Still more adventures ahead for Titanic violin

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  In this undated photo provided by Henry Aldridge shows the violin that was played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank, Devizes, England.AP

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  FILE -- May 31, 2009: The Titanic International Society said Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, has died.AP

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During the writing of every book there is usually a ‘Eureka!’ moment when some magical bit of previously unknown information comes to light. 

When I was researching my book "The Band That Played On" (Thomas Nelson 2011), which tells the story of the musicians on the Titanic, that moment came when someone alerted me to the (possible) existence of bandmaster Wallace Hartley’s violin.

I couldn’t believe what I was being told and at first assumed that what was being spoken of was a replica violin made in Hartley’s honor in 1912 by his contemporary and neighbor Arthur Lancaster. 

That violin I knew had a story of its own. It had gone missing decades ago and was then in 1974 was handed in anonymously to the Youth Orchestra in Hartley’s old hometown of Colne.

But that wasn’t the violin being discussed. It was the actual one Hartley had played on the deck of the sinking liner and which he had reportedly been found with, strapped to his chest, when his body was discovered floating in the icy Atlantic. This was the violin that had played the tune of "Nearer, My God, To Thee" as passengers fled to safety, or death.

This was the violin that had played the tune of "Nearer, My God, To Thee" as passengers fled to safety, or death.

My contact slipped a disc into a desktop computer and clicked on a series of images; a violin, a brown leather case with the initials WHH, pages from a 1912 diary, sheet music and, most tellingly, a close up of the silver tailpiece inscribed “To Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria.”

These CDs had been sent to a select group of people by the auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son who were looking for confirmation that the instrument they’d been given in 2006 was the genuine article. Unfortunately there were no known photos of Wallace Hartley in the Titanic orchestra to allow comparison of design.

I shot some photos of the images on the computer screen and went home to examine the evidence. 

The "Maria" in question was Maria Robinson, Hartley’s fiancé at the time of his death. I knew from contemporary newspaper reports that Hartley had been found with his music case strapped to his chest but also knew that by the time the authorities in Nova Scotia put together the list of his effects it wasn’t mentioned. Some Titanic experts assumed it had been stolen.

What the material I was looking at suggested was that Maria Robinson had made direct contact with them to ensure that the gift she had given to her fiancé was returned to her. 

In the 1912 diary was the draft of a letter she had either sent or intended to send to the Principal Secretary’s office in Nova Scotia. It said, in part, “I would be most grateful if you could convey my heartfelt thanks to all who have made possible the return of my late fiancé’s violin.”

My conclusion, published in "The Band That Played On" when it was released in March 2011, was that this was either an incredibly elaborate hoax or the real deal. 

The names of people mentioned in the pages of the diary could all be traced to actual people living at the time. I predicted that; “If the violin turns out to be Hartley’s Titanic instrument, it will be a huge media event and, one hundred years after their deaths, will bring the band back into the limelight.”

At the time of the book's publication it was hoped that forensic tests on the violin would be completed by the time of the centenary of the sinking in April 2012. 

If the tests proved positive the plan was to send the instrument out on a world tour. However, whenever I called the offices of Henry Aldridge & Sons there was always one more test to go.  Then there were stories that the seller was having second thoughts about putting in on the market.

It was only last month that final confirmation was given in a news flash that went around the world. The account, as I had written it, stood up. The only fresh information was the way in which it had come into the possession of the anonymous owner.

The details of its discovery were every bit as thrilling as the rest of the story. Apparently when Maria Robinson died in 1939 (she never married or had children) the violin passed to a Major in the Salvation Army who eventually gave it to a music teacher. 

The music teacher gave it to a female pupil who in old age left it in her attic where, after her death, it was discovered by her son. It was the son who went to get it authenticated.

Over Easter it went on display at Belfast City Hall, Belfast being where the Titanic was built and launched. Later in this year it will go up for auction. The adventures of this violin aren't over yet.

Steve Turner is a freelance journalist and author of "The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic" (Thomas Nelson 2011).

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White House says it's still weighing response to evidence Syria used chemical weapons

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    White House: Military force is an option to deal with Syria

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    Do 'red line' declarations make sound foreign policy?

The White House said Friday that more evidence is necessary to confirm the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its people, but if that proves to be true, it would be a "game changer."

President Obama addressed the issue in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II, though he didn't commit to any action yet in Syria.

"I have been very clear publicly, but also privately, that for the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus on how the United States approaches these issues. This is not an on or off switch. This is an ongoing challenge that all of us have to be concerned about," he said. 

Much talk has been made of Obama's  suggestion that the use of deadly chemical agents could be the "red line" for the U.S.to intervene in the two-year-old Syrian war.

