I am unhappy with Cheney's performance. If true this is another indication that we are often being lied to.. Well, too strong. Let's say stretching the facts.... to fit the scenario....
Bring on Jack WEBB.
INTELLIGENCE
Preying On Fear
Out of arguments to defend President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program,
Vice President Cheney has resorted to preying on Americans' fears. Speaking at
the Heritage Foundation yesterday, Cheney suggested the program, had it been in
place at the time, could have prevented 9/11. Cheney said, "If we'd been able to
do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers who
subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States,
communicating with al Qaeda associates overseas. But we did not know they were
here plotting until it was too late." Cheney's statement is false. As the
Washington Post notes, "the administration had the power to eavesdrop on their
calls and e-mails, as long as it sought permission from a secret court [FISA]
that oversees clandestine surveillance in the United States." (A warrant would
have been granted by the FISA court, which permits surveillance of communication
involving any terrorist group. A warrant can be obtained up to 72 hours after
the surveillance begins, so complying with the law doesn't create any delays.)
Moreover, "Cheney did not mention that the government had compiled significant
information on the two suspects [Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar] before the
attacks and that bureaucratic problems -- not a lack of information -- were the
primary reasons for the security breakdown, according to congressional
investigators and the Sept. 11 commission." Cheney's incendiary and misleading
comments come at the same time troubling questions have emerged about the scope
of the warrantless spying program.
THE TRUTH ABOUT ALHAZMI AND ALMIHDHAR: Cheney pretended yesterday that two 9/11
hijackers, who his office later confirmed were Alhazmi and Almihdhar, were not
stopped because the government didn't have enough information or authority to
conduct surveillance. The truth is the government had the information, but
failed to act upon it. The CIA tracked Alhazmi and Almihdhar from a known al
Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur to the United States. The agency had linked
Almihdhar "to one of the suspected bombers of the USS Cole in October 2000." The
problem was "the CIA did nothing with this information. Agency officials didn't
tell the INS, which could have turned them away at the border, nor did they
notify the FBI, which could have covertly tracked them to find out their
mission. Instead, during the year and nine months after the CIA identified them
as terrorists, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using
their real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank accounts and
enrolling in flight schools." Newsweek reported, "It was old-fashioned
interrogation and eavesdropping that first led U.S. intelligence agents to the
Qaeda plotters." Surveillance conducted consistent with the law "tipped off
agents to the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur summit, and to the names of at least two
of its participants: Almihdhar and Alhazmi."
HARMAN ALLEGES CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFINGS ON PROGRAM WERE ILLEGAL: The White House
has stressed that key members of Congress had been briefed on the warrantless
surveillance program prior to the public disclosure by the New York Times last
month. But Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking member on the House Intelligence
Committee, "said on Wednesday that the limited Congressional briefings the Bush
administration has provided on a National Security Agency eavesdropping program
violated the law." Harman said the briefings should have included the full
membership of the intelligence committee and not just the committee leadership.
The National Security Act of 1947 requires "the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees to be 'kept fully and currently informed" about the spy agencies'
activities' and does not permit briefings to be limited to leadership if the
topic is a program whose "primary purpose is to acquire intelligence."
WAS CNN'S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR BUGGED?: In an interview with New York Times
reporter James Risen, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell asked, "Do you have any
information about reporters being swept up in this net?" Risen responded "No, I
don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into
the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to
that." Mitchell's follow-up: "You don't have any information, for instance, that
a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped
upon?" Risen responded that he didn't, but it appears Mitchell has some
indication she was, otherwise she wouldn't have asked the question. Later in the
day, NBC removed Mitchell's follow-up question from the online transcript. In a
statement, NBC explained "Unfortunately this transcript was released
prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting...We
removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our
inquiry." |
