This is why questioning Bush's 'leadership' on 9/11 might be fruitless.

[indie_voter]

Thoughts from some soccer moms:

http://www.yaaps.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=4&topic_id=5238&mesg_id=5291&page=

[xxqqqzme]

1. ok - I'm looking @

different pages - what the hell is Yaaps? I have been 2 Yap but I seriously doubt this has anything 2 do w/ that beautiful place.

[fearnobush]

2. ?

My good friend would think other wise as he cries over his brother's grave.

[rucky]

3. did you read the whole thread?

there's plenty to criticize Bush on. If leadership doesn't stick, dodging the 9/11 commission will... or just lay out the whole timeline & let people's imaginations run wild.

We don't need to get anybody to believe LIHOP or anything like that, just to "question W" - and there seems to be a whole lot of questioning on that soccer mom thread. pretty encouraging, imo

[indie_voter]

4. Yes. However, you're right. The majority are speaking out

I was focusing on the tree instead of the forest.

My bad!!

Seriously, thank you, I needed to be reminded one foolish refusal to accept reality doesn't mean the whole country is doomed.

I feel like I am on a rollercoaster ride sometimes, one minute high and confident, the next depressed and disgusted.

I better cool it, 8 more months to go. LOL!

[seabeyond]

5. ye of little faith

just so you can feel a tad better. see how this thread has developed. this is the last post i have seen on it


I'll quote your words because I paraphrased in my title: "9/11 was unprecedented and *no one* knew what was going on, what was happening and what it was about. It's not like Bush could have slapped his forehead and said "OH! It's 9/11! **That** 9/11. The 9/11 that will kill 4000 people and change our lives forever"."

I seriously doubt that no-one knew what was going on. Even the CIA director, upon hearing that WTC North had been hit mused that we were under "attack". So there is ONE person who slapped his head and knew.

Let's pretend I'm president Bush.

<i>In 1999, Britain's intelligence agency, M16, warned the U.S. in a classified report that al Qaeda was planning to use airplanes in an unconventional manner to attack U.S. interests. No targets were specified. The Sunday Times quoted a British senior Foreign Office source saying, "The Americans knew of plans to use commercial aircraft in unconventional ways, possibly as flying bombs." </i>

Ok, so that was a very early warning. That alone would not have made me slap my head in 1999. Sept 11, 2001, I would be very concerned at 8:43 when I've been told THREE planes have been hijacked and at 8:46 when WTC North was hit, I'd be remembering this tidbit.

<i>In June 2001, Fox News reported that Pakistanis were taken into custody June 4 in the Cayman Islands after they were overheard discussing hijacking attacks in New York City; they were questioned and released, and the information was forwarded to U.S. intelligence. </i>

Ok, still not slapping my head but now I'm suspicious.

<i>On June 6, 2001 the German intelligence agency, the BND, warned both 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. This intelligence reportedly came from Echelon, a high-tech electronic surveillance system used by the intelligence agencies of several nations to glean through electronic communications for certain keywords. It was first reported by the German daily newspaper, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on September 13. Its sources were reportedly from the BND itself. </i>

Ok, they didn't tell me that the WTC and Pentagon were targeted, but with the previous two warnings, shouldn't some bells be going off at 8:43 on 9-11?

<i>Summer 2001 According to John Cooley, author of the book, Unholy Wars: America, Afghanistan, and International Terrorism, Jordan's GID intercepted key intelligence indicating that a terrorist operation, code-named "Al Ourush al Kabir" or "The Big Wedding" was being planned for within the U.S. and would involve aircraft. Cooley confirmed the validity of this warning. That Washington did actually receive this warning was given further credence when on July 10 2002, in a New York Times article regarding Jordanian and U.S. military cooperation, Eric Schmitt wrote: "The United States and Jordan have also carried out intelligence cooperation for many years." </i>

Ok, so now I know what is happening in NYC, I have slapped my head, but unfortunately it is buried in the sand. Instead of dealing with the disaster at hand, I go read stories cause I don't have my Daddy to talk to and tell me what to do.

