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titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States," had been described by the White House as a largely historical document with scant information about domestic al Qaeda threats.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


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And lest it escaped your attention over the past year, there isn't a shred of evidence to link Iraq and those dreadful attacks. Iraq may be an object lesson to repressive regimes but it doesn't have squat to do with terrorism. No one had a crystal ball to foretell that Hussein could or would strike "the US or US interests", there have been no WMD found and we're looking very weak in the humanitarian category when we bomb the stuffing out of their towns. I damn well hope a President thinks twice before "doing anything preemptive and that will cost American lives". What are you thinking to say that you're afraid of that?!
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
And - there have been *many* links discovered linking Saddam to Al Queida, and some have been posted here on this board.
I am glad that you feel this way because many of the experts dont agree.
Richard Clarke and Dr Rice both said that since the planning was in the late stages, and there were no real leads to follow up on, there was virtually nothing that could have been done to prevent the happenings of Sept 11.
Clarke himself said to the commission that even if Pres. Clinton and Bush had done everything he had requested, he doubts that it would have had any impact on 9/11 as the terrorists plans were to far along, and they were extremely secretive in keeping the details quiet.
I truly wish that we could have prevented it, but after listening to all the sides issues on the subject, I too see why it would have been impossible, and this is largely due to the huge bureaucratic mess that exists within the government.
The heirarchy within the FBI did not know the full details of all of the investigations they had going on at the time, and the CIA had no real means to corroberate any information they received from other international sources.
It is a sad statement of the political climate today.
And if you'll remember, the terrorists attacked the USS Cole in the fall of 2000. America was outraged. Clinton was already leaving office, the Republicans wouldn't have had any reason to claim a "Wag the Dog" then.
As for a link between the 9/11 terrorists and Iraq--go ahead. Show me the proof. I've been posting to the "War in Iraq" board (now limping along as the "War on Terrorism" board) for well over a year and though many claimed to have such proof, not one iota of credible information has been presented in all that time. Rumors, speculation, opinions--yes. Hard facts--no. When pressed, Bush himself finally admitted that though he had frequently juxtaposed comments about terrorism with comments about Iraq (so clever of him but also highly misleading), there was no link between Iraq and 9/11. Had you forgotten that?
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
IMO Iraq has everything to do with terrorism. At the time we went to war with Iraq, most everyone agreed he had WMD and that he could sell them to terrorist. He had ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. And left in power, he would have found a way to do it I am sure. We won't ever know if he would have given them to terrorist because we got RID of Hussein. Thank God we don't have to worry about him anymore. I don't care if they haven't found the WMD. Hussein had plenty of time to get rid of them either by burying them in the desert for no one to find for years, or to send them to Syria or someother place. I believe he had them and was just playing games with the weapons inspectors. I am glad we didn't take the chance and let this insane man give those weapons to terrorist. And if your going to say that there are other dictators that are just as bad as Hussein, should we get rid of them too. I say YES if they have any inclinations to sell WMD to terrorists. I think Kadahfi got that message loud and clear.
Yes indeed--huge gaps in the bureaucratic structure. Still are. The world is full of petty overlords and their tiny fiefs. They're so intent on protecting themselves and their turf that they frequently lose sight of the larger goal which in many cases is their reason for existing. I'm not convinced that we've really gotten through how vital it is to communicate with each other. Inter-nation, inter-agency, inter-person. It's all important. Sounds maudlin--been posting too much today.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Saddam's willingness to help bin Laden plot against Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, says the Oct. 27 memo sent by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.
Two men were involved with the collaboration almost from its start.
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim - who's described as the terror lord's "best friend" - was involved in planning the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Another terrorist, Hassan al-Turabi, was said by an Iraqi defector to be "instrumental" in the relationship.
Iraq "sought al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al Qaeda with training and instructors," a top-level Iraqi defector has told U.S. intelligence.
The bombshell report says bin Laden visited Baghdad in January 1998 and met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
"The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan," the memo says.
Though the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000 was an al Qaeda job, the secret memo says the CIA believes "fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement."
The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden continued to grow in the aftermath of the Cole attack when two al Qaeda terrorists were deployed to Iraq to be trained in weapons of mass destruction and to obtain information on "poisons and gases."
CIA reporting shows the Saudi National Guard went on a "kingdom-wide state of alert in late December 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia," the memo says.
And the report contains new information about alleged meetings between 9/11 mastermind Mohamed Atta and former Iraqi intelligence chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani in the Czech Republic.
Even some Bush administration officials have been skeptical about a purported meeting in April 2001.
But the secret memo says Atta met two other times in Prague with al Ani, in December 1994 and June 2000. It was during one of these meetings that al Ani "ordered the finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office," the memo says.
The memo says the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden went forward even after 9/11.
Both sides allegedly reached a "secret deal" last year in which Iraq would provide "money and weapons" and obtain 90 Iraqi and Syrian passports for al Qaeda members.
Al Qaeda associate Abu Maseb al Zarqwari also helped set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad starting in October 2002.
The memo was sent to Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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