Was the Aug 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) is out.

As a conservative opposed to Bush's war against people we hate (versus a real war on on terrorism), I think this memo basically squares with what Condaleeza Rice said. I'm not sure it's entirely consistent with what she said, but you'd have to be looking for fault to find it.

If I were King George and sitting on my throne reading this, I would think that 70 investigations (assuming these are an accurate representation of the truth) is enough to deal with something well beyond what we could have anticipated before 9/11.

This supports my personal conclusion that there was very little more Bush could have done to prevent 9/11. This memo and Rice's testimony probably will do little to sway anybody with their minds made up already, but it was good news fodder for a few days.

Question to debate:
Do you find the Aug 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) as supporting evidence that Bush did not do enough to prevent 9/11?

With 20/20 hindsight I am sure that this information can be construed to argue that airline security should have been improved. The fact is we live in a free society and limitations on our freedom cannot be imposed without the general will agreeing to it. In a free society terrorist acts cannot be completely eliminated. We shall have to live with the threats until there is some fundamental change in the Middle East, this is what Bush is trying to accomplish in Iraq; the beginning of a new Middle East.

I agree. I do not think there is much Bush or anyone could have done to prevent 9/11. People who say that the Bush administration knew about the attacks and did nothing is showing nothing but ignorance. No president would ever ignore a threat if he was told it was imminent with other viable specifications as to where?, when?, how?. Of course it is easy to say he should have done more at this point in time. Everyone could have done more. But in this society, the people don't want to spend money unless they feel it directly affects them. it wasn't until 9/11 that the country felt this.

Do you find the Aug 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) as supporting evidence that Bush did not do enough to prevent 9/11?

There was little to no actionable intell on that report. However there is enough on the report for Condi to have asked her CSG chief and principles to get something more on what was going on. At the time Condi admitted chatter over the wires indicated something was coming up but they didn't have details. Even if she had asked her CSG/principles it's not guaranteed the plot would be exposed in time but as National Security Advisor, why didn't she take the initiative?

It may have been a post 9-11 America but I like to think elected and appointed officials don't follow-up urgent information to the pulse of public opinion.

I try to imagine just how much intel is available daily concerning this country and "Defense" issues both foreign and domestic. If someone had asked me about Al Quaeda before 9/11 I would have never given them the credit to hijack all those planes at the same time. Plus terrorists had never used planes as suicide weapons. Many of the terrorists of 911 didn't even FIT the profile of suicidal attackers. They were well educated and had families. Shouldn't THAT be a more important concern?
I don't blame Bush I don't blame Clinton. How many of these crack pots make these threats? probably a large number. How many are even credible?
I do think we had our resources a little too focused on the war on drugs and left a huge hole in our domestic security and the agencies responsible such as the ciafbi are way too heavy on the bureaucratic top end and not focused enough of the people who actually do the work. We as Americans also have some choices as well.
Where does the money for increased security come from? How do we deal with foreign entities? Just because American companies can make a profit should it be allowed for them to deal with countries that are clearly not aligned with our beliefs and clearly of a hostile worldveiw (we wanted a oil pipeline so bad we were perfectly willing to deal with the taliban, now we deal with Uzbekistan??).
Maybe we should refocus on the efforts of our "intelligence" services to interfere in the affairs of other countries, Chile, Nicaragua, Iran. The destabilization it causes always comes back to haunt us(IRAN).

Bush probably did as every President before him did. He looked at the evidence and went with the advice of people who were supposed to be the "experts".
and even though i really dislike a lot of Bush's actions this is getting tiresome.
If Bush is to blame then so is Clinton--and so are we!

I agree with christopher in that the blame of such an event is hardly attributed solely to George W. I imagine threats are made constantly, as we certainly have no short list of enemy individuals and terrorist groups. The president and his advisors are forced to determine the credibility of each and every threat and decide whether or not to take action. Before 9/11, we were wrapped within an illusory security blanket and erred not on the side of caution. Post 9/11, we see every threat taken seriuosly, judging by the amount of orange, yellow, red, [insert color here], etc. level of alerts issued nationwide everytime we have have a superbowl or final four-type event. But how long before the illusory security blanket drapes over our eyes once again? Alerting the country for every threat is simply not practical. The gathering of intelligence is the only way of helping to prevent further incidence and resources must be devoted to it.

I read the PDb just before I fell asleep, yeasterday at 2:00pm. I can't believe that a spectacle was made about that.

Condi was honest, Clarke seems like a great big liar and everbody's posts so far in this thread are a credit to the truth of the matter which is that nobody could've known. I hate to wonder why the intel was so vague, but with news coming out lately surrounding two of the hijackers and their appearances at the Malaysia Terror Conference I think it's plain to see; The CIA had some major problems before 9/11.

I do not believe the August 6, 2001, PDB provided enough information to prevent 9/11. I do believe that if our intelligence agencies had been sharing information prior to 9/11, we might have been more prepared.

I heard an interesting question asked this morning about the PDB. What if this information had been provided to the public before 9/11? What if this had been broadcast on the news and in our papers? I wonder if the people on the planes would have reacted differently? I wonder if the airlines would have screened passengers better?

We'll never know.

Sorry, but the August 6 PDB did not exist in a void.

Bush's counter-terror czar had been trying to get this administration to focus on al-Qaeda since the day it tripped over the White House threshold. There was intelligence coming in from all over the world about al-Qaeda in the spring and summer of 2001. In June 2001, for example, the German intelligence agency BND warned the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." That summer, Russian intelligence notified the CIA that twenty-five terrorist pilots had been specifically training for suicide missions - and Vladimir Putin ordered Russian intelligence to warn the US government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. In August, an Iranian man phoned US law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9.

Our own intelligence should also have been alerting a few people. Lt. Delmart Vreeland had intercepted specific intelligence that foretold of a September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and warned Admiral Vernon Clark, Chief of Naval Operations of the coming attacks in July 2001. Agent Coleen Rowley had specific intelligence relating to Zacarias Moussaoui and Agent Kenneth Williams had specific intelligence on al-Qaeda plotting to train Arab terrorists in our flight schools. In August 2001, the FBI arrested an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirmed that the man was a key member of bin Laden's network and the FBI learned that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest, the man was in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals.

