.'' Then came another transmission. ``Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board.''

Between 9:34 a.m. and 9:38 a.m., the controller observed United 93 climbing and moved several aircraft out of its way. Then another transmission came from the plane. ``Uh, is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands (unintelligible). Please remain quiet.''

United 93 was spotted by another aircraft and reported to be ``waving its wings.'' It crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03:11 a.m. near Johnstown.

On the Net:

Sept. 11 panel: http://www.9-11commission.gov

06/17/04 15:52

Jolie Rouge · 06-28-2004, 06:39 PM

9/11 Panel Questions Two Hijackers' Help
By CURT ANDERSON

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...&idq=/ff/story /0001%2F20040627%2F1545394454.htm&sc=1110&photoid=2 0040620WAS200D_5097173 1

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI long has contended that not a single al-Qaida operative in the United States collaborated with the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet the commission investigating the attacks has identified two Muslim men who may have had advance knowledge of the plot.

The commission found that two hijackers got substantial help from Mohdar Abdullah and Anwar Aulaqi after settling in California in 2000. The bipartisan panel created by Congress said it cannot discount the possibility the men knew the hijackers' plans.

Abdullah, who recently was deported to Yemen, helped the hijackers get driver's licenses. He bragged, while in U.S. custody after the hijackings, that he had known the attacks were coming.

Aulaqi, a cleric who left the United States shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, introduced the two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, to other people who helped provide living arrangements in this country.

The previously undisclosed information about Abdullah and Aulaqi was contained in one of the commission reports released this month.

The FBI is seeking to find and interview Aulaqi about his contacts with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. It is unclear if U.S. officials know where Aulaqi is.

FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said the Sept. 11 investigation is ``ongoing and active'' and that any new evidence will be examined closely.

A congressional investigation has concluded that the discovery of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the United States probably represented the best chance for the FBI and CIA to disrupt the plot.

Both were known to the CIA because of connections to the October 2000 terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Both had contacts with a longtime FBI informant.

FBI agents were searching for them in the weeks before the attacks because their names were on terrorism watch lists.

Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were among the first four al-Qaida members chosen in 1999 by Osama bin Laden for the hijacking plot proposed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, or KSM, the Sept. 11 mastermind now in U.S. custody.

Much of the commission report is derived from classified interrogations of Mohammed and another senior al-Qaida planner also in custody - Ramzi Binalshibh.

In general, the 19 hijackers were told to blend in while in the United States by avoiding mosques and fellow Islamic extremists. But al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were different.

``Recognizing that neither Hazmi nor Mihdhar spoke English or was familiar with Western culture, KSM instructed these operatives to seek help from the local Muslim community,'' the report said.

Mohammed told the men to settle in San Diego. So they went there in February 2000 from Los Angeles with help from Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had an apartment complex there. Although Bayoumi helped the hijackers settle in San Diego, there is no evidence he knew they were terrorists, investigators say.

Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar made friends in San Diego with some foreign students at the Rabat Mosque in suburban La Mesa. One was Mohdar Abdullah, who the report said was among those students who ``appear to have held extremist sympathies.''

Abdullah helped al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar get driver's licenses and enroll in schools in California. Shortly after the attacks, Abdullah told FBI agents in an interview he knew nothing about the plot.

But later, while held on immigration charges, Abdullah bragged to follow inmates that he had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 mission and even had instructions to pick up plot operatives at Los Angeles International Airport before the attacks, according to the commission's report.

A fellow inmate wrote the Homeland Department last spring about Abdullah's claim, according to Jacqueline Maguire, an FBI agent working on the Sept. 11 investigation.

The FBI could not corroborate the inmate's story, she told the commission during its public hearing two weeks ago.

``Another inmate gave another story and the details differed quite significantly,'' Maguire said. Ultimately, the FBI chose not to seek criminal charges against Abdullah. The bureau did have Abdullah deported to Yemen in May. Maguire said the CIA was aware of the decision and knows he is in Yemen.

According to the commission report, Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar also established a relationship with Aulaqi, an imam at the Rabat Mosque. Aulaqi later moved to Virginia and worshipped at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Falls Church, Va. Early in 2001, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar drove across the country, settled in Alexandria, Va., and began attending Dar al-Hijra.

The commission report cited information that Aulaqi had ``extremist ties, and the circumstances surrounding his relationship with the hijackers remains suspicious. However, we have not uncovered evidence that he associated with the hijackers knowing they were terrorists.''

At the Falls Church mosque, the imam introduced the hijackers to a Jordanian, Eyad al Rababah, who helped them find an apartment.

In May 2001, al Rababah suggested that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar move with him to Fairfield, Conn. The three eventually traveled to Paterson, N.J., where they rented an apartment with two other al-Qaida operatives.

The commission report said that despite this assistance, there is ``insufficient basis'' to conclude that Rababah knew that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were terrorists.

