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From: "Beverly Eckert" <| J - Udd to Address Book!

To: pzelikow@9-11commission.gov, ckojm® 9-11commission.gov
Cc:
Subject: Immigration-student tracking system
Date: 04/03/2003
Time: 5:41 PM EST

Attachments: none

Dear Phil and Chris,

This article contains important information for the Commission to address
relative to accountability. I have additional information on SEV1S that and
will send under separate cover.
Regards,
Beverly Eckert
Family Steering Committee

Washington Monthly Home Page

May 2002
Borderline Insanity

By Nicholas Confessore

Exactly six months after Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi had flown planes
into the World Trade Center, letters from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) arrived at a Florida flight school informing these two
late—very late—students that their visas had been approved. The incident
seemed to capture perfectly the unfathomable ineptitude of an agency long
unable to control Illegal immigration but now supposed to be the front line
of the domestic war on terrorism.

Among those most furious was President George W. Bush. "I was stunned and
not happy,* the president told reporters at a press conference. "1 could
barely get my coffee down." Within days, Bush's anger cascaded down through
the federal bureaucracy. Attorney General John Ashcroft blasted
"professional incompetence" for the "disturbing failure." INS commissioner
James Ziglar called it an "inexcusable blunder" and promptly reassigned four
top INS officials to "begin the process of accountability." And the
Department of Justice Inspector General promised to report exactly what had
happened. But why wait? Insiders already know what happened, and the
president ought to hear the truth right away, though probably not while he's
sipping hot coffee.

The good news for Bush—who loves nothing more than to blame Bill Clinton
for everything—is that at least half the responsibility for the screw-up
lies with the previous administration. In the mid 1990s, the Clinton
administration initiated, then let die, a revolutionary computer visa system
that could have prevented Atta and Al-Shehhi from getting their student
visas, and might even have uncovered their conspiracy before September 11
came to pass. The bad news for Bush (and the rest of us) is that some of the

lof? 4/4/03 9:02 Ah