Bush Failed to Stop al Qaeda

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Bush Failed to Stop al Qaeda
3
Mon, 04-12-2004 - 11:00am
(2004-04-11) -- A presidential briefing, dated August 6, 2001, and released by the White House yesterday, shows that in 1998 George W. Bush did nothing to respond to the threat of terror attacks from Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

In fact, when correlated with last week's testimony before the 9/11 Commission by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, it seems clear that the Bush administration had virtually no plan to act on top-secret intelligence gathered during the Clinton administration until after George W. Bush took office in 2001.

"The August 6 PDB (President's Daily Brief) clearly shows that the White House knew of potential al Qaeda threats within the United States in 1998," said an unnamed source from an unnamed, non-partisan Washington think tank, "and yet Texas Governor George W. Bush didn't do anything about these threats until after he became president."

A former senior official in the Clinton administration, who requested anonymity, said that former President Bill Clinton was "aghast at the lethargic response of Governor Bush to the clear and present danger al Qaeda posed to our homeland in the 1990s."


http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001665.html#001665

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 04-12-2004 - 11:43am
Satire, fact, joke, opinion--what's this bit supposed to be? It comes across to me as somebody's idea of a poke at the Clinton administration while also, probably unintentionally, also managing to be an indictment of the Bush administration.

Gettingahandle

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

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 04-12-2004 - 12:51pm
If that is your take of it, then you should re-read it.

I take that it is the absurdity that the media is trying to make of the PDB, placing the entire burden of blame on George Bush, when the PDB deals with historical data, and gives no specifics to what sort of attacks can be expected, except for explosive, or where the attacks may happen. Tenet said that the CIA had intelligence that the attacks were supposedly targeted at overseas sites. To me, this shows the true ugly biased face of the media and how some of the outlets will twist the facts to "fit" in the agenda of their story.

All of the data that supports the PDB of Aug 6. 2001 was taken from the mid to late 90's, so if Clinton did not act on this information due to the lack of more information, how was Bush supposed to act on it, especially when there was nothing new to show more specifics on the attacks?

Why wont the media say that?

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 04-12-2004 - 2:01pm
I presume this was supposed to be a satire but the satirist ignored the date of the PDB as pertinent--which it IS. The PDB was delivered to GEORGE W. BUSH, during the Bush administration NOT Bill Clinton. Regardless of who is/was in power, it's pretty clear that finger pointing aplenty is both feeble and (pun intended) pointless.

When my children were younger, I used to tell them that mistakes were not the end of the world as long as several things take place. First, it's necessary to admit the mistake. If that's not done, one doesn't move on to the next step. That step is to ask what should have been done differently and what lessons were learned. Finally one has to do the utmost to avoid the mistake again.

What's bugging me about the PDB issue is the failure by the current administration to say, "we screwed up, should have done it differently". They seem to be trying to avoid the suicide plane scenario in future, but this business with "historical document" labeling is dodgy, very dodgy. Said it in a different post--the lack of information should have been a cue-in. Claiming that the PDB didn't give specifics as a reason to shrug it off is feckless and buck-passing. This is supposed to be the commander-in-chief and his staff, is it not? They can't ask for more activity from the FBI and the CIA? They can't put the intelligence agencies on alert that they needed more attention paid to the threat and in-depth information? Good grief, this is information that Bush and Rice got--not the media! It's fair for the media to make an issue of the PDB reaction from the White House--thousands of people died! And it's fair to ask about the Clinton era role too. Both administrations share in this mess.

This is the text of the Presidential Daily Briefing http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/terrorism/80601pdb.html

Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. 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 Bin 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 surveilled 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.

AI Qaeda members — including same who are U.S. citizens — have resided in and 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 Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-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 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.

Gettingahandle

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