While al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar did not succeed in their original mission - to learn English and become pilots - they were part of the team that commandeered the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

On the Net:

Sept. 11 commission: http://www.9-11commission.gov

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

06/27/04 15:44

Jolie Rouge · 07-05-2004, 04:10 PM

Some Witnesses for the 9/11 Commission
By Michael Reagan
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 19, 2004

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=13042

It is ignoring a document that shows that President Clinton was alerted in 1996 about the possibility of 9/11 style attack, while instead focusing on the August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB).

Having harassed the Bush administration into declassifying the August 6 PDB, the Commission must now demand that a PDB from the Clinton administration also be declassified. Unlike the August 6 document which had no information about hijacking jets to crash into U.S. Targets, the 1996 PDB gave specifics about al Qaeda plans to carry out exactly that kind of attack.

Sometime in the summer of 1996, President Clinton was given a PDB which described in chilling detail an al Qaeda plot known as Operation Bojinka (Arabic for "Loud Bang"). It involved using hijacked jet planes to crash into The Pentagon, the White House, the World Trade Center, and other buildings in the U.S.

The PDB was based on information from Philippine authorities who broke up an al Qaeda cell in Manila that, among other things, had been plotting to fly explosives-laden planes into the Pentagon, and possibly some skyscrapers.

According to Allan J. Favish writing in the October 14, 2003, FrontPageMagazine (frontpagemag.com), the CIA knew about the plot and so did the FBI. "We told the Americans about the plans to turn planes into flying bombs as far back as 1995," a Philippine official said. "Why didn't they pay attention?"

The plot was never implemented because the terrorist network was unable to find the pilots needed to carry it out. That problem was later remedied when al-Qaeda sent operatives to U.S. flight schools after giving them thorough training abroad in hijack techniques.

Sometime in the summer of 1996, the Operation Bojinka information was communicated to President Clinton in a PDB, according to now retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson. Patterson was a military aide to Clinton from May 1996 to May 1998 one of five officers entrusted with carrying the bag containing the codes for launching nuclear weapons.

On page 139 of Patterson’s book Dereliction of Duty - The eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised National Security published in March 2003, he wrote:

Quote:

"During the summer of the 1996 attacks, I myself learned first-hand that the administration knew that terrorists were plotting to use commercial airliners as weapons. The president received a Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, every morning. It…contained the president’s daily intelligence update from the NSC. A senior NSC representative normally delivered it to the president. On weekends, at Camp David, and on vacations, the military aide was responsible for delivering and retrieving the brief.

"One late-summer Saturday morning, the president asked me to pick up a few days’ worth of PDBs that had accumulated in the Oval Office. He gave them to me with handwritten notes stuffed inside the folders and asked that I deliver them back to the NSC.

"I opened the PDB to rearrange the notes and noticed the heading "Operation Bojinka." I keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons and another plot to put bombs on U.S. airliners. Because I was a pilot, this naturally grabbed my attention. I can state for a fact that this information was circulated within the U.S. intelligence community, and that in late 1996 the president was aware of it."

What happened as a result of this shocking PDB?

Col. Patterson recently told me that the information was relayed to the intelligence community and Clinton formed a White House Commission on Aviation Safety & Security, chaired by Vice President Gore. In the spring of 1998, the group made several recommendations, among them improving airport security and establishing a system for profiling passengers. The FAA chose not to comply because they feared profiling on the basis of ethnicity would violate civil liberties. Another recommendation involved interagency cooperation between the FBI, the CIA and the FAA on suspected terrorists.

The findings were never implemented by the agencies involved. Had the Gore recommendations been followed in 1998, September 11 might never have occurred.

Why isn’t the Commission asking Al Gore and the FAA why they never acted?

Why haven’t they called Col. Patterson?

----------------------------------

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Premiere Radio Network.

Jolie Rouge · 07-07-2004, 03:44 PM

How Chinagate Led to 9/11
By Jean Pearce
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 25, 2004

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=13516

As the 9/11 Commission tries to uncover what kept intelligence agencies from preventing September 11, it has overlooked two vital factors: Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton. Gorelick, who has browbeaten the current administration, helped erect the walls between the FBI, CIA and local investigators that made 9/11 inevitable. However, she was merely expanding the policy Bill Clinton established with Presidential Decision Directive 24. What has been underreported is why the policy came about: to thwart investigations into the Chinese funding of Clinton’s re-election campaign, and the favors he bestowed on them in return.

In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw.

It’s a story the 9/11 Commission may not want to hear, and one that Gorelick – now incredibly a member of that commission – has so far refused to tell. But it is perhaps the most crucial one to understanding the intentional breakdown of intelligence that led to the September 11 disaster.

Nearly from the moment Gorelick took office in the Clinton Justice Department, she began acting as the point woman for a large-scale bureaucratic reorganization of intelligence agencies that ultimately placed the gathering of intelligence, and decisions about what – if anything – would be done with it under near-direct control of the White House. In the process, more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations underway at the time got caught beneath the heel of the presidential boot, investigations that would ultimately reveal massive Chinese espionage as millions in illegal Chinese donations filled Democratic Party campaign coffers.

