Whether or not he knew about the 9-11 plot, Bushlet was already planning his little adventure in Iraq, which is why most of us didn't trust him or vote for him in the first place.

Drip! drip! drip! drip! Everyone else on the planet knows what happened to America on that day except the Americans. Drip! drip! drip!

I just watched a CNN documentary on 9/11 and as far back as 1995 there was an Intelligence Briefing which identified that terrorists were considering using large passenger jets to strike high rise buildings...if we had directed all American Airline Companies to "harden" their cockpits, both mechanically and procedurally (as the Israeli's had already done) it could have been accomplished over the following 6 years, and this disaster would have been avoided.

No one is to blame...Bill Clinton had 5 years to act on that and George Bush had 8 monthgs...but who would have believed that it was possible for terrorists to both take over and fly a modern passenger jet!

Repost from 3.7 of a collapsed thread.

Thanks Rich...I watched the broadcast (I don't remember which one it was--probably CNN) on 9/11, very soon after they began coverage...I will never forget the camera zooming in on a man and a woman, holding hands at the edge of a floor where the glass had been blown out...they bowed their heads for a few seconds...and then together...they jumped. Shortly after that the TV coverage stopped showing closeups of the fire floors.

Until every last person, directly or indirectly, involved in the 9/11 attack is brought to justice (most notably Mullah Omar) this is NOT over. It's OK to leave Afghanistan whenever we think they can take over, but the effort to find Omar and his ilk must continue...he worked hard to earn his reward...he has it coming... and I say let's give it him!

Repost from collapsed thread 3.21...it's tough to have a discussion when the threads get collapsed...perhaps a little more tolerance for the first post in a thread could be considered!

Rudy Giuliani: 'We Had No Domestic Attacks Under Bush; We've Had One Under Obama'

Guess Rudy just "forgot" about 9/11?

No one is to blame...Bill Clinton had 5 years

BS...that is like saying that "the cops had five years to arrest a guy before he robbed the bank, he was a known criminal, the marshal should have just crossed over into Canada and arrested him, so it's not the cops fault that he robbed the bank and got away just because the dispatcher fell asleep and didn't hear the bank alarm go off...." really, that's the best you got.....ROTFLMAO at your explanation.

Are these not the same lieing reporters who falsified a 911 recording in the Travon Martin case? How can you believe anything that comes out of NBC these days. Besides they found it more important to cover the Whoredasians rather then pause for a moment of silence for those murdered during 911. Not much here in reliable reporting.

Yes drano, and Bush had more than 7 years to find Osama. Obama got him in a little over 2 years, and you people refuse to give Obama any of the credit. Clinton didn't get him in 5 years opportunity so he gets the blame even though Bush had 8 months to do something and did nothing. But Bush gets the credit for getting Osama even though it happened 2 years after he left office and had stopped looking years before that! Why can't you give credit where credit's due?

oh geez, I knew that some kind of attack was likely (but not what form it would take or where it would happen), the news radio had been screaming for months about "chatter" that indicated that something big was up.

Bush Knew? DUH!

Are these not the same lieing reporters who falsified a 911 recording in the Travon Martin case?

What are you, the freaking village idiot?

But Bush gets the credit for getting Osama even though it happened 2 years after he left office and had stopped looking years before that! Why can't you give credit where credit's due?

Bush only gets credit from the delusional fools in the GOP, you know, the ones who can barely afford their NASCAR ticket yet support politicians that want them to pay for the wealthy to attend the race as well.

@LA99999 - I think you misunderstand my comment in 4.6, I think we're on the same side of this issue.

Kenn, if you are a Dem (and I truly hope you are because it gives me hope for our nation), then compared to other Dems I keep reading you are very atypical. I see Melissa who thinks Mr. Bush WANTED the USA attacked so we could go to war in Iraq, and yet, after the attack we went to war in Afghanistan. It would be 18 months or so of failed diplomacy before war would resume with Iraq. What a plan Mr. Bush had, huh?

Or there is RealAmericansFirst who puts up a quote that, without citation, appears to be a complete lie. Why? Just to impugn republicans. How totally American, you know? Or, how about drano, who wants to completely excuse Bill Clinton for not getting OBL before OBL helped to cause 9/11. Except for those pesky embassy bombings and USS Cole, drano's case might be plausible, but since those other attacks DID happen, and OBL was instrumental in them, drano's case is not plausible. Not even defendable.

Whether we supported or opposed the war in Iraq, Bush did not allow the USA to be attacked to create a reason for it. These radical Islamists want us dead. Me, you, drano, melissa, RealAmericansFirst, all of us. We impede their goal of completing the Caliphate and then, because in doing so the USA as a power would have already been defeated, beginning the slow and methodical expansion of Islam to the rest of the world.

OBL was never the enemy we had to defeat, though his killing should be thought, always, as a good thing. Our American enemy is right here, among us, writing drivel in response to agitprop stories. Our enemy is Americans who are so twisted by partisan hatred that they would rather lose to an enemy that wants them dead than to copperate with a political adversary that wants them alive.

I am disgusted by these people.

Bush did not allow the USA to be attacked to create a reason for it.

I agree, Bush didn't want the US attacked intentionally. It was only Bush's negligence that prevented any hope of our preventing it....it's becoming even more apparent that Bush SHOULD have paid attention to the warnings he was getting from our security agencies.

So you are right, Bush didn't act in a treasonous manner, he was probably just lost in the awesomeness of his presidency.....

Our enemy is Americans who are so twisted by partisan hatred that they would rather lose to an enemy that wants them dead than to copperate with a political adversary that wants them alive.

Well at least we agree in our opinion of Republicans, so tied up with their hatred of our elected president that they would rather see the country lose than Obama win.

Or, how about drano, who wants to completely excuse Bill Clinton for not getting OBL before OBL helped to cause 9/11.

Obviously you forgot about the tomahawk's that Clinton sent Obama in response to the plot against HW Bush in the 90's.....get a grip dude, you are not going to be able to mitigate the damage that Curious George did to this country with a few red herrings and disjointed logic.