"I think that in many ways a line's been crossed when we see tens of thousands of innocent people killed by a regime, but the use of chemical weapons and the danger that is poses to the international community, to neighbors of Syria, the potential of chemical weapons to get into the hands of terrorists, all of those things add increased urgency to what is already a significant security problem and humanitarian problem in the region," Obama told reporters.

Earlier Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the U.S. continues to investigate evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in its fight against rebels, but he resisted setting a timetable for possible action.

“It has been assessed by our intelligence community with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin," Carney said. "Now we are working to establish credible and corroborated facts to build on this intelligence assessment in order to establish a definitive judgment as to whether or not the president's red line has been crossed.”

When pressed by reporters, Carney made it clear there is no projected plan.``I'm not going to set a timeline, because the facts need to be what drives this investigation, not a deadline,''

Meanwhile, two Syrian officials denied Friday that its government forces had used chemical weapons against opposition forces. A government source told the Associated Press that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army  "did not and will not use chemical weapons even if it had them."

Sharif Shehadeh, a Syrian lawmaker,also said the Syrian army "can win the war with traditional weapons" and has no need for chemical weapons.

Carney said President Obama would consider several paths of action if it’s determined that Syria used chemical weapons.``He retains all options to respond to that, all options,'' Carney said. ``Often when people mention all options are on the table, everyone just talks about military force. It's important to remember that there are options available to a commander in chief in a situation like this that include but are not exclusive to that option.''

Top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle declared Thursday that the "red line" in Syria had been crossed, calling for "strong" U.S. and international intervention after administration officials revealed that the intelligence community thinks chemical weapons were used. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were among those urging swift action. 

McCain, who has long called for more involvement in Syria, voiced concern that the administration would use "caveats" to avoid acting on the new intelligence. He said America's enemies are paying "close attention" to whether the U.S. follows through, as the White House signaled it wanted to see more proof before responding to the new information. 

"I worry that the president and the administration will use these caveats as an excuse not to act right away or act at all," McCain told Fox News. "The president clearly stated that it was a red line and that it couldn't be crossed without the United States taking vigorous action." 

He called for the U.S. to help establish a no-fly zone and "safe zone" in Syria, as well as provide weapons to the "right people." 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel first revealed the intelligence assessment, which was detailed in a letter to select members of Congress, while speaking to reporters on a visit to Abu Dhabi. The administration then released those letters, which said U.S. intelligence determined with varying degrees of confidence that "the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin." 

Secretary of State John Kerry further confirmed that there were two documented instances of chemical weapons use. 

The White House, however, stressed that this was not enough to confirm how the nerve gas was released -- though acknowledged it is "very likely" to have originated with the regime of Bashar Assad -- and pressed the United Nations for a "comprehensive" investigation. The letter from the White House director of the Office of Legislative Affairs to leading members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the assessment was based in part on "physiological samples." 

A White House official also urged caution, invoking the Iraq war as an example of why the administration should be absolutely certain before going forward. 

"Given our own history with intelligence assessments, including intelligence assessments related to WMD, it's very important that we are able to establish this with certainty and that we are able to provide information that is airtight ... to underpin all of our decision-making," the official said. "That is, I think, the threshold that is demanded given how serious this issue is." 

A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News the Defense Department has been preparing a wide range of contingency plans for military involvement in Syria for the past year. President Obama has seen the plans and is fully aware of those options.

The options, according to this official, range from establishing no-fly zones to creating humanitarian zones to launching strikes on chemical weapons sites, select regime leadership and other targets. The official emphasized that no decisions have been made about whether to further involve the U.S. military in Syria and that there are still many questions that need to be answered first. 

A United Nations spokesman said the chemical weapon findings reinforce the need for U.N. officials to "be given the requested swift and unfettered access to Syria that it needs to determine whether chemical weapons have indeed been used." 

McCain, speaking to Fox News, said in his view the red line "was crossed." 

Feinstein, an important voice on matters of intelligence and security, also said it is "clear" those lines have been crossed and "action must be taken to prevent larger scale use." 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., reacting to the reports Thursday, said the "number one" goal should be to "secure the chemical weapons before they fall into the wrong hands." 

"I think the red line's been crossed and the question is, now what?" Graham said on Fox News. 

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., also said in a statement the assessment is "deeply troubling and, if correct, means that President Obama's red line has certainly been crossed." 

But Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., argued that it is not in the United States' "best interest" to go into Syria. "We cannot be absolutely sure about the extent to which Assad's forces have used chemical weapons, although we know they have them," he said in a statement. 

Asked if this crossed a "red line" for the U.S., Hagel likewise said they are still trying to assess. 

