Pardon my cynicism, but isn't there something unseemly about the members of the 9/11 Omission, who somehow missed the Able Danger story and allowed Jamie Gorelick, the author of the very regulations that prevented the CIA from talking to the FBI, among other Omissions, forming a lobbying group and then complaining the US Government has been failing to do what they told them to do?
This sounds like they are hyping intelligence; maybe the Democrats should demand an investigation:
US 'failing to stem terror risk'
The US government is not doing enough to thwart attempts by terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons, members of the former 11 September inquiry have said.The US must also improve its image abroad, damaged by reports of abuse of terror suspects, the group said.
It was reporting on the government's progress in meeting key recommendations made by the 9/11 commission last year on how to prevent new terror attacks.
The pressure group was formed after the 9/11 commission was disbanded.
Called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the bipartisan body consists of the same commissioners that investigated the 11 September attacks.
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for the same group of people who refused to investigate the group that tried to warn us of 9/11, to now turn around and complain we aren't paying them enough attention.
[My first post on Able Danger was back in August and although the LSM has managed to ignore the story, it hasn't gone away and may well return in an unmistakable fashion in short order. Michelle Malkin, Captain's Quarters and The Strata-Sphere has stayed on top of Able Danger and have more.]
The 9/11 Public Dissembling Project then offered some faint praise before some additional complaints:
Some praise was given for US efforts to crack down on global terror financing.
The group also said "good progress" had been made in encouraging Muslim nations to integrate into global trade.
It called on President George Bush to make thwarting arms proliferation "his top national security priority".
The most striking thing to us is that the size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response
"Preventing terrorists from gaining access to weapons of national security must be elevated above all other problems of national security," the group said. [Can anyone tell me what a weapon of national security is?-SW]
There were particular concerns about the security of nuclear materials in Russia, said the group's chairman Thomas Kean - who also headed the 9/11 inquiry.
An agreement between the US and Russia in February which gave US weapons inspectors greater access to Russian nuclear sites was a step forward, he said, but not enough to contain the risk of material going astray.
The group offered a seemingly obligatory reference to abu Graib and torture:
Lee Hamilton - who was co-chairman of the disbanded commission - added that "detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere undermines America's reputation as a moral leader".
Mr Bush has previously defended his government's treatment of detainees, denying claims of torture and insisting "any activity we conduct is within the law".
The 9/11 commission's report in July 2004 urged sweeping changes to how the intelligence services operated, after finding the government had "failed to protect American people" from the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Since we haven't been attacked at home since 9/11, despite almost universal expectations of follow-up attacks, whatever the Bush administration is doing seems to be working out fairly well at the moment. Add in the fact that we now have allies in the Muslim world speaking out against Islamic terror, I would suggest Bush has done more to protect us in the last 4 years than any number of bloviating committees.
After witnessing how they managed to obfuscate and confound rather than illuminate the intelligence failures that lead up to 9/11, the least these folks can do would be to go away!
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