now we know that GWB knew about AL Qaida and hijack warnings

[jokerswild]

This is just the tip of the ice-berg. It' clear that GWB was warned 1 month before that terrorists planned to hijack planes, and had teams in the USA. What did Bush do? Nothing, he stayed on vacation and planned to listen to children read see spot run.

[Cyrus]

Make up your own mind about it.


"Bin Laden determined to strike at U.S." (http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf)

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
It' clear that GWB was warned 1 month before that terrorists planned to hijack planes, and had teams in the USA.

[/ QUOTE ]


This very document (read it) (http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf) states that the bin Laden hi-jack threat was known since 1998 (during Clinton). Hi-jackings in general have been happening for decades, and measures against them have been implemented and modified for decades. In other words, this August 2001 paper reported nothing new. My administration was not satisfied with the meager Clinton era anti-Terrorism defences and was implementing better ones, and that the FBI was investigating a lot of suspicious activities.

But you would have us believe that this was practically a specific warning about certain planes scheduled to be hi-jacked on a specific date (9/11). You sound like a Monday morning quarterback. When you fold a pocket pair of 2's, do you berate yourself for doing so when a third 2 hits the river? - this is basically what you are doing here, expecting me to be psychic.

W

[andyfox]

I note that there was nothing in the memo about Iraq of its possible connections with Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. Oh, wait, I forgot, there weren't any such connections until we inaded Iraq.

[Jimbo]

[ QUOTE ]
I note that there was nothing in the memo about Iraq of its possible connections with Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. Oh, wait, I forgot, there weren't any such connections until we inaded Iraq.

[/ QUOTE ]

Andy all this shows is that the Clinton administration did a piss poor job of connecting the dots. Not that the dots weren't properly connected by the current administration.

[Gamblor]

Are you implying that Bush knew that on Sept 11, 2001, at 8:50 am, a team of hijackers would hijack planes at 3 of the nations busiest airports, and attack the WTC, the Pentagon, and (at our best guess) a target in Washington, and to ignore it?

I have a better analogy for you.

I'm going to be at the casino sometime next year. Meet me there, I'll be at the bar.

Not very helpful, is it? In order to meet me, you'd have to quit your job, forgo thousands in salary, and explain to your wife you aren't going to see her in a while. Oh and you'd have to blow billions in taxpayer money to increase security indefinitely.

Those lives were not lost in vain. Preventable, maybe. But to place the blame squarely on one man, and to somehow claim that he is indictable because of the events, is another example of how far the anti-Bush Democrats will go.

I don't particularly like the man, but this is getting ridiculous.

[Gamblor]

Assuming Bush knew bin Laden & Co. were going to strike in the near future, there is little doubt in my mind that if he were to pre-emptively declare a War on Terror in 2000, he would have faced the same opposition from the bleeding hearts as he did in the days leading up to and during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and as Ariel Sharon does in his continuing campaign against terrorists in the Territories.

For those of you who don't see the similarity, perhaps you may want to research the most recent poll among Palestinian Arabs, which showed that the Palestinian public believes the man most likely to "do the right thing" in foreign affairs was:

you guessed it, Osama bin Laden (http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2003-09.html#20031001202150-3694131424)

[andyfox]

What's getting ridiculous?

[Gamblor]

Democrat smear campaign.

You have a better idea? Please, for the love of god, pitch it!

But anti-Bush is not a valid domestic or foreign policy.

[jokerswild]

Bush is a Nazi. G-d will not forgive you for making excuses for him.

He knew and did nothing. He also knew that Iraq had no WMD, and attacked them just like the Nazis attacked several other countries. His only interest was, and is, economic exploitation of the oil.

[Gamblor]

You don't know that.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence, but I'll give you that making assumptions were inappropriate.

Hussein's and Assad's (who's next on the list) financial support of Palestinian terror is well-documented, and the Bush team simply assumed it extended to all Islamic terror. While that may or may not have been fallacious, declaring war on the chance that there was a connection? Well, I'll allow you to decide it's appropriateness.