BTW - why are you trying to diminish OBL's role in 911 by saying he "helped to cause 9/11". he didn't help cause it Sparky, he freaking planned, recruited the attackers, trained them, and financially supported the mission. What's next, it was really "Obama" and not "Osama" that took down the WTC?

You people are just too much. No conservative I know credits Bush for killing OBL, or refuses to agree that Obama gave the order to do so. Can you name ANYONE who does this? But is it not also true that without information gleaned from techniques Mr. Bush agreed to allow the CIA to use, and which Mr. Obama claims were torture, that the information about where OBL was at would not have been uncovered?

For crying out loud people, Bush made mistakes, and Obama has too. Let's learn from them rather than bash one another over your pathetic claims.

You people are just too much.

AND IF ONLY BUSH WOULD HAVE USED THE INTELLIGENCE THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION PROVIDED. What's too much are the idiots that continue to defend arguably the worse president this country has ever seen....George W. Bush!. He gave us 2 ten year simultaneous wars, unfunded entitlement programs that benefit big pharma, hired idiots like Brownie to oversee FEMA and the list goes on and on which all culminated in a wrecked economy that rivals the great depression. You're too much Sparky.

Hi drano,

I'll tell you what...you explain to us all what piece of actionable intelligence existed which, in any way, indicated where, or how, the attacks were to happen, and I will reverse my conclusion of you that you are simply a partisan hack. This can't be your imaginary intelligence find, but something that Bush or Cheney or Rice or Powell or Tenet had, in hand, that could've been used to figure out how to foil the 9/11 attacks.

Let's learn from them rather than bash one another over your pathetic claims.

You mean like this one.....

But is it not also true that without information gleaned from techniques Mr. Bush agreed to allow the CIA to use, and which Mr. Obama claims were torture, that the information about where OBL was at would not have been uncovered?

Cite your source for the claim that torture produced the intelligence where OBL was located. You comment is idiotic, you claim it was the methods that Bush used and Obama said were torture, yet for that to happen either Obama supported torture which is in conflict with your claim, or torture didn't produce the intelligence, or are you suggesting that Obama sat on the intelligence for 3 years, assuming the intelligence came from torture carried out during the Bush administration?

No where did I claim that Bush had actionable intelligence where he knew what planes and what day, what he did know was that it was happening in "weeks or months" and he did nothing to step up security or take a multitude of other steps that could have possible uncovered additional intelligence that might have stopped it. It is also well documented that the Clinton administration warned the incoming Bush administration that OBL was the country's greatest threat. Quite the contrary, you claimed Clinton did nothing to try and take out OBL and that is clearly false and Clinton, like Obama, and UNLIKE Bush, took the intelligence they had seriously and fleshed it out into an actionable plan, Clinton's missle strike being unsuccessful but Obama did what Bush refused to do. Before you spout off about Bush not having actionable intelligence, he let OBL slip away at Tora Bora, he said later that he didn't even think about OBL, in the grand scheme of things he wasn't important. I'm guessing he was only important when he was an excuse to invade Iraq.

You people are just too much. No conservative I know credits Bush for killing OBL, or refuses to agree that Obama gave the order to do so.

unfortunately rich, many on the far right claim exactly that. moderates, not so much.

( I personally, will discount the claims of the lunatic fringe that thinks the whole thing was deliberate)

For crying out loud people, Bush made mistakes, and Obama has too. Let's learn from them rather than bash one another over your pathetic claims.

The biggest mistake any of us can make is to be misinformed......and as far as pathetic claims, you seem to own that one.

Rich-281385

Hi drano,

I'll tell you what...you explain to us all what piece of actionable intelligence existed which, in any way, indicated where, or how, the attacks were to happen, and I will reverse my conclusion of you that you are simply a partisan hack.

Doesn't it give you pause, Rich, that both before and after 9/11 our military has had a 100% intercept rate for preventing any flights into our protected airspace, such as the Pentagon and all fed buildings--yet on that day, and only that day, there was a 100% FAILURE to intercept??

You also remarked:

But is it not also true that without information gleaned from techniques Mr. Bush agreed to allow the CIA to use, and which Mr. Obama claims were torture, that the information about where OBL was at would not have been uncovered?

No--that's NOT true. Google these words for more accurate information:

Fact Sheet: Officials Say Torture Did Not Reveal Bin Laden’s Whereabouts

This particular article appears at Human Rights First, but if you think they're too far left for you, you'll find many more articles saying the same thing: we did NOT get actionable intel from waterboarding--torture, according to the Geneva Convention.

Additionally, there is a comprehensive 250+ page document five years in the making averring many top elected officials, including Cheney & Bush, should be prosecuted as felons for ordering rendition of prisoners to foreign countries for the purpose of torture.

Google:

INDEFENSIBLE

A Reference for Prosecuting Torture and Other Felonies Committed By U.S. Officials Following September 11th

Forgive me for not providing the links; this site deletes them after they're posted.

Or there is RealAmericansFirst who puts up a quote that, without citation, appears to be a complete lie. Why? Just to impugn republicans. How totally American, you know?

Rudy Giuliani claimed Friday that were “no domestic attacks” during George W. Bush’s presidency

Andy Barr - 1/8/2010 - Politico - politico.com/news/stories/0110/31272.html

Is this sufficient "citation" for you?

Hi drano,

Your two posts are riddled with false claims you attribute to me. Quickly...Mr. Obama OPPOSED what he claimed was torture, but it was those interrogation techniques that got KSM to give up the name of OBL's courier, which eventually then led to OBL himself. Without that couriers name OBL would still be in his hovel watching Sylvia Saint pornos.

No one waited three years to act. Mr. Obama acted when enough intel was cobbled together to be sure OBL was there. The point was that without that first piece of intel which Mr. Obama's policies would not have allowed the CIA interrogators to get, the later intel would not have materialized either. Source? Julian Rodriquez. He was the CIA officer in charge of the interrogations. Other sources exist too since you likely believe CIA officers to be liars.

What intelligence did Mr. Clinton leave to Mr. Bush which was not acted upon? The USS Cole conspiracy? I'm not sure what you mean here, so I can't fully respond.

Mr. Clinton targeted terrorist camps, not OBL himself, but I'm sure hoped OBL would be there. We learned later he was long gone. Still, good on Clinton for killing radical Islamists.

