Jamie Gorelick's policy comes home to roost

By Aussiegirl

The NY Post has
one of the most important stories of the year. There are a number
of important questions to be answered here. Who ordered the exclusion
of Atta and his gang to begin with and why -- and under what legal right
-- and was the 9/11 Commission informed of this -- and if so -- why it
failed to include this information in its report. It's simply inconceivable that having legal immigration status somehow renders someone immune from prosecution or investigation relating to terror ties -- or crimes of any other sort for that matter. It also shows the tragic consequences of the policy of disallowing sharing of intelligence which was instituted by Jamie Gorelick, who then
inexplicably was seated on the very Commission which should have had her
as a subject of its investigation. There's so much cover up going on here. It was the Clinton policy which led to this omission and the cover up seems to be continuing.

This whole thing smells to high heaven -- and if this wasn't a dereliction on
the Clinton watch the media would be screaming bloody hell over this.
Instead we are treated to more stories about Natalee Holloway.

Military spies were forced to slap "stickies on the face of
Mohamed Atta" and other 9/11 hijackers -- despite knowing where they
were in the United States -- because Pentagon lawyers barred them from
telling the FBI the fiends could be tied to al Qaeda, a GOP lawmaker
charges. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), the No. 2 man on both the House Armed Services
and Homeland Security committees, revealed that an elite
military-intelligence unit known as Able Danger identified Atta and
three other hijackers as likely members of a terror cell in this country
as early as 1999. The spies wanted to turn the info over to the FBI in 2000, Weldon said, "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." He claimed Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they mistakenly believed that since Atta and the others were in the country
legally on visas, they could not be investigated. In fact, U.S. law bars such intelligence investigations only of American
citizens and immigrant "green card" holders -- but visa-holders such as
Atta and the other hijackers are fair game.

"I'll tell you how stupid it was -- they put stickies [like Post-it
notes] on the faces of Mohamed Atta on the chart that the military
intelligence unit had completed and they said you can't talk to Atta
because he's here" legally, Weldon charged. Another reason for the Pentagon lawyers' actions, Weldon said, was a pre-Sept. 11 barrier that prevented the FBI and U.S. spy agencies from sharing intelligence -- a practice the 9/11 commission criticized last year in its final report. Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general under former President Bill Clinton and a commission member, codified the separation between investigative and intelligence agencies in a 1995 memo. Weldon first made his allegations in an unnoticed floor speech in June. The issue heated up Monday after a story ran in the bimonthly Government Security News, which covers national-security matters. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the commission looked into the matter during its probe of the attacks, but chose not to include it in its report. Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the commission, confirmed that the
panel's investigators had been aware of Able Danger, but said they
"don't recall any mention of Mohamed Atta" or of the cell. But Weldon suggested Able Danger's explosive findings had been hidden
from commission members.

"Let's put the intelligence folks under oath and let them be
cross-examined. And let's put the staffers on the 9/11 commission under
oath and let those under oath tell what information they gave," Weldon
said.