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September 17, 2005

The Last Commissioner

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"I have a very strong commitment to the facts, and I wanted very much to make sure the facts were all before us and they were appropriately understood."

The words of Jamie Gorelick, the tenth and last commissioner appointed to the 9/11 Commission.  She was

'one of the most active commissioners, interviewing dozens of current and former government officials and reading thousands of pages of documents.'

With that said, new information has come to light in recent days.  It seems that military intelligence was tracking Mohammed Atta and some of his fellow hijackers, as they entered the U.S. in 1999, obviously well before the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, this information was not presented to the FBI to pursue because of the 'wall of separation' Gorelick built during her tenure in the Clinton Justice Department.  The wall, designed to protect Clinton in the China—gate fundraising scandal, prevented the CIA from communicating with domestic law enforcement agencies. 

Furthermore, the noble 9/11 panel denies getting this information in the course of its investigation.  Military officials say the 9/11 Commission staff was briefed on this crucial information in October 2003. 

Did the staff, as the Commissioners claim, fail to pass this crucial information on to them and leave it absent from the final report?  Not really.  It's in the report, but it leaves out the names of Atta and the others.  From the 9/11 Commission report under the headline:

Introduction: Factual Overview of the September 11 Border Story

Three hijackers were known or knowable by intelligence authorities as al Qaeda terrorists in early 2000, but their biographical information was not fully developed and communicated to border authorities for watchlisting at U.S. consulates abroad (by the State Department) and at the border (by immigration and customs border inspectors).  The travel plans of all three also were known or knowable in 2000, in part because of cooperation from Arab and Asian country intelligence services and border authorities.

The information that Atta and the other were identified and tracked to these shores seems to have been altered (including the year).  Why?  Jamie Gorelick, a long time friend and confidant of Hillary Clinton, needs to prove that she has a 'very strong commitment to the facts' by answering questions, instead of asking them.

J. James Estrada   8 12 05