When Gorelick took office in 1994, the CIA was reeling from the news that a Russian spy had been found in CIA ranks, and Congress was hungry for a quick fix. A month after Gorelick was sworn in, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 24. PDD 24 put intelligence gathering under the direct control of the president’s National Security Council, and ultimately the White House, through a four-level, top-down chain of command set up to govern (that is, stifle) intelligence sharing and cooperation between intelligence agencies. From the moment the directive was implemented, intelligence sharing became a bureaucratic nightmare that required negotiating a befuddling bureaucracy that stopped directly at the President’s office.

First, the directive effectively neutered the CIA by creating a National Counterintelligence Center (NCI) to oversee the Agency. NCI was staffed by an FBI agent appointed by the Clinton administration. It also brought multiple international investigations underway at the time under direct administrative control. The job of the NCI was to “implement counterintelligence activities,” which meant that virtually everything the CIA did, from a foreign intelligence agent’s report to polygraph test results, now passed through the intelligence center that PDD 24 created.

NCI reported to an administration-appointed National Counterintelligence Operations Board (NCOB) charged with “discussing counterintelligence matters.” The NCOB in turn reported to a National Intelligence Policy Board, which coordinated activities between intelligence agencies attempting to work together. The policy board reported “directly” to the president through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The result was a massive bureaucratic roadblock for the CIA – which at the time had a vast lead on the FBI in foreign intelligence – and for the FBI itself, which was also forced to report to the NCOB. This hampered cooperation between the two entities. All this occurred at a time when both agencies were working separate ends of investigations that would eventually implicate China in technology transfers and the Democratic Party in a Chinese campaign cash grab.

And the woman charged with selling this plan to Congress, convincing the media and ultimately implementing much of it? Jamie Gorelick.

Many in Congress, including some Democrats, found the changes PDD 24 put in place baffling: they seemed to do nothing to insulate the CIA from infiltration while devastating the agency’s ability to collect information. At the time, Democrat House Intelligence Chairman Dan Glickman referred to the plan as “regulatory gobbledygook." Others questioned how FBI control of CIA intelligence would foster greater communication between the lower levels of the CIA and FBI, now that all information would have to be run through a multi-tier bureaucratic maze that only went upward.

Despite their doubts, Gorelick helped the administration sell the plan on Capitol Hill. The Directive stood.

But that wasn’t good enough for the Clinton administration, which wanted control over every criminal and intelligence investigation, domestic and foreign, for reasons that would become apparent in a few years. For the first time in Justice Department history, a political appointee, Richard Scruggs – an old crony or Attorney General Janet Reno’s from Florida – was put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The court’s activities are kept secret from the public.

A year after PDD 24, with the new bureaucratic structure loaded with administration appointees, Gorelick drafted the 1995 memo Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned while testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The Gorelick memo, and other supporting memos released in recent weeks, not only created walls within the intelligence agencies that prevented information sharing among their own agents, but effectively walled these agencies off from each other and from outside contact with the U.S. prosecutors instrumental in helping them gather the evidence needed to make the case for criminal charges.

The only place left to go with intelligence information – particularly for efforts to share intelligence information or obtain search warrants – was straight up Clinton and Gorelick’s multi-tiered chain of command. Instead, information lethal to the Democratic Party languished inside the Justice Department, trapped behind Gorelick’s walls.

The implications were enormous. In her letter of protest to Attorney General Reno over Gorelick’s memo, United States Attorney Mary Jo White spelled them out: “These instructions leave entirely to OIPR and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage,” White wrote. (Like OIPR, the Criminal Division is also part of the Justice Department.)

Without an enforcer, the walls Gorelick’s memo put in place might not have held. But Scruggs acted as that enforcer, and he excelled at it. Scruggs maintained Gorelick’s walls between the FBI and Justice's Criminal Division by threatening to automatically reject any FBI request for a wiretap or search warrant if the Bureau contacted the Justice Department's Criminal Division without permission. This deprived the FBI, and ultimately the CIA, of gathering advice and assistance from the Criminal Division that was critical in espionage and terrorist cases.

Jolie Rouge · 07-07-2004, 03:49 PM

It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react.

Gorelick’s appointment to the job at Justice in 1994 occurred during a period in which the FBI had begun to systematically investigate technology theft by foreign powers. For the first time, these investigations singled out the U.S. chemical, telecommunications, aircraft and aerospace industries for intelligence collection.

By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning:

In an investigation originally instigated by the CIA, the FBI was beginning its search for the source of the leak of W-88 nuclear warhead technology to China among the more than 1,000 people who had access to the secrets. Despite Justice Department stonewalling and the Department’s refusal to seek wiretap authority in 1997, the investigation eventually led to Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The FBI first collected extensive evidence in 1995 linking illegal Democratic Party donations to China, according to the Congressional Record. But Congress and the Director of the CIA didn’t find out about the Justice Department’s failure to act upon that evidence until 1997, safely after the 1996 election.