"It violates every convention of warfare," he said. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Mining firm bets there's still gold in the hills that sparked 1849 rush

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More than 150 years ago, John Sutter touched off the fabled Gold Rush when he found gold near his mill in 1849. But the prospectors who flocked to the Sierra foothills left plenty of gold in the ground.

At least that's what a mining company setting up shop in the same area southeast of Sacramento believes. Geologists for Sutter Gold Mining Co., estimate there are some 650,000 ounces remaining in the area that sparked an epidemic of gold fever. At today's prices, that could amount to just shy of $1 billion.

"We're building on new mine but we're really building on the history that's been here for a 160 years."

- Leanne Baker, president and CEO of Sutter Gold Mining

"We're building on new mine but we're really building on the history that's been here for a 160 years," said Leanne Baker, president and CEO of Sutter Gold Mining.

The company plans to launch full scale mining operation in the next few months at Lincoln Mine, a 10-mile stretch of California's famous mother lode. The mother lode itself is a 120-mile stretch from El Dorado County south to Mariposa County. Baker said all major permits are in place and the project, which will employ at least 100 workers at the outset, is set for full production later this year.

"This 10-mile segment is extremely important because it produced the bulk of the mother lode production," said David Cochrane, Sutter's vice president of environmental health and safety. "Mother lode produced 13 billion ounces of gold historically, and 60 percent of the production came out of this segment."

The gold will be a bit harder to get to, but modern technology provides many advantages the old-time prospectors couldn't fathom.

"Those first pieces of gold were discovered, [and they] simply jumped into the creeks with our pans and our buckets and what we had we were cooping it up," said Dennis Price of Sutter Creek Visitors Center. 

Deep in the new mine, thousands of feet below the surface, modern day miners will work hard for the precious metal. But Sutter plans to use gravity floatation to recover the gold out and will not use toxic chemicals on site. 

"It's basically drilling, blasting, mucking, starting and doing it over," said Baker.

For now, geologists are doing "confirmation drilling" to find the richest deposits. That will help the mining engineers develop the mine plan that will produce maximum profits. 

Although full-scale mining has not started, when FoxNews.com visited the mine, drillers were already starting to pull visible gold out of the ground. 

"It's very exciting to be doing it in a state that hasn't had a lot of recent gold production certainly in the mother lode," Baker said. "To bring it back to the area where so many people in the country and around the world associate with the exciting part of gold production it definitely makes you feel like you're a part of history."

Michelle Macaluso is part of the Junior Reporter program at Fox News. Get more information on the program here.

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Classic Plymouth police cruiser still fighting crime in Seattle

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SEATTLE –  At a recent scene of a fight on Seattle's waterfront, most of the gawkers weren't looking at the handcuffed and yelling suspect or the bloodied victim. Instead, their attention and cameras were directed at a fully restored 1970 Plymouth Satellite police cruiser.

It's the common reaction to the vehicle driven by 30-year-veteran Officer Jim Ritter. By his count, the Plymouth has caused at least three fender-benders.

"People will stop their cars and run across three lanes of traffic to get a picture of it and park their car in the middle of the street and block traffic. It has its drawbacks, but if those are the worst things to happen, I'll take it any day over having people not wanting to approach the police," Ritter said.

The cruiser is part of the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, a non-profit that Ritter founded In 1997.

Along with local car shops, Ritter and volunteers have 14 vintage police cars. They have restored six vehicles for the King County Sheriff's office, Washington state Patrol and the Seattle Police Department, and are in the process of fixing up another eight, which includes a 1979 Dodge Aspen. Under an agreement with the Seattle Police Department, Ritter uses the Plymouth as his everyday cruiser.

The initial intent behind the Plymouth was to use it as a community relations and educational tool, drive it in parades and that sort of thing. But Ritter began to notice that people were attracted to the car. In one of the first instances, he said apparent gang members approached him, dropped their swagger, and wanted to chat about the car.

Talking to the public has become "effortless."

The Plymouth has been around since 2007, but has seen a resurgence in attention through social networking sites. The attention is welcomed.

The Seattle police department has been in the midst of controversy, with the Department of Justice investigating it for racial profiling and community protests over the failed use of airborne drones.

"I'm a working police officer. So when I'm downtown I'm assigned to a squad and I'll respond to calls with my squad mates. They will range from anywhere from assisting motorist to armed robberies to disturbances and this car will go to all of them," Ritter said.

The museum collection includes a 1970 Plymouth Fury, 1963 Plymouth Savoy, 1976 Dodge Dart, 1979 Dodge Aspen among others. The cars aren't kept at the museum's location in the SODO neighborhood because there isn't enough space.