On September 6 and 7, 4744 put options were purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396 call options and on September 10, 4516 put options were purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. During the week leading up to the attack, abnormal levels of put options were purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and AXA Re, all of which were severely impacted by the September 11 attack. The CIA and Mossad monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs descended from Promis software. This is to alert national intelligence services of just such types of attacks. This alone should have raised a few eyebrows.

Perhaps any one of the above, like the August 6 PDB, would not have overly alarmed anyone had al-Qaeda and bin Laden been totally off the radar screen. But Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, had ten briefings with Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley in which he told them "You're going to spend more time during your four years on terrorism generally, and al-Qaeda specifically, than any other issue." Richard Clarke had a strategy for addressing the immediate threat of al-Qaeda in place by December 2000, which he shared with both Dr. Rice and Dick Cheney and had been trying to get this administration to address al-Qaeda from Day One. He and Tenet were indeed running around "with their hair on fire".

This administration was asleep at the wheel, almost delusional about the nature of the threats facing America. The August 6 PDB in and of itself may not seem that alarming. But in the context of what any competent administration should have known and should have been focussing on, it would have set off bells, klaxons, and sirens loud enough to send the White House to battle stations.

If nothing else, given what the White House did know, when the first plane hit the WTC why was the second tower not evacuated immediately?

You all may wish to minimize the import of this briefing, but something tells me we're not going to be seeing much more 9/11 footage in Bush's campaign ads...

This is an incredible statement for someone who posted here in this very forum back on 25Jan2003 the following......



This, AFTER 9/11. One can only wonder what Wertz would have said had President Bush followed Richard Clarke's advice and actually attacked Afghanistan prior to 9/11. Somehow I think that the rabid ABBers would now be blaming Bush for causing 9/11.

It is highly unfortunate that the 9/11 hearings have turned into a typical partisan finger-pointing session. That's not going to do any good. This 6Aug PDB is what Dr. Rice said it was and it most certainly would not have been a justification for an invasion of Afghanistan, regardless of how hot Richard Clarke's head was. If we are going to start pointing fingers then let's look at the entire record and go back to the Clinton Administration. What did we do then? We were attacked on American soil in 1993, and we did nothing. We had the Khobar towers attacked, embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed, the USS Cole attacked and we did nothing. The only time we actually took military action, pitiful as it was, was because of Monica Lewinsky, a blue dress with a stain on it and a Grand Jury hearing. Then and only then did we blow up an aspirin factory in Sudan and send some 10 million dollar missles into Afghanistan to blow up a few camels and some tents. But hey! It got Monica off the front pages.......

And now we have a bunch of Monday Morning Quarterbacks coming back and bashing Bush for "not hearing the klaxons"? For not listening to Richard Clarke? He had 8 years to fight Al Qaeda and what did he do? He didn't even convince Clinton to bomb the asprin factory, Monica did......

Following 9/11, the Bush Administration had a reason to be able to do what they had to do, and they've been successful at doing that. Pakistan and other neighboring nations of Afghanistan have joined with the US war on terror. That wasn't the case pre-9/11. The Patriot Act, something that many here despise, removed the barriers enacted by Congress since the 1970's on the sharing of intelligence between government agencies would not have happened pre-9/11, and the Department of Homeland Security would have been seen by the left as an "American Gestapo".

But, it's an election year and so I guess anything goes and that means hypocrisy reigns supreme in the ABB crowd.

Do you find the Aug 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) as supporting evidence that Bush did not do enough to prevent 9/11?

No since there wasn't any actionable information (as former Secretary Albright called it several times during her testimony as to why the Clinton administration didn't retaliate for the various terrorist bombings) as to when, where, and how? There is nothing in that briefing that said, Terrorists, using planes as weapons, are going to attack the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Take the information in the briefing and try to pinpoint the date, time, and location, and method of attack.

And, what if Washington had made a breaking news announcement warning us of a possible attack before 911? Was the whole country supposed to shut down? Remember after Homeland Security was in place and the threat level was raised and Tom Ridge announced non-specific information but there was a spike in chatter and the American people's reaction to his announcement? Even today...some are asking, "Well, what are we supposed to do?" IMO, before 9.11, had they made an announcement of a possible terrorist attack with no specific information, it would have been more mind boggling to the American people than it was right after 9.11 and still is two years later.


If nothing else, given what the White House did know, when the first plane hit the WTC why was the second tower not evacuated immediately?

Ah, so now Bush is to blame for not notifying New York authorities to evacuate the second tower. If you are going to blame someone...why not the New York authorities? They were there and why didn't they evacuate the second tower immediately regardless of what the reason for the first plane crashing into the WTC? Bush was in Florida giving a speech at a school. Or are you suggesting that immediately after the first plane hit that Bush and our Intelligence knew it was an act of terror and sat by and waited for the second plane to hit before they pushed the panic button? How many minutes lapsed between the first and second planes crashing into the towers? For weeks and months after 9.11, the media conducted interviews with various members of the administration/cabinet/Congress, mayors, governors, etc...and all said pretty much the same thing....when the first plane hit, they thought it was an accident due to a pilot error, or a plane out of control, or just a bad pilot. It was when the second plane hit that the alarm bells went off that it was unlikely two planes could be out of control or two pilots could be terrible pilots and thus it could be an act of terrorism. Since 9.11, everything is different including our mindset. Before 9.11 a plane crashing into a building was an accident. After 9.11 a plane crashing into a building is an act of terror whether it really is or not.

Remember the teenager who flew the plane into a New York building (after 911) almost everyone's (including authorities) immediate reaction was that it was a terrorist attack and all the alarm bells went off only to find out it was a kid that wasn't a bad pilot, but who wanted to kill himself.

And Wertz, with all that grandiose information you so aptly organized for our benefit and to make a point, I see nothing in it that would predict the events on September 11th. There are plenty of dots...all much easier to connect after 9.11 rather than before.

