Jackson Jambalaya

Story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070530-121308-3365r.htm
Inspector General Report: http://www.washingtontimes.com/elections/DHS-IG-Northwest-327.pdf

What the hell is going on?

" According to the Homeland Security report, the "suspicious passengers," 12 Syrians and their Lebanese-born promoter, were traveling on Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on expired visas. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services extended the visas one week after the June 29, 2004, incident...."

"The report also says that a background check in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, which was performed June 18 as part of a visa-extension application, produced "positive hits" for past criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12 Syrians, who were traveling in the U.S. as a musical group.

In addition, the band's promoter was listed in a separate FBI database on case investigations for acting suspiciously aboard a flight months earlier. He was detained a third time in September on a return trip to the U.S. from Istanbul, the details of which were redacted.

The inspector general criticized the Homeland Security officials for not reporting the incident to the Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC), which serves as the nation's nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident management. The report comes three years after the incident, which was not officially acknowledged until a month later, after The Washington Times reported passenger and marshal complaints that the incident resembled a dry run for a terrorist attack.".......

"The men were briefly detained, but only two were questioned. "The Federal Air Marshal supervisor examined the visas, but did not notice the visas had expired on June 10, 2004," the report said. One of the air marshals assigned to the flight noticed the expiration, but "erroneously believed he was not legally entitled" to run a background check.

According to the report, the marshal's "primary concern, at that time, was not whether the visas expired, but to copy the visa pages so that Customs and Border Patrol could later run a database check on these individuals."

The FBI issued a warning in April 2004, just two months before the flight, that terrorists may be trying to enter the country under cultural or sports visas, the same visas carried by the 12 Syrian men who claimed to be musicians.

Robert Jamison, deputy administrator for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), defended the agency's action in its official response to the IG audit, which is included in the report. "....

So lets get this straight. A group of men composed mainly of Syrians (Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism) board an airplane with expired visas. They were under surveillance by air marshals and acted in a way that looked very much like a dry run for a terrorist operation. They were detained by only two were questioned and no one noticed the expired visas despite an FBI warning. The leader of the group had been the subject of a prior investigation for suspicious behavior on an airplane. DHS and TSA first deny that anything took place then downplayed the incident. The only reason we even know the details of this is because the Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

This is simply outrageous. I am simply stunned as I reread this story and the accompanying report. What the hell is going on in our government? One of my main criticisms of President Bush has been that he rarely fires anyone for anything and there is very little accountability in our government under him for bad decisions. Not one person was held accountable for 9/11. No one was punished for obstructing the investigations by the field agents that might have led to more clues that would have prevented 9/11. We are told by Bush repeatedly to trust the government and yet, the government refuses to do anything when it has a group of men on an airplane that are from Syria traveling with expired visas acting very suspiciously like a group of terrorists. We are told to go shopping and leave any worries about our safety at home.

I hate to say this but I don't trust our government to protect us. I don't think the government was trapped by some notion of political correctness. I think the government is just that incompetent and there is no accountability whatsoever for gross mismanagement or neglect. It is virtually impossible to fire someone in the government and at some point, the dead weight achieves critical mass upon which time the government is incapable of carrying out its duties. This incident is very similar to the 9/11 case in that the field agents (the guys not in the bunkers or ivory towers) knew something bad was happening, tried to do their jobs, and were stymied by the bureaucrats. Please keep in mind that if this was a dry run (and it probably was), the terrorists were probably successful in their mission. Good job team. Way to fight the War on Terror.

I'm starting to think for all the memorials, wars, and "never again" speeches as well as the hot air on cable news channels every night, we have learned nothing from 9/11 and will not take it seriously until we reap the violent harvest that will stem from our carelessness.