To bring the Plymouth back to life, Ritter and his friends had to do meticulous research that included getting the paint mix right, track down parts over the internet and get a bit of luck. The siren rack on the Plymouth came from a man in Phoenix who had bought it decades ago.

The car itself came from Nebraska. A retired city worker gave the museum complete records of the fleet from that era, allowing Ritter to verify the car was indeed part of the Seattle fleet in 1970.

It runs on about 330 horsepower, Ritter said. Unlike today's cars, the Plymouth is noisy and bumpy. But the besides a modern radio, the inside is kept almost as it was in 1970. No computer or other gadgets. There is no air conditioning and it's not as well insulated. Ritter also wears a uniform of the era.

For some of the volunteers, working on these cars, which harken back to the era of American muscle cars, is a welcome change.

"It breaks up the monotony. We don't need a computer to talk to this car. This car is the good old days when you lift the hood and recognize everything there," said Tony Wood of Kirkland Transmission.

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One worker still missing as crews corral disabled cruise ship that tore loose

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MOBILE, Ala. –  The crippled cruise ship whose sewage-filled breakdown in the Gulf of Mexico subjected thousands to horrendous conditions tore loose Wednesday from the dock where it's being repaired, lumbered downriver and crunched into a cargo ship.

Wind gusts near hurricane strength shoved the 900-foot Carnival Triumph free from its mooring in downtown Mobile, Ala., where the ship was brought in a five-day ordeal that began when an engine fire stranded it off of Mexico in February. Hours later, four tug boats used several mooring lines to secure the ship to the cruise terminal.

A 20-foot gash about 2 to 3 feet wide was visible about halfway up the hull from the water and it wrapped partway around the stern. Underneath the gashed area, two levels of railing were dangling and broken. Electric cables that had been plugged in on shore were dangling from the port -- or left -- side of the ship. Carnival said damage, though, was limited.

The violent weather Wednesday also blew a nearby guard shack into the water. One shipyard worker was rescued and crews were searching for another, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said, but the cruise ship's mishap was unrelated.

Some crew members and workers had been staying on the ship while it was being repaired and people could be seen looking out the windows and on the deck of the ship Wednesday. Carnival said all 800 of its crew members and contractors who were working aboard were safe.

An engine fire disabled the Triumph on Feb. 10 and thousands of passengers were disabled for days. Passengers say they endured terrible conditions on board, including food shortages, raw sewage running in corridors and tent cities for sleeping on deck.

Tugs slowly towed the ship into port in Mobile, Ala., where it has remained under repair.

After the ship escaped, it rested against a cargo vessel. It drifted for a couple of hours before being secured as of 5 p.m., and moved to the Mobile Cruise Terminal, Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen said.

Coast Guard officials said they saw no sign late Wednesday of the missing BAE Systems employee who was knocked into the water with a co-worker when near hurricane-strength winds blew their guard shack over. The other man was rescued.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Bill Colclough said the missing man worked for BAE Systems that runs the shipyard. Authorities are unsure of how deep the water is where the men fell in, but the company's website mentions its ship-repairing operation is adjacent to a 42-foot deep ship channel.

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You can love nature and still hate the tyranny of environmental regulations

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Environmental activists and politicians would like you to think that we must love their regulations -- or hate trees and animals.

I love trees and animals.

But you can love nature and still hate the tyranny that environmental regulations bring.

The Environmental Protection Agency just announced it will boost gas prices (“only” a penny, although industry says 6 to 9 cents) to make another minuscule improvement to air quality.

In New York City, my mayor wants to ban Styrofoam cups, saying, “I think it’s something we can do without.”

Throughout the world, most reductions in pollution have been achieved because of capitalism, not government control.

Congress already dictates the design of our cars, toilets and light bulbs.

Originally, environmental rules were a good thing. I love the free market, but it doesn’t offer a practical remedy to pollution. I could sue polluters for violating my property rights, but under our legal system, that’s not even close to practical.

So in the ’70s, government passed rules that demanded we stop polluting the air and water. Industry put scrubbers in smokestacks. Towns installed sewage treatment. Now the air is quite clean, and I can swim in the rivers around Manhattan.

But government didn’t stop there. Government never stops. Now that the air is cleaner, government spends even more than it spent to clean the air to subsidize feeble methods of energy production, like windmills and solar panels. Activists want even more spending. A few years back, the Center for American Progress announced they were upset that “Germany, Spain and China Are Seizing the Energy Opportunity ... the United States Risks Getting Left Behind.”
In this case, we’re better off “left behind.” After spending billions, those European governments made no breakthroughs, and now they’re cutting back.  