According to classified CIA documents leaked to the Washington Times, between 1994 and 1997, the CIA learned that China sold Iran missile technology, a nuclear fission reactor, advanced air-defense radar and chemical agents. The Chinese also provided 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan, used in producing weapons-grade uranium. The Chinese also provided uranium fuel for India's reactors.

In many cases the CIA resorted to leaking classified information to the media, in an effort to bypass the administration’s blackout.

Gorelick knew these facts well. While Clinton may have refused to meet with top CIA officials, Gorelick didn’t. According to a 1996 report by the legal news service American Lawyer Media, Gorelick and then-Deputy Director of the CIA George Tenet met every other week to discuss intelligence and intelligence sharing.

But those in the Clinton administration weren’t the only ones to gain from the secrecy. In 1994, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation transferred military-use machine tools to the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation that ended up in the hands of the Chinese army. The sale occurred despite Defense Department objections. McDonnell Douglas was a client of the Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, L.L.P. (now called Baker Botts), the Washington, D.C., law firm where Gorelick worked for 17 years and was a partner. Ray Larroca, another partner in the firm, represented McDonnell in the Justice Department’s investigation of the technology transfer.

In 1995, General Electric, a former client of Gorelick’s, also had much to lose if the damaging information the CIA and the FBI had reached Congress. At the time, GE was publicly lobbying for a lucrative permit to assist the Chinese in replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear plants. A 1990 law required that the president certify to Congress that China was not aiding in nuclear proliferation before U.S. companies could execute the business agreement.

Moreover, in 1995, Michael Armstrong, then the CEO of Hughes Electronics – a division of General Electric and another client of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin – was publicly lobbying Clinton to switch satellite export controls from the State Department to the Commerce Department. After the controls were lifted, Hughes and another company gave sensitive data to the Chinese, equipment a Pentagon study later concluded would allow China to develop intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles aimed at American targets. Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin partner Randall Turk represented Hughes in the Congressional, State Department, and Justice Department investigations that resulted.

The Cox Report, which detailed Chinese espionage for Congress during the period, revealed that FBI surveillance caught Chinese officials frantically trying to keep Democratic donor Johnny Chung from divulging any information that would be damaging to Hughes Electronics. Chung funneled $300,000 in illegal contributions from the Chinese military to the DNC between 1994 and 1996.

It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her.

Jolie Rouge · 07-13-2004, 06:00 PM

Justice Dept. Details Patriot Act Cases
By CURT ANDERSON

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...74.htm&sc=1152

WASHINGTON (AP) - Seeking to bolster support for the Patriot Act, the Justice Department provided Congress on Tuesday with details of numerous cases in which the anti-terrorism law has been used.

The 29-page report is part of a Bush administration effort to discourage Congress from weakening a law that critics say threatens civil liberties by giving authorities more latitude to spy on people. Key sections of the law expire at the end of 2005.

Release of the document comes less than a week after House Republican leaders barely turned back an amendment that would have prevented the FBI from using Patriot Act authority to obtain library and bookstore records.

The report says that in the period starting with the Sept. 11 attacks and ending May 5, Justice Department terrorism investigations resulted in charges against 310 people, with 179 convictions or guilty pleas. The Patriot Act, it says, was instrumental in these cases.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, appearing at a news conference with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the report provides ``a mountain of evidence that the Patriot Act continues to save lives.' The Patriot Act is al-Qaida's worst nightmare,'' Ashcroft said.

Among the specific examples:

It allowed intelligence agents to share with FBI criminal investigators evidence that an anonymous letter sent to the FBI had come from an individual with al-Qaida ties. That letter began the investigation into an alleged terror cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., that has resulted in six guilty pleas.

That same information-sharing authority was used against members of an alleged terror cell in Portland, Ore., that an undercover informant said was preparing for possible attacks against Jewish schools or synagogues. Continued surveillance under the Patriot Act of one suspect led to six others, who likely would have scattered or fled if the first suspect had been arrested right away.

Terror financing provisions of the law were used in numerous cases, including charges against a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on charges of being an unlicensed money transmitter. The same authority has been used to prosecute people illegally sending money to Iraq, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and India.

Powers permitted under the Patriot Act have also been used in investigations involving potential school bomb attacks, computer hackers, child pornography, violent fugitives and illegal weapons sales. In one case, Patriot Act electronic communications authorities allowed law enforcement agencies to identify a person who had sent 200 threatening letters laced with white powder in Lafayette, La., the department said.

The report did not say whether the FBI had used its authority to obtain library or bookstore records. That information is classified, but Ashcroft last year issued a declassified statement saying that, up to that point, the power had not been used.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused the department of selectively releasing information about the Patriot Act and refusing to address civil liberties concerns. "Coupled with the department's consistent record of exaggerating their record about terrorism, this entire report is suspect,'' Conyers said.

