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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (3771)	2/24/2004 12:52:47 AM
From: Nikole Wollerstein	Respond to of 81568

New slogan of Kerry Campaign: " Revenge of Useful Idiots"

To: American Spirit who wrote (3771)	2/24/2004 1:22:40 AM
From: jimcav	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

C.I.A. Was Given Data on Hijacker Long Before 9/11 By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: February 24, 2004 ASHINGTON, Feb. 23 — American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a half years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say. Advertisement The information — the earliest known signal that the United States received about any of the hijackers — has now become an important element of an independent commission's investigation into the events of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said Monday. It is considered particularly significant because it may have represented a missed opportunity for American officials to penetrate the Qaeda terror cell in Germany that was at the heart of the plot. And it came roughly 16 months before the hijacker showed up at flight schools in the United States. In March 1999, German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked the Americans to track him. The name and phone number in the United Arab Emirates had been obtained by the Germans by monitoring the telephone of Mohamed Heidar Zammar, an Islamic militant in Hamburg who was closely linked to the important Qaeda plotters who ultimately mastermined the Sept. 11 attacks, German officials said. After the Germans passed the information on to the C.I.A., they did not hear from the Americans about the matter until after Sept. 11, a senior German intelligence official said. "There was no response" at the time, the official said. After receiving the tip, the C.I.A. decided that "Marwan" was probably an associate of Osama bin Laden, but never tracked him down, American officials say. The Germans considered the information on Mr. Shehhi particularly valuable, and the commission is keenly interested in why it apparently did not lead to greater scrutiny of him. The information concerning Mr. Shehhi, the man who took over the controls of United Airlines Flight 175, which flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center, came months earlier than well-documented tips about other hijackers, including two who were discovered to have attended a meeting of militants in Malaysia in January 2000. The independent commission investigating the attacks has received information on the 1999 Shehhi tip, and is actively investigating the issue, said Philip Zelikow, executive director of the commission. American intelligence officials and others involved with the matter say they are uncertain whether Mr. Shehhi's phone was ever monitored. An American official said: "The Germans did give us the name `Marwan' and a phone number, but we were unable to come up with anything. It was an unlisted phone number in the U.A.E., which he was known to use." The incident is of particular importance because Mr. Shehhi was a crucial member of the Qaeda cell in Hamburg at the heart of the Sept. 11 plot. Close surveillance of Mr. Shehhi in 1999 might have led investigators to other plot leaders, including Mohammed Atta, who was Mr. Shehhi's roommate. A native of the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Shehhi moved to Germany in 1996 and was almost inseparable from Mr. Atta in their time there. Both men attended the wedding of a fellow Muslim at a radical mosque in Hamburg in October 1999 — an event considered an important gathering for the Sept. 11 hijacking teams just as the plotting was getting under way. American and European authorities say that Mr. Shehhi was actively involved in the planning and logistics of the Sept. 11 plot. "The Hamburg cell is very important" to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Zelikow said. The intelligence on Mr. Shehhi "is an issue that's obviously of importance to us, and we're investigating it," he added. Asked whether American intelligence officials gave sufficient attention to the information about Mr. Shehhi, Mr. Zelikow said, "We haven't reached any conclusions." The joint Congressional inquiry that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks was told about the matter by the C.I.A., but only a small part of the information was declassified and made public in the panel's final report in December 2002, several officials said. The public report mentioned only that the C.I.A. had received Mr. Shehhi's first name, but made no mention that the agency had also obtained his telephone number. Advertisement Officials involved with the work of the joint Congressional investigation made it clear that the publication of a more complete version of the story was the subject of a declassification dispute with the C.I.A. A former official involved with the Congressional inquiry acknowledged that having a telephone number for one of the hijackers was far more significant than simply having a first name. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A., F.B.I. and other government agencies have been heavily criticized for failing to put together fragmentary pieces of information they received from a wide array of sources in order to predict or prevent the terrorist plot. The joint Congressional panel that investigated the attacks concluded that American authorities "missed opportunities to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United States; and finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack." Until now, the most highly scrutinized failure has related to the C.I.A.'s handling of information about a meeting of extremists in Malaysia in January 2000 that involved two of the men who would become hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. Although the C.I.A. identified the two men as suspected extremists, the agency did not request that they be placed on the government's watch lists to keep them out of the United States until late August 2001. By that time, they were both already in the country. In addition, while the two men lived in San Diego, their landlord was an F.B.I. informant, but the bureau did not learn of their terrorist links from the informant. But unlike the leads to Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi in San Diego, the earlier information about Mr. Shehhi could have taken investigators to the core of the Qaeda cell at a time when the plot was probably in its formative stages. According to testimony in Germany in December in a criminal case related to the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Shehhi was one of only four members of the Hamburg cell who knew about the attacks beforehand. Mr. Shehhi and Mr. Atta traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 to train at a Qaeda camp with several other Sept. 11 plotters. And after returning to Germany, Mr. Shehhi made an ominous reference to the World Trade Center to a Hamburg librarian, saying: "There will be thousands of dead. You will all think of me," German authorities said. Soon after, Mr. Shehhi, Mr. Atta and another plotter, Ziad al-Jarrah, began e-mailing several dozen American flight schools from Germany to inquire about enrollment, and they arrived in the United States later in 2000 to begin flight training. nytimes.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (3771)	2/24/2004 8:02:07 AM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 81568