It is true that Mr. Bush said OBL wasn't that important, and in a real sense he wasn't. Like any organic organization OBL could be, and has been, replaced. Killing OBL mattered for vengeance, but not for any strategic reason. And OBL was never an excuse, EVER, to go into Iraq. Resuming war with Iraq had more to do with Saddam Husseins known ties to radical Islamists (Iraqi bomb makers going to Sudan to meet/train AQ makers) than anything to do with OBL directly. But, since most everyone on earth believed Iraq had WMDs (even liberals wrote and said this), and since Iraq had failed to comply with Res. 687, and since sanctions against Iraq had failed and were, at best, porous, there were just two options that remained.

We could either allow Iraq, a nation that lost a war it began, to dictate to the USA, the victor in that war, what it would do relative to the cease fire, OR, we could compel Iraq to comply with the cease fire (Res. 687). The status quo was no longer acceptable. And as a liberal you should agree with that at least given that according to many leftists the sanctions had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. You didn't want to continue that policy, did you?

Now, please name a SINGLE action Mr. Bush could've taken which could've prevented the attacks. Your gauzy claim that he could have looked for more intel is interesting, but also was exactly what was done. Your other claim, that Mr. Bush could've enacted greater security measures would've accomplished what, exactly? Without an attack you actually thought it possible for a US president to issue an Executive Order detaining Muslims, or refusing to allow them any travel priviledges, even though there was no evidence any of them would be attacking the USA? Where, seriously, do you come up with this?

This report shows what we already knew, that the Bush administration was the most incompetent in history. Look at the evidence:

Bush appoints a PR man as head of FEMA, Katrina hits and the PR man can't spin it fast enough.

Bush administration hires some frat party boys to run the Bureau of Mining and Land Management, major scandals in Denver and lack of oversight that leads to the BP oil spill (I know it happened during the Obama admin, but the permits and start of project were under Bush).

The Bush administration is characterized by a C minus GPA and a history of partying rather than studying.

Do we really need to repeat this with Romney? Remember that picture of Romney and the Bain "boys". Does that picture not look like the epitome of over indulged frat boys partying it up?

How comforting to know that Mitt Romney has now surrounded himself with Bush era Foreign Policy advisers.

What a crock!.. 'RealAmerican(s)First' !!

Oh how sad to listen to conservatives speak so highly of OUR Country, while making it so glaringly obvious that they HATE around 80% of her Population! Shame on you all. Shame on you all for wasting the last four years by blocking every measure that has been put forward to fix the mess Bush jnr. left behind and then have the audacity to blame President Obama. Shame on you all.

Drano ~ Thank you for saying what I suspect many people want to say. You are, in my eyes, are a Real American first, center and last. Again, Thank You.

You know I feel I must mention that if we go back to December 7 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked we will find that people new about that too. The problem is you cannot always prove what you are being told and/or seeing.

There are many questions that have been raised that are asking if this attack didn't come from within the United States. There is some pretty compelling questions and "facts" that are seen in the pictures shown and the people who were there talk about such a different happening, well those who are talking.

So what do we really know? I believe you need to remember that Mr. Bush may have had an idea but that doesn't mean he knew what was going to happen. And on another note, I believe he did what he should have done by attacking the people who claimed responsibility.

Mr. Obama knew when he started spending Billions of Dollars in less than 2 years that he was trying to do all he could to bankrupt America.

@Rich re 4.13: Yes Rich, I am a Blue Dog Democrat, whose Dem family roots go back to the depression...some called them Roosevelt Dem's, and many were farmers who left their farm to pick apples in Washington in order to make ends meet while still keeping the farm (I've heard that story many times).

Blue Dogs took a beating in 2010, mostly due to giving in to pressure from Nancy Pelosi and voting for legislation they knew was not popular back in their district, and they paid the price for it. Many of them were left high and dry without their share of support from the DNC (or so they say).

Blue Dogs are fiscally conservative, socially moderate and strong supporters of the military, which makes them something of an outcast in the view of the parties left wing. Well many of those congressional Blue Dogs are gone now, and so is the Democratic majority in the House...and I predict that will not change until the Democrat party welcomes the Blue Dogs back!

Google the Blue Dog coalition for more information

@Dee Turner

Doesn't it give you pause, Rich, that both before and after 9/11 our military has had a 100% intercept rate for preventing any flights into our protected airspace, such as the Pentagon and all fed buildings--yet on that day, and only that day, there was a 100% FAILURE to intercept??

One word: Incorrect. September 1994. A lil ol Cessna was flown basically INTO the White House.

Facts are facts.

Hi again drano,

Sorry for the delay. I was both watching a retrospective on 9/11 and looking for the complete clip of Giuliani on GMA. Your link only contained 33 seconds, truncated front and back. And I'm glad I did. I would agree, if it were your point (or Real's), that Giuliani should've been more precise with his language. But that wasn't your point. Your point is to try to make the claim that Giuliani doesn't consider 9/11 to be a domestic attack. On its face this is amazingly stupid, but it is the fare of the left. So...

It is clear in the 4:21 minute clip, the WHOLE clip, that Giuliani is speaking about the War on Terror and his criticism of Mr. Obama for, until the day prior, refusing to use that language (or anything which approximated it) while president. And the conversation with Stephi is about the (at that time) recent attempt at domestic terror by that air passenger from England--I think he came through Amsterdam. Anyhow, what Guiliani said was that Mr. Obama was wrong for taking this war as casually as he had, and that his policy change was creating greater danger for the USA. Which was why he claimed that this Christmas Day bomber existed. I'm not sure I agree with Giuliani on this, since terrorists have tried and will continue to try to kill us regardless of what we say.

At any rate, Giuliani CLEARY is talking about the War on Terror, and how BUsh was correct to take it so seriously. Since that phrase wasn't used until after 9/11, it seems an easy conclusion that what Giuliani is talking about is the wartime record of each president, not the entire tenure of each president. But, again, his lack of precision allows people like you and Real to demagogue his words. Why am I not shocked?

This Story is nothing more than Disseminating Pro Obama / Mega Corporate Disinformation and a Quasi Legal way to promote this Pentagon Propaganda 911 Fantasy.

