Walls of shame
The significance of the Wall seems largely to have alluded the 9-11 Commission. We will have more to say on this later, but for now, we’ll bookmark a few of the more notable instances of failure. First, Deborah Orin gives us the Mary Jo White memo, which the NY Post should publish in full:
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton’s team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was “very dangerous” and could have “deadly results,” according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post. Then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote the memo as she pleaded in vain with Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to tear down the wall between intelligence and prosecutors, a wall that went beyond legal requirements. Looking back after 9/11, the memo makes for eerie reading — because White’s team foresaw, years in advance, that the Clinton-era wall would make it tougher to stop mass murder.
“This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities,” wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee. “The single biggest mistake we can make in attempting to combat terrorism is to insulate the criminal side of the house from the intelligence side of the house, unless such insulation is absolutely necessary. Excessive conservatism . . . can have deadly results.” She added: “We must face the reality that the way we are proceeding now is inherently and in actuality very dangerous.”
Second, Captain Ed does us all a service by plumbing the 9-11 report itself to show that the 9-11 Commission, fully in the tradtion of farces like the Thornburgh-Boccardi report, refused to take as seriously as was appropriate the implications of the evidence before it. As Ed Morrissey put it: “The report itself only mentions the wall a few times, mostly to underscore how “misunderstood” it was (page 271).”
“Jane” sent an email to the Cole case agent explaining that according to the NSLU, the case could be opened only as an intelligence matter, and that if Mihdhar was found, only designated intelligence agents could conduct or even be present at any interview. She appears to have misunderstood the complex rules that could apply to this situation. The FBI agent angrily responded:
Whatever has happened to this—someday someone will die—and wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain “problems.” Let’s hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL, is getting the most “protection.”
“Jane” replied that she was not making up the rules; she claimed that they were in the relevant manual and “ordered by the [FISA] Court and every office of the FBI is required to follow them including FBI NY.” It is now clear that everyone involved was confused about the rules governing the sharing and use of information gathered in intelligence channels.
Of course this is rubbish. Mary Jo White was not confused. And neither was Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, who has now been identified as the officer who gave the briefing in October 2003 which identified Mohammed Ataa to the 9-11 Commission staff as part of the work of Able Danger. He now says that was not the only information flow that was blocked by the Wall, via the NYT:
A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the bureau.
Colonel Shaffer said in an interview on Monday night that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information.
But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 attacks were still being planned. “I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued,” Colonel Shaffer said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.
Perhaps Mary Jo White and Lt. Colonel Shaffer did not go public before because they thought they could provide their input to the 9-11 Commission and it would be fairly reflected in its report. If so, it appears they were mistaken. What is now plain (and it still strikes us that this is all taking place just before Sandy Berger is to be sentenced) is that the 9-11 Commission did not connect the dots — but the dots have now begun to connect themselves.
UPDATE
our surmise just above that the reason why Shaffer did not come forward sooner turns out to be correct. Here’s what he said to CNN, via Captain Ed:
To be totally honest with you, we believed that there may have been a classified annex [to the report]. Not being on the commission, not being — not working at that level, I had no way of knowing. I had to believe that there must have been some reason that that information was not provided to the public, either by follow-on information — operations of some sort that related to this or something else.