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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe August 6 PDB wasn't the first warning Bush received...
From the New York Times:
On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That mornings presidential daily brief the top-secret document prepared by Americas intelligence agencies featured the now-infamous heading: Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.
On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief and only that daily brief in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the documents significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaedas history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.
That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administrations reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.
The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that a group presently in the United States was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be imminent, although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
Read the rest here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=2&src=twr
pkdu
(3,977 posts)1. Was the 9-11 commission given this info!
2. If so , what ask ?
3. What were the answers ?
pscot
(21,024 posts)This is political dynamite. People get taken out and shot for this kind of dereliction.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)So that is why the head of the CIA, Tenet, was later given a medal.
He was rewarded for keeping his mouth shut and not telling America that what happened was, up until it happened, being actively denied by the Bush Administration.
So they all just sat back and let whatever happened, happen?
Or MIHOP
Iwasthere
(3,169 posts)Simple as that. This is why the warnings were all ignored. I've known that all along but get little support
jimlup
(7,968 posts)and still feel it may have been true for certain members of the Administration. Probably only spoken about in memos and stuff that will remain classified for the next 50 years at least.
But perhaps they were just so ignorant as to be stuck in the fantasy that they were still fighting the cold war and getting ready to attack Iraq. It is possible that the "asleep at the wheel" explanation is correct though both yours and this fit the available evidence.
Intentional ignorance (LIHOP "Let It Happen On Purpose" is of course HIGHEST TREASON so it would be extraordinarily hard to prove.
StatGirl
(518 posts)Shortly after he was installed, Bush started saying that his tax cut plan would not create a deficit except in the case of war or recession.
I remember being furious at that, because he had specifically denied that his tax cuts would cause any deficits during the 2000 campaign.
Some months later, and I don't remember exactly when, he started saying that his tax cuts would not create a deficit except in the case of war, recession, or national emergency.
I remember asking myself, what kind of national emergency would flip us into a deficit? We're a pretty big country, able to absorb floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. without bringing the whole nation down.
On the afternoon of September 11, I said to myself (and e-mailed others; I have a record of it) "Oh, this was the national emergency he was referring to."
MIHOP? No proof, and I don't go that far. LIHOP? Absolutely, although they may not have realized the damage would be that great.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)It makes it very hard to not look for a conspiracy when you read the PNAC.
wakemewhenitsover
(1,595 posts)CBHagman
(16,987 posts)...and that the Bush team was so intent on doing things their way that they lost ground. And I remember there was a headline in the September 11th, 2001, New York Times or Washington Post -- I think it was the Times -- about the administration's planned cuts to counterterrorism programs.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)It was written by our William Rivers Pitt and it is one of THE best articles about the Clinton's administration actions and warnings.
The Sins of September 11
http://archive.truthout.org/article/william-rivers-pitt-the-sins-september-11
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Why is a "history lesson" popping up in the PDB at all? To support an ongoing discussion.
The Bush focus on Saddam Hussein led to this blindness to the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Great article from the Times.
gateley
(62,683 posts)You nailed it.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)... LIHOP ... ghh!
grasswire
(50,130 posts)"the administrations reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed."
Absolutely sickening that it has taken this long to reveal that.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=3&src=twr
They did not just posit a conspiracy theory as a possibility. They embraced it as a truth.
They cannot tell truth from fiction. They cannot tell truth from a lie. They cannot tell a certain truth from a theory.
And that is why they cannot understand so many things -- like what the scientific method is really about -- like how to weigh risks against gains.
The flaws in their thinking processes render them incapable of leading the country in a direction that is safe and prosperous. Bush is just one example of this.
Republicans -- return to the thinking of the Neanderthals.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)they live in an alternate universe.
aaaaaa5a
(4,667 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)A 'reasonable' person would've taken the briefing seriously and taken more steps to beef up security. Al Gore said in his years as VP that if there was a briefing as strongly worded as that one was, everything else that day/week/month would've taken a back seat. Because Bush didn't act as a 'reasonable' person would (remember, a 'reasonable' person is not 'any' person, but in the 75th percentile with regards to common sense/intelligence) he is guilty of negligence.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I guess the corporations of the mainstream media didn't think we'd ever hear about that CIA report.
just1voice
(1,362 posts)"After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Rowley wrote a paper for FBI Director Robert Mueller documenting how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C., had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui had been suspected of being involved in preparations for a suicide-hijacking similar to the December 1994 "Eiffel Tower" hijacking of Air France 8969. Failures identified by Rowley may have left the U.S. vulnerable to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Rowley was one of many agents frustrated by the events that led up to the attacks, writing:
During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the preSeptember 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?--Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case?"