Really! Because I was watching tv and nothing of the sort occured to me. In effect, a most naive assessment from the President of the United States, Boeing 767's? Considering the August briefing? What would lead him to believe so offhandedly that it was A freak accident? How come I didnt come to that oh so convenient conclusion that morning and if so why was I attuned to events the president as not ? Possibly because I am not a fool? He 'supposedly flew planes', now that makes sense. I was watching tv long before the President decided to remove himself from a kindergarden classroom and conclude we had a threat. Imagine that? That argument is just inane.
As 4 planes were at the same time 'missing' from their flight plan? When my phones went off I was attentive, not sure what was the story. I would expect the President would have done the same, NOT THE CASE.

You are right about one thing, that only some people in the second tower thought about getting out. A bunch of them watched in the first awe. The President was in a classroom, even after the first tower was hit, and did not call a national emergency, seemingly unaffected and in fact dumbfounded. Cheney and Condi went to sheltered bunkers and nobody was directing the country on what to do as they all hid for cover and the preseident heads for Nebraska (eventually) in Air force One. Hence the the country goes into chaos, yet the President was informed of the first attack! Which was ignored by him, however not by me in my living room freaking out. Got excuse?

In fact, he had the PDB on Aug 6th and spent his time on vacation. We wouldnt want to interupt a Presidential vacation by threats of terrorist hijackings on the US now would we, just as in these days of Iraqi uprising we see the president is once again on vacation, he seems to be quite frequently on vacation. In fact , I think we pay him to stay at Crawford more than in the Whitehouse.

Was the pdb enough to thwart 911, no, not in itself, but this admin is negligent, if not more, lazy.

Artemise, I know you are not naive enough to believe what you are writing, so I can only conclude that you are engaging in political spin.

Really, are you part of the National Security Council? Nobody was directing the country?? Yes, after all these years, we probably don't have any type of contingency plan for the National Command Authority , maybe we only have that during democratic administrations.


Again and again you spout this line like a mantra. Either omitting or forgetting that with the miracle of satellites and telecommunications, GWB could be in my kitchen swapping meatloaf recipes with me and be just as 'in the loop' as if he was chained to his desk in the oval office.
I have to say that for all of your well reasoned and articulate posts, this one seems to be nothing more than a ranting diatribe against Bush, repeating the same talking points.
Not saying that you're not entitled....I've been known for some myself

Oh yes DTOM, we have contingency plans, where were they when 5 planes got hijacked all at one time? Dont we plan and do trials for this sort of thing? What went wrong and why hasnt somebody lost their job/jobs because of it?

You cant claim competancy on one point and not another. Are you saying the US didnt fail on all accounts to thwart an attack on the Pentagon? That means the Whitehouse was also in direct danger. Explain that to me please?

As for the rest, I do understand that GW Bush is informed at Crawford, but you cannot say that in an event of 'imminent threat' to the US that Crawford is the same as the Whitehouse. If so, why 'chain a President to', or have a Whitehouse? The President can just lead the country from wherever his home is anywhere by cyber Whitehouse.com.

Shall we have stay at home Presidents? No. And ,Yes. It IS important that when the nation is threatened you dont go fishing and goofing off on vacation.

DTOM, YOU would not have considered the first plane flying into the WTC a freak accident enough to blow it off, as President, neither would I. You cant defend that. No way no how.

Wertz, I must have missed the links to the articles backing up your assertions...I am particularly interested in the German intelligence:



I found this assertion on various boards on the internet, none with source citing. It was verbatim, so I was wondering if you had proof, or are you simply parroting the unfounded accusations of others?

EDIT: Ah, I found it:
Newspaper: Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks



Of course, that same article warns of similar attacks in Europe using airplanes:

Of course, it admits there is no sure way to protect against it...

That's a very big leap, and one which your facts do not back up. Rather, what you point out is the typical nature of the way our bureacracy works.

I'm curious, what happened to this sentiment....? Exactly which actions do you think were neglected, and which specific steps did the administration take to quash such actions? Unfortunately, our system is just not set up to react blindly to such things. In the facts you mention, where is it mentioned which flights, by whom, on which days, what targets, what methods? There is absolutely nothing concrete there to take action upon. Warn the public about such information, and you run the risk of setting off a panic, or, if it consistently gets shown to be false, numbing people to the warnings. Neither is a desirable outcome, particularly when already faced with a faltering economy. How many such indicators do you think get sent every year? It's always very easy, after the fact, to look back at such things and point out the clues. The administration, and the various intelligence agencies, all were taking action...but our system, and the failure of our intelligence agencies to pin down any of the specific facts, is where the failure took place. Can you imagine the uproar that would have occurred had the administration reacted to the information you state by imposing martial law, randomly targeting individuals and groups, stationing the military in airports or likely targets? Where do you think the liberal crowd would have been standing in the face of such actions? Applauding the sensible actions of the administration in the face of vague, uncorroborated evidence? I hardly think so....

It is clear that we should have pre-emptively attack Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and North Korea before 9/11 hit...

Or restricted the freedoms of all Americans based upon a threat that had been looming for over a decade...

Or arrested all Middle Easterners who wanted to become pilots...

Or....


Or, what, exactly? Pre-9/11 was a different paradigm, a different set of rules. Let's not forget that.

Oh yes, and that Independent council with the GOP”s lap dog Kenneth Starr was soooooo impartial. You really expect Rep’s to sit there and grill one of their own?

And why when this subject is brought up, does every Bush supporter immediately say ‘oh, but Clinton didn’t do anything either’. We’re not talking Clinton here, this memo was sent to Bush and his administration. As Wertz pointed out during the Clinton/Bush transition they were clearly told they would be spending most of their time on terrorism and yet again we witness the arrogance and ignorance that has defined this administration as they simply did nothing.

Title of the PDB: “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Hello? Anyone driving this bus?

I can appreciate the amount of intelligence that filters its way into the While House, and we can point fingers at the FBI and CIA all we want, but isn’t it the ultimate responsibility of the President and his staff to assess risk? The buck has to stop some place and it stops in the Oval office.