Sensenbrenner said opponents were also guilty of being selective in information they use to undermine the law. ``The people who criticize the Patriot Act cherry-pick their contentions the same way,'' he said.

On the Net:

Justice Department: www.usdoj.gov

07/13/04 14:47

Jolie Rouge · 07-17-2004, 01:34 AM

9/11 report to propose big changes, panel members say[i]
From Kelli Arena and Kevin Bohn -- CNN Washington Bureau
Friday, July 16, 2004 Posted: 8:51 AM EDT (1251 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ion/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The 9/11 commission's final report, scheduled to be made public next week, is expected to propose significant changes in how the U.S. government organizes intelligence agencies and how they interact, according to two panel members. They told CNN on Thursday that the nearly 600-page report will be "compelling and authoritative."

Neither one would comment on whether the votes by the bipartisan, independent panel on recommendations were unanimous. One member said there was "healthy debate" in the crafting of the final report.

An official said commissioners have voted to approve most of the report, barring one section. The White House already is going through the rest to ensure nothing is published that it deems too sensitive. The commission hopes only a small amount of information will have to be redacted for national security reasons, as compared with last year's report by the joint congressional inquiry, which was barred from releasing many details.

Commissioners said key recommendations will include a complete overhaul of the intelligence community, but they declined to give details.

For example, it is unclear whether the panel will endorse a new national intelligence director to oversee all the various agencies or the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency. The FBI and CIA oppose such a new entity.

"Our approach is pretty nuanced and not subject to easy labeling," one commissioner said. "We tried to carefully deal with the divide between domestic and foreign intelligence. Our recommendation is pretty creative."

Another panel member said reform recommendations will be "organizational and institutional, not only concerning the intelligence community but also regarding first responders and broader domestic security personnel, including border patrol and immigration."

He said the report will provide "significant detail and rationale" for proposed changes. "The intelligence establishment is clearly broken and dysfunctional," the commissioner said. "It requires a number of significant things to be done, a systematic approach, not a collection of discreet things to do."

As for the 9/11 plot, he said, "some gaps will be filled in," but most of the major issues have been outlined in previously released staff reports.

Several commissioners have said they believe the United States is safer today than it was before the September 11 attacks but that more remains to be done. They said they believe lawmakers will respect the conclusions of the report and will support many of the proposed changes.

Members of victims' families are expected to be in Washington to receive a briefing from the commission before the report's release to the public.

Jolie Rouge · 07-21-2004, 05:28 PM

[i]The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States was created by congress in late 2002 and the legislation was signed by President Bush. It has become informally known as the "9/11 Commission" and it was created to look into the circumstances surrounding the Attack on America on September 11, 2001 and to generate a report about its findings.

In a presidential election season, the war in Iraq has become a key political issue and one of the tensions surrounding the creating and function of the commission has been to what extent Democrats could use the war to defeat the president at the polls.

Senator Zell Miller is a Democrat representing the state of Georgia.

ZELL MILLERS SPEECH

After watching the harsh acrimony generated by the September 11 Commission--which, let me say at the outset, is made up of good and able members--I have come to seriously question this panel's usefulness. I believe it will ultimately play a role in doing great harm to this country, for its unintended consequences, I fear, will be to energize our enemies and demoralize our troops.

After being drowned in a tidal wave of all who didn't do enough before 9/11, I have come to believe that the Commission should issue a report that says: No one did enough. In the past, no one did near enough. And then thank everybody for serving, send them home, and let's get on with the job of protecting this country in the future.

Tragically, these hearings have proved to be a very divisive diversion for this country. Tragically, they have devoured valuable time looking backward instead of looking forward. Can you imagine handling the attack on Pearl Harbor this way? Can you imagine Congress, the media, and the public standing for this kind of political gamesmanship and finger-pointing after that day of infamy in 1941?

Some partisans tried that ploy, but they were soon quieted by the patriots who understood how important it was to get on with the war and take the battle to America 's enemies and not dwell on what FDR knew, when. You see, back then the highest priority was to win a war, not to win an election. That is what made them the greatest generation.

I realize that many well-meaning Americans see the hearings as democracy in action. Years ago when I was teaching political science, I probably would have had my class watching it live on television and using that very same phrase with them.

There are also the not-so-well-meaning political operatives who see these hearings as an opportunity to score cheap points. And then there are the media meddlers who see this as great theater that can be played out on the evening news and on endless talk shows for a week or more.

Congressional hearings have long been one of Washington's most entertaining pastimes. Joe McCarthy, Watergate, Iran-Contra--they all kept us glued to the TV and made for conversations around the water coolers or arguments over a beer at the corner pub.

A congressional hearing in Washington, DC is the ultimate aphrodisiac for political groupies and partisan punks. But it is not the groupies, punks, and television-sotted American public that I am worried about This latter crowd can get excited and divided over just about anything, whether it is some off-key wannabe dreaming of being the American idol, or what brainless bimbo ``The Bachelor'' or ``Average Joe'' will choose, or who Donald Trump will fire next week. No, it is the real enemies of America that I am concerned about. These evil killers who right now are gleefully watching the shrill partisan finger-pointing of these hearings and grinning like a mule eating briars.