The Endangered Species Act was another noble idea. We all want to save polar bears. But now the bureaucrats make it almost impossible for some people to improve their own property.

Louisiana landowner Edward Poitevent wants to build homes and offices north of Lake Pontchartrain. He could provide safe high-ground housing to people eager to move away from areas that were flooded during Hurricane Katrina. But he is not allowed to build because the government decided 1,500 acres of his land should become a preservation area for a threatened species called the dusky gopher frog. None of these frogs currently live on his property. On my TV show, Poitevent said, “The Fish and Wildlife Service has certified that the frog has not been seen in the state of Louisiana since 1967.”

Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they were “not available” to come on the show to talk about this. Instead, they posted a video on YouTube that says they work “with” landowners: “The Service has many voluntary partnership-based programs that can provide technical and financial assistance to manage species.”

That sounds nice, but the government’s handbook on how to work with them is an onerous 315 pages long.

The environmentalists so torment those who resist their schemes that some landowners tell each other, “If you find an endangered species, shoot, shovel and shut up!” That’s mostly a joke. But it does happen, and it’s one more way government regulations backfire.

Throughout the world, most reductions in pollution have been achieved because of capitalism, not government control.  

Fracking for natural gas reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Even much-hated coal and oil provide benefits. Science writer Matt Ridley says, “Burning of fossil fuels is helping the rainforest in the Amazon to grow.”

Ridley also points out modern industrial farming allows people to grow more food on less land, and so people cut down fewer trees. “New England used to be 70 percent farmland -- it’s now 70 percent forest.”

You can even see the difference between areas that get greener and ones that don’t from space: The Dominican Republic is noticeably greener than its immediate neighbor, Haiti, mainly because the Dominican Republic uses fossil fuel instead of burning wood from its forests for fuel, as Haiti does.

Industry and technology, not regulations, are humanity’s greatest contribution to the environment. Leave people their freedom, and they come up with new, smarter, more efficient and thus cleaner ways of doing things. Stifling that process with regulation isn’t “progressive.”

John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of  "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed," "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his website at johnstossel.com.

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Exclusive: Syrian with ties to 9/11 hijackers still in US, virtually immune from deportation

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  Daoud Chehazeh, left, and Eyad al Rababah

Free to do as he pleases, living out his days in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, a Syrian national who is a known associate of the 9/11 hijackers never has to worry about deportation by the U.S. government, according to an investigation by Fox Files.

With nearly 400,000 people waiting for U.S. citizenship, Daoud Chehazeh last November received political asylum for a third time after a series of bureaucratic screw ups at the federal level, according to a review of court documents and interviews with former federal and state investigators.

A special on the investigation, “He’s Here to Stay in the USA,” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on Fox News.

"It's a slap in the face to Americans, especially the victims of 9/11 and the families," said Jim Bush, who as a New Jersey state criminal investigator was part of the 9/11 investigation code-named PENTTBOMB. His partner in the investigation was Bob Bukowski, a now-retired FBI special agent.

"Three thousand people were murdered," Bukowski said. "(Chehazeh) was definitely part of that conspiracy. ... He facilitated the moves and protection up to the whole flight, basically, of Flight 77. Could we prove that in a court of law? No. But there are other remedies. Deport him. That's what should have been done in this case."

“This is an example of our national security policy gone mad,” Debra Burlingame, the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, said. Fox Files’ findings and the connection between Chehazeh and the Flight 77 hijackers were especially disheartening because Burlingame’s brother, Charles, was the pilot of Flight 77, which was hijacked and slammed into the Pentagon.

“This is what comes of demilitarizing the 'War on Terror' and political correctness, treating enemies with the rights of ordinary people," she said. "We owe a person like this absolutely nothing. His confederates were summarily executed by drone. This is an utterly incoherent national security policy.”

Chehazeh arrived in the U.S. in July 2000 from Saudi Arabia and quickly settled into Paterson, N.J.'s Middle Eastern community. Paterson was the launching pad for the plot, where 11 of the 19 hijackers passed through before the attacks.

In Paterson, Chehazeh met up and lived with another key facilitator of the hijackers, a Jordanian named Eyad al Rababah. The significance of the Chehazeh-Rababah support network for the hijackers in Virginia and New Jersey was first reported by Fox News in May 2011. Law enforcement sources told Fox News that revelations Chehazeh was still living in the U.S. went to the most senior levels of the FBI.

Seven months before the attacks, Chehazeh, who had no job and no known source of income, suddenly decided to leave Paterson. Along with his roommate, Rababah, the two men moved to suburban Washington, D.C., and almost immediately made contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the imam at the mosque in Falls Church, Va.

