Thread: Napolitano Rebuked by Canada for Erroneous comment

Homeland Security boss rebuked by Canada for erroneous 9/11 statement


By Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News Service
April 21, 2009 4:02

(photo) Janet Napolitano, the new U.S. Homeland Security secretary, sparked complaints from parliamentarians and government officials in Ottawa for remarks she made earlier this week in a Canadian television interview, in which she said terrorists entering America have come mostly from Canada.Photograph by: Mark Wilson, Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Canada's ambassador to the United States on Tuesday publicly rebuked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for suggesting that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada, and has asked for a private meeting with her to set the record straight.

"Unfortunately, misconceptions arise on something as fundamental as where the 9/11 terrorists came from," Michael Wilson said at a Washington conference on cross-border trade.

"They flew in (from) major U.S. airports. They entered the U.S. with documents issued by the United States government and no 9/11 terrorists came from Canada."

Napolitano sparked a round of diplomatic and political complaints from parliamentarians and government officials in Ottawa for remarks she made earlier this week in a Canadian television interview.

Addressing a question on the different security challenges facing the U.S. on its borders with Canada and Mexico, Napolitano said terrorists entering America have come mostly from Canada.

"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," Napolitano said.

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

Wilson struck a diplomatic tone and did not mention Napolitano by name in prepared remarks to the Border Trade Alliance conference in Washington. But Canadian officials alerted media that he would be making the statement in response to the Homeland Security secretary.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Napolitano said: "I know that the Sept. 11th hijackers did not come through Canada to the United States."

But she added that several terrorists have attempted to cross into the U.S. from Canada, specifically citing Ahmed Ressam, the 'Millennium Bomber' who was caught in 1999 when he entered the U.S. at Port Angeles, Wash.

Ressam was convicted on a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport.

Napolitano's predecessor at Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said in 2008 that "more than a dozen" suspected extremists had been caught trying to enter the U.S. from Canada.

"There are other instances . . . when suspected terrorists have attempted to enter our country from Canada to the United States," Napolitano said. "Some of these are well-known to the public — such as the Millennium Bomber — while others are not due to security reasons."

Wilson said Napolitano's office had separately told the Canadian Embassy that the Homeland Security secretary misunderstood the question from the Canadian interviewer.

Still, her remarks betrayed the persistence of a myth that has haunted the Canadian government ever since the 2001 attacks. Several prominent U.S. lawmakers, including former Senator Hillary Clinton, have in the past said the 9/11 attackers crossed into the U.S. from Canada.

The 9/11 Commission report on the attacks found no evidence to support the claim, but Wilson said he is regularly required to correct U.S. officials who still believe it happened.

"It is a problem. I think the first time I heard it expressed was about two months after I arrived here," said Wilson, who was named ambassador in 2006.

"It comes frequently from members of Congress. These are people who should know the difference, forget sometimes. It's frustrating to us because we have to address it every time that matter comes up."

In Ottawa, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said Napolitano was ill-informed.

"I was a bit surprised and somewhat disappointed that the secretary isn't better informed," Elliott told reporters on Parliament Hill.

"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," Elliott said. "There is certainly no link to be made there."

Canadian parliamentarians attending Tuesday's border trade conference said they are prepared to give Napolitano the benefit of the doubt, but expressed fears that U.S. border policy continues to be influenced by myth more than facts.

"This seems to underlie many of the conversations and the tension between trade and security," said John McKay, Liberal MP for Scarborough-Guildwood. "It is a myth. It is nothing more than a myth. But it is one that continually comes out of American media and possibly even believed by some members of Congress."

With file from Janice Tibbetts

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

www.canada.com

Napolitano's comments about Canada's border sparks diplomatic kerfuffle
45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — A diplomatic skirmish has broken out over suggestions by Janet Napolitano, the U.S. homeland security secretary, that terrorists have routinely entered the United States through Canada, including the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Napolitano's remarks in an interview earlier this week angered Canadian parliamentarians who were in Washington on Tuesday to participate in a border conference attended by both the homeland security secretary and Ambassador Michael Wilson.

As the keynote speaker at the Border Trade Alliance meeting, Wilson said he was "frustrated" that the 9-11 myth has resurfaced once again, eight years after the terrorist attacks.

"Unfortunately, misconceptions arise on something as fundamental as where the 9-11 terrorists came from," Wilson said.

