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Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:00 AM

W. and the damage done

President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation.

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  • Thursday, January 8, 2009 07:08 AM

    @dick dworkin

    "the only reason 9-11 occured is because half wit Bush refused to rquire reasonable airport security or continue clintons policies to fight terrorism"

    You're rewriting history.

    Let’s take a look at airline security during the past 20 years. In December 1988, Pan Am 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 peo-ple. “Legislation and regulations were written [after the attack] requiring mass deployment of automated explosive detection technology at our airports to replace antiquated X-ray and metal detectors,” said Victoria Cummock, who lost her husband in the bombing. “Additionally, standards were set for minimum training and certification of airport and airline personnel, including national criminal background checks. This is just to list a few mandates spanning over a decade.”

    Fewer than eight years later, TWA 800 exploded just off the coast of Long Island after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board. Initial speculation centered on a terrorist attack. How-ever, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the disaster was caused by “an explosion of the center wing fuel tank (CWT), resulting from ignition of the flammable fuel/air mixture in the tank.”

    A month after the TWA 800 incident, President Clinton established the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, which was chaired by Vice President Al Gore. The charter of the commission was “to study matters involving aviation safety and security, including air traffic con-trol and to develop a strategy to improve aviation safety and security, both domestically and internationally.”

    According to Glenn E. Schweitzer and Carole Dorsch Schweitzer, Gore’s commission “strongly endorsed a system of computerized passenger profil-ing to help single out those individuals whom certain indicators suggested should have their possessions more carefully scrutinized.”

    Unfortunately, as the Schweitzers noted, this profiling system soon found critics:

    "Arab-American and civil liberty groups immediately lodged protests, arguing that passengers should be required to check their luggage, not their constitu-tional rights. They contended that even with safeguards, the proposed profiling policy violates the right to privacy and would cause humiliating travel de-lays for people with dark skins, national dress, and unfamiliar names. They pointed out that airline computer systems obtain data from law enforcement databases that may record a person’s arrest but not his acquittal. Also, they were concerned that the policy discriminates against poor people who do not qualify for credit cards."

    In addition to opposition from Arab-American and civil liberty groups, the airlines also balked at the commission’s recommendations. Louis Freeh, then the director of FBI and a member of Gore’s commission, described the situation in his autobiography:

    "Our report, issued in February 1997, warned that the airline industry and operations were vulnerable at multiple points to hijackings and terrorist attacks, but basically nothing was done about it. Politicians worried that the public wouldn’t tolerate long lines at security checkpoints. The airlines didn’t want to spend the money to beef up their own defenses. Appalled by the prospect of greatly increased user fees to help offset the proposed multibillion-dollar changes, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association questioned the commission’s independence and objectivity. What should have been a big step forward in the fight against terrorism devolved into the usual inside-the-Beltway brawl."

    It was the Clinton administration that refused to enhance airline security because they feared a backlash of political correctness.

    As far as continuing Clinton's terrorism policies, Michael Scheuer, the CIA agent who headed the bin Laden desk, summed up who was responsible for 9/11:

    "That trio (Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and Richard Clarke), in my view, abetted al Qaeda, and if the September 11 families were smart they would focus on the dereliction of Dick, Bill and Sandy and not the antics of convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui…. So, I look forward to ABC’s mini-series, as well as to seeing the quality of the network’s fact-checkers. If they do their job well, some of the September 11 Commission’s whitewash may start to be peeled away. If they fail, however, the reality that Bill, Dick and Sandy helped to push Americans out of the windows of the World Trade Center on that September morning will be buried in miles of fantasy-filled celluloid.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060704-110004-4280r.htm

    (You'll need to use the Wayback Machine at www.archive.org to view this URL)

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