[MMMMMM]

As I posted long ago, knowing that some such attack might occur (here or overseas) is far different than specific knowledge of how what who when and where. As Gamblor said, meet him at the casino this year, he'll be at the bar. Which casino? What time? Hey don't worry about that, just meet him there. He'll be there.

What was the US supposed to do? The US gets like 10,000 threatening pieces of intelligence just about every day. Even if this particular threat attracted special attention...what were we gonna do? Shut down all airports for the next 6 months? Without very specific information there just wasn't much we could do. Like Gamblor said, meet him at the casino bar this year. I'll be there too. See you then!

[jokerswild]

This is a ridiculous comaprison.

A reasonable response from the most powerful man in the world would have been to coordiante intelligence between the FBI and the CIA. The FBI had honest agents warn their superiors about flight schools and suspected terrorists. Elements in the administration squashed these reports. No one has been held accountable.

The memo of 8-6-01 is just the tip of Bush administration prior knowledge of the attacks.

[MMMMMM]

Coordinating intelligence between the FBI and CIA would have been much easier said than done. Firstly, it was illegal for those two agencies to exchange intelligence information at that time (the Patriot Act may be what changed that, I would guess). The law would have had to be changed first before such coordination could take place. How fast do you think Congress would have changed that law, given that 9/11 had not even occurred yet? And thirdly, bureaucratic changes as sweeping do not always go smoothly even after they are implemented. As Condi Rice said, we simply were not on a war footing at that time.

[Cyrus]

Preparing to be hit by a major terrorist attack is like preparing to be hit by a major earthquake. Scientists have been able to predict (somewhat) about one, sometimes two, out of the three necessary parameters: Where; When; How hard.

Notice that without all three parameters known, a government cannot adequately prepare the population: Suppose you know where and when but don't know how strong it's gonna be. Then this is useless info because earthquakes are happening every instant! The vast majority of them are so small that you don't even realize 'em. Suppose you know when and how strong it'll be but don't know where. Great eh? ...Etc.

I was willing up to now to allow GWB the benefit of the doubt and accept that his administration could not possible have prepared the American defences for something like the 9/11 attack. I have maintained (but that's just me) that until one know enough about Where/When/How, one cannot adequately prepare against a terrorist attack.

Well, I have began to change my mind. The Bush admin's whole paranoid, weaselling attitude, the memos' contents, Clarke's testimony, Rice's non-testimony, etc etc, point out, at the very least, that there was probably collective criminal negligence on the part of the administration, and indications of gross incompetence on the job.

[MMMMMM]

And how do you explain the contradictions regarding Clarke's testimony as I posted elsewhere in this thread.

Heads should be rolling, indeed--the public should be perceptive enough to see that this whole thing is largely a Dem smear campaign, and that there was no way to forestall or avoid 9/11. The public should consider the outlandish comments of Gore, Kennedy, Gephardt and Dean as grounds for non-reelection and censure. (In fact Dean fairly recently went so far as to say that he wouldn't want to presume bin-Laden guilty...come back from Saturn, Mr. Dean, please).

The Clinton administration did far less to combat terrorism than the Bush administration--that's where heads should be rolling, perhaps.

[Cyrus]

"There was nothing in the memo about Iraq of its possible connections with Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. All this shows is that the Clinton administration did a piss poor job of connecting the dots. Not that the dots weren't properly connected by the current administration."

I don't understand, Jimbo.

You mean to say that there is a connection between Saddam Hussein and Qaeda/bin Laden (and that Bush is doing a poor job of proving this) ? And that Clinton too should have known about that connection a long time ago ?

If this is the case, then you should inform the White House pronto! And tell 'em about the proper way to connect 'em dots! Because Dubya's people have dropped the Qaeda/Saddam scenario quicker than you can spell "quagmire".

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I have began to change my mind. The Bush admin's whole paranoid, weaselling attitude, the memos' contents, Clarke's testimony, Rice's non-testimony, etc etc, point out, at the very least, that there was probably collective criminal negligence on the part of the administration, and indications of gross incompetence on the job.




[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry to hear this, you seem to be becoming influenced by the spin of the liberal media, the conspiracy theorists, etc. Like the JFK assassination, if the theories are repeated often enough, people will begin to believe them.