Psst.....There are still Laws PROHIBITING the US Government use of Propaganda against American Citizens on the Books (not that Bumbling Barry, Pinata or his Wall Street Bankster Owned Gang would ever enforce those Laws) so they continuously use their Corporate Main Stain Social Media "One Line Sock Puppets" as a convenient way to "Muddy The Water" and disguise the TRUTH!.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)Share

A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. ..... Wired. http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/commentary/alttext/2006/04/70670.

Generally speaking these Sock Puppets & Trolls will have Nickname that sounds MACHO or are Nationalistic Patriotic or sound like a real name (as if anyone would give their real name in the vines).

So watch out for the Corporate Government Supporting TROLLS for they will take the time needed to flesh out the Governments "Story" What Ever the Reason Whatever the Story!

The one thing I will Guarantee you is they will disregard any FACTS that differ from their perceptions of REALITY....It's just too painful to admit even to themselves they might be wrong!

As one TROLL once told me Don't confuse me with Facts....I know what the Truth is! Duh?

PS Speaking Of The Truth..... Please watch this PBS Documentary about the Victims Of 9/11 and Their Untold Story considering today is the 11th Anniversary and we are still without an Investigation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l-8PFk8j5I

America the Time is Now To Demand an Independent Investigation into what Our Government Claims "Changed Our World"! A REAL Investigation with TEETH and Send The Guilty To The Hague For Crimes Against Humanity!

The Better Question Is Why Hasn't Obama Investigated 911? Isn't that One of Barry's Promises He Made To Get Elected and then Broke Once Again?

One More Reason Why We Have To Demand a Real Investigation.........

Italian Supreme Court head calls for international 9/11 inquiry
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/332580#ixzz26Cdn0cuY

Yet Not One Word About It In The Globalist Controlled Corporate Main Stain Media! Just More "Blame It On Bush" and "Forget About It" Nonsense from NBC News and FOX News!

Hi Dee,

AmericanDefender gave you a good reply to your first point. I would only add that the absence of planes prior to 9/11 being used as missiles isn't proof that our air forces were able to intercept, and stop, those attacks. It's simply evidence that it had never happened before to stop. Had these planes been Tupolev Bears, instead, that we tracked for up to hours coming our way, then of course we'd have intercepted them. These planes were hijacked, and weren't known to be hijacked immediately, and once known to be hijacked weren't thought to be weapons. So why intercept and shoot down passenger planes? Just for target practice? Sorry, but this point of yours is pathetic.

Your second claim is even easier to deal with. I never made the claim that torture revealed the location of OBL. First, I don't agree that the techniques used were torture. Second, what was revealed was the courier's name that OBL used. And not even his real name. But that alias was worked into a real name which was worked into surveillance which was worked into OBL's location. It took years.

BTW, for those sure these techniques were torture, and that torture is illegal, then you were probably happy that Mr. Obama was allowing criminal investigations of CIA officers involved to move forward. Until just now. Quietly, VERY quietly, the Obama administration has put an end to each and every criminal investigation of our CIA officers, the very people who made possible the intel which Mr. Obama used to be able to order Seal Team 6 to go kill OBL. What a pat on the back those officers got from this administration.

It is no US President's fault--including Clinton George W. Bush, or Obama..

The Intelligence Agencies at that time did not coordinate or give each other Top Security information re the Terrorist Plans, including who they were, and at what time it would happen.. They were separately apart, and kept the high level info to themselves.

Through Obama's President's Term, The FBI/CIA/other Intelligence Agencies have joined together, top sharing top secret info--that is why so many Extreme Islamist Terrorists during the Obama Administration have been killed.

Using more Drones to kill the Terrorists have greatly reduced the Terrorist Organizations, and the leaders of the Evil Islamic Plans to wipe America, The Western Nations, and Israel off the face of the Earth.

The biggest threat now is Iran. We need cooperation between the US and Israel to end Iran's 4 year buildup of Nuclear Weapons in Iran--Iran's final goal is to get the United States.

We must be vigilant..

Rich-281385 - Or there is RealAmericansFirst who puts up a quote that, without citation, appears to be a complete lie.

See, this is one of many reasons why Obama kicked your butts last time and will kick them again this November. You have no clue of how to use technology or the internet.

Here Rich:
Step 1 - hover your mouse over the quote I posted

Step 2 - see how the highlighting appears? CLICK on the quote (that's called a LINK)

Step 3 - READ the article which was the SOURCE of the quote

Step 4 - Maybe you'll learn enough to stop voting Republican!

Hey Jude - I'm on your side. I think you were after Rich.

Anything....anything at all to deflect the F A C T that Bush allowed the worst terror attack ever on American soil.

What more proof does anyone need that the Republicans have no personal responsibility whatsoever?

If a Democrat had been in the White House on 9/11, your party would have been howling for the next 100 years that we couldn't be trusted with governing.

You should be damn grateful that the Democrats aren't as vindictive as your side or you'd be hearing "9/11" every time you walk out your doors.

Tenet: "There will be a major terrorist attack on America in the coming weeks or months..."

That's not actionable intelligence. Who are the terrorists? Where are they? When? How?

There was a lot of chatter in the months leading up to 9/11 and there were hundreds of individuals being monitored. But from there to insinuate that the Bush administration could have prevented the 9/11 attacks but decided not to do it, this just shows that someone here has an agenda.

If I'm going to be able to arrest or kill a terrorist I need to know his identity, or exactly where he is at a specific time. Without that, I can't do anything about it. Now to suggest that in 8 months (or three since the briefing to Condi Rice was in June) the Bush administration could have filled all the holes in the FAA security, and somehow get air marshals on every flight, or get armored doors on every plane is just absurd! How were they going to do that in a few months???

Or maybe they should have grounded all flights for several weeks or months!!! Since Tenet didn't really know when the attack was coming. Make sense?

For a decade the CIA had reduced its human intelligence capabilities to where they had no human sources inside Al Qaeda, or inside Iraq, or Iran, or anywhere else worth mentioning. And at the time there was a brick wall preventing the CIA and FBI from sharing intelligence with each other!

