Canada Chides U.S. For Remarks On 0/11 Plotters

[Bianca]

U.S. homeland security
chief Janet Napolitano










                                        Canada chides U.S. for remarks on 9/11 plotters
           





OTTAWA
April 21, 2009
(Reuters)

– The Canadian government moved on Tuesday to correct U.S. homeland security chief Janet Napolitano after she wrongly said some of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks had crossed into the United States from Canada.

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan -- who met with Napolitano in March -- said his aides had contacted her office on Tuesday after she made the remarks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"She was well aware at that time (in March) and understood clearly that none of the 9/11 terrorists came across the Canadian border into the United States ... We confirmed with her office this morning that she continues to be well aware of that," Van Loan told reporters.

Napolitano raised concerns in Canada with remarks indicating she wants to clamp down on border security, which businesses fear could throttle vital trade flows.

She told the CBC on Monday that "to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border".

Asked if she was referring to the 9/11 plotters, she replied: "Not just those but others as well."

Van Loan said Napolitano had been speaking about Algerian-born Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested in December 1999 as he crossed into the United States from Canada with a car carrying explosives.

Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in jail in July 2005 for plotting to set off a bomb at Los Angeles airport on December 31, 1999.




(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)

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                                      RCMP chief laments 9/11 'myths' about Canada





 

Transcript of CBC interview with Janet Napolitano Apr 21, 2009 01:57 PM


The Toronto Star
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa bureau
OTTAWA

— It's "unfortunate" the top official in charge of American's homeland security wrongly suggested the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada, says Bill Elliott, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"My initial reaction frankly is I was a little bit surprised and somewhat disappointed that the secretary isn't better informed," Elliott told the Star, just before he was to testify at a parliamentary committee.

Elliott was responding to suggestions by Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security, who commented in a CBC interview that the U.S. is concerned that "to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there."

Asked if she was referring to the 9/11 perpetrators, which have been shown by an American commission to have entered the U.S. legally on visas — mostly from Saudi Arabia, not Canada, Napolitano said: "Uh, not just those but others as well."

Napolitano defended the sovereign right of the U.S. to treat its border as a "real border."

She went on to further defend the tough border restrictions adopted by the U.S. adding she was "not privileged to say everything that has occurred. I mean, some things have occurred in the past. I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

"We're no longer going to have this fiction that there's no longer a border between Canada and the United States. That is very different, however, from not having a workable border, and that's where my goal is."

Elliot said he "really can't explain" why such misconceptions about Canada as the source of the 9/11 terrorists persist.

He suggested that as the U.S. and Canada do more "joint threat assessment work together," the attitudes would change.

"We do a fair amount of that now with the Americans, particularly in the context of our Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, but I think more work there, so that we're all dealing with the same information, the same facts, we can sort of do joint analysis and come up with an accurate picture of the threats facing both Canada and the United States."

Later, speaking to reporters after his committee appearance, Elliott appeared to suggest that Napolitano may have been misquoted, but he nonetheless stated her view was erroneous.

"I shouldn't overreact to what I see in the media, but there was a suggestion in the media that the Secretary of Homeland Security in the United States made some reference linking terrorist threats in Canada to the 9/11 attacks. And there is certainly no link to be made there."

"There were mistaken reports that the individuals who conducted those terrorist attacks back in Sept. 11, 2001 had travelled to the United States through Canada. As we all know, that's just not what happened."

Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland said Napolitano's comments reflect "that there's an enormous lack of knowledge about Canada and our security procedures."

He said the persistent "Internet myth that Canada was somehow involved in 9/11" is extremely damaging to Canada.

"This is deadly. When I was down in the United States talking with congressmen, this is a pervasive attitude among their legislators. So Canada has to be infinitely more aggressive in telling the story of what we're doing to protect safety, what we're doing to ensure that our hemisphere is secure, and that in fact Canada is every bit as safe as the United States and takes terrorism every bit as seriously."

"If we don't launch an information offensive, if we allow this type of comment from the Secretary of Homeland Security to stand then we really are putting at risk our trading relationship and creating a lot of non-tariff barriers."

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"I mean, some things have occurred in the past. I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future." -

Napolitano.



She still seems to believe that the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.

I guess it's true that some people rise to their level of incompetence.



God save America.

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                                                 What will Napolitano say next?






By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
April 28, 2009

"Can somebody please tell us how U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job?" asked Canada's National Post in an editorial April 22. "She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late night radio call-in yahoo."


The National Post's question was triggered by an interview Ms. Napolitano gave to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) April 20, in which she claimed some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. through Canada. (All 19 came directly to the United States.)


A few weeks earlier, in a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Ms. Napolitano said: "One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border."


There are a few differences between Canada and Mexico which Ms. Napolitano overlooked:


"The Mexican border is so porous the U.S. is building a barrier from Texas to the Pacific to try and stem the flood of illegal immigrants," noted National Post reporter Kelly McParland. "It's so dangerous President Barack Obama is sending hundreds more federal agents, hoping they can slow the violence spilling over into the U.S. In Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, 1,800 people were killed in 2008. There were 366 abductions in Phoenix, largely linked to Mexican human smugglers and narcotics gangs. Recent U.S. intelligence assessments warn Mexico risks becoming a violence-ridden failed state similar to Pakistan."


Canadians are not flooding illegally into Montana or Michigan. Drug cartels aren't shooting it out in the streets of Vancouver and Winnipeg. Though some highly potent marijuana makes its way from British Columbia to Washington state, drug smuggling across our northern border is miniscule compared to our southern border. As the National Post's editors noted: "In Canada, the main problem is congestion resulting from cross-border trade."


"Ms. Napolitano's words...have triggered a rare unanimity of opposition in Canada," noted Lawrence Martin of Toronto's Globe and Mail. Offending our neighbor and close ally is the worst of Ms. Napolitano's blunders in her brief tenure, but by no means the first.


In an appearance on CNN on April 19, Ms. Napolitano declared that entering the United States illegally is not a crime. Section 8, Title 1325 of the U.S. Code begs to differ: "Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willfull concealment of a material fact shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."


Shouldn't the head of the Department of Homeland Security know that illegal immigration is illegal?


Shortly after assuming office, Ms. Napolitano banned the use of the word "terror" to describe events like 9/11, or "terrorist" to describe those who perpetrated them. Mass casualty attacks would henceforth be known as "man-caused disasters," she decreed.


But then DHS used the word "terrorist" in a fact-free report approved by Ms. Napolitano to describe veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who might join right wing groups. The American Legion demanded an apology from Ms. Napolitano, and on April 24 received it: "I offered (American Legion national commander David Rehbein) my sincere apologies for any offense to our veterans caused by this report," she said.


Ms. Napolitano was governor of Arizona when President Obama chose her to head DHS. She had no discernable qualifications for the job, and has demonstrated repeatedly she lacks the judgment for such an important and sensitive post.