Capturing bin Laden: priority before 9/11? (* Admin no urgency)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4556388/

When the 9/11 commission holds public hearings next week, its central focus will be the choices that U.S. presidents made in fighting terrorism before 9/11. Just how committed to taking on al-Qaida was the Bush administration before Sept. 11? Some critics, including one former counter-terrorism insider, now say there was a surprising lack of urgency.

Shortly after taking office, President George W. Bush ordered a new, more muscular policy to eliminate al-Qaida. Helping draft that policy: Roger Cressey, a terrorism expert in both Democratic and Republican administrations and now an NBC News analyst.

Now Cressey is speaking out for the first time. He says in the early days of the Bush administration, al-Qaida simply was not a top priority, “There was not this sense of urgency. The ticking clock, if you will, to get it done sooner rather than later.”

Cressey and other witnesses have told the 9/11 commission of long gaps between terrorism meetings and greater time and energy devoted to Russia, China, missile defense and Iraq than al-Qaida.

[specter]

1. They

already have him somewhere put away until the election. Thats their trump card along with the planted WMDs in iraq.

[DarkPhenyx]

2. Not to say that I don't put it past them but...

...if we really had OBL al'Queda would be tearing us apart, blowing up every damn thing they could, until we let him go. Guarenteed something would have been released to al'Jezerra about it.

[Disturbed]

3. No way.

Osama is long gone. In Indonesia most likely.

[DarkPhenyx]

5. Entirely possible.

If he is still in the Afgan/Paki region then he has more exits than a rabbit warren. Unless he gets sold out by someone very close to him any capture of OBL is going to be pure dumb luck.

[salin]

4. Your description

makes sense to me.

Not to mention that on the admin side - the advantage of a "big boost" much later at the expense of a much longer than expected decline in public opinion towards bush isn't much.

Consider:

The boost after the capture of Saddam was short in height (only a slight boost) and exceptionally short in duration. Thus an OBL boost alone, due to all of the other problems (both domestic economics and the ongoing problems in Iraq), would probably be a bit larger in magnitude and duration but is probably no longer viewed as "the" factor that will = bush win.

That since 9-11 until Jan lf 2004 the bush political team has not had a period in which they couldn't turn around/spin a free-fall (period where news makes bush look bad and where resulting favorability polls decline) with in a week or so. Now consider that since early January the bushteam has been in such a freefall:

First, hand-picked Kay reports... no wmds - and likely there were no wmds since 1999 (not the earlier line still repeated by some in the admin that "they must have been moved"); then the State of the Union is scheduled the day after the Iowa primary with the intention of dewinding the press coverage and momentum of the primary winner and instead giving free, positive press to bush.

But his speech tanked, the newshounds were done talking about it and him within a couple of hours, and the Kerry and Edwards momentum overtaking Dean and Gephardt was such a compelling story that it built momentum despite the SOTU.

Then prolonged economic news, war coverage and increasing questions, and coverage of the Dem primaries (which meant criticism of bush), and the coverage of the questions around Bush's TANG service leads to a stagnation of lowered polling for bush - so they put him on Meet the Press. For a president who generally only does scripted appearances and has held very few press conferences, this decision was huge anomoly (i.e., indicating the realization that his lowered polling was becoming persistant not an anomolous dip.) The interview was a dud. Now bush had been stagnant for nearly a month.

Things haven't gotten better. The longer he polls low - the longer it is repeated - the longer it is a lasting impression within the public psyche (esp important when thinking about 'swing voters') - that bush is somewhat ineffective (in the area of focus of the day - be it jobs, be it deficits, be it another round of attacks in Iraq, be it more news about faux intelligence, be it stalling before being available to talk to the 9-11 Commission, etc.), is vulnerable in his re-election, and risks that changing public attitude (which by nature has oscilating dips and peaks) falls to an even lower stability point (around with the dips and peaks fall.)

In short - a longer term prolonged period of negative stories and perceptions about bush - with resulting ongoing lower numbers - does damage to his candidacy and chances of re-election. A last minute boost by a well-timed OBL capture, if bush is already further slipping in public perception, become less and less likely to overcome the negatives and tip the election. Would do more good for them to try to turn the public perception slide (towards broader and broader groups viewing bush negatively) around now.

[UpInArms]

6. fact: *Co called off the bin Laden hunt

http://www.rememberjohn.com/

In August 2001, FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill resigned from his post over George W. Bush's policy on terrorism and Osama bin Laden. Specifically, O'Neill's department was told to "back off" their bin Laden and Al Queda investigations while the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban. O'Neill became the security chief of the World Trade Center - where he died during the events of 9/11.

60 Minutes reports FBI unit deliberately slowed down the translation of information from terrorism suspects before 9/11 in order to create a backlog of work and show that the bureau needed more funding. This was after John Ashcroft cut the FBI anti-terrorism budget by $58 million and Bush made budget cuts across the board!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/main526954.shtml

http://www.msnbc.com/news/754120.asp?cp1=1

link no longer working - go here instead

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:70zKsyvnMjwJ:www.msnbc.com/news/754120.asp+anti-terrorism+budget+by+%2458+million&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8734-2002Jan19

(edited to add cached link)

[struggle4progress]

7. We got him. Wait. No we don't ...

but it's our top priority. Wait. No it isn't ...