11/27/2006

FILE UNDER : I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW

U.S. May Boost Security Precautions

By KEN GUGGENHEIM
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With CIA Director George Tenet warning that terrorists could strike again soon, Bush administration officials were considering boosting security precautions Friday.

Tenet told lawmakers on Thursday that, following terrorist attacks in Kuwait and Indonesia, "you must make the assumption that al-Qaida is in an execution phase and intends to strike us both here and overseas."

Two administration officials said senior Bush advisers in charge of raising and lowering the nationwide alert were determining Friday whether the warnings and security improvements they've recently made in response to specific threats is enough.

They are not likely to increase the nationwide threat level, but could increase it for specific regions or sectors, the officials said.

The nationwide alert level remains code yellow, or "significant risk of terrorist attacks," because officials do not have specific details on where and when an attack may occur, Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. Yellow is the third-highest of five threat levels.

Different threat levels can be applied to areas seen as potential targets, such as nuclear power plants or national monuments. The officials did not say which sectors might have their threat levels increased.

Last week, the FBI and several federal agencies overseeing certain high-risk sectors such as transportation, energy and agriculture sent warnings urging extra precautions.

Tenet spoke at a hearing by the House and Senate intelligence committees examining what intelligence agencies did right and wrong before Sept. 11. But many lawmakers focused on the future: How likely is another attack and how prepared are U.S. officials to respond to it?

FBI Director Robert Mueller offered few assurances that future attacks could be thwarted.

"I have a hard time telling the country that you should be comfortable, that we've covered all the bases, in the wake of what we saw they were able to accomplish on Sept. 11," Mueller told the House and Senate Intelligence committees Thursday.

Mueller said the FBI is focusing on the threat of terrorists who would use military action against Iraq as a pretext to strike. But he said an attack as meticulously planned and executed as the Sept. 11 hijackings would be hard to stop.

At Thursday's hearing, Tenet offered his most detailed public accounting to date of what the CIA did to stop Osama bin Laden's terrorist network before Sept. 11. He said his agency has saved thousands of lives by successfully stopping terrorist attacks, but acknowledged some mistakes were made.

Tenet said the CIA was convinced months before the Sept. 11 hijackings that bin Laden was plotting to kill large numbers of Americans, but the intelligence available was "maddeningly short" of details.

"The most ominous reporting hinting at something large was also the most vague," he said.

The session was the last of five weeks of public hearings, part of the committees' inquiry into intelligence failures leading up to the attacks. A final report will be issued in coming months.

Tenet, Mueller and National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden rejected criticism by inquiry staff that U.S. counterterrorism efforts were hampered by a failure to share information and that they hadn't made fighting terrorism a high enough priority before the attacks.

Tenet highlighted agency successes, many of them long secret, including the thwarting of planned attacks in Yemen, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Tenet also said the CIA lost 18 percent of its budget and 16 percent of its personnel in post-Cold War cutbacks.

But even before he spoke, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said: "It's not enough to say we didn't have enough money or enough people. No one does. That's always the case. It's about establishing priorities."

Tenet also clashed with the committees in an area in which he admitted mistakes: the CIA's failure to put two future Sept. 11 hijackers on watch lists preventing their entry into the United States after they were first associated with al-Qaida, in early 2000. They weren't placed on the lists until a few weeks before the attacks.

Tenet said the CIA had alerted the FBI in January 2000 that one of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had a U.S. visa; the inquiry staff director said no evidence has been found showing the FBI was told about the visa.

After Tenet said that apparently no one at CIA headquarters had read a cable that said al-Mihdhar had flown to Los Angeles, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked if that was a mistake.

"Yes. Of course. In hindsight," Tenet responded.

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Associated Press writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this report.


[My Comments : Old news, I know. But still worth pondering. While CIA Directors (along with other political appointees) come and go, anyone with minimal intelligence knows that it's all just window dressing. Rearranging deck chairs on The Titanic. While Western Civilization sinks beneath the waves of barbarian invasion, everyone's talk-talk-talking but no one's manning the lifeboats. The time to wake up is NOW! The time to act was yesterday! Yet Rome burns while our so-called leaders fiddle the tune of cultural surrender and appeasement. Modern liberal politics suffers from the paralysis of analysis. By the time they figure out what they want to do, the enemy has already struck and left us maimed and blind.

Here's my modest proposal for saving the world. And it doesn't require a single drop of bloodshed.

1. Stop illegal immigration...NOW! Will it be difficult? Yes. Will it be expensive? Undoubtedly. But it MUST happen. And it must happen immediately. Throw up every possible roadblock against illegal immigration. Do everything we can in every possible way to close the floodgates and raise a standard. Will it be 100% successful? Of course not. But what's the alternative? I can tell you, but I guarantee you won't like the answer.

2. Punish employers who hire illegals. Hit 'em where it hurts...smack dab in the wallet. If they hire illegals, they pay MASSIVE fines. Period. Make it very expensive for employers to do business with criminals. When the jobs dry up, the border traffic will reverse as the jobless head back to their homelands. And good riddance. What about legal immigration? Not a problem. Albeit with the exception of a moratorium on Muslim immigration. Yeah...I know...I can hear the howls of protest from the Lefties already. But a ban on immigration from Muslim countries may well be the only way forward in the short term. The very openness and civility of Western culture towards foreign nationals who have absolutely no intention of even learning our language, much less assimilating into our culture, is backfiring on us. And as a result we have growing masses of hostiles gathering within our own borders. They don't want to play by Western rules? Then they don't get to live in Western society. Seems simple enough to me.

3. Burn the books baby! First, it's time to overthrow the dominance of multiculturalism in the academy. Multiculturalism is cultural SUICIDE. It divides our society rather than uniting it. It creates a culture of apartheid and resentment. In other words, far from destroying racism, it effectively institutionalizes it, making it's tenets into sacred shibboleths and building walls around our various ethnic groups. Cultural assimilation will never occur, indeed can never occur, in such an atmosphere. The center cannot hold under such conditions. And I believe that's precisely what certain radical elements in Western society want, but I'll save that for another column. Secondly, we need to take back our history books. Revisionist texts which teach the cream of our youth that Western civilization is the root of all evil need to be challenged and their arguments soundly and clearly refuted. The academic front desperately needs powerful and articulate defenders of Western culture who will fire the opening shots across the bow of the hijacked ship of higher education. To be sure, it's too late for the current generation of spineless lackeys. But it's not too late to re-educate the next. Everything good which modern society enjoys, from cures for disease to representative government, from equal rights for women to trial by jury, from the finest healthcare to the highest standard of living, all of it has been brought to you courtesy of Western civilization. Can you name ONE single contribution to the greater good which has emerged from the lands of everlasting Jihad? I'm waiting. Tick, tick, tick. Nope. Didn't think so. It's time for us to regain our confidence, stop apologizing for the "crimes" of Western civilization, and start defending our culture with courage and vigor.

4. We must come up with creative ways to isolate and weaken the Muslim world. And the first step toward that is ENERGY INDEPENDENCE. We must start applying all of the resourcefulness and ingenuity for which Western culture is renowned toward the development of alternative energy sources. Don't tell me what we can't do. I say that we can. Polio was incurable. But Jonas Salk found a vaccine. If we focus our brightest and best on the task, I believe we can come up with a program which will supply our culture's energy needs for centuries to come. And when we do, then we cut the Muslim world loose. They can drown in their oil. Not one dime for terrorist funding. Not one penny for building the military infrastructure of rogue states. These countries HAVE NO GNP except for oil! When the money dries up, the Caliphate will revert to third world status. And the civilized world will be a better and safer place for it.

So there ya have it. Four simple rules for a safer world. Is it comprehensive? Not by a LONG stretch. But it's a starting point. Will our "leadership" have the balls to even start taking the baby steps? I wouldn't hold my breath. - Martel]