White House releases bin Laden memo

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
White House releases bin Laden memo
78
Sat, 04-10-2004 - 7:46pm

Presidential briefing was at center of Rice's testimony.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/bush.briefing/index.html


The White House declassified and released Saturday the daily intelligence briefing delivered to President Bush a month before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.


Portions of the intelligence report dealing with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and dated August 6, 2001, have been redacted for national security reasons, the White House said.


The memo, titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States," had been described by the White House as a largely historical document with scant information about domestic al Qaeda threats.


The memo includes intelligence on al Qaeda threats as recent as three months before the attacks.


More.......... http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/bush.briefing/index.html


Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/index.html


The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.


Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."


After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.


An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.


The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.


Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.


Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.


Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.


Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.


A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.


We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.


Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.


The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.


PDF file of transcript. You can see the areas deleted. It appears very sketchy, as if pages are missing, JIMO.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 04-12-2004 - 8:47pm
It appears that there were enough clues, scattered though they were, that had they been pieced together, it would have been possible to see the 9/11 attacks coming. There were 19 suicide hijackers and their supporting cells. That's not a huge number to track. Are you saying that it would have been impossible to ramp up airport and airline security? I traveled to Greece with my husband right after TWA flight 800 blew up. Security at that point had undergone one of its periodic tightening phases and they wouldn't even let non-passengers enter the airport terminal--the TERMINAL at JFK. They might have caught the box cutters--in Athens they certainly grilled me for my fold up comb! Something similar could have been tried. It might not have worked but at least the effort would have been there.

It's the responsibility of those in power to justify their presence in the positions they occupy. Saying something is not substantive is NOT an adequate justification to let them off the hook. Because a threat may not have all the specifics of an invitation to a social event is not reason to disregard that something ominous may be in the works. Where's the curiosity, the concern, the challenge to dig more deeply?

I didn't fault the Bush administration at the time of the attacks. I remember feeling appalled right after the attacks that Bush's whereabouts were being questioned as though some members of the press corps thought he was derelict in some aspect of his duty. But what has happened since those days have lead to major concerns about the way this administration uses intelligence and how it is ignored, focused on, manipulated, omitted or ooomphed up--depending on the desired outcome.

When I referred to Iraq, I was not addressing my statements at the ongoing military operations. I was referring to our reasons for going in at all(yellow cake, Iraq/Al Qaeda link, WMD, "grave and growing threat" etc). I wonder if there is an overall mission for our military in Iraq. Saddam is gone, there are no WMD to be found and the dang Iraqis keep blasting away with RPG's and improvised road bombs and whatever other munitions they can get their hands on, at their "saviors" (US) as we try to win "hearts and minds". And we're still there. The foes in Iraq change from terrorists to remnants of Saddam's regime to foreign fighters to religious (and outlawed)extremists. Somehow it keeps getting closer and closer to the average Iraqi. So one wonders--what's the mission, how will we know when we've accomplished it and what's the exit strategy? It keeps changing.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 10:50am
>> After reading this memo, I can honestly say that I don't understand why they weren't more proactive. That would have sent my 'red flags' flying.

You must remember that you are reading this briefing with the knowledge of what happened.

If it were possible to declassify all of the PDB's going back to say 1990, I would imagine that a good portion of them contained information such as this one, where there is intelligence but no fact or substance to point people in the right direction.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 11:12am
Also, if the administration HAD done something like they are suggesting that they "should have done" BEFORE 9-11 the left would have had a fit! They're whining NOW (after 3000 of our people have been murdered on our own soil) about our responses, how much worse would it have been if we had reacted to a memo with only a tantilizing title and no real threats?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 11:19am
I do understand that.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 1:40pm
Thanks to the internet, you and I and a host of others have access to information in a timely way over an almost unlimited array of subjects. But it's all derivative--somebody else got the material and posted it. We can't control or put much pressure on those somebodies to get more information. We have very limited resources to put into primary research/information gathering (though I'm considering studying the effects of a variety of household chemicals on the lemon balm that's invading my herb garden!).



The lack of primary research and information is not a problem for some of the individuals in power in our government. Certainly the President has power. His VP sees to that ;-). Apparently Bush ASKED for this brief. I wonder about the details of that--when, why, who, etc. And he gets this brief, it gives him a background and makes some rather alarming statements about what's currently going on--and then he drops it!

Yes, I know about hindsight. But in light of what's happened since then (the war on Iraq), I wonder if he was looking for something to indicate a link to Iraq. After all, he and many of his cabinet seemed to have a fixation on SH and Iraq. As I recall, the PDB didn't mention Iraq at all. I have a nasty, suspicious nature, will freely admit I don't like Bush (though I was no fan of Clinton either), and just can't help thinking that there must have been more going on than meets the eye.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 2:01pm
You ask, "Is this the document that Condoleeza Rice characterized as historic? What the heck is that supposed to mean? That means that the info contained in the memo was information that was already well known. Nothing new.

Then you say, "That it's only significant because the threat actually materialized?" You should read the memo, it's only 6 paragraphs long and there were no threats that materialized.

Then you say, " You are horribly mistaken to equate being anti-Bush with being anti-American." I didn't mean to equate being anti-Bush with being anti-American. I meant to express my opinion that the extreme left is anti-American *and* anti-Bush. Or in other words their hatred for Bush is greater than the love of country to the extent that they root against our country in order to get rid of him. Just hating Bush doesn't make them un-American unless they actually do something against the country.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 2:11pm
I said the same thing in the defense of both Bush and Clinton.

If Clinton had gone to Congress, in response to the USS Cole, asking for the authorization to put ground forces into Afhghanistan to go after the Taliban and al Qaeda, the Republicans would have screamed "Wag the Dog".

If Bush had gone to Congress asking the same thing in Feb or March of 2001 the Democrats would have thought he was a lunatic.

Not to mention that neither President would have had the support of the nation with the information each had at the time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 2:26pm
Agree.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 2:30pm
What really gets me is that Bush gets criticized for not doing anything proactive before 9/11 and when he does do something proactive with the war on Iraq, he gets also criticized. I am afraid that any future President will now think twice before doing anything preemptive and that will cost American lives.





iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Tue, 04-13-2004 - 2:34pm
Although I do think that the president would have had the support of the nation to retaliate for the USS Cole, (if it were timely), and especially for Migadushu.

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