Want to talk hypocrisy: We go to war and find out later that the entire reasoning for invading Iraq was based on intelligence that was flimsy at best. But here comes a PDB, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attach Inside the United States”, with this snippet “Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks..” ...... and it’s ignored.

This administration has a clear agenda: make what ever it wants out of intelligence briefings as long as it fits into their plans. This PDB just didn’t fit into their missile system plans.

Sorry, they dropped the ball on this and we’re paying the price twice.



Sure they did, they didn’t invade Iraq or Afghanistan and they’re looking all the wiser for not taking preemptive action. Maybe Clinton and his staff possessed a bit of foresight, Dubya’s daddy certainly did.

Fife and Drum

Wait a minute, on one hand you wish to crucify the GWB administration for not taking any action prior to 9/11. Yet you praise Clinton for not taking any action.
In light of the PDB, what would you have ANY president do? I see a lot of name calling and finger pointing, but no 'better ideas'.

Artemise,
I can claim that Crawford is every bit as good as the Whitehouse. Both residences have situation rooms, both have secure communications. The only thing missing at Crawford may be face to face with some principals.

I was referring to your claim that "nobody was running the country". Obviously neither you or I are in the loop as to what exactly went wrong on 9/11. And I'm willing to bet that the 9/11 commission won't be able to ascertain it either, PDB or no PDB.

Well, let's see now...if Bush knew there was going to be an attack on the Pentagon and failed to prevent it, that would mean Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld also knew and did nothing to prevent it although he (and thousands of other administrators and staff) was inside the Pentagon when the plane hit. Incredible logic since the President reacts to situations based on the information and intelligence given to him. And, there was a procedural decision made and orders given that if any air craft entered the no fly zone in the White House vicinity, it was to be shot down and destroyed period . In other words...if the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania had instead been successful in targeting the White House, the standing orders were to destroy it before their mission was accomplished. Had the higher ups known in time about the plane targeting the Pentagon, the same orders would have been given. I wonder if circumstances had been otherwise and those decisions were made and the orders carried out, what the public reaction would have been to the killing of hundreds of innocents on board the planes because of the mission of four or eight terrorists? So the logic that Bush and his administration had enough credible or actionable information prior to 9.11 to issue orders to shoot down and destroy any aircraft entering the newly determined "no fly zones" in the vicinities of the WTC, the Pentagon, and the White House but didn't is at best unreasonable.

And just what evidence of an imminent threat on September 11th did Bush have? Terrorists groups do not send engraved announcements alerting their enemies of a future time, date, place, and method of attack and signed "Sincerely yours, Osama/al Qaeda" prior to their attacks.

IMO, the operative word is assumption. Please enlighten us as to what facts before 9.11 you, Artemise, were privileged to that Bush and the highest levels of his administration did not have in order to reach the conclusion that the first plane was an act of terror? My guess is that you assumed after the first plane hit that it was an act of terror. If Presidents and their administrations at the highest levels and our Intelligence work on assumptions and not specificities, why then didn't President Clinton issue orders to retaliate with bombs after each one of the various attacks by terrorists groups prior to 9.11? Well, as former Secretary Albright said when asked the same question several times by the 9.11 commission...."We didn't have credible or actionable information to know who was responsible and to base a judgement on what actions to take." If you, Artemise, are advocating that any president and administration should act or react to events based on assumptions and not wait for factual information to back up their assumptions....now that is scary and IMO enough to "set one's hair on fire" as Richard Clarke so aptly described it.

Oh, yes, I can see the error of my logic clearly now. I was thinking we needed something concrete to act on, but it is obvious that what should have happened was the immediate arrest and interrogation of anyone even remotely associated with anything "suspicious". Yes, yes, this would obviously have been the proper response. I mean, why should we bother with little things like evidence, law, and due process when we have such specific information? Heck, lets just shut down the whole airline industry, too. Sure, that will throw our economy down the tubes, but, after all, we do have this PDB! Damn the facts (or lack thereof), it's better to do something rash than try and gather additional evidence.

Come on, people! I don't see where such rhetoric is doing anything positive...wouldn't it be better to try and see where the breakdowns really occurred, and what could be done to improve them in the future? I think one thing is certainly true--they will try again. I'd much rather constructively work on the problems than toss silly political banter back and forth until they strike again....

In the hopes of re-focusing the discussion away from finger-pointing and partisan politics, I'd like to reference former FBI Director Louis Freeh's editorial today in The Wall Street Journal (requires registration which is free). Mr Freeh will be testifying before the 9/11 commission tomorrow and this editorial gives us some insight on what he's going to say.



I believe what he is pointing out here was the same thing Dr. Rice stated in her testimony. We weren't on a war footing with Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. They were at war with us, but there was not the will in this country to declare war on them.

Later on, Mr Freeh writes......



I agree, and it wasn't just the will within the US, but with other nations as well. As Mr Freeh writes.....



I'm not "cherry-picking" here, I wish I could post the entire editorial because I think it really defines what the 9/11 commission should be doing. It is useless in my mind to merely point to the problems in the system pre-9/11, finger point and blame this administration or that and make a few cheap political points. It would be far more useful to determine where the failures were and they were systemic failures and then see if they have been corrected. If they haven't, then what is required to fix the problem. THAT is the best thing this commission could do.

As Dr. Rice stated in her testimony, we aren't going to win this war against terror by "shaking trees" and depending on luck and circumstance to thwart attacks. She referenced the actions by a Customs agent named Diana Dean in capturing a terrorist who planned to blow up LAX, the same action that was referenced in Richard Clarke's book. Today's Seattle Times has an article about what really happened there. It wasn't a case of some sort of "heightened alert" as Richard Clarke has implied, but rather a case of an alert customs agent who thought the terrorist was a drug smuggler. Good job by Ms Dean, but can we really count on this sort of circumstance to thwart futher attacks? I don't think so.