Fox Files' exclusive reporting showed al-Awlaki, killed in September 2011 by a CIA drone strike in Yemen, was a guest speaker at the Pentagon five months after the 2001 attacks and that there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggesting the cleric was an overlooked key player in the plot.

By April 2001, beside al-Awlaki, Chehazeh's new circle of friends and neighbors included future Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, a pilot. Chehazeh made a point to tell Rababah, even though both men later admitted to investigators they were not religious men, to go to the mosque and ask Imam al-Awlaki for work.

"Al-Rababah returns home with two of the hijackers," Bush explained. "And that's the first time, that we know of, that Daoud Chehazeh met the hijackers."

Rababah got the hijackers an apartment in Virginia.  He helped them get settled.   And in May 2001, Rababah drove al-Hazmi, Hanjour and two of the newly arrived muscle hijackers to Connecticut and New Jersey. The 9/11 Commission Report said that within a few weeks seven of the hijackers were living in New Jersey in a one-room apartment.

Bukowski and Bush are still haunted by a piece of evidence.

"When (Chehazeh) was arrested, in his car we found booklets, flight information from (New Jersey's) Teterboro Airport, where we know Hani Hanjour, again the pilot, practiced out of,"  Bush said. Chehazeh "didn't know how the hell they got there."

Bukowski and Bush say they still believe there was an unknown relationship between al-Awlaki, Chehazeh and Rababah. At least five of the hijackers were tied to these men. And it is striking that the 9/11 Commission report makes no reference to Chehazeh.  

"Chehazeh was still being a little bit investigated at the time when we were interviewed by the 9/11 Commission.," Bukowski explained. "I guess they believe that Al-Rababah played, uh, was more of the leader, but we found out, no, he was more of the one that was just being told what to do."

For more than a decade, the U.S. government has spent more than half a million dollars trying to deport Chehazeh. Bush and Bukowski said Chehazeh knew how to play the system. While the FBI was on his trail after 9/11, the immigration judge was apparently in the dark about his hijacker connections. It is unknown who or what government agency dropped the ball.

In 2001, court documents show U.S. immigration judge Annie Garcy helped Chehazeh fill out his asylum application. She would eventually rule that he belonged to a social group of "people who are hopelessly in debt."

"I think it was unusual for a federal judge to grant him asylum based upon his being a member of a social group called hopeless debtors," said Andrew Napolitano, a superior court judge in New Jersey for eight years who now is a senior judicial analyst for Fox News. "The federal judge concluded that he would be tortured or killed in Syria."

Chehazeh was free to live in this country. But the case was reopened in 2007 when the FBI claimed Chehazeh was a danger to national security. Bukowski said the basis was "his connection to the hijackers."

In 2007, the Board of Immigration Appeals reopened Chehazeh's case. And this time, Chehazeh had high-powered pro bono attorneys from the New York City law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Fox Files contacted Chehazeh and his attorneys numerous times, but they declined to provide a written statement or otherwise comment.

For now it looks like Chehazeh is never leaving the United States. Last November, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed its decision to reopen Chehazeh's case. And on Feb. 13, the case was officially closed and entered into court records of the United States District Court District of New Jersey.

Napolitano described the Chehazeh case as closed with “clarity and finality.”  

But others suspected of 9/11 connections faced very different outcomes. Rababah was deported to Jordan in 2003. And al-Awlaki was killed by drone in Yemen in 2011.

View the original article here

Exclusive: Syrian with ties to 9/11 hijackers still in US, virtually immune from deportation

• 

  Daoud Chehazeh, left, and Eyad al Rababah

Free to do as he pleases, living out his days in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, a Syrian national who is a known associate of the 9/11 hijackers never has to worry about deportation by the U.S. government, according to an investigation by Fox Files.

With nearly 400,000 people waiting for U.S. citizenship, Daoud Chehazeh last November received political asylum for a third time after a series of bureaucratic screw ups at the federal level, according to a review of court documents and interviews with former federal and state investigators.

A special on the investigation, “He’s Here to Stay in the USA,” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on Fox News.

"It's a slap in the face to Americans, especially the victims of 9/11 and the families," said Jim Bush, who as a New Jersey state criminal investigator was part of the 9/11 investigation code-named PENTTBOMB. His partner in the investigation was Bob Bukowski, a now-retired FBI special agent.

"Three thousand people were murdered," Bukowski said. "(Chehazeh) was definitely part of that conspiracy. ... He facilitated the moves and protection up to the whole flight, basically, of Flight 77. Could we prove that in a court of law? No. But there are other remedies. Deport him. That's what should have been done in this case."

