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9/11 Commission Member Warns NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio Undermining Counterterrorism
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On September 14, 2014 @ 10:27 am In The Point | 14 Comments
The selection of Red Bill de Blasio by the media had serious consequences not only for New York, where crime has sharply gone up due to his pro-criminal policies, but for the country, because the NYPD was the nation’s firewall with an intel unit and reach that rivaled the FBI.
New York City was ground zero for terrorism and counter-terrorism. Now it’s just ground zero for terrorism.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is coming under sharp criticism for making decisions that may have undermined the effectiveness of his police department’s counter-terrorism operations.
Thirteen years after the 9/11 attacks on Manhattan, prominent security experts say de Blasio has made fighting terrorism a lower priority in order to appease the communities that helped elect him.
“A classic case of taking your eye off the ball at the worst possible time is Mayor de Blasio in New York,” said John Lehman, a former member of the 9/11 Commission.
He said de Blasio is failing to take seriously enough the new threat posed to New York and other major American cities by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has reportedly trained dozens of American jihadists.
“At the very time when the threat suddenly emerges in a whole new additional form focused on the U.S., he decides to end some of the most effective programs in the country in the NYPD counterterrorism unit,” Lehman said.
“He has reassigned people and vehicles and special equipment to non-counterterrorist activities,” he added.
The liberal Democratic mayor has come under fire for several controversial decisions since succeeding Michael Bloomberg, who created a massive counterterrorism unit during his three terms as mayor.
In April, de Blasio disbanded a special unit tasked with conducting surveillance of mosques and Muslim groups suspected of radical ties.
Michael Mukasey, who served as U.S. attorney general from 2007 to 2009, said the unit was instrumental in mapping out possible terrorist ties within Muslim communities.
“They weren’t simply conducting surveillance of mosques and Muslims. They were mapping communities, figuring out where someone from Lebanon or Yemen or any of the other hot spots would go if they wanted to come to this country and find refuge,” he said.
“At mosques that had particularly militant imams, they did have people who would tip them off to what other people were doing or saying. To the extent they’ve curtailed that, I think we’re all less safe,” he added.
Mukasey questioned de Blasio’s decision to replace David Cohen, a former CIA official who served as deputy police commissioner for intelligence, with John Miller, a former television journalist and FBI spokesman. Cohen, who previously served as the CIA’s director of operations, oversaw the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim groups.
“He was an alumnus of the CIA and that was a distinct advantage. It was regarded as a source of suspicion by the new administration,” he said.
It’s not surprising that Bill de Blasio, who was an open sympathizer of Communist terrorists in Latin America and who campaigned with Islamic groups would wreck counterterrorism in the city the way that he wrecked the rest of local law enforcement.
The problem is that even if he becomes a one term mayor like his former boss David Dinkins, the damage that he did will take a while to undo.
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