They see this as a major split within the great Satan, America . They see anger. They see division, instability, bickering, peevishness, and dissension. They see the President of the United States hammered unmercifully. They see all this, and they are greatly encouraged.

We should not be doing anything to encourage our enemies in this battle between good and evil. Yet these hearings, in my opinion, are doing just that. We are playing with fire. We are playing directly into the hands of our enemy by allowing these hearings to become the great divider they have become.

Dick Clarke's book and its release coinciding with these hearings have done this country a tremendous disservice and some day we will reap its whirlwind.

Long ago, Sir Walter Scott observed that revenge is``the sweetest morsel that ever was cooked in Hades.''

The vindictive Clarke has now had his revenge, but what kind of

has he, his CBS publisher, and his axe-to-grind advocates unleashed?

These hearings, coming on the heels of the election the terrorists influenced in Spain , bolster and energize our evil enemies as they have not been energized since 9/11.

Chances are very good that these evil enemies of America will attempt to influence our 2004 election in a similar dramatic way as they did Spain's. And to think that could never be in this country is to stick your head in the sand.

That is why the sooner we stop this endless bickering over the past and join together to prepare for the future, the better off this country will be. There are some things--whether this city believes it or not--that are just more important than political campaigns.

The recent past is so ripe for political second-guessing, ``gotcha,'' and Monday morning quarterbacking. And it is so tempting in an election year. We should not allow ourselves to indulge that temptation. We should put our country first.

Every administration, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, bears some of the blame. Dick Clarke bears a big heap of it, because it was he who was in the catbird's seat to do something about it for more than a decade. Tragically, it was the decade in which we did the least.

We did nothing after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six and injuring more than a thousand Americans.

We did nothing in 1996 when 16 U.S. servicemen were killed in the bombing of the Khobar Towers .

When our embassies were attacked in 1998, killing 263 people, our only response was to fire a few missiles on an empty tent.

Is it any wonder that after that decade of weak-willed responses to that murderous terror, our enemies thought we would never fight back?

In the 1990s is when Dick Clarke should have resigned. In the 1990s is when he should have apologized. That is when he should have written his book--that is, if he really had America 's best interests at heart.

Now, I know some will say we owe it to the families to get more information about what happened in the past, and I can understand that. But no amount of finger-pointing will bring our victims back

So now we owe it to the future families and all of America now in jeopardy not to encourage more terrorists, resulting in even more grieving families--perhaps many times over the ones of 9/11.

It is obvious to me that this country is rapidly dividing itself into two camps--the wimps and the warriors : the ones who want to argue and assess and appease, and the ones who want to carry this fight to our enemies and kill them before they kill us. In case you have not figured it out, I proudly belong to the latter.

This is a time like no other time in the history of this country. This country is being crippled with petty partisan politics of the worst possible kind. In time of war, it is not just unpatriotic; it is stupid; it is criminal.

So I pray that all this time, all this energy, all this talk, and all of the attention could be focused on the future instead of the past.

I pray we would stop pointing fingers and assigning blame and wringing our hands about what happened on that day David AcUology has called ``the worst day in all our history'' more than 2 years ago, and instead, pour all our energy into how we can kill these terrorists before they kill us--again.

Make no mistake about it: They are watching these hearings and they are scheming and smiling about the distraction and the divisiveness that they see in America . And while they might not know who said it years ago in America , they know instinctively that a house divided cannot stand.

There is one other group that we should remember is listening to all of this--our troops.

I was in Iraq in January. One day, when I was meeting with the 1st Armored Division, a unit with a proud history, known as Old Ironsides, we were discussing troop morale, and the commanding general said it was top notch.

I turned to the division's sergeant major, the top enlisted man in the division, a big, burly 6-foot-3, 240 pound African American, and I said: ``That's good, but how do you sustain that kind of morale?''

Without hesitation, he narrowed his eyes, and he looked at me and said: ``The morale will stay high just as long as these troops know the people back home support us.''

Just as long as the people back home support us. What kind of message are these hearings and the outrageously political speeches on the floor of the Senate yesterday sending to the marvelous young Americans in the uniform of our country?

I say: Unite America before it is too late. Put aside these petty partisan differences when it comes to the protection of our people. Argue and argue and argue, debate and debate and debate over all the other things, such as jobs, education, the deficit, and the environment; but please, please do not use the lives of Americans and the security of this country as a cheap-shot political talking point.

I yield the floor.

Jolie Rouge · 07-22-2004, 02:04 AM

House panel opens own Berger probe
Democrats seek Justice Dept. records on White House contacts
Wednesday, July 21, 2004 Posted: 11:03 PM EDT (0303 GMT)

Quote:

Berger says he made "an honest mistake."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...obe/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House Government Reform Committee launched an investigation Wednesday into reports that former Clinton administration aide Samuel "Sandy" Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives while reviewing materials for the 9/11 commission.