And what I find very strange in this story appearing on MSNBC now, is that it doesn't really reveal anything NEW! This conversation between Tenet and Condi was discussed many times. And the fact that there were hundreds of warning signs was discussed at length in countless articles over the years!

Is this really serious journalism, when you just use recycled stories and bits of previous reports and try to tie them up to paint a picture which just lays the blame on Bush again!

Is MSNBC joining the Truther movement? Has MSNBC finally come out of the closet as members of the lunatic fringe who believe in a 9/11 conspiracy theories?

I can see collapsing threads that are spam or get into political diatribe off tropic but to collapse a thread just because you don't like it only shows your cowardly side of not being open for a discussion. MNBC or NBC now should stop doing it to appease the censurers.

With that being said it's been apparent to me ever since the Bush administration went on their agenda to attack Iraq after 9/11 that they allowed the 9/11 attack to happen to further their agenda. This article only strengthens that belief and makes me believe that criminal presidents will never be prosecuted for wrong doing except in the history books.

Of course I know this is off topic but I'm still waiting for the release of the real assassin of JFK, MLK, and RFK. Maybe my great grandchildren will find out. My suspicions are the "Watergate" gang of criminals. I'd like to know the name of the secret service agent that was behind RFK when a "wild bullet" struck RFK behind the ear.

"Kennedy had been shot three times. One bullet, fired at a range of about 1 inch (2.54 cm), entered behind his right ear, dispersing fragments throughout his brain.^[33] Two others entered at the rear of his right armpit; one exited from his chest and the other lodged in the back of his neck."

Now someone explain how a crazed assassin could enter a room full of people moving fast though a kitchen would be able to get within an inch of RFK to fire a shot behind his ear plus two other shots hitting their mark. 13-14 rounds were fired in that kitchen and Sirhan Sirhan only had a six shooter.

My point is that if anyone doesn't think that our people in our government would do terrible things for power they are more naive than a 2 year old. And that goes for the ones that refuse to believe that the Bush administration would allow people to be killed to further their agenda for power.

Roosevelt was warned 59-something times by 12 different countries that Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, yet he went on vacation. Our government was also provoking the Japanese to bomb us by cutting off trade and other things the Japanese needed from us. We learned something else, because history just repeated itself.

I wonder if Assange has some evidence of this? The average American citizen would have done better with such evidence. Wonder how many people would have died had this intel been published on the Internet prior to. I also wonder if decisions were made in order to take advantage of this situation? People need to start thinking critically in order to survive today's environment.

Read a portion of the actual warning to President Bush yourself here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf

Keep in mind that starting three months before, that the threat indicators were warning of 'spectacular attacks' designed to inflict mass casualties. The title is "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US". The first sentence says that his followers would follow the example of WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

But he actually targeted the exact same buildings that Yousef did. The second to the last paragraph reports recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. Los Angeles International Airport is listed as a target or a prior, failed planned attack. Lastly, the warning that bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft should have resulted in an immediate review and overhaul of domestic airport security.

This failure of Bush and his National Security Advisor, Condelezza Rice, cost over 3,000 American lives.

P.S. Of Romney's 24 top advisers, 17 of them worked for the Bush administration. He literally will return to Bush policy if elected.

The problem was not just Bush's. After all, Clinton was the one who let Bin Laden get away in the first place. It's always easy to be an armchair quarterback. Happens all the time. As pointed out above, we had warnings prior to Pearl Harbor. Look at Iran now! Let's face it, we have plenty of warning and information indicating that Iran is building nuclear weapons, working on it, or close to it, whatever you want to call it. Yet, Obama sits around twiddling his thumbs. Are the Bush whackers screaming about Obama sitting by doing nothing? Of course not, after all Obama is "their' guy. If one goes off while Obama is president will they criticize Obama? Of course not. If one goes off 2 weeks after Romney takes office will they criticize Romney? Of course they will.

The fact is that there is no evidence that 9/11 could have been prevented. Given that in the past 40 years it's been the libs that have acted to gut our intelligence community, I put absolutely zero stock in their complaints about Bush. Heck, he acted on intelligence against Iraq and the libs complained. Of course they have amnesia when it comes to the fact that just about all the libs in Congress supported Bush's actions at that time. But, that is par for the course. Can't expect an intelligent and honest discussion of the issues from them.

The government allowed this attack to happen on purpose. Look at all the money we have been pissing away on the 'defense' since 9/11, and all the extra power we gave to the government. War on terrorism is even a bigger scam than Cold War used to be.

Hi RealAmericansFirst,

drano provided the link. I went to the site. I watched the truncated video and read the short article. Then I went and found the entire conversation with GMA and watched it. My specualtion you are a liar was merely confirmed. I suggest you learn to read--this explanation was several posts above.

Yet another anti-Bush hack job by the NYT.

This is just more deflection designed to take focus away from the Democrats failure to revive the economy.

What an article. Typical nbc tabloid bullsh!t but like manna from heaven for the brain damaged ideologues. Articles such as this predictably follow the Obama modus operandi of blaming others for anything and everything. After all, we must, at all costs, not talk about the economy, unless we can blame somebody else.

@Rich

so basically you're accusing Politico of only showing the portion of the clip that supports their interpretation of Guiliani's comments.....something you guys do on a regular basis...."you didn't build this...." - ring a bell? Nice try.

marchant, if Iran is such a threat to the United states, please explain why in their entire modern existence they NEVER, EVER invaded another country? Even Ron Paul thinks this is sabre rattling

abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/ron-paul-iran-does-not-threaten-our-national-security/

Another DNCNEWS story attempting to deflect the fact that Obama had warnings about the recent attacks on US outposts. Same old diatribe. 'Hey, look, Bush did it!' It's getting old, libby libs. This story isn't news, it's just more liberal propaganda. One more reason to vote Obama out.

Vote NoBama 44 and out.

For what little it's worth, this just makes what Bush did after the first plane hit that much more despicable.

I agree with the conclusion of the NYT Op-Ed that it is still impossible to know if a competent President, not determined to invade Iraq no matter what, could have turned this ship and avoided the attacks.

But there are some things we can know very clearly.