[quote=Aquilla,Apr 12 2004, 01:41 AM]This is an incredible statement for someone who posted here in this very forum back on 25 Jan 2003 the following...
[quote]In no way do I admire the Bush adminstration's precipitate and illegal conquest of Afghanistan. I believe history will view it as a heinous act of unfounded, criminal vengeance - at best.[/quote][/quote]
Um, there's a difference, believe it or not, between al-Qaeda and Afghanistan - just as there's a difference between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. As our administration lacks the political acumen to make such distinctions, though, it is unsurprising that their ignorance has trickled down to the population at large. I'm being a bit disingenuous, of course: the Bush administration's action in Afghanistan cannot be fully accounted for by ignorance - there was malice at work here as well.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

[quote=Desert Resident,Apr 12 2004, 05:03 AM]If nothing else, given what the White House did know, when the first plane hit the WTC why was the second tower not evacuated immediately?

Ah, so now Bush is to blame for not notifying New York authorities to evacuate the second tower.[/quote]
Absolutely.

[quote]If you are going to blame someone... why not the New York authorities?[/quote]
Because the New York authorities did not have intelligence which stated that terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture". The New York authorities didn't have intelligence stating that twenty-five terrorist pilots had been specifically training for suicide missions. The New York authorities didn't have intelligence which stated that there was an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9. The New York authorities didn't have intelligence which stated that there would be a September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. The New York authorities did not take a man into custody after the August 6 PDB who was a key member of bin Laden's network who had been taking flying lessons and who was in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals at the time of his arrest.

Washington authorities were in possession of all of the above. And their failure to share such intelligence with the New York authorities is, at the very best, criminal negligence.

And not only were he New York authorities not informed, the FAA was not informed. The August 6 PDB was not shared with Secretary of Transportation Norman Minetta. It was not shared with John Ashcroft in the Department of Justice. The FBI was not, as Dr. Rice claimed, "tasked" to do anything. And yet we are assured that this administration was at "battle stations"? You want to know what battle stations are, read Richard Clarke's book and see what the Clinton administration was doing in December of 1999. This administration was not at "battle stations" - it was on vacation.

[quote]Or are you suggesting that immediately after the first plane hit that Bush and our Intelligence knew it was an act of terror and sat by and waited for the second plane to hit before they pushed the panic button?[/quote]
That is exactly what I am suggesting, yes.

[quote]How many minutes lapsed between the first and second planes crashing into the towers?[/quote]
Eighteen. More than enough time to at least have commenced an orderly evacuation - possibly emptying the upper floors.

[quote]For weeks and months after 9.11, the media conducted interviews with various members of the administration/cabinet/Congress, mayors, governors, etc...and all said pretty much the same thing... when the first plane hit, they thought it was an accident due to a pilot error, or a plane out of control, or just a bad pilot.[/quote]
And for "Congress, mayors, governors, etc." that is perfectly understandable. But for the administration/cabinet, knowing what we know they knew, they were either chronically stupid or colossally incompetent - or they were inhumanly amoral, self-serving opportunists. Knowing what I know of Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz (now there's an axis of pure evil), the whole soulless Bush dynasty, and the degenerate neoconservative agenda, I lean hard toward the last.

[quote]And Wertz, with all that grandiose information you so aptly organized for our benefit and to make a point, I see nothing in it that would predict the events on September 11th. There are plenty of dots... all much easier to connect after 9.11 rather than before.[/quote]
"Terrorists are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons."

"There will be an attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9."

"An attack is planned on the World Trade Center in New York City in September 2001."

What the hell is there to connect?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

[quote=Amlord,Apr 12 2004, 08:44 AM]Wertz, I must have missed the links to the articles backing up your assertions... I am particularly interested in the German intelligence:[quote]In June 2001, for example, the German intelligence agency BND warned the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."[/quote][/quote]
Apologies, Amlord.

[quote]I found this assertion on various boards on the internet, none with source citing.  It was verbatim, so I was wondering if you had proof, or are you simply parroting the unfounded accusations of others? [/quote]
I have seen conservatives here complain that those on the left frequently level attacks suggesting that their opponents simply parrot talking points from Hannity or Limbaugh. I'm delighted to see that those on the right are not above such tactics. The "assertion" is a quote. Quotes should, by definition, be "verbatim". As you found the source yourself, you kinda knew that. As you noted, the source for the German intelligence report was the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from September 14, 2001. Though the next time you want to try this...
[quote]EDIT: Ah, I found it:[/quote]
...it might be a bit more convincing to wait more than fifteen minutes to create the semblance of having left the board, done the research, found and read the source, returned here to quote it, comment upon it, and post it. Nice try.

[quote]Of course, it admits there is no sure way to protect against it...  [/quote]
Again, if this report had appeared in a void, perhaps that would be true. This report, like the others I've cited (and the August 6 PDB), was part of the cumulative evidence proving a "gathering" threat - or, I guess, what Condi Rice would call "historical".

As this administration keeps saying, after September 11, everything changed. In terms of the Bush administration, that is certainly true. Over night they were suddenly aware of the months' worth of warnings they had sitting on their desks. Over night the "historical" evidence of what al-Qaeda had been planning for ages suddenly appeared before their eyes. Over night the Bush adminstration knew exactly who was responsible, how they had done it, and where they could be found. Everything changed all right. The Bush administration woke up - and instantly "knew" what they had known all along: it was bin Laden, this is where he is in Afghanistan, here are the people involved, these are their photographs, here's where they were staying, this is where they'd done flight training - and we have enough intelligence to detain another thousand suspects. Gee, if all this was at their fingertips, maybe they did have a clue...

And still did nothing.