It was reported Monday that Berger, who was national security adviser during President Clinton's second term, has been under criminal investigation by the Justice Department over the allegations since October.

Earlier Wednesday, Democrats filed papers asking the Justice Department to disclose all contacts with the White House in the investigation, citing the "questionable timing" of the probe's disclosure -- the same week the 9/11 commission issues its final report and a week before the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday the Justice Department notified White House counsel Alberto Gonzales' office about the investigation because Berger was reviewing documents for the independent commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"The counsel's office is the one that is coordinating with the September 11 commission the production of documents," McClellan said. "And since this relates to some documents, the counsel's office was contacted as part of that investigation."

The Government Reform Committee is House's primary investigative panel and has jurisdiction over the National Archives.

"These allegations are deeply troubling, and it's our constitutional responsibility to find out what happened and why," said Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the committee's chairman, in a statement.

"It boggles the mind to imagine how a former national security adviser walked off with this kind of material in his pants, or wherever on his body he carried it."

Davis' committee has been less active in opening investigations during the Bush administration than it was during the Clinton years, when it was chaired by Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana.

Berger called his removal of classified documents from the archives an "honest mistake" and quit his post as an unpaid foreign policy adviser to presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign. A government source said Tuesday that while the 9/11 commission was briefed on the Berger investigation, the White House was not.

President Bush declined comment on the investigation Wednesday, telling reporters it was "a serious matter and it will be fully investigated by the Justice Department."

Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the Republican speaker of the House, said Tuesday the Berger investigation could leave a "cloud" over the 9/11 commission's report, which is scheduled to be released Thursday. (Full story)

"If it does cloud it, it's a shame, because we spent a lot of money to ask these people to bring forward a report that best served the American interest," Hastert said.

Some Democrats say the leak could have been intended by Republicans to cast just that type of cloud.

"The criminal investigation only came to light three days prior to the release of a report expected to be critical of the Bush administration's lack of focus on the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks," Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe wrote in a Freedom of Information Act request released Wednesday.

"As conservative scholar Norm Ornstein stated, 'You can't look at the timing of this with anything but an enormous amount of skepticism.' "

McAuliffe's request, filed with the Justice Department, seeks the release of any communications between justice employees and the White House, Bush's re-election campaign or the Republican National Committee.

Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the 9/11 commission, said Tuesday there was no reason to believe the Berger investigation would affect "the substance or integrity" of its final report.

Berger admitted that during visits to the archives last year to review materials for the 9/11 commission, he "inadvertently" removed some documents.

His lawyer, Lanny Breuer, told CNN the documents were mixed in with other personal papers and accidentally put in his leather portfolio.

Breuer said Berger returned the materials last October after being contacted by archives officials and has been cooperating since then with the Justice Department's investigation into the incident.

Berger, well-respected in Washington circles and close confidant of former President Bill Clinton, was designated as the official from the Clinton administration who would review documents relevant to the 9/11 commission's probe. He also testified before the commission.

Archives officials told investigators that one document is still missing -- an analysis of the effectiveness of counterterrorism efforts against threats tied to the turn of the millennium.

A government source told CNN that some of the documents at issue were classified as "code word" materials -- the highest level of security, making them more closely held than nuclear secrets.

Breuer conceded Berger took away handwritten notes he made about other documents from the archives, knowing that policy required that those notes had to first be reviewed.

He said Berger considered "the hard work of the 9/11 commission" more important than the archives' policy.

Jolie Rouge · 07-22-2004, 02:44 PM

[b]Report slams 'deep' failings in government
Sept. 11 panel recommends intelligence czar

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 12:43 p.m. ET July 22, 2004

Link -- Related documents -- Download the report summary and full report :

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5485889/?GT1=4244

by Mannie Garcia / Reuters
President Bush receives the Sept. 11 report from commission Chairman Thomas Kean, left, and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton at the White House Thursday.

In its final report released Thursday, the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks criticized "deep institutional failings within our government" — from a Congress with too many committees dealing with intelligence issues, to Clinton and Bush administrations that missed opportunities.

The “most important failure” leading to the Sept. 11 attacks, the report concluded, “was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat.”

The commission identified nine “specific points of vulnerability” in the Sept. 11 plot that might have led to its disruption had the government been better organized and more watchful. Yet the report concludes that despite these opportunities, “we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated” the 19 hijackers.

"What we can say with confidence," the commissioners added, "is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress" of the plot by the al-Qaida network.

The report, as expected, called for the appointment of an overall director of U.S. intelligence operations. Overseeing the operations would be a new Senate-confirmed national intelligence director, reporting directly to the president at just below full Cabinet rank, who “would be able to influence the budget and leadership” of the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security Department and Defense Department.

