The interview that rocked my Sunday. Part Two

Part 2: Clinton Interview On Fox News


The questions are being answered.
Domestic Terrorists from within the militias were loose everywhere.
Far right terror of Americans by Americans was draining resources.

Again, a pertinent passage dealing directly with a later time – frame. Beginning here with Clarke writing of the internal security problems surrounding the Olympics in Atlanta held after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. The bombs and the bombers came from Kansas, here the security approaches another controversial level at:

The Washington representative of the Secret Service asked abut access control on the Olympic venues, especially the Olympic Stadium where the President would be sitting. “Who is going to mag and search everyone as they come into the stadium?’ After he explained that the verb “to mag” meant to search for metal such as guns using handheld or stationary walk-through magnetometers, the Atlanta Olympic Committee representative revealed its plan to have citizen volunteers at each gate to the stadium. They would not be using mags.

Mindful of Ramzi Yousef’s plot to blow up 747s and the images of Pan Am 103, I asked about aircraft. “What if somebody blows up a 747 over the Olympic Stadium, or even flies one into the stadium?”

The Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Office was steaming under the cross-examination from the Washington know-it-alls. “Sounds like Tom Clancy to me,” he sneered. I glared at him. “But if it happens well, that’s an FAA problem,” he answered.

“Okay, Admiral Flynn?” I turned to Cathal Flynn, the retired Navy SEAL who ran FAA security. Born in Ireland and having spent twenty-five years in the U. S. Navy with the first name Cathal, Flynn liked to be called “Irish.”

“Well, Dick, we could ban aircraft from over the Stadium during the events by posting a Notice to Airmen,” Irish responded.

“But what if a terrorist hijacks an aircraft and violates that ban?” I asked.

“Then we would call the Air Force if we saw the aircraft violate the ban on radar. But by then it would be too late,” Flynn intoned in his deep baritone. “But, of course, we would not even see them on radar if they shut down the transponder on the aircraft. You see, our radars are not air defense radars. Our air traffic control radars rely on the aircraft sending out a radio signal to us to tell us its altitude.”

The Defense Department representative then explained to us about the posse comitatus law and how it prohibited the military from using force in the U. S. Jim Reynolds from the Justice Department helpfully pointed out that posse comitatus could be waived and had been waived to allow Army Special Forces to assist in suppressing a prison riot “right here in Atlanta” a few years earlier. “Yeah, but there is also an international law, to which we are a party, that bans shooting down a civilian aircraft. We learned all about that after we shot down the Iranian Airbus,” came the DOD reply.

“Okay, Okay. So whose job is it to stop a hijacked aircraft from flying into the Olympic Stadium?” I asked in frustration.

“Don’t let them hijack an aircraft in the first place,” the Atlanta FBI man offered.

We returned to Washington. On the flight back, I wondered aloud with John O’Neill how we would ever get the departments back in Washington to do the right thing about Atlanta Olympics security, spending the money, moving the teams. There was not much time left.

Pg. 106 – 107, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, Richard A. Clarke, Free Press, 2004

As you may well know now, FBI Agent John O'Neill later died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. The Atlanta Olympics was bombed, killing a single volunteer security guard, wounding and maiming many others. The bomber, a radically violent Christian, five years later was finally apprehended he was abortion clinic serial bomber, Eric Rudolph.