It takes character to stand by logic, to understand that a million little coincidences can occur without a US government conspiracy being the only answer. Life is messy, but your government did not mess this one up for you - the terrorists pulled it off by themselves.

W

[Cyrus]

"I'm sorry to hear this, you seem to be becoming influenced by the spin of the liberal media, the conspiracy theorists, etc.."

I'm sorry you feel the need to bring up conspiracy theories, because I never implied that there was a conspiracy on the part of the Bush administration to allow 9/11 to happen.

I specifically stated that the administration is probably guilty of gross incompetence. This I base on the criminal negligence that they demonstrably showed towards the terrorist threat. It is patently obvious that the Qaeda threat was taking second place in their minds pre-9/11 due to their fixation on Saddam. This is the record and the White House is not denying it; they merely claim that they were also concerned about Qaeda. (Let me remind you here that the GOP opposed Bill Clinton tooth and nail in Congress in almost all his anti-terrorist initiatives and fund requests.)

Negligence is not necessarily willful. In the case of Dubya & 9/11 I don't believe it was willful. But the negligence they showed is, nonetheless, grounds for a serious re-evaluation of the man's and his administation's competence. No need to prove there was a cnspiracy.

I understand of course, dear <font color="red">GWB</font>, that I may be conversing here with a heavily prejudiced person. Never mind.

"Like the JFK assassination, if the theories are repeated often enough, people will begin to believe them."

There was tremendous public scepticism from the start about the JFK assassination. This was a case where the media followed, rather than guided, the public feeling. The era's paranoia was the primary cause for that.

For the record, I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK but I am (still) in the minority. Never mind.

[Stu Pidasso]

The United States homeland was attacked by terrorist in 1993, 1997, and 1999. The democrat administration did absolutely nothing. If there is a president to blame about being asleep at the wheel, Clinton deserves that honor more so than Bush.

I read the memo that should have been titled "Bin Ladin Determine to Strike in US again". Its great spin ammunition for the democrats and I really think its going to hurt Bush. However, if you really analyse it, there isn't any actionable intelligence in that memo. You would be a fool to think Gore or Kerry would have done a better job than Bush given the intelligence.

Stu

[GWB]

Apparently you think that this administration can not walk and chew gum at the same time. One part of the administration can be focused on Saddam at the same time another is focused on Al Qaeda. Doing both is not negligent by any stretch of the imagination.

I hate to point this out, but to suggest "demonstrably" a case of "criminal negligence" based on the actual facts out there in the real world is a red herring. This is the type of reckless charge one would find in a conspiracy theory.

I accept your assertion that you don't believe in the conspiracy theorists, but the negligence charge you put forth remains unsupported by the basic facts.

Any one can dig up little details that in retrospect look big, but to suggest that our administration was neglecting terrorism in the slightest is simply false. The media has people focused on the tidbits, making it harder to see the real picture.

I agree with you on the JFK assassination. But people play little "what if" games with every little detail that can make one think the government was wickedly negligent in allowing the assassination to happen, and people are now doing the same thing with the 9/11 issue.

2 important points:

1) We took the terrorist threat seriously despite what the spinmeisters out there would have you believe.

2) Any attention to Iraq before 9/11 did not distract from our anti-terrorist efforts. We can and did pay close attention to both.

W

[andyfox]

How is releasing the info. a smear campaign? Those most critical of Bush--O'Neill, Clarke, John Dean--are not running for president. Two of them are Republicans. This administration was not truthful about something very important, going to war. And they were woefully ill-prepared for the aftermath of that war, ignoring advice to be so prepared.

Bad people.

[andyfox]

I don't believe the Bush team declared war on the chance of an association betweeen Bin Laden and Hussein. They made up their minds on Hussein long before 9/11. Many of the key individuals had been calling for removal of Hussein for years.