“This is an example of our national security policy gone mad,” Debra Burlingame, the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, said. Fox Files’ findings and the connection between Chehazeh and the Flight 77 hijackers were especially disheartening because Burlingame’s brother, Charles, was the pilot of Flight 77, which was hijacked and slammed into the Pentagon.

“This is what comes of demilitarizing the 'War on Terror' and political correctness, treating enemies with the rights of ordinary people," she said. "We owe a person like this absolutely nothing. His confederates were summarily executed by drone. This is an utterly incoherent national security policy.”

Chehazeh arrived in the U.S. in July 2000 from Saudi Arabia and quickly settled into Paterson, N.J.'s Middle Eastern community. Paterson was the launching pad for the plot, where 11 of the 19 hijackers passed through before the attacks.

In Paterson, Chehazeh met up and lived with another key facilitator of the hijackers, a Jordanian named Eyad al Rababah. The significance of the Chehazeh-Rababah support network for the hijackers in Virginia and New Jersey was first reported by Fox News in May 2011. Law enforcement sources told Fox News that revelations Chehazeh was still living in the U.S. went to the most senior levels of the FBI.

Seven months before the attacks, Chehazeh, who had no job and no known source of income, suddenly decided to leave Paterson. Along with his roommate, Rababah, the two men moved to suburban Washington, D.C., and almost immediately made contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the imam at the mosque in Falls Church, Va.

Fox Files' exclusive reporting showed al-Awlaki, killed in September 2011 by a CIA drone strike in Yemen, was a guest speaker at the Pentagon five months after the 2001 attacks and that there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggesting the cleric was an overlooked key player in the plot.

By April 2001, beside al-Awlaki, Chehazeh's new circle of friends and neighbors included future Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, a pilot. Chehazeh made a point to tell Rababah, even though both men later admitted to investigators they were not religious men, to go to the mosque and ask Imam al-Awlaki for work.

"Al-Rababah returns home with two of the hijackers," Bush explained. "And that's the first time, that we know of, that Daoud Chehazeh met the hijackers."

Rababah got the hijackers an apartment in Virginia.  He helped them get settled.   And in May 2001, Rababah drove al-Hazmi, Hanjour and two of the newly arrived muscle hijackers to Connecticut and New Jersey. The 9/11 Commission Report said that within a few weeks seven of the hijackers were living in New Jersey in a one-room apartment.

Bukowski and Bush are still haunted by a piece of evidence.

"When (Chehazeh) was arrested, in his car we found booklets, flight information from (New Jersey's) Teterboro Airport, where we know Hani Hanjour, again the pilot, practiced out of,"  Bush said. Chehazeh "didn't know how the hell they got there."

Bukowski and Bush say they still believe there was an unknown relationship between al-Awlaki, Chehazeh and Rababah. At least five of the hijackers were tied to these men. And it is striking that the 9/11 Commission report makes no reference to Chehazeh.  

"Chehazeh was still being a little bit investigated at the time when we were interviewed by the 9/11 Commission.," Bukowski explained. "I guess they believe that Al-Rababah played, uh, was more of the leader, but we found out, no, he was more of the one that was just being told what to do."

For more than a decade, the U.S. government has spent more than half a million dollars trying to deport Chehazeh. Bush and Bukowski said Chehazeh knew how to play the system. While the FBI was on his trail after 9/11, the immigration judge was apparently in the dark about his hijacker connections. It is unknown who or what government agency dropped the ball.

In 2001, court documents show U.S. immigration judge Annie Garcy helped Chehazeh fill out his asylum application. She would eventually rule that he belonged to a social group of "people who are hopelessly in debt."

"I think it was unusual for a federal judge to grant him asylum based upon his being a member of a social group called hopeless debtors," said Andrew Napolitano, a superior court judge in New Jersey for eight years who now is a senior judicial analyst for Fox News. "The federal judge concluded that he would be tortured or killed in Syria."

Chehazeh was free to live in this country. But the case was reopened in 2007 when the FBI claimed Chehazeh was a danger to national security. Bukowski said the basis was "his connection to the hijackers."

In 2007, the Board of Immigration Appeals reopened Chehazeh's case. And this time, Chehazeh had high-powered pro bono attorneys from the New York City law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Fox Files contacted Chehazeh and his attorneys numerous times, but they declined to provide a written statement or otherwise comment.

For now it looks like Chehazeh is never leaving the United States. Last November, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed its decision to reopen Chehazeh's case. And on Feb. 13, the case was officially closed and entered into court records of the United States District Court District of New Jersey.

Napolitano described the Chehazeh case as closed with “clarity and finality.”  

But others suspected of 9/11 connections faced very different outcomes. Rababah was deported to Jordan in 2003. And al-Awlaki was killed by drone in Yemen in 2011.

