|
Feds tight-lipped on local 9/11 ties Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 10, 2006 DELRAY BEACH — On July 5, 2001, a Delray Beach police officer pulled over a motorist for speeding. He let the man go with a warning. The pre-printed caution on it read in part: "Take a minute and consider how your careless driving affects the people you share these streets with and try to help make our streets a safer place to be." Nine weeks later, the motorist, Mohamed Atta, helped pilot American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. For South Florida, the horror of Sept. 11 was compounded by the realization that at least 15 of the 19 hijackers were at one point living in the region — 12 of them in Palm Beach County.
But we know little more than that. The federal government has told what it learned about the movements of the 19 hijackers in Hamburg, Germany; in San Diego; and in Maine. But not what they were doing here. Terrorists rented apartments and hotel rooms, opened bank accounts, rented cars. Several had arrest warrants for traffic violations. They took flying lessons in at least six Florida cities. They took in naked lap dancers, intimidated hotel maids, gave waitresses lousy tips and argued with bar managers. They went on the Internet in a city library. And one quizzed a pharmacist about how to relieve mysteriously irritated hands. But people who were interviewed when FBI agents swarmed across South Florida in the days following the attacks said in recent weeks that, if the investigation is ongoing, it's news to them. They said no one has contacted them since a few weeks after the attacks. The exception: Willie Lee, manager of a crop-dusting outfit in Belle Glade that authorities said Atta checked out. He said investigators contacted him about eight months ago. "They wanted to know if I'd noticed anything or seen anything suspicious," Lee said. "I haven't seen nothing." The U.S. Justice Department, parent agency of the FBI, has rejected three separate attempts by The Palm Beach Post to obtain documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act — in October 2001, November 2004 and May 2006. An appeal of the 2001 rejection was denied; the appeal of the 2006 rejection is pending. Justice was not the only federal agency queried. Wanting to cover all possibilities, The Post submitted requests to more than 75 entities, from Amtrak to the Peace Corps to the State Department. Many took months or even years to process inquiries — one responded to an October 2001 request in July of this year — often blaming delays on disruption of mail service because of the anthrax attacks. The majority of agencies released a few pages, nearly all of them already public, including news clippings, or said they had no documents related to the investigation, or said they'd turned over what they did have to Justice. Justice, in denying the requests, said documents are part of an ongoing investigation. In interviews, Justice Department spokesmen have refused to comment, saying again Friday that the refusals speak for themselves. Spokesmen for Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Boca Raton police said that as far as they knew, their agencies had no contact from federal agents since soon after Sept. 11. Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said he couldn't comment. Groups advocating open records say they have a hard time accepting the "ongoing investigation" argument five years after the hijackers' dramatic deaths and with little evidence that investigators are currently doing anything in South Florida. In addition, some material was introduced in the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and then released this summer. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press was instrumental in the release of many of those court documents. "After five years, knowing some of this information was released and some of it was in the Moussaoui trial, their assertion that there's an ongoing investigation and for that reason they want to keep it (the South Florida angle) secret, their justification seems a little thin," committee Executive Director Lucy Dalglish said. The Moussaoui trial produced the largest trove of government documents about the hijackers' South Florida movements. When the long-awaited 9/11 Commission report came out in July 2004, it gave scant attention. And a 900-page report issued in July 2003 by a joint congressional inquiry has only a single mention: Atta's inquiry at Belle Glade. The leaders of that 2003 inquiry were U.S. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, later head of the CIA; and now-retired U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. Graham recalled pressing the FBI on certain aspects of the investigation it was keeping secret. "They said, 'We're not going to tell you anything,' " Graham said last month. "The White House has put the clamps on the FBI for reasons that I could speculate upon, but it will probably take a different administration, who's more willing to let access to information become public, before we'll really know the reasons," Graham said. U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, is more circumspect. "Obviously we're still trying to uncover operations. I almost want to err on the side of caution to the government," Foley said last month. But, he said, "I don't see why they can't give us some data. I've always been one for more disclosure. But I don't, at the same time, want to second-guess FBI methodology if they're actually on to something." Complete archives at http://www.sitbot.net/ Please let us stay on topic and be civil. OM
SPONSORED LINKS
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___ = |
