What Sandy Berger Tried To Hide

While all the details around the Sandy Berger document theft may not be known for years, thanks to the Internet, by re-visiting 2004, it is possible to draw some fairly strong conclusions as to what he was most likely trying to conceal. The central document in the controversy is The NSC's Millennium After Action Review.

Previous statements and testimony suggest that the Clinton administration was well aware, or should have been, of an Al-Qaeda cell operating within the United States in 1999 and it was suggested that the administration act to take it out. Not only did the Clinton administration fail to act, they also failed to pass that information along to the incoming Bush administration.

To make the matter timely, the revelations could be devastating to a Hillary Clinton Presidential bid, just as it was thought at the time that they would be damaging to the Kerry Presidential candidacy. Berger was an advisor to the Kerry campaign at the time the theft took place as the Democrats were fighting an image of being weak on terrorism.

The Landmark Legal Foundation, headed by Reagan Justice Department official and popular conservative talk radio host Mark Levin filed a Freedom of Information request with the Clinton Library to obtain all versions of The NSC's Millennium After Action Review . The request was turned down, also on appeal, and the Clinton people can keep the documents hidden for up to 12 years from the time Clinton left office. After that I believe there are other routes toward declassifying the documents.

Landmark Legal Foundation , of which I am president, had used the Freedom of Information Act to seek all versions/copies of the documents Berger had stolen from the government. Our request is still pending with President Clinton’s office. (Yes, he gets to decide about their release during a 12-year period from the time he left office, then certain agencies get to decide, and so forth.) The general counsel to the Inspector Counsel of the National Archives contacted me and asked if we would agree to the release of this report in lieu of securing notes taken by the IG’s staff, which he represented were of no real significance. Well, considering the protracted process the government has set up to avoid releasing most of this information, Landmark agreed. We were to receive the report simultaneous with the media.

The first of four links circa 2004:

The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.

In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here.

Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.

Item two, Byron York - NRO May 2004:

Justice also know that the Clinton administration had done an "after action" review of the millennium matter — a study conducted by none other than Richard Clarke, the White House counterterrorism chief-turned-Bush antagonist.

The review was "a scathing indictment of the last administration's actions," says the administration source. "It was exactly how things shouldn't be run." Indeed, Clarke is quite critical of the handling of the millennium plot in his book, Against All Enemies.

The virtue of Ashcroft's testimony is that he came out and said it. "This [National Security Council] millennium after action review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 and cites luck as playing a major role," Ashcroft testified. "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

An additional piece at WND also from 2004:

In testimony before the 9-11 Commission in April, Attorney General John Ashcroft pointed to a National Security Council document now at the center of the FBI's investigation of former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, urging the panel to ask why its warnings and "blueprint" to thwart al-Qaida's plans to target the U.S. were ignored by the Clinton administration and not shared with the incoming Bush security staff.

Drafts of the sensitive NSC "Millennium After Action Review" on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are reported to be among the documents still missing from classified materials Berger removed from a secure reading room.

Berger's actions likely had two motivations: to preserve the viability of Kerry's candidacy amid concerns the Dems were soft on terrorism; and to also preserve or construct a Clinton legacy on fighting terrorism.

Item 4:

Sandy Burglar, er, Berger used weasel words like "inadvertent" and "accidentally discarded" to wish away criminal acts that jeopardized national security, and which were likely done to protect the Clinton Administration from facing the tribunal of history, and to save John Kerry's presidential campaign (which Berger served as an advisor, until the BVDgate revelations became public, and he resigned). Berger would have disgraced himself and his comrades less, had he simply refused comment.

The latest from the WaPo here.

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

Comments

[Phoenix]

What a funny feeling. Up until now, I have been interested, though detached, in politics through a sort of bemused eye.

This is the first time I have felt hate.

Keep this going, Dan.

[Cindi]

Not sure if it's hate I am feeling, BUT IT SURE AS HELL is beyond belief.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20061221-112701-7934r.htm

Found this,the "veggie burger" comment to be priceless! But right on the money.

The outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee says questions remain about former National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger's removal of classified documents from the National Archives and pledged yesterday to get the answers.
"I don't care if it's Sandy Berger or Warren Burger or Veggie Burger who walked off with these documents," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican. "It's the lax controls that permitted such a theft; it's the way it was handled internally at the Archives and then by [the Justice Department] that is of grave concern."