-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.sierratimes.com/02/05/20/vin.htm
}}}>Begin Conspiracy Theories On The Hill By Vin Suprynowicz Published 05. 19. 02 at 21:43 Sierra Time That there would be second-guessing after American intelligence agencies failed to detect and stymie the plans of 19 suicidal Arab terrorists last Sept. 11 comes as no surprise. In fact, a calm and methodical analysis of whether and where U.S. intelligence failed - - with an eye to streamlining coordination between agencies, shifting focus away from outdated Cold War targets, and making real and useful changes in domestic security - - is a useful function of congressional oversight. But is that what's now brewing in Washington? Informed by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer that President Bush was told of "nonspecific" threats of hijackings by al-Qaida during a CIA briefing while on vacation on his Texas ranch last August, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Thursday called on Mr. Bush to release to congressional investigators "the entire briefing that he was given," as well as a recently revealed pre-Sept. 11 FBI memo from the agency's Arizona office that warned of suspicious activity by Arabs at U.S. flight schools. Threatening to broaden the scope of current post mortems, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., added that Congress needs to find out -- in hearings open to the public -- what Bush and other officials knew, when they knew it, and what they did with the information. Digging through the old Democratic trunk in search of something that will reverse his party's fortunes in the upcoming fall elections, it appears Mr. Gephardt has stumbled on a moth-eaten 1970s-era playbook. The parallel to demands that the public be told "what the president knew, and when he knew it" during the Nixon era -- referring in that case to the scandalous White House cover-up of the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel -- is unmistakable. But come now. Do these opportunist congressional scandalmongers really believe Mr. Bush was told in advance and in detail about the terrorists' Sept. 19 plans, only to pause, stroke his chin, and cynically instruct his black-hatted henchmen down on the ranch, "You know what, boys? Let's not do a thing. Let them blow up the World Trade Center. As I lead this nation in our righteous war of retribution, my popularity ratings will soar. It'll also provide a good excuse to finally give the Israelis a green light to massacre every Palestinian from Jenin to Bethlehem. I never did like those people; they don't shave. And by the way, remind me to go short on airline stocks"? Heavens. Were the Masons, the Bilderbergers, the British Royals, the Elders of Zion, and the boys from Skull & Bones brought in to play their parts? If the Democratic leadership is now prepared to embrace such a wild conspiracy theory, they should say so outright. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., rightly branded Daschle and Gephardt's "effort to blow this up into a scandal" as irresponsible. "Their unspoken implication is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing," Bond said. In fact, just as tracing your way back out of a maze is easier after you've solved it, so backtracking a security lead can make it appear the evidence was "hard to miss" at the time, when in fact the clue in question was just one snowflake in a blizzard of similar-seeming and mostly misleading raw data being processed. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta says his agency had received "general information relating to threats" last summer, mostly "as they related to airline operations overseas. ... "There was really no specificity to the information we received at that time," Mineta told reporters at an appearance in St. Louis. "The president did not -- not -- receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen." Fleischer insists. Even Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirms his panel received the same general warning, that "was not specific in its content." Calm and systematic hearings with an eye to reforming intelligence gathering -- and particularly the coordination and evaluation of raw data -- are in order. But are the very senators now grandstanding about "what the president knew" in fact willing to do their own jobs, adopting new paradigms to make use of what they learn? If Mr. Daschle and Mr. Gephardt are really willing to shake things up in order to make Americans safer without eroding our freedoms, why aren't they embracing the demand of the pilots' union that air crews be armed for the defense of themselves and their planes, in place of the absurd ongoing massive strip-searching of law- abiding American air passengers in search of our "deadly" toenail clippers -- which not only violates Constitutional rights, but also damages the economy by making air travel less convenient and more expensive? Please don't tell me they're letting mere political expediency -- protecting their credentials as "gun control advocates" among the soccer moms -- trump national security in a de facto time of war. � Permission to reprint/republish granted, as long as you include the name of our site, the author, and our URL. www.SierraTimes.com All Sierra Times news reports, and all editorials are � 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted) SierraTimes.com� A Subsidiary of J.J. 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