Apologies again for failing to provide sources for everything in my first post here. Most of it was ganked from files and notes on my hard drive. I've been accumulating such "historical" evidence for many months now and, especially in late 2001, was not that careful about fully documenting stuff which I was keeping primarily for personal reference. You want documentation for any of the above, just ask. I can provide sources for everything I cited - though I'll need a bit more than fourteen minutes to find each.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

Again, perhaps the August 6 PDB of itself would not have prevented the September 11 attack. But it was part of a mounting body of evidence; evidence which indicated that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on US soil in September 2001 in New York City using planes as weapons and targeting the World Trade Center. President Bush and Dr. Rice may be claiming that the attack, on the basis of such evidence, could not have been prevented - and the press may be swallowing it (as well as quite a few people here). But people who have seen and heard a lot more evidence than we have think the attack could have been prevented: Bob Graham, Richard Shelby, Thomas Kean, Lee Hamilton, Robert Mueller, George Tenet, Richard Clarke (though he's a bit more circumspect) all think the attack could have been prevented. And, if absolutely nothing else, this administration certainly had enough evidence in hand to have saved half the lives lost in New York City on September 11, 2001. Their abject failure to anything is shameful.

Sorry, Aquilla, this situation demands finger-pointing.

I agree the document does not give anyone actionable information. The news now is saying the FBI is getting raked over the coals as they should. If they had been more concerned about the information that some agents had about Arabs taking flight training and told the FAA to instruct pilots NOT to allow a hijacker into the cockpit then not one of the planes would have been taken over. We must remember that pilots at this time were instructed by the FAA to cooperate with hijackers in order to safeguard the flight and passengers. And no doubt the hijackers knew this and used it against us.

You don’t find the irony in your own comments?

Arrest anyone who looks suspicious? Sounds like the Patriot act to me (now who came up with that little gem?).

And you would call the evidence we went to war over concrete? Let me pave your drive way next time. You’re spouting out one side of your mouth that we needed more information to act on terrorist threats (did you really over look the tile of that PDB), but conveniently fail to mention to went to war over intelligence that was flimsy at best.



I’ll explain the difference.

Did Clinton get a PDB entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States”? Not that I’m aware of. Bush and his staff ignored too many signs that something was going to happen. No? Then please explain why Ashcroft stopped flying commercial flights shortly after this PDB and prior to 9/11? He’s been asked multiple times and if you ever want to see the proverbial ‘Deer in the head lights’ then just watch his response to this question.

The difference here is Clinton and his staff was aware of the growing Al Queda threat and didn’t invade Iraq (maybe he knew there was no connection). It’s called foresight, something this current administration certainly lacks. Anyone with an ounce of Middle Eastern history knows you can’t just invade a country and setup a forced democracy.

I’m not paid to come up with ideas, that’s what our elected officials are supposed to do.

And since I’m a citizen of this country I’m allowed to point fingers and criticize what I feel is a multi level failure on how our Executive office has conducted itself in regards to 9/11 and the actions since.

The August 6 PDB is more than what the Bush Administration makes it out to be, and less than a lot of people would like it to be. It is not a call to action, nor is it a "historical" document. Like any other government document, it is written in cautious language, "Al Qaeda apparently maintains....could aid attacks", "haven't been able to corroborate", etc. But at the end, to me the key to the whole thing is this paragraph (2nd to last in the memo):



To me that ain't history; that's a wake-up call that hey, we'd better get busy investigating these "indications".

Maybe nothing could have prevented 9/11. No one can say for sure. But all the hijackers were in this country and many of them were on lists of known terrorists. A little effort may have been expended to track them down and detain them.

As for "what other questions could they [9/11 commission] ask", how about some of these from the 4 widows of 9/11 victims who formed the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission found here:

Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission

(and I finally figured out how to use the "quote" feature)

Good thing, too, since it doesn't appear you get much past the title of any article placed on your desk...



Exactly where does it state that this isn't exactly what happened? Unfortunately, such investigations take time, and in this case (and probably many others) required cohesion among various agencies. Also, the outcome of such investigation would have had to corroborate the various items Wertz states. Prior to 9-11, our system just wasn't set up to handle these types of activities in a timely manner. Interestingly, the ones criticizing the administration for its failure in the face of such systemic flaws are also the same crowd criticizing the actions the administration has taken to try and alleviate these flaws--which brings serious credibility issues to your arguments.

- Hobbes

Can you prove that it did? C'mon, unless you were a fly on the wall in that briefing, you weren't there to hear what was said, planned or decided, and neither was I. We are all American citizens, and as such, entitled to our beliefs. My belief happens to be that this administration had other priorities (Iraq) and tended to move anything that didn't pertain to that priority (Iraq) to the back burner.

I don't pretend to know what will eliminate terrorism. I am of the OPINION that it cannot ever be eliminated. Human nature and some cultures will always find someone/something to hate enough to resort to terrorist tactics to attack. It is also my OPINION that occupying a country who had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11 is not the way to go about protecting us from terrorism. Strengthening and protecting our borders at home and controlling immigration seems a lot saner to me, but then, of course, that's my OPINION.

You've lost me here. If it's not too off-topic, to which flaw-alleviating "actions" are you referring - and who is criticizing them?

As far as I can make out, our biggest "systemic flaw" was an administration which was paying no attention whatsoever to its advisors and was not tasking its intelligence forces to do anything at all.

Precisely. My wonderment comes from the arugement from the President that he did not! With all the information we now know he did have, how is it that he most jovially wrote it off as a bad pilot accident?

Part two is that it was the WTC, an important landmark, he had to know that people were now dying in a major 'accident' , that one of our largest buildings in the country now had a plane in it! But decided to go on with his plans to visit a classroom? That is either incompetance at its worst, or complete and total disregard for the country or both.

As President of the United States I would think that a Boeing crashing into a major landmark in one of our major cities would have demanded slightly more attention, and not falsely assuming it was an accident.
Several reasons for this logic..previous attacks on WTC, a PDB one month earlier, increased terror chatter if not simple common sense. I cant see how the President was not horrified and tuned into the troubles as millions across the nation were at the time.

What was that thought process? Wow, a big plane just hit the WTC, what a bad pilot, gee I bet alot of people are going to be panicked and dying, jumping out of windows etc., keep me informed guys , I think Ill go have a chat with these school kids....

Im not exactly sure what it points to, the least of all scenarios is bungling idiocy.

As Wertz said, the PDB did not exist in a vaccum, standing alone you cant make much out of it, however considering the admins lack of action even on Sept 11, how all our 'contingency' plans failed as well is just mind boggling.