1. The problem with the July 2001 intelligence is that, while it mentions imminent attacks with multiple targets and significant casualties, it doesn't seem to point to attacks inside the US. The problem with the August PDB is that, while it mentions attacks inside the US, it doesn't mention imminent attacks with multiple targets and significant casualties. Bush only allowed the August PDB to be declassified. That made him look bad enough. Put the two together and it looks a whole lot worse, especially because...

2. When Bush was informed that a plane had hit the first WTC tower, it is now more plausible to think he should have started to act right then and there. As it was, everyone acted like there was no reason to think it was anything other than a freak accident. Well, Bush had reason to think so. And incredibly, when Bush, in that Florida classroom, was told that a second plane had hit, and that "America is under attack," he just sat there for 8 or more minutes reading a children's book. Knowing what he knew, he had to assume that more attacks could be coming and that he had to act. How about warning other equivalent targets? How about getting the Air Traffic Control system on the phone? It used to boil my biscuits when anyone would defend his inactivity during those 8 minutes. Now I wonder how the man can show his face anywhere.

3. What else was/is Bush hiding? I am no conspiracy theorist by any means. LHO shot JFK. We landed on the moon. But we now know that one little topic did come up in the context of why the Bush administration downplayed the al Qaeda threat: Iraq. Now, I'll grant you, we don't have anyone quoting Cheney or Rice saying "oh yeah, let them hit us, it'll make it easier to bring the country to war against Iraq." But we don't need that in order to know that the administration's built-in plan to invade Iraq contributed to its under-reaction to al Qaeda.

Not one of them should ever show their faces in public again. For shame on the lot of them.

RealAmericansFirst

Anything....anything at all to deflect the F A C T that Bush allowed the worst terror attack ever on American soil.

What more proof does anyone need that the Republicans have no personal responsibility whatsoever?

If a Democrat had been in the White House on 9/11, your party would have been howling for the next 100 years that we couldn't be trusted with governing.

You should be damn grateful that the Democrats aren't as vindictive as your side or you'd be hearing "9/11" every time you walk out your doors.

#4.38 - Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:53 AM EDT

You claim that Bush "allowed" 9/11 to happen? Does that mean that Clinton "allowed" these incidents to happen too?

1. 1993 - WTC bombing
2. 1995 - Attempted crashing of a plane on the White House
3. 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing
4. 1996 - Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia
5. 1998 - bombing of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
6. 2000 - USS Cole bombing in Yemen

Need to fix date on #2--should have been 1994. Corrected list:

1. 1993 - WTC bombing
2. 1994 - Attempted crashing of a plane into the White House
3. 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing
4. 1996 - Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia
5. 1998 - bombing of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
6. 2000 - USS Cole bombing in Yemen

Dee Turner

Doesn't it give you pause, Rich, that both before and after 9/11 our military has had a 100% intercept rate for preventing any flights into our protected airspace, such as the Pentagon and all fed buildings--yet on that day, and only that day, there was a 100% FAILURE to intercept??

#4.23 - Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:24 AM EDT

"100% intercept rate for PREVENTING any flights into protected airspace"? That's a complete crock. Violations of restricted airspace occurred many times before 9/11, and have occurred many times after 9/11. So much for PREVENTING. Now, even if you were claiming that the military had somehow prevented planes from crashing into federal buildings...then you're wrong again. 1994--plane crashed on the White House lawn, pilot was trying for the White House, but the guy simply missed his target; the military didn't prevent him from entering restricted airspace or shoot him down.

seemssoobvious... Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi national. His family just happens to be in the oil business and are friends or, at the very least, acquaintances of George H.W.Bush. Jeezus people, does someone have to draw you a picture? Maybe a road map? Can you say: war materiel? Connect the dots. Do the names Kellogg-Brown-Root (KBR) and Halliburton ring a bell? Google the name Prescott Bush and, surprise, surprise, we have three generations of profiteering. Hello, is anybody out there? Do I believe in conspiracies? Not necessarily, but coincidence?

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." H.L. Menken

Sam-3910152

I totally agree; I only wish people would pull their heads out of the sand long enough to see the truth. Bush and Cheney should be put on trial for treason along with all the other Republican traitors that for the last 3-1/2 years have been deliberatley trying to bring down the entire economy just so they can make a profit and regain power in Washington.........

Any "warnings" that the Bush admin. received would have been compartmentalized by the various departments and would not have reached the President. (Ask Obama about that). And (lest every ones memory is short changed, Watch too many Michael Moor films and was probably 15 yrs old on 9/11) The 9/11 commission with Dems on the panel, recommended better commo between agencies. You guys really need your Blood Alcohol checked.

Bush and Cheney let it happen for political gain.

They faught against having a 9/11 commission, and when they couldn't stop it, It became a whitewashing of the truth, like so many other congressional commissions.

Clinton dropped it long before Bush.

I voted for Bush the first time. At 63 I have seen a lot of @!$%# in this world and what Bush and the Republicans did to this Country is a MAJOR CRIME.

I am an Independent that is not swayed by a Party Line. I voted for Obama... As a redneck ex Bigot from Texas it surprised even me. I would agree with Clinton that no Human could have pulled this Country back together after the Butt @!$%#ing The Republicans gave us from 2001 - 2007.

Having said that I do not agree with all that Obama has done or the way he has done some of it. But there is no way in hell I am voting for a little Prince that has only been a Governor for one term and a MEGA WEALTHY slayer of business for profit only - a Vulture Capitalist.

Out of Our Minds--Amen Brother. You are one of the sane few.

out_of_our_minds?

I voted for Bush the first time. At 63 I have seen a lot of @!$%# in this world and what Bush and the Republicans did to this Country is a MAJOR CRIME.

I'm 62, and I agree with you. Please scroll a bit further up (not down) to the post I made about prosecuting top officials for crimes under the Torture Act, specifically, rendition to foreign countries for the purpose of torturing prisoners. One post says Obama calls it torture, but torture is clearly defined by the Geneva Convention--we used to be a nation of laws, not personalities.

EVERYBODY, PLEASE READ THIS. I KNOW IT'S LONG BUT IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT

Cheney was a young man in the Nixon administration, and he gleaned from that experience that you can avoid all accountability once you're at the top. And it's true. When Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, as a nation we began to fall to corruption of all kinds.

