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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, January 24, 2010 8:07 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> US Senate begins whitewash hearings on Northwest Flight 253
bomb plot</DIV></DIV>
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<H2>US Senate begins whitewash hearings on Northwest Flight 253 bomb plot</H2>
<H5>By Tom Eley <BR>21 January 2010</H5>The US Senate Homeland Security
Committee on Wednesday held initial hearings with top Obama administration
intelligence officials into the attempt of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year
old alleged Al Qaeda member from Nigeria, to detonate explosives aboard
Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam as it neared landing in Detroit on December
25.<BR>Despite their declared intent of “getting to the bottom” of the massive
security failure that very nearly cost 300 lives, the senators of the Homeland
Security Committee did not challenge the intelligence heads—Dennis Blair,
Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael E. Leiter, director of the
National Counterterrorism Center (NCC), and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of
Homeland Security—regarding the official version of the event.<BR>The entire
hearing was based on the supposition that the US intelligence apparatus was
honestly unable to “connect the dots” between various pieces of information at
its disposal. This is particularly unbelievable, given that each piece of
information was itself sufficient to alert the US government that Abdulmutallab
posed a threat.<BR>The intelligence chiefs acknowledged that they had learned in
November through an intercept in Yemen that a man named Umar Farouk had
volunteered to carry out an Al Qaeda mission. The information was revealed in a
recent <EM>New York Times</EM> report, which also showed that the US
intelligence had established a date—Christmas Day—when an attack was likely to
happen. (See: <A>“More ‘missed clues’ in the Northwest Flight 253 bomb
plot”</A>)<BR>Leiter acknowledged that “we had a partial name, Umar Farouk,
[but] didn’t put that together” with the fact that Farouk’s father had given his
son’s full name to CIA and US embassy officials in Nigeria, together with a
warning that his son might be involved in Islamist terrorism.<BR>Nor did the spy
agencies “put that together” with other information that they have previously
admitted having: that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula intended to attack the
United States, that it had recruited a Nigerian for that purpose, and that
Abdulmutallab had recently gone from Nigeria to Yemen to join an extremist
organization.<BR>The Senators did not pursue this damning admission, accepting
at face value, once again, the spy agencies’ supposed difficulty in “information
management.” Nor did they ask why the Obama administration had not previously
acknowledged that they had the alleged bomber’s name.<BR>Leiter also
acknowledged that, as a result of incriminating information, Abdulmutallab was
considered a “known or suspected terrorist” and thus had been placed on the
Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list, but, inexplicably, not on
a narrower list, the Terrorist Screening Database. Not being placed on that
list, Abdulmutallab’s name was not forwarded to the Department of Homeland
Security for increased airport screening (the “selectee list”) and to be placed
on the “no-fly” list. Nor was the name sent to the State Department, which might
have revoked his visa.<BR>This stunning series of events has led to mounting
behind-the-scenes tensions among the military, intelligence agencies and the
State Department. The NCC and the State Department have traded barbs over who
was responsible for not revoking Abdulmutallab’s visa. The Department of
Homeland Security has implied that blame for the failure to put Abdulmutallab on
the no-fly list rests with the non-domestic spy agencies. All of the
aforementioned agencies have tacitly supported the Republican attack on the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for reading Abdulmutallab his Miranda
rights and placing him in the domestic justice system.<BR>In another bizarre
lapse, the US State Department only declared Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP), the organization that allegedly sent Abdulmutallab onto Flight 253, to
be a terrorist group on Tuesday. This is despite the fact that AQAP has operated
for over a year, and was held responsible for terrorist attacks on South Korean
tourists in Yemen in March 2009, high-ranking Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayif in
August, and Flight 253 last month. One might also expect that the name of the
organization itself would raise suspicions among anti-terrorism
officials.<BR>The implication of this announcement, however, was that until
January 19, 2010, US officials were not legally required to “implement an asset
freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo” against AQAP. This only raises more
questions as to what connections US agencies might have had with the
attackers.<BR>The senators avoided dealing with these issues in Wednesday’s
hearings, devoting much of their time instead to demanding further restrictions
on democratic rights.<BR>Republicans criticized the Obama administration over
Abdulmutallab being read his rights and given civilian trial. Senator John
McCain called the decision to try Abdulmutallab in civilian courts “a terrible,
terrible mistake,” and said Americans are endangered as a result.<BR>The ranking
Republican on the committee, Susan Collins, and Republican Senator John Ensign
strongly implied that Abdulmutallab should have been tortured. Collins asked,
“how can we uncover plots” if suspects are allowed to “lawyer up and stop
answering questions?” Ensign argued that the declared reversion of CIA
interrogators to the methods laid out in the Army Field Manual allows terrorists
to “train” in advance of interrogations.<BR>None of the intelligence chiefs
present defended the administration’s decision to proceed in civilian courts.
Blair, Napolitano, and Leiter told the committee that they were not consulted
over Abdulmutallab’s questioning. Blair went so far as to contradict the
administration’s decision, saying he should have been interrogated by the new
High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. “That unit was created exactly
for this purpose,” Blair said. “We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We
should have.”<BR>Democrats were more effusive than Republicans in their praise
of the intelligence agencies, and joined with Republicans in demanding that the
intelligence apparatus be given more resources and greater powers.<BR>In the
course of his testimony, Blair twice asserted that the cause of the security
failure was too much “pressure” from those concerned about democratic rights who
had protested the no-fly list. Too many people felt “hassled” by screening
processes at airports, he said, raising questions like “Why are you searching
grandmothers?” Blair concluded, “I should not have given in to that pressure.”
The no-fly list has been considerably expanded since December 25, Blair
reassured the senators.<BR>These comments were warmly praised by Senator Joseph
Lieberman, the Democratic Independent who chairs the committee. Lieberman said
that it was a mistake to treat alleged terrorists with a “legalistic” approach.
“We’re at war with these people,” he declared.<BR>The meeting might have been
called <EM>pro forma,</EM> except that even forms were not well observed. Some
senators did not bother to show up; others came late and left early. A promised
“closed door” meeting with the intelligence chiefs after the meeting was
suddenly scrapped, Lieberman citing time constraints.<BR>The only serious
question came from McCain, who demanded from Blair and Leiter to know if anyone
had been held accountable for the evident security failures that allowed
Abdulmutallab to board the flight. “Who has been held accountable?” McCain
asked. “Has anybody been fired? Has anybody been transferred?” Blair and Leiter
could not describe a single disciplinary action or consequence for what is
purported to be, in the most innocent scenario, a massive security
failure.<BR><BR>
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