Cool reaction to intelligence czar

So far the Bush administration has reacted coolly toward the idea of an overall director, which had been suggested earlier. “I don’t think you need a czar," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday.

The commission did not recommend creation of a new domestic intelligence agency similar to Britain’s MI5, as proposed by some in Congress. Instead, the report endorsed steps already being taken by FBI Director Robert Mueller to create a specialized intelligence service within the FBI.

The commission also says the U.S. government must do more at home to guard against future terror attacks, including such things as setting national standards for issuance of drivers’ licenses and other identification, improving “no-fly” and other terrorist watch lists and using more biometric identifiers to screen travelers at ports and borders.

The commission’s chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and its vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, personally presented President Bush with a copy of the report Thursday at the White House.

Bush said he told the commissioners "that where the government needs to act we will.” He welcomed the "very constructive recommendations" that he said offered a "common sense approach” on how to move forward in the fight against terrorism.

Kean, Hamilton and other commissioners later held a press conference to summarize the findings.

Kean said none of the government's efforts to thwart a known threat from al-Qaida had "disturbed or even delayed" Osama bin Laden's plot.

"(They) penetrated the defenses of the most powerful nation in the world," Kean said. "They inflicted unbearable trauma on our people, and at the same time they turned international order upside down."

Iraq, Afghan connections cited

The highly anticipated, 567-page report provided new details on contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida, noting that bin Laden began exploring a possible alliance in the early 1990s. In one new disclosure, the report says that an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan in July 1998 to meet with the ruling Taliban and with bin Laden.

Intelligence indicates that Iraq may have offered bin Laden safe haven, but he declined after apparently deciding that Afghanistan was a better location. The report says although there were some “friendly contacts” between Iraq and al-Qaida and a common hatred of the United States, none of these contacts “ever developed into a collaborative relationship” and that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

That question has been the subject of intense political debate, as critics say Bush exaggerated the contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq to justify the war. Bush, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney, insist those links were real and dangerous.

Congress gets its share of blame

The commission criticized the FBI and the CIA for failing to share information and for inaccurately analyzing intelligence, which contributed to the hijackers’ ability to carry out their plot.

The report also criticized Congress for poor oversight of intelligence gathering. Blaming institutional failures dating to the 1970s, it recommends combining the House and Senate intelligence committees and removing limits on the numbers of term members may serve on the panels.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., earlier welcomed the commission’s call for reform of the congressional oversight system. “Right now, a lot of positions in the United States Senate have not evolved with the times,” Frist told reporters Wednesday, noting that there were multiple committees in charge of overseeing and funding the sprawling intelligence community.

But House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said this week that any legislative action on the panel’s recommendations probably would not occur until after the next president was inaugurated in January, given the limited time Congress has left this year. “It’s a very difficult time to squeeze out and have the oversight and the testimony to put new legislation in place,” Hastert said.

Less bureaucracy for Ridge

Among its other recommendations, the commission called for more centralized oversight of the new Department of Homeland Security, proposing that Secretary Ridge be required to report to only one committee each in the House and the Senate. Ridge currently must report to several committees and subcommittees in both bodies.

The report also debunks what commissioners called “myths” that have built up around the terrorist strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, the officials said. Those include these findings:

The Saudi government did not fund the 19 hijackers.

Relatives of bin Laden were not allowed to fly out of the country until after air traffic was allowed to move freely after it was grounded following the attacks. Moreover, those family members had no connection to the terrorist plot.

Bush did not know about the specific threat beforehand, and there was little more that he could to prevent it.

The last conclusion echoed comments made Wednesday by White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who said, “Nothing has come to our attention to suggest we could have prevented that horrible attack from happening.”

Aggressive lobbying effort planned

Commissioners plan an aggressive lobbying effort this summer and fall to push their recommendations. The panel will split into bipartisan pairs and travel nationwide for speaking engagements and media appearances. “Commissioners have all said they hoped the report would not just go on a shelf as so many others have,” said Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the commission. “They said they hoped both presidential campaigns would endorse the recommendations and Congress would act.”

Still, the report is expected to provide fodder for arguments in the presidential campaign.

Advisers to the Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, have said they hope to use the report to show that the Bush administration was inattentive in the summer of 2001 to threats of a possible attack. “I'm not looking to cast blame,” Kerry said Wednesday in an interview with NBC News. “I’m looking to take America to a safer place.” But, he said, “I believe there are things we could’ve done in the last three years since 9/11 — in the last two years — we haven’t done.” He did not elaborate.

The Clinton administration, meanwhile, was under fresh scrutiny after federal authorities said they were investigating former national security adviser Sandy Berger in connection with the disappearance of highly classified terrorism documents.

Berger said he inadvertently took copies of some documents from the National Archives and later returned them but could not find two or three copies of a highly classified report that concerned al-Qaida threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.

Felzenberg, the commission spokesman, said the Berger probe did not affect the panel’s final report.

Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC’s Keith Strickland and Les Kretman contributed to this report.