Well, an Inspector General's report on the affair released last year -- but heavily redacted -- has been obtained by The Washington Times via a FOIA request, and it seems that Jacobsen's concern has been vindicated. These men were likely on a terrorist dry run -- and government security officials bungled the investigation, and put out false information to calm the public. Excerpt from the Times account:
"This report is evidence of Homeland Security executives attempting to downplay and cover up an unmistakable dry run that forced flight attendants to reveal the air marshals and compel the pilots to open the flight deck door," said Robert MacLean, a former air marshal who was fired last year for revealing that the service planned to cut back on protection for long-distance flights to save money.
[snip]
"What is disturbing to us as pilots is that there are now a number of incidents like this taking place across our industry and the vast majority of our flights are still defenseless," said Captain David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance.
"If I were a member of Congress, I'd be asking some hard questions about why such a small percentage of flights have armed pilots or air marshals aboard, while the TSA whistles past the graveyard, asking us to believe none of this is related to terrorism," Mr. Mackett said.
Meanwhile, Annie Jacobsen has a fresh account about a Saudi "student" who appears to have gotten into the country under extremely suspicious conditions ... and disappeared.
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So 19 of those 13 men blew up planes? Uh... yeah.
Dreher -- Your link doesn't support your post. A disgruntled, fired ex- air marshall saisd it was a 'terrorist dry run'. The Inspector General says nothing of the sort. Here's a quote from the TSA response dated Feb 2, 2006 to the Inspector General report (in the linked .pdf).
Overall a key element when considering the response to this incident should be noted, which is that the 13 Syrian musicians were not terrorists and that the law enforcement assessments made by the FAMS and FBI on June 29, 2004 were appropriate If you've got more information than the TSA, Rod, post it. Otherwise, retract.
As you may know, I was referring to the 19 9/11 hijackers.
I would be a little surprised if after a "dry run" which apparently ended in the participants being questioned by law enforcement, they went ahead and did a "wet run" anyway. They just might have suspected they were being monitored for further suspicious activity.
Ikram, The claim was that these men were acting like they were on a terrorist dry run and that their backgrounds should have been checked. This is consistent with the conclusion that there was no conclusive evidence for the conclusion that they were actually on a terrorist dry run. From the WT summary of the report: 'A newly released inspector general report backs eyewitness accounts of suspicious behavior by 13 Middle Eastern men on a Northwest Airlines flight in 2004 and reveals several missteps by government officials, including failure to file an incident report until a month after the matter became public. 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.'
Reluctant Penitent -- The Inspector general's argument. as I understand it, is that the TSA does nopt have adequate procedures in place and / or did not follow those procedures. The words "dry -run"were never used, nor was it insinuated. Fell free to quote the actual inspector general report. I'd love to hear it if I',m wrong. But don't quote the WT -- it's a hack newspaper. Completely unrelaible. especially since the orginal source is easlity available. Again, Dreher -- either cite your evidence or retract
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