"As the 9-11 commission reported in 2004, all of the 9-11 terrorists arrived in the United States from outside North America. They flew to major U.S. airports. They entered the U.S. with documents issued by the United States government and no 9-11 terrorists came from Canada."

But Wilson later added that Napolitano's handlers had reassured the Canadian Embassy that she simply misunderstood a question posed to her during the interview.

"Her comment from her people is that she misunderstood," Wilson told a throng of Canadian media who descended upon the conference to hear what he had to say about the controversy.

"We've been in touch with her office a few times this morning and there's no question in my mind she does not believe any terrorists came from Canada into the United States."

Wilson also said he planned to sit down with Napolitano soon to discuss the issue face-to-face.

In the interview, Napolitano was asked about comments she made last month that the Canadian and Mexican borders must be treated with parity, despite a deadly drug war being waged on the U.S.-Mexican boundary and the flood of illegal immigrants who sneak across the heavily fortified border regularly.

When asked if she was talking about the 9-11 perpetrators, Napolitano replied: 'Not just those but others as well.' She also hinted she had information about terrorist activity that was not public knowledge.

Napolitano dug the hole a bit deeper in her remarks to the border conference on Tuesday.

A Canadian MP in attendance said he was alarmed by some of Napolitano's comments.

"If you are in fact negotiating a managed border, and your negotiating partner believes a set of mythology, then you have problems ... you try to work on the basis of fact, not on the basis of myth," said Liberal MP John McKay, flanked by Conservative counterpart Bev Shipley.

McKay also disputed Napolitano's insistence that Canada is more lax about the people it allows into the country.

"It's just plain nonsense; it is so far removed from my own personal experience," he said.

"I have a heavily immigrant riding and I do visas all day every day, and one of the most difficult things I have to explain to my constituents is why is it that the United States granted a multiple-entry visa to the relatives, but Canada won't."

Napolitano is not the first high-profile politician who has believed the 9-11 perpetrators entered the United States via Canada.

As a senator, Hillary Clinton said there needed to be tighter security at the Canada-U.S. border because of a perceived 9-11 falldown.

Texas Democrat Ruben Hinojosa also once declared to a congressional committee, and repeated in a news release, that "as we all know, terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada on Sept. 11, 2001, using passports that the Canadians accepted as valid despite the fact that the documents were doctored."

Frank McKenna, former ambassador to the United States, once described the myth as a "viral infection."

There is at least one known example of a terrorist attempting to cross the Canada-U.S. border, but it was thwarted by vigilant American border agents.

Ahmed Ressam was arrested in December 1999 at Port Angeles, Wash., with homemade explosives in his rental car. He was later convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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NAPOLITANO NEEDS TO BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!

Well this is the best news all day!

This woman needs to shut her mouth. Every time she opens it she sticks her foot in it up to her knee.

That lady is so "out of it"..... Her selection for her post was the first warning I had to watch out for Obama.... No way anyone would pick her to run their county's animal control shelter...

This woman is an absolute embarrassment.

Kerfuffles are a real irritation.
Found this article by a Canadian:
Patrick Grady

What the Canadian Ambassador Didn’t Tell You about Canada and 9/11
April 27, 2005

Canada’s new Ambassador Frank McKenna has had his hands full since he arrived in Washington at the beginning of March debunking what he calls the “urban mythâ€

The threat to the United States from Canada of Islamic terrorism is very real and can only grow in future years. Statistics Canada estimates that, with Muslim immigration increasing at its current rate, Canada’s Muslim population will more than double to 1.4 million by 2017. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has neither the will nor the resources to properly screen the burgeoning flow of Muslim immigrants to weed out potential risks to national security and to deal with those who get through. Thus, Americans, including Newt Gingrich, are well advised to take the Ambassador’s reassuring words with a grain of

Oh gawwwwwwwwwwwd... here comes the Islamic terrorism threat to keep us focused in other directions.... Believe you me.... that is bs... the real threat to you and I and our families is from the Mexican border.. And our Congress and Senate is very well paid off, to look the other way.

I cant believe Janet Napolitano hasnt been fired yet. She is stupid, incompetent, and now is making Canada angry for her insane remarks. THIS WOMEN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR HOMELAND SECURITY? Heaven help us all!