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Obama says 'still time' for diplomacy with Iran, Netanyahu suggests time running short

• 

  March 20, 2013: President Obama, accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gestures as he speaks during their joint news conference in Jerusalem, Israel.AP

President Obama, while seeking to reassure Israel that America has its back in the face of a nuclear Iran, said Wednesday he believes there's "still time" to resolve the stand-off diplomatically -- as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested time is running short. 

Both leaders, in a joint press conference on Obama's first trip as president to Israel, stressed that their goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But the two appeared to diverge on the effectiveness of diplomacy. 

In his opening remarks, Netanyahu said sanctions and diplomacy "so far have not stopped" Iran's ambitions. 

"Diplomacy and sanctions must be augmented by a clear and credible threat of military action," he said. 

Later on, Obama said: "We prefer to resolve this diplomatically, and there is still time to do so." 

Still, he added that "all options are on the table" if diplomacy falls short. "The question is, will Iranian leadership seize that opportunity," he added. The president said Iran's past behavior indicates that "we can't even trust yet, much less verify." 

The meeting, and the two-day swing through Israel, was a chance for both leaders to reaffirm their ties, and for Obama to try and boost his image in the country after avoiding it for the last five years. Though Obama visited as a presidential candidate, this is his first visit to Israel since taking office in 2009. 

In Israel, Obama stopped briefly in Tel Aviv before flying to Jerusalem for meetings with senior leaders including Israeli President Shimon Peres. Peres praised Obama for an "impressive record of answering our needs," and welcomed the message that "no one should let skepticism win the day" when it comes to the peace process. 

Pressed during the press conference with Netanyahu on the lack of progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Obama said he's certain he could have done things differently when it comes to the Mideast. 

But he said bringing peace to the region is "a really hard problem" to solve -- one that's lingered for more than 60 years. Obama also suggested that failure to reach an agreement in his first term between Israelis and Palestinians doesn't mean that he "screwed up somehow." 

The conversation turned repeatedly to the civil war in Syria and Iran's nuclear program. 

Obama started out his remarks with the prime minister by stressing that the security of Israel is "non-negotiable." The president said America's commitment to Israel's security is a "solemn obligation." 

Netanyahu, thanking Obama for his statements, stressed that: "Today we have both the right and the capability to defend ourselves."

Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Obama says 'still time' for diplomacy with Iran, Netanyahu suggests time running short

• 

  March 20, 2013: President Obama, accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gestures as he speaks during their joint news conference in Jerusalem, Israel.AP

President Obama, while seeking to reassure Israel that America has its back in the face of a nuclear Iran, said Wednesday he believes there's "still time" to resolve the stand-off diplomatically -- as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested time is running short. 

Both leaders, in a joint press conference on Obama's first trip as president to Israel, stressed that their goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But the two appeared to diverge on the effectiveness of diplomacy. 

In his opening remarks, Netanyahu said sanctions and diplomacy "so far have not stopped" Iran's ambitions. 

"Diplomacy and sanctions must be augmented by a clear and credible threat of military action," he said. 

Later on, Obama said: "We prefer to resolve this diplomatically, and there is still time to do so." 

Still, he added that "all options are on the table" if diplomacy falls short. "The question is, will Iranian leadership seize that opportunity," he added. The president said Iran's past behavior indicates that "we can't even trust yet, much less verify." 

The meeting, and the two-day swing through Israel, was a chance for both leaders to reaffirm their ties, and for Obama to try and boost his image in the country after avoiding it for the last five years. Though Obama visited as a presidential candidate, this is his first visit to Israel since taking office in 2009. 

In Israel, Obama stopped briefly in Tel Aviv before flying to Jerusalem for meetings with senior leaders including Israeli President Shimon Peres. Peres praised Obama for an "impressive record of answering our needs," and welcomed the message that "no one should let skepticism win the day" when it comes to the peace process. 

Pressed during the press conference with Netanyahu on the lack of progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Obama said he's certain he could have done things differently when it comes to the Mideast. 

But he said bringing peace to the region is "a really hard problem" to solve -- one that's lingered for more than 60 years. Obama also suggested that failure to reach an agreement in his first term between Israelis and Palestinians doesn't mean that he "screwed up somehow." 

The conversation turned repeatedly to the civil war in Syria and Iran's nuclear program. 

Obama started out his remarks with the prime minister by stressing that the security of Israel is "non-negotiable." The president said America's commitment to Israel's security is a "solemn obligation." 

Netanyahu, thanking Obama for his statements, stressed that: "Today we have both the right and the capability to defend ourselves."

Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here