I don’t see any way this PDB could have done anything but confirm what we knew going back to the Clinton Admin. We knew the that Bin Laden wanted to hit the US in the 90s did we not. We knew where he was exactly right. Tell me then why Bill settled for a few cruise missiles (that missed) as opposed to dropping in on the camp with a few hundred Special Forces? This would have ended Bin Laden and potentially the whole plan – which by the way was set up and organized under the Clinton Admin. To try to blame Bush for this is silly. The increased “chatter” had happened dozens of times before going back more than 10 years. There was no solid information on the nature of the threat or even where the threat was. Most threats were overseas as we saw in the 90s.

As far as the plane hitting if you check back you will notice that the first reports were “a small plane” has hit the WTC. Bush was already in that classroom when the news was updated and he left shortly after this.

Why? Let's see if I can explain it to you, Ted.

I read all of this somewhere, but I can't locate the cite right now. I'll try to add it later.

Information on where Osama & Co. was, (from satellite or predator photos) took something like 5 hours to get up the chain of command, and back to the White House. When the order was given to fire, it took the missles, traveling at over 500MPH another hour and a half to get to the targets. Even so, we missed by like 2 hours.

How much longer do you think it would take us to get actual troops into the area, in any number? How much time to get them geared up, get transportation ready to go? I daresay it would take at least an hour, maybe longer. How much longer to actually fly them in, put them into a drop zone close enough to get to the target on foot, without being spotted on the way down, and then trek into the camp?

Instead of missing bin Laden by 2 hours, we'd have missed him by 4 or 6.

And that's assuming that Republicans wouldn't have been screaming at the top of their lungs at precipitating an "unwarranted incursion" into a sovereign country, in an effort to distract the public over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Oh, wait, that happened anyway, just by firing those missles (that missed).

First of all you would have thought with Bill so aware of the Bin Laden threat (ha ha) that there would have been troops closer. Also the data by that year could have been moved up to Bill a lot faster than 5 hours. Also I did not mean to suggest they had to drop on him that day – but clearly even our gutted CIA and other intel might have located him again later. The reality is that if we had really wanted Bin laden befor 9/11 we could have had him.

The issue of poor intel from the CIA leads right straight back to “it’s the economy stupid” Bill Clinton.



See this article:
Wednesday , Sept. 19, 2001 10:52 a.m. EDT
Clinton Blames CIA for Implementing His Own Spy Restrictions
In an interview with NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw on Tuesday, ex-President Clinton tried to dodge blame for restrictions on spy recruitment implemented during his administration, suggesting that the rule change was the CIA's decision alone

Just hours after last Tuesday's terrorist attacks, a former CIA official who was once stationed in the Mideast told NewsMax.com's Executive Editor Christopher Ruddy that the Clinton administration order decimated the CIA's ability to gather human intelligence.
"[Clinton CIA Director John] Deutch and [top aide] Nora [Slatkin], Clinton's anti-intelligence plants, implemented a universal 'human rights scrub' of all assets, virtually shutting down operations for 6 months to a year," the CIA source said.
"After that, each asset had to be certified as being 'clean for human rights violations.'
"What this did was to put off limits, in effect, terrorists, criminals, and anyone else who would have info on these kinds of people."
Read the report that blew the lid off the Clinton spy recruitment scandal: "CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong – Clinton to Blame"


http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.sht...2001/9/19/95530

So where would these troops have been stationed? Remember, pre-9/11, we didn't even have fly-over rights in Pakistan or Iran or many of the other nations that border Afghanistan. Where would these troops have come from?

You should ask yourself: "Where did they come from during the actual invasion of Afghanistan?" How about Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and... Missouri! Not so nearby that we'd get there very quickly. Diplomatically, Clinton didn't get the job done with Pakistan or other neighbors in order to do a better job of targeting Afghanistan. Pakistan changed their tune after the "you're either with us or agin' us" rhetoric from Bush.

How about Europe? I am not trying to say they had to get BL that day. His extensive camps and the terrorists in them had been known about for many years. If we had not gutted the CIA and instituted the rule change I document above we might have even had a man in one of the camps.

Bottom line is that if we wanted this man and his organization it was painfully obvious where they were. We could have dropped Special Forces unit on those camps and wiped them out. The political will to do that was not present – In Congress or the White House.

I don't hold any Administration responsible for September 11. It is the terrorists who carried out the act - they are morally and legally culpable. When we evaluate the counter-terrorism efforts of our governments, we often lose sight of the fact that terrorists have the upper hand in the sense that they only have to succeed once to inflict devastating harm, whereas our governments are trying to foil every single terrorist plot. In the long term, the odds are in favour of the terrorists slipping an attack past the net. It is in the nature of counter-terrorism, which involves a considerable amount of necessary secrecy, that the many successes are not publicised, or are not even measurable. If a catastrophic event does NOT happen, it is often impossible to know whether it was because of the strength of your defences or because the event wasn't going to happen anyway. It's only when a catastrophic event does happen that everyone knows about it and analyses it in great detail.

Counter-terrorist agencies usually miss out on the credit that they deserve, whereas their failures, if you can call them that, invite relentless publicity. Counter-terrorist agencies need to be given a fair shake. We can learn from tragedies and improve our procedures and infrastructure based on those lessons, but hindsight is the easiest sight of all. Our criticism of counter-terrorist agencies needs to be of the constructive, not the emotional sort, and it needs to be tempered by appropriate recognition of the achievements of these agencies.

Are you sure about that? Because we really have wanted him for the past 3 years and we haven't so much as a clue to where he even is right now. He very well might not even be in Afghanistan anymore for all we know. We even had a pretty good idea where he was in 2001 and still missed him.

Therefore, your aguement basically amounts to partisan rhetoric.

Yes, and if Bush & Co. hadn't been sleeping at the switch in August 2001, maybe September 2001 might have been different.

You provide suppositions and what-ifs (same as my tongue-in-cheek one above). Not a basis for a real debate. Better for talk radio.

Brilliant post Nick.