<i>August 2001, Britain warned the US of an imminent attack by al-Qaeda. The previous British warning was reportedly vague with regards to method, but this warning apparently specified multiple airplane hijackings. The Sunday Herald reported, "Britain gave President Bush a categorical warning to expect multiple airline hijackings by the al-Qaeda network." This warning was included in Bush's August 6 intelligence briefing. (see Pre9/11 U.S. intelligence)

August 2001, according to reports published in November 2001 by the French magazine, Maximale, and a Moroccan newspaper, al Ittihad al-Ichtiraki, Morocco's royal intelligence informed Washington that one of its agents, Hassan Dabou, who had penetrated al Qaeda, learned that bin Laden's organization was preparing "large operations in New York in the summer or autumn of 2001." The agent, who later went to the U.S. to help its intelligence agencies, also informed Moroccan intelligence that bin Laden was "very disappointed" with the first WTC bombing which failed to bring the two towers down. But when Dabou was called to the US to report this information directly, he became "isolated from the Al-Qaeda organization, which harmed the prevention of the Sept. 11 attacks," an unnamed French intelligence officer told the AFP. The CIA would neither conform nor deny the report.

2nd week of August 2001, two high ranking Mossad agents came to Washington and warned the FBI and CIA that between 50 and 200 terrorists had slipped into the US and were planning "large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland" and that the threat was imminent. They warned that Americans would be "very vulnerable." They also contended that the bin Laden, with possible Iraqi help, was behind the planned attacks. The Los Angeles Times later retracts the story after a CIA spokesman says, "There was no such warning. Allegations that there was are complete and utter nonsense."

On Sept. 15, 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on MSNBC that he had ordered Russian intelligence to warn the US Government in the strongest "possible terms" of imminent assaults on airports and government buildings (this would have happened two week prior to 9-11). A report in the Russian Izveztia on September 12 similarly reported that Russian intelligence had warned the U.S. of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil several times.

Walid Arkeh, a Jordanian man who was serving time in a prison in Seminole county, Florida, warned the FBI that "terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was planning a spectacular attack on America that involved the World Trade Center in New York and government buildings in Washington, D.C." He had learned of the attacks while in a British jail a few months earlier, from three inmates he had befriended whom he identified as Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdel Bary and Ibrahim Eidarous. All three had been indicted as co-conspirators with bin Laden in the US embassy bombings in 1998. After listening to his warning, one FBI agent reportedly said, "Is that all you have? That's old news." Agents showed no further interest in him until after 9/11. The Florida FBI office claimed that they had checked his background after the initial interview and had determined that he was not credible.

On August 13, 2001, the Associated Press reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had warned the U.S. that "something would happen" 12 days before the terrorist attacks. . And in an interview with the New York Times, the Egyptian president said that his country had warned Washington "Osama bin Laden's network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target." He further explained that this intelligence had been acquired "using a secret agent they had recruited who was in close contact with the bin Laden organization." Mr. Mubarak's "intelligence chiefs tried unsuccessfully to halt the operation," he added. US intelligence denied that they had received this information soon before the attacks and instead alleged that the only warnings that had been given to them from Egypt occurred between March and May of 2001.

A 29-year old Iranian man, Ali S., made several attempts to warn U.S. authorities of imminent terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center, reported both the German News Agency (DPA) and the Associated Press. He said that the attacks would occur during the week of Sept. 9. The man, who was awaiting deportation in Langenhagen prison in northern Germany, presumably attempted to warn U.S. authorities of the attacks on at least 14 different occasions. </i>

Go ahead, check the sources, the information is out there. There were many many many more warnings, but either the CIA or FBI or White House Poohpooh'd them and ignored them, so it is difficult to say that they might have induced some head-slapping.

As a US, uninformed citizen I can say, Hey, I had NO IDEA that this could have happened. As an informed, US president I have NO EXCUSE that I couldn't have put 2 and 2 together, slapped my head, heeded all the very specific previous warning and AVERTED the disaster. If I couldn't have averted the disaster, I certainly could have put 2 and 2 together on 9-11 at 8:43 and said, "Ok, here's what we're going to do" and make myself COMPLETELY and TOTALLY available to everyone to make decision, shoot down commercial aircraft and save the Pentagon (at the very least). Instead - and this is WHY the outrage at the school visit - INSTEAD of dealing with the crisis, he takes himself out of communication with any advisors or department heads, makes no decision, gets no further information and puts his head squarely in the sand. The outrage over those 20 minutes (and let's be honest; he knew at 8:43 and left the school at 9 0) is that he could have saved at the very least, the Pentagon. At the very least. THAT is the outrage.