[MMMMMM]

Andy, you know that under Clinton, regime change in Iraq was official U.S. policy. So Bush actually did something about it, whereas Clinton whistled Dixie. It was also pretty unanimous, even worldwide, that Saddam had not forsworn his WMD programs. So why all the blame on Bush? He and the administration acted on the intelligence known at the time, and also carried forward official U.S. policy from the previous administration regarding regime change in Iraq, and removed a genuine villain from power. Saddam and his sons won't be tyrannizing innocent Iraqis any longer. Better yet still, the Iraqis will have a real chance to create and live in a free and growing society. What a wonderful thing the Bush administration did in Iraq.

Good people.

[andyfox]

I focus on Bush because he's my president. He and the administration invaded Iraq because they had made up their minds to do so before 9/11. They then falsely associated Iraq with Bin Laden and 9/11. Iraq was not a threat to us when we invaded. They used intelligence they knew was faulty. They failed to plan for post-war problems.

I agree that the foreign policies of the Bush and Clinton adminstrations were essentially the same in theory, with the Bushies being much more forceful in application. If what was accomplished in Iraq ends up being good for the Iraqi people, it will be an accident, because there was no plan in place to make their life better. Rummy pointedly refused to let his people even attend post-war planning meetings.

We are all happy that Hussein is out of power; hopefully he can be tried for his crimes.

[MMMMMM]

Why do you say the Bush administration "knowingly" used false intelligence? Didn't just about every major intelligence service agree that Saddam had not truly given up his WMD programs?

Also I don't think the Bush admin. made much of a case that Saddam was tied to 9/11., although it was known that Iraq was involved peripherally in terrorism in other ways, such as funding the Hamas suicide bomber cottage industry, and letting that one-armed or one-legged radical terrorist sheikh stay in Baghdad (sorry I forgot his name). Iraq also sheltered Abu Nidal for a long time, right? And the hull of a an airliner used for hijacking/terror-training was discovered in Salman Pak, wasn't it? So it can't be said that Iraq had zero to do with terrorism.

[jokerswild]

Perhaps if the real George W.Bush (not you) cooperated with legitimate inquiry then the facts of the matter wouldn't have to be pried by threat of subpeona. I doubt that he ever will becuase his administration has to much to hide.

[Kenrick]

[ QUOTE ]
I focus on Bush because he's my president. He and the administration invaded Iraq because they had made up their minds to do so before 9/11.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, back about ten years ago during Desert Storm. Because of Saddam's refusal to uphold the U.N.'s sanctions, Desert Storm never ended. Invading Iraq was only a matter of time. The U.N.'s failure to uphold resolution 1441 shows its incompetence and worthlessness. After twelve years of failed resolutions, what did you expect to happen?

The U.N. and Bill Clinton thought there were WMD's. Even earlier this year the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said Bill Clinton told him he thought Iraq had WMD's until the invasion.

If you're going to focus on your President for the WMD stuff, make sure to focus on your previous President as well since he had the same opinion on the matter. Fair is fair.

[craig r]

[ QUOTE ]

But anti-Bush is not a valid domestic or foreign policy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could not agree with you more. anti-bush is not a valid domestic or foreign policy; in fact i see it as a potentially dangerous one. there are a lot of people that feel that kerry would do a better job than bush in all ways. i personally can't stand the bush administration. but, but to say that kerry is going to make this country so much better is a joke. it is a band-aid solution. it is basically a choice of which one is better. but why do we, every four years, have to choose a president that is not good, just better? the liberals always point out that the bush administration has a policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." but, in a sense, by choosing kerry over bush we would be doing the same thing. don't get me wrong, i am very torn over what to do as far as voting in 2004. i do feel that things can go quickly from bad to worse in cheney is elected president again. but, at the same time, i don't feel we should have to choose from bush or bush-lite.

craig

[Kenrick]

So I'm watching the news tonight, and what do they show but the testimony about how poor communication is mainly the Clinton administration's fault for putting up a wall between the FBI and CIA due to FileGate. And then Janet "Waco" Reno gets on there and says how she knew about this and that terrorist stuff but never bothered to say much about it.

Like I said, fair is fair. Anyone who wants to look at why the government may have dropped the ball on this stuff needs to also look at the previous administration's faults on the matter. And no matter whose fault it is, if anybody's, I think Bush has done about as well as could be expected since 9/11. This stuff has been building up for years, and he just happens to be the one who got it dropped into his lap.