“In all, the nineteen hijackers entered the United States a total of thirty-three times, through more than ten different airports, without ever being stopped or detained. ‘The innovation Al Qaeda introduced is *clean operatives,* ‘ said Doris Meissner, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) commissioner up until 2000, ‘who can go through immigration controls undetected.’ That is because they had no criminal records, no known terrorist connections, and had not been identified by intelligence methods for special scrutiny. She added in January 2004, ‘Even under the best immigration controls, most of the September 11 terrorists would still be admitted to the United States today.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Page 245