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| Home Front: Politix |
| What did Kerry know before 9/11.... seems, a lot about Logan.... |
| 2004-03-15 |
| EF -- read article for full details SEN. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn’t blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them. Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state’s main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings. "He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack." The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures. "With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers?" he warned. "Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely." The toll from such an attack would be economic, as well as human, he predicted with chilling accuracy. A fiery ex-Navy Seal, Elson spent three years as part of an elite FAA unit called the Red Team, which did covert testing of airport security across the country, before retiring as a field agent in Houston. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports. But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You’re not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn’t act soon he’d risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. "Enhanced security would have prevented the hijackings, virtually without question," Elson now insists. If nothing else, it might have discouraged ringleader Mohamed Atta, who monitored security procedures at Logan weeks before the hijackings. Sullivan and Elson, joined by aviation-security experts David Forbes and Andrew Thomas, want to see Kerry hauled before the 9/11 Commission to answer questions about what he knew about Logan’s lapses, and specifically what he did about them, before that fateful day. It’s a reasonable request - especially since Kerry has complained that President Bush will only give the panel an hour of his time. Where was Kerry’s sense of urgency? Where was his leadership? These are fair questions to ask of someone vying for Bush’s job. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #6 LOL! I have no idea whether Skeery did what they allege - although these people have more credibility than Skeery, given his reckless disregard for truth thus far in the campaign. The truly funny thing to me is that this is exactly how the Jackass Party operatives work! It should be investigated, it should be done by a bona-fide Congressional Inquiry, and it should be led by a Special Prosecutor who gives juicy sound bytes on the nightly news every day. What's good for the goose... Time for the Publican Leadership to get on the job and start this ball rolling. 8-) |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-15 9:14:41 PM |
| #5 Yet the warnings apparently did stick in Kerry's mind: In the days after 9/11, Kerry told the Boston Globe that he'd triggered an undercover probe of Logan security by the General Accounting Office in June 2001. But he wrote Sullivan no such thing in his July letter, stating only that he passed his warning and tape on to Transportation, not GAO. And GAO, though it is the investigative arm of Congress, didn't seem to know what the senator was talking about. The agency had tested security at two airports before 9/11, but neither one was Logan. And Kerry confessed he didn't know the outcome of the probe he says he triggered. Sounds to me like a vintage Kerry fib. But one thing puzzles me about this story: Why did these guys go only to Kerry? Or, if they did go to other pols, what was their response? |
| Posted by: wuzzalib 2004-3-15 8:19:02 PM |
| #4 Rumormongors (such as the democrats employ....) aren't 'Investigative Reporters'..... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-15 5:35:05 PM |
| #3 We will see now if there are any true investigative reporters left. There's probably a fair amount of them out there still. The problem is, it isn't Democrats they are interested in investigating. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-3-15 4:38:04 PM |
| #2 We will see now if there are any true investigative reporters left. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2004-3-15 4:29:21 PM |
| #1 This has to be enough to get this incompetent fool out the way, can't bush put this in one of his campaign ads, after all kerry would if it were the other way around |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-3-15 4:20:09 PM |