How embarrassing is this!?!?!

"The two suicide hijackers had applied for the visas in August 2000. But because of backlogs and an antiquated processing system at the INS, notification of the approval did not arrive at the flight school until Monday."

I would have thought that INS would have totally investigated these visas since 9/11.

Washington Post article

More frightening thought ... how many more crackpots (who didn't take to the air on 9/11) are still in the INS pipeline. Now that's REALLY scary.

What an absolutely frightening report and story!!! Did anyone else see the story on "60 Minutes" about the INS last Sunday. This is one of the most if not the most inept Government Agency we have currently operating!! As an American citizen, I am not asking for the INS to be overhauled/corrected, I am demanding it!! Did we not learn any lessons on Sept. 11th?

What's scarier is our federal government probably spends less money deciding whether someone on deathrow is innocent or guilty than they do on deciding whether they qualify for a visa.

Needless to say, the President was pretty honked off about the whole thing.

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/14/Worldand...as_rile_t.shtml

This shouldn't be a surprise though. The gum'mint works very slowly. Always has. No matter how much downsizing they do to it, the federal bureaucracy is formidable and slow.

But it certainly is scary, I agree...who else is slipping through the cracks?