What Did Bush Know?

[SoDesuKa]

I'm still trying to figure out what the White House is admitting about September 11th. Was Bush caught entirely flat-footed? Did he have any inkling of what was about to happen?

As I recall, the administration claimed they got only "vague, general" warnings and that "nobody could have connected the dots." Then as the 9/11 Commission hearings progressed, the White House admitted more knowledge, but not enough to have prevented the attacks.

I don't know where things stand now. In terms of the official line regarding September 11th, what did Bush know, and when did he find it out?

[yardwork]

1. The 9/11 Commission Report is out in paperback

I plan to read it. Although I think it is an incomplete account of what happened, it will be a good place to start.

Another good book is Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies. It was released last spring, so it is a little out of date, but it's mostly an account of what happened leading up to 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Clarke has some eye-opening information about what BushCo was told.

[shockingelk]

2. my take

I thought they were just incompetent until I read over the 9/11 Commission report and reread Rice's public testimony.

They had good indications of plans for traditional hijackings (FAA sent out warnings) and somewhat specific intelligence on on car bombings (Aug 6 PDB - Condi testified that it was a question of "which" courthouse).

I think it's reasonable to believe they were expecting an attack, and thought that's what they needed to rally the nation to war, but nowhere near the scale of the attack they got.

It's kinda the only way things make sense.

[jeff30997]

3. So it's LIHOP but they were surprised of...

The scale of it?

[shockingelk]

5. Basically, yes

They were clearly lying about the content of the Aug 6 PDB. When Ben-Viniste was questioning Condi, she said it was "historical" in nature, but she also said:

And we checked on the issue of whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings, and we were told, I believe, that the issue was the courthouse in which this might take place.

The 9/11 Commission report says (p 264),

Prior to 9/11, the FAA did present a CD-ROM to air carriers and airport authorities describing the increased threat to civil aviation.The presentation mentioned the possibility of suicide hijackings but said that “fortunately,we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction.”

There are other things, but reading those two short parts convinced me that they must have been standing down in some manner.

I don't think they would have been OK with the World Trade Center towers going down - they are too business friendly to not prevent such a devastating attack, and a give and take evaluation of getting the country behind a war they thought needed to be fought may sound a reasonable calculation if it was a hijacking hostage crisis or a bombing of a courthouse perhaps killing a few people.

But I don't think they would have stood down to something as huge as what happened on 9/11 - aside from the sheer number of lives, they would have at least been prepared to shoot down the plane that hit the Pentagon.

[shockingelk]

6. also,

Condi again,

It had a number of discussions of -- it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States -- Ressam. It reported that the FBI had full field investigations under way.

[Tight_rope]

7. IMO Bush was behind 9/11. Yes I said it...he did it!

[Skittles]

4. he didn't know a f***ing thing

he's a puppet

[shraby]

8. Read the latest Plame thread #15

there is a lot to think about in it.