John Kerry - Hero or Zero? JB Williams, 02/23/04 To hear John Kerry tell it, it sounds like Mr. Kerry was the only hero in Vietnam; all others were low down scoundrels, “war criminals” to use his words. He was a double hero, both decorated soldier and leader of the anti-war movement stateside after his return, rubbing elbows with Hanoi Jane and the Hollywood elite. Is it any wonder he later became a career politician? He’s done such a great job of sounding all Presidential that even Gen. Wes Clark is now dry humping his leg like a dog in heat, hoping to stay in the running for VP. As a three time recipient of the Purple Heart, he never missed a day of duty. What ever his injuries were, they didn’t require any extensive medical attention or lengthy hospital stays. Not to take anything away from anyone who serves our country bravely, and not to wish serious harm on anyone in uniform, but we must have been handing out Purple Hearts like candy back then. What did he have, a bad hangnail? Prior to Kerry’s pot shots at our National Guardsmen, and George W. Bush’s service to his country, I would have considered this issue off limits. However, since Kerry took the gloves off first, and GWB has too much class to fire back, it’s a perfectly reasonable question for me to ask. How did Kerry get not one, but three Purple Hearts and never spend a single night in the hospital? On the Presidential campaign trail, he claims to be strong on defense, supportive of our men and women in uniform, but his Senate voting record paints quite a different picture. In 1991, Kerry voted to cut defense spending by 2% along with 21 other Senators, who I guess were also strong on defense. Since that effort failed, Kerry’s second attempt in 1991 along with 27 other Senators, strong on defense, voted to cut another $3 billion from defense, and redirect the funds into social programs. If you can do the math, with only 27 Senators supporting the measure, he once again failed to provide his type of “support” for the military. In 1992, Kerry voted again to cut defense spending, this time by $6 billion, and even other Democrats came out of the woodwork to stop the measure. In 1993, he voted against a pay raise for men and women in uniform. Then in 1993, he sponsored a plan to reduce the number of Navy submarines and crews, reduce tactical fighter wings of the Air Force, terminate the Navy’s coast mine-sweeping ship program, force the retirement of 60,000 soldiers in one year, and cut the number of light infantry units in the Army to just one. The plan was fortunately DOA. In 1995, Kerry voted to freeze defense spending for seven years, (past September 2001) cutting the military budget by over $34 billion. Again, only 27 Senators went along. In 1996, Kerry introduced another bill that would have cut defense spending by $6.5 billion, but this time, he couldn’t even find a co-sponsor for the bill, so it never made it to the floor. Kerry again in 1996, voted “yes” on a Clinton fiscal budget resolution – a defense freeze that would have frozen defense spending for the next seven years (past 2003) and transferred the$34.8 billion in savings to education and job training. The effort was defeated 28 – 71. There is more where this came from, but finally, after America was attacked in September of 2001, Kerry did something pro-defense when he voted in favor of using force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. However, since then he has stated that he didn’t mean that vote, and he proved it when in 2003, he voted against the $87 billion our military needed to continue its work in Iraq. The measure passed, and once again, Kerry was left standing in a small but distinguished “anti-defense” crowd. Kerry and his handlers hope that “we the people” will stay focused on the three Purple Hearts he received over 33 years ago, and believe him when he say’s that he is a man we can count on to defend this nation. Many Bush haters will be more than happy to overlook his anti-defense record, while they make certain that we don’t overlook his three metals. The only good thing to say about Kerry’s Senate career is that he has had only one vote. As the 2004 campaign season progresses, we will learn of other area’s where his Senate record is opposite his campaign rhetoric. Can Kerry be trusted? I wouldn’t trust him with the keys to my house, much less the keys to the Whitehouse. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me! Send feedback to author - Printer friendly version Comment on this article (Please use article's title as subject) Read comments on this and other articles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. A hard hitting columnist, attacking the socialist cancer plaguing America today. He has a pragmatic “common Joe” approach to even the toughest issues facing our nation. He has a degree in BS from the school of hard knocks, and a uniquely entertaining way of helping even the most liberal among us, to discover the obvious. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the globe, and is currently working on a book. He’s not a preacher, but he could be, he’s not a politician, but he ought to be. His most famous quote, “Why be a politician when it is so cheap to rent one on those rare occasions that you need one?” pretty much say’s it all. His “tongue in cheek” method of making sense will keep you entertained, while even the brightest are likely to learn something of value from nearly every article. The book should be a hoot! americandaily.com