Although there will always be those who will use the tragedy of 9/11 to politically harm their president of choice, whether they blame it on Bush or Clinton(Edit: Ted and AMF's response just gave us perfect examples just above this post )

Sometimes I wonder just how many serious threats have been thwarted because of our counter-terrorism. Talk about unsung heros.

Well I think the “Commission” will verify that the lack of Intel was a major reason for the failure. Sure the communication between departments could have been better but lets remember it was illegal for the law enforcement FBI people to pass information to the CIA!

I believe it’s time to move on and not throw stones but it really fries me when I hear liberals trying (in vain) to lay the blame for 9/11 on the Bush Administration. It is simple not that simple.

Or perhaps, Ted, it is.

I think there is one major difference between the Bush administration and the Clinton administration: terrorism was a top priority in the Clinton White House - and al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were very much on his radar screen.

According to Barton Gellman in the Washington Post (December 19-20, 2001), the Clinton administration was responsible for preventing twenty terrorist attacks on US soil (that we know of) and "left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him". Clinton put Richard Clarke in charge of devising a strategy specifically to address bin Laden and al-Qaeda and was acutely aware of his activities. Just before he left office, Robert Oakley, who had held Clarke's position in Reagan's White House, criticized Clinton for his "obsession with Osama" - though *ahem* Paul Bremer believed that he had "correctly focused on bin Laden." When Clinton left office, his National Security advisor briefed Condoleezza Rice over the course of ten meetings, telling her "You're going to spend more time during your four years on terrorism generally, and al-Qaeda specifically, than any other issue."

If Bill Clinton had got what we now know was a series of briefs over the spring and summer of 2001 indicating a "real threat" by bin Laden, culminating in the August 6 PDB, you can safely assume that his White House would have been at battle stations. Indeed, alarm bells would have been going off since the first such brief in April, 2001. As he did in December of 1999, he would have been meeting daily with his principals, including his counter-terror czar, he would have been briefing his entire Cabinet and alerting all pertinent authorities, and all of his intelligence chiefs would have been getting face time.

In the Bush White House, there was simply not this focus on terrorism - or on bin Laden - or on al-Qaeda - for one main reason: there was no money in it. It was far more important for the Bush White House to throw money at its defense industry cronies on the supremely pointless and astronomically costly missile defense shield. The real threat to our country simply had to take a back seat to profiteering.

There is, of course, no way of knowing whether Clinton - or Gore - would have prevented the September 11 attack, as their administration had done on so many previous occasions. But I can tell you one thing for sure: If President Clinton or President-elect Gore had got that PDB on the morning of August 6, they would not have spent the afternoon fishing in Crawford.


Sources for the above are cited here.

I guess I don’t get it. He was “on his radar screen” and yet he did little after he knew where OBL was based to take the bases out. Clark said that they passed over to Bush Al Queada as a major priority of national security and yet the document does not show this. In fact in the whole lengthy report OBL is only mentioned 5 times and nowhere is it a top priority.

Louie Freeh had a key anti terrorist agent, John O’Neil, that was ignored by Freeh. This man fingered OBL and his organization for the Clinton Administration. O’Neil outlined his suspicions that the Saudis were involved. Freeh and the Clinto folks didn’t believe it or want to hear it. O’Neil was demoted and eventually left the FBI.


I don’t believe OBL was a high priority for Clinton.

It has been adressed somewhere that at the time we had nowhere to base an attack of this sort from. I believe someone outlined several technical problems before 911 that made operations in Afghanistan more than dificult and time consuming. Yet Bin Laden was being watched closely by:

John O'Neil. Oneil was ostrasized by the FBI. I dont think he ever had contact with Clinton himself but he was a confidant to Janet Reno. However Oneil was having so many problems with superiors in the FBI and with the ambassador to Yemen after the attack on the USS Cole that his hands became tied. I see this as and FBI internal problem having little to do with Clinton.

There is a big difference, in the midst of a mounting crises situation, between daily cabinet meetings on terrorism (Clinton) and supposing the FBI was doing their job and taking a vacation.(Bush

You lost me. How could Clinton, Cabinet Meeting or not, keep an eye on BL while the FBI had disregarded the man who knew the most about him? What was the CIA doing? How about the field agents?

The fact is there were none and despite the “claims” that it was “a priority” what is coming out at the hearings is that it was not because it was not funded. After the terrorist hits in the early to mid 90s it was recommended that we pursue the terrorists. Like all efforts you need to devote the manpower. The FBI ands CIA were asked for their manpower needs and those needs were NOT met. I believe the FBI asked for 1700 men and got 120 and the CIA asked for over 100 and got 12.

Talk is cheap. You must devote the resources if you want to accomplish anything.

FrontPageMag did an article on the Clinton Administration's "National Security Strategy for a Global Age" from December 2000. See No Bin Laden, Hear No Bin Laden




What's funny about this statement is that Clinton did little to nothing to change the situation. No attempt at opening relationships with Pakistan (which, according to Clarke, was an immediate goal of the Bush White House). Granted there were legitimate issues with the Pakistani government, but little was done to bridge the gap between the US and Pakistan. The focus seemed to be on the conflict between India and Pakistan, but even in that case, the US President was pretty feeble in his attempts to ease tensions.

Clinton never put Afghanistan on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Granted, Clinton authorized a few missile strikes on Afghanistan, but never "upped the ante" so to speak. He froze some Taliban assets, but did not authorize major military action. He authorized CIA teams to train Pakistani teams to take out bin Laden, but never authorized US agents to do the same.

In short, he did everything half-heartedly. It isn't that he did nothing, it is that he never saw it through to completion.

How Clinton Shielded Afghanistan


An interesting quote from Colin Powell in that article:


In a letter in the Wall Street Journal in August 1998 (just after Clinton bombed "terrorist camps" in Aghanistan) Mark Helprin said:

Although not questioning the need to stop the terrorists, people were questioning at the time why Clinton did not strike harder and rid the world of this menace. This was 1998, at a time when something real could have been done. The opportunity was there, Clinton refused to take it, just as he had refused to take bin Laden when the Sudan offered him to the US.