We had only to take a glance at the RNC and all those corporate banners to understand corporations are now running our government, and those who used to be public servants now serve only themselves, as they are deeply embedded in the pockets of those corporations.

If we fail to prosecute Cheney and Bush for their war crimes, we will never cleanse our nation of corporate influence and the corruption growing in our nation like an incubating virus.

We have many routes we can take towards disinfection. Besides prosecuting criminal politicians involved in crimes after 9/11, we must take all corporate money out of politics, from local, state, & federal elections to lobbying. We must further regulate banks, investment brokers, and private equity companies like Bain--all of Wall Street. We have to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which did the following to stave off any depression until a Republican Congress eliminated it in 1999:

...Developed a set of rules that kept a savings-and-loan type bank from engaging in speculative, risky training with customers’ deposits. If a bank took deposits, it could not trade in anything other than government bonds; if it underwrote securities or engaged in market-making, it could not take deposits.

The motivation for this separation rested on alleged conflicts of interest.

Provisions of the Banking Act pertained to this separation:

1. Section 19: Federally chartered banks could not buy or sell securities, unless they were investment securities, government bonds or trades made on behalf of a customer.
   1. Section 5(c): Glass-Steagall would also apply to state-chartered banks.
2. Section 20: Banks could not be affiliated with firms whose primary purpose was trading securities.
3. Section 21: If a bank did trade securities, it could not take deposits.
4. Section 32: Officers and directors of commercial banks (banks part of the Federal Reserve System) were barred from holding advisory positions in companies whose primary purpose was trading securities.

Then we need to wrest some control from corporations about what we see on TV. We must bring back laws requiring truth in advertising, and once again eliminate advertising of prescription drugs--many of which are actually slowly killing us. We must return to free air time for political debates and opposing points of view, and eliminate all political advertising.

I was a child when I started watching conservative William F. Buckley's weekly TV show, "Crossfire." My family came from blue collar policemen and firefighters back east--the strongest democrats--yet we all watched Mr. Buckley's show and admired his thoughtfulness. Maybe if we did these things we could help elevate the level of discussions. Here, people mostly sling the most outrageous, unrepeatable obscenities at each other--refusing to acknowledge we cannot survive without each other.

Does no one recall Lincoln's famous line, "A house divided against itself cannot stand?" We see it in a Congress completely inured against all compromise, although this president has adopted Republican principles and copied healthcare from them--even appointing them to positions in his administration.

Yet never has any president in history been so maligned.

Never in history--never in the history of ANY NATION--has a country at war reduced taxes while the head of state urged folks to "just keep shopping." 96% of our injured soldiers now survive, thanks to advances in medical care. But we have 600,000 vets who will need continuous care--some, for the rest of their lives. We are still a nation at war, the LONGEST WAR IN OUR HISTORY--and we have a Republican ticket so beholden to the military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about, they held a half-week convention and never even mentioned our longest war--or our soldiers. Instead, they want to slash veterans' benefits. This is morally repugnant.

It will take a hundred years for us to regain the benefits we inherited from the blood of our grandfathers unionizing so we could have health benefits, pensions, an 8-hour day, a lunchtime and breaks, vacations and sick pay, and a 40-hour work week. I read here posts excoriating unions as being too powerful--but only 6% of American employees are unionized today.

I read an article a few days ago wherein employees are now being told they can't pee while at work. And people are so afraid, they're willing to risk bladder infections to stay in their miserable jobs at borderline pay rates.

The multinational corporations currently buying our government are no longer American--they are multinational and only want this nation to be in poverty--so that, as the richest women in the world said last week--people will be willing to "quit being lazy and learn to work hard" for "$2 a day." (Mind you, this was from a woman who never worked a day in her life before she inherited her father's Australian platinum mine!)

We all want the same things for ourselves and our families--we want the American Dream. Here our president understands because he's living it, and he wants the rest of us to be upwardly mobile, well-educated, and able to leave something to our children--but he's condemned for it.

We absolutely must improve education for everybody--NBC just published an article here today about how California has an immediate need for 40,000 teachers but teachers are under such attack from the right, nobody wants to BE a teacher. And the Republicans put forth a team where one guy has become a multi-millionaire from sucking the wealth out of our country, taking fed handouts to bail out Bain when it was going under, then never risking his own money, investing other people's money to tear apart small companies into pieces and selling their goodwill for millions, then defrauding the government on taxes. The other guy got his first government job as an aide through his dad, and simply never left. He voted for war and against putting it in the budget, many times. In fact, he voted for every big spending bill that came to Congress for over a decade. Now he's telling us we can't feed American kids who go go to bed hungry--because we have to feed our private defense contractors? And neither of them can say one thing without also saying its opposite, sometimes in the same sentence! They won't say what their policies might be--although we know 17 of Romney's advisors were Cheney/Bush advisors--but we should just "trust them?"

I didn't like Reagan, but his "Trust, but verify," line made a lot of sense. Doesn't it bother anybody that while we're $16 trillion in debt--because only in the last 3-1/2 years have Bush's two wars finally be put into the fed budget--some $30 trillion has been extracted from the economy and sits in offshore accounts to evade taxes? Obviously Romney will not show his tax returns--and now the one year we DID receive has apparently been "stolen"--he would never have a chance to be elected for any office.

We absolutely must come together, roll up our sleeves, and work together to move this country forward.
Had Congress not refused to vote on Obama's American Jobs Act, these past 1-1/2 years, we'd have 1.9 million more people at work. Had Obama's Transportation Bill not been hung up in Congress for a year, another 3 million would now be at work, in better paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure on, yes, jobs that have been "shovel ready" all this time, but lack congressional funding approval.

We need to prosecute the treasonous elected officials who met on Obama's inauguration day to agree to fight against everything he proposed, for those officials swore an oath they clearly violated beyond reasonable doubt.

Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

We also need to impeach the five conservative Supreme Court Justices who sold America to corporations in Citizens United. People get upset that corporations were held to be "people" but there's precedent for that--corporations have always been held as "persons" for their capacity to enter into contracts, for example.

Citizens United is treasonous on three grounds. 1) The Court violated the Separation of Powers Clause of the Constitution by stepping far beyond the issues presented by either side--at issue was whether or not a minor statute applied to a film made against Hillary Clinton in 2008. By heading straight to a 1st Amendment issue, the very heart of the Constitution, the Court made new law, setting itself up as a third federal legislative body with no court to review their decisions--cutting down our entire system of checks and balances, the reason behind the Separation of Powers Clause.

2) By equating corporate profits--money--with free speech, the Court was inviting any corporation whose profits are potentially harmed by governmental regulation to sue on the basis that any loss of profit, even if not yet realized, is a violation of their 1st Amendment right to "free speech." Recently, Big Tobacco--the makers of the only legal product which, when used according to directions, kills its users, and those inhaling second-hand smoke as well--won against the fed on grounds that graphic warning labels on cigarette packages would violate their "free speech," that is, their profits.

Now, any fool can tell you money is not free speech. Money is personal property. If it speaks at all, as Bob Dylan wrote, "Money don't talk--it swears."

3) The Court had an even more sinister motive in this case, which was further revealed so it cannot be denied, in the case of the Healthcare Act. (Apparently Justice Thomas wasn't kidding when he wrote in his concurring opinion in Citizens United that, "we're just getting started." The Court is trying to water down the Commerce Clause into oblivion--they are trying to make it impossible for Congress to regulate interstate commerce, an authority given to Congress in the Commerce Clause.

People wondered why Roberts wrote the majority opinion, as he's a strict conservative. It made it look like he was siding with moderates who supported Healthcare. NOT SO. He was wresting the decision from the others, who were firmly convinced--as am I, an attorney--that the Healthcare Act is completely in line with all precedent under the Commerce Clause. Roberts knew after Citizens United the Court would be in serious trouble if the Healthcare Act was not upheld. He also knows full well it's within the Commerce Clause. But the conservatives on the Court are no longer beholden to the Constitution--look for Scalia's lengthy TV interview wherein he actually states they do not care what the intent of the founding fathers was. They are now in the thrall of the Chamber of Commerce. Why? Because their private investments in corporations pay them far, far more than the government does, and WE MUST ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.

So. Where Roberts' had to stand common sense on its head in Citizens United, in his opinion on Healthcare his thought process was utterly convoluted. First of all, he had to say, as the government had specified throughout the act and argued in court as well, that the money people must pay who refuse to buy health insurance is a penalty--NOT A TAX. He had to agree because under another law known as the Injunction Act, you can't sue the government about a tax before you've actually paid the tax.

Then, in order to hold fast on the point that Healthcare couldn't be regulated by Congress as interstate commerce--a concept laughably ridiculous under what had been settled interpretation of the Commerce Clause for the better part of two centuries--Roberts in the second half of his opinion had to hold healthcare could pass AS A TAX, completely contradicting the entire first part of his opinion!

People don't understand this, and for some unfathomable reason--is there no real news anymore? Has everybody become so dumb?--not even professionals, lawyers, news reporters, university professors, the people who should know, are daring to say this Emperor has no clothes.

I am extremely concerned about the possibility of Romney, or rather, the few billionaires who will have bought his election, will decide who the next three Supreme Court justices will be--since that many on the court will turn 80 in the next three years. If that happens, I fear our nation will never recover.

Lost in all of this is Paul O'Neil - remember him when he opposed the Bush Administration on the war of Iraq

He said come and get me I have enough money to fight you - an honorable man - and they fired him for speaking his mind

It was a set up - and we lost 4,756 men and women for somebody's ego and 30.000 wounded and over 100.000 Iraqi's

These people have no morals, they have never been to war - Cheney six deferments - Bush AWOL - and all of the Israeli - dual citizenships that advise them

You want to take our country back? Then get rid of Romney's advisors - all of them have an allegiance to Israel not this country

Most of the attackers were from Egypt.

Flame77_7, if the warnings did not get to Bush, then what about the actual document delivered to Bush on August 6, 2001?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf

Are you allergic to facts like the rest of the hijacked republican party?

Sam, Out-of-our-minds, Dee and Barbara, Awesome comments - intelligent, factual and well written. I agree completely. Please keep posting these facts everywhere you can. The cure for ignorance is knowledge.

Soo the Libs DO admit it. Pres Bush was a Strategic, Genius Mastermind to "preplan" the attacks before he was president and execute it flawlessly in less than ONE YEAR after he was sworn in.... yeah right

NO flame, I am not one of the Conspiracy Nuts, but I will say that anyone would be OUT OF THEIR MIND to believe that there was only 1 shooter at JFK and not think there is something very suspicious about the demolition job on the Trade Center Buildings.

Given the idiocy of Romney's religion, a vote for him is a vote for stupidity.

Theses guys were living here going to flight school for the longest time before they made thier move. We gave them stamps in their pastports. They weren't illegal. Makes me sick to think they had information about these people first hand. The flight that was "taken over" was probably shot down by our military jets. How else would they have known about that plane heading for the White House. And people are worried about a few mexicans that just want to come and be "free".

Seewhat I mean188

...The flight that was "taken over" was probably shot down by our military jets. How else would they have known about that plane heading for the White House....

#5.15 - Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:10 AM EDT

Presuming you meant Flt 93 here.

1) No, it was not shot down. The terrorists deliberately crashed it as the passengers tried to storm the cockpit, in order to prevent the passengers from retaking the plane. It's only been 11 years, you might want to do SOME reading on a topic if you're going to bring it up.

2) The intended target of Flt 93 wasn't the White House, it was the Capitol building. Again, reading available information or even just watching the documentaries shown around the anniversary commemorations each year might be useful to you.

Starderup

Most of the attackers were from Egypt.

Flame77_7, if the warnings did not get to Bush, then what about the actual document delivered to Bush on August 6, 2001?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf

Are you allergic to facts like the rest of the hijacked republican party?

#5.10 - Wed Sep 12, 2012 8:29 AM EDT

I'm going to assume that you've read the PDB article to which you posted the link. So, how about you go ahead and identify in there WHERE it says anyone planned to crash planes into buildings? What? It doesn't? Well then, would you please identify WHERE it gives any details specific enough to take action? What? It doesn't? Damn, that's inconvenient for you.

Moving on...

Same rumor about warnings of the