KERRY IGNORED

[Tigermike 3,425]

This is an older article, (March 15). but with the 9/11 commission and the democrat attack machine running at full throttle, I thought maybe some would want to read again.

THE WARNING ON TERRORIST KERRY IGNORED

By PAUL SPERRY March 15, 2004 -- SEN. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn't blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them. Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings. "He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack." Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up. In nine of 10 tries, a crew got knives and other weapons through security checkpoints - including the very ones the 9/11 hijackers would later exploit. The next day, Sullivan fired off a two-page letter to Kerry highlighting the systemic failures. "With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers?" he warned. "Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely." The toll from such an attack would be economic, as well as human, he predicted with chilling accuracy. Sullivan followed up by having the undercover videotape hand-delivered to Kerry's office.

More than 11 weeks later, Kerry finally replied to his well-informed and anxious constituent. "I have forwarded your tape to the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General [DOT OIG]," he said in a brief July 24, 2001, letter, a copy of which I've obtained. Yet Sullivan had made it clear in his letter that going to his old agency was a dead end. He and other agents had complained about security lapses for years and got nowhere. "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA," he told Kerry. Sullivan suggested he show the tape to peers on committees with FAA oversight. He even volunteered to testify before them. But he never heard from Kerry again. At that point, Steve Elson, the other agent who'd teamed up on the TV sting, decided to take a crack at the junior senator. A fiery ex-Navy Seal, Elson spent three years as part of an elite FAA unit called the Red Team, which did covert testing of airport security across the country, before retiring as a field agent in Houston. He offered to fly to Washington at his own expense to give Kerry a document-backed presentation about the "facade of security" at Logan and other major airports. But a Kerry aide said not to bother. "You're not a constituent," Elson was told just a few weeks before the hijackings. He went ballistic, warning that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his actual constituents. That warning now looks like prophecy: At least 82 Kerry constituents were murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. "Enhanced security would have prevented the hijackings, virtually without question," Elson now insists. If nothing else, it might have discouraged ringleader Mohamed Atta, who monitored security procedures at Logan weeks before the hijackings. Yet the warnings apparently did stick in Kerry's mind: In the days after 9/11, Kerry told the Boston Globe that he'd triggered an undercover probe of Logan security by the General Accounting Office in June 2001. But he wrote Sullivan no such thing in his July letter, stating only that he passed his warning and tape on to Transportation, not GAO. And GAO, though it is the investigative arm of Congress, didn't seem to know what the senator was talking about. The agency had tested security at two airports before 9/11, but neither one was Logan. And Kerry confessed he didn't know the outcome of the probe he says he triggered. Some follow-up, senator. Sullivan and Elson, joined by aviation-security experts David Forbes and Andrew Thomas, want to see Kerry hauled before the 9/11 Commission to answer questions about what he knew about Logan's lapses, and specifically what he did about them, before that fateful day. It's a reasonable request - especially since Kerry has complained that President Bush will only give the panel an hour of his time. Where was Kerry's sense of urgency? Where was his leadership? These are fair questions to ask of someone vying for Bush's job. "We don't have to wait for a tragedy to occur to act," Sullivan urged Kerry in his letter. But tragically, that's exactly what happened - at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and on both sides of the aisle. Paul Sperry is a Washington investigative reporter and author of "Crude Politics."

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20808.htm

http://www.vnsfvetakerry.com/Countering_Te...KERRY%20IGNORED

[Tiger Al 0]

The thing about this that smells fishy to me is why did he choose to approach Kerry? He claims to have been so geeked up about these breaches, did he ever notify the airport itself? The FAA? The DOT? Any of the other 22 Senators on the Transportation Committee? Ted Kennedy, the other Senator from Massachussetts? Any of the Massachussetts US Representatives? Any state officials from the Governor down? Did he ever talk to anybody else about this at all? And, if not, why would he only choose the junior Senator from Massachussetts to share this information with? Having connections with the elite 'Red Team' of the FAA, surely he'd have the ear of countless insiders, right?

[keoson7 28]

He contacted the senator for that Airport, and that idiot did nothing, but wonder how these attacks, could help him get into the White House. Real fishy there al. Your boy Kerry aint woth spittin on. So you're saying telling Kerry was pointless cuz he won't do squat.

[rexbo 104]

Ted Kennedy, the other Senator from Massachussetts?

Are you kidding, Kennedy isn't going to put his drink down long enough to listen to some crazy nut talking about hijackers at the Boston airport. What does Teddy care anyway, I am sure he has his own private jet to fly in and wasn't worried about being in First Class with some jihadists. We know what Teddy does when he is confronted with trouble, swims home and waits until he sobers up enough to call for help.

(Couldn't resist, Teddy is such a great target.)

[vatz22au 142]

Oh well....last time I heard it was Bush who was president, not Kerry when the 9/11 attacks happened.

[keoson7 28]

cmon vatz is that all you can say. Maybe if Kerry had sent the info to Bush all this woulda been preemptively prevented. Instead of the political witchhunt it had evolved into. I know, Bush knew.

[Ranger12 46]

Oh well....last time I heard it was Bush who was president, not Kerry when the 9/11 attacks happened.

Seeing how Kerry was the elected representative for that area, proper protocol is to contact Kerry, not Bush. You may need to know that before making a comment like that Vatz. This is actually old news and I made a post about it a few months ago after reading about on MSNBC.com and then hearing it on Hannity. The FAA agent did his job and reported it to somebody to whom, unfortunately, he thought would maybe do something about it. So, yes, we can blame Kerry for ignoring the threat also, but just as in the case of those blaming Bush, hindsight is 20/20. I don't look at this story as a "Kerry knew also" witchhunt. I look at it as a good way to show that no particular person or party is to blame because they all messed up in some way or another, but it is easier to see that after the fact.

[vatz22au 142]

Oh well....last time I heard it was Bush who was president, not Kerry when the 9/11 attacks happened.

Seeing how Kerry was the elected representative for that area, proper protocol is to contact Kerry, not Bush. You may need to know that before making a comment like that Vatz. This is actually old news and I made a post about it a few months ago after reading about on MSNBC.com and then hearing it on Hannity. The FAA agent did his job and reported it to somebody to whom, unfortunately, he thought would maybe do something about it. So, yes, we can blame Kerry for ignoring the threat also, but just as in the case of those blaming Bush, hindsight is 20/20. I don't look at this story as a "Kerry knew also" witchhunt. I look at it as a good way to show that no particular person or party is to blame because they all messed up in some way or another, but it is easier to see that after the fact.

Funny....Proper protocol?? Give me a break. Because he was elected representative of that area does not mean proper protocol makes him in charge. A terrorist attack is an attack on American soil....Bush made that clear, yet he cant take the heat.

I really sure damn hope that a stupid representative isnt in charge in "proper protocol" when it comes to terrorist attacks taking hundreds of lives...and you know damn right you hope that isnt true either. The CIA has been blamed, FBI, president, I have even heard blames on the military for 9/11.....But a representative??? I hope you have more common sense than that.

I mean hell, how do you know proper protocol? "I was in the army" ok...so I guess you know proper protocol with a representative and how he/she should be the main ones to blame. You know how stupid that sounds. Ya, real stupid.

Bush was the damn president, a representative of America...not of "that area"...He leads the damn country...dont know if you knew that. He and anyone who is proper affiliated with handling these type of things should be held responsible( aka the white house, CIA, FBI, Military). NOT A DAMN REPRESENTATIVE....

[Tigermike 3,425]

Funny....Proper protocol?? Give me a break. Because he was elected representative of that area does not mean proper protocol makes him in charge. A terrorist attack is an attack on American soil....Bush made that clear, yet he cant take the heat.

I really sure damn hope that a stupid representative isnt in charge in "proper protocol" when it comes to terrorist attacks taking hundreds of lives...and you know damn right you hope that isnt true either. The CIA has been blamed, FBI, president, I have even heard blames on the military for 9/11.....But a representative??? I hope you have more common sense than that.

I mean hell, how do you know proper protocol? "I was in the army" ok...so I guess you know proper protocol with a representative and how he/she should be the main ones to blame. You know how stupid that sounds. Ya, real stupid.

Bush was the damn president, a representative of America...not of "that area"...He leads the damn country...dont know if you knew that. He and anyone who is proper affiliated with handling these type of things should be held responsible( aka the white house, CIA, FBI, Military). NOT A DAMN REPRESENTATIVE....

vatz , it appears that once again you need to be asked, did you even bother to read the original post? The first sentence might have given you a clue.

SEN. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War."

KERRY IMPLIED HE COULD HAVE PREVENTED 9/11. What a frigging Dufass!

Rewind to May 6, 2001. That night, a Boston TV station (Fox-25) aired reporter Deborah Sherman's story on an undercover investigation at Logan that Sullivan and another retired agent helped set up.

These men had been complaining to FAA officials about lax airport security and were being ignored. The next logical step would be to contact an elected official, especially one who represents the area that includes Logan International Airport.

vatz22au

Funny....Proper protocol?? Give me a break. Because he was elected representative of that area does not mean proper protocol makes him in charge. A terrorist attack is an attack on American soil....Bush made that clear, yet he cant take the heat.

Only in your world Vatz should the President of the United States have been notified of this report.

More than 11 weeks later, Kerry finally replied to his well-informed and anxious constituent. "I have forwarded your tape to the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General [DOT OIG]," he said in a brief July 24, 2001, letter, a copy of which I've obtained. Yet Sullivan had made it clear in his letter that going to his old agency was a dead end. He and other agents had complained about security lapses for years and got nowhere. "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA," he told Kerry. Sullivan suggested he show the tape to peers on committees with FAA oversight. He even volunteered to testify before them. But he never heard from Kerry again.

vatz22au

The CIA has been blamed, FBI, president, I have even heard blames on the military for 9/11.....

You know how stupid that sounds. Ya, real stupid

vatz22au

I mean hell, how do you know proper protocol? "I was in the army" ok...so I guess you know proper protocol with a representative and how he/she should be the main ones to blame. You know how stupid that sounds. Ya, real stupid.

I realize that in your myopic view of the world that George Bush is responsible for everything and anything. But just step back and take a deep breath and think. If the FAA was not taking airport security seriously, wouldn't the next logical step be to contact a congressman or senator? Unless of course you feel a deep need to defend John Kerry and blame President Bush for everything from global warming to the drought in the southwestern United States.

I usually don't respond to post like the one you just made, but to point out your own post to you: "You know how stupid that sounds. Ya, real stupid."

[Ranger12 46]

Remember, Vatz attends university, so he is smarter then all of us that actually may know how the procedure works. Even some of us that may be currently or have been involved in the same or similiar procedures before. Your little sarcastic comment about my "being in the army" was really stupid. If you knew anything at all, then you may know that what I did in the Army and what I did after my service may actually have something to do with it. But instead, you make a idiotic assumption that it does not. Again, Vatz makes a post on what he thinks is right instead of knowing the facts. Way to shoot off at the mouth again, Vatz! Get ready Vatz, here it comes- your youth has shown up again.

[WarTim 3,463]

Shall we hold our collective breath and wait for bignose waxman to demand hearings into john kennedy, err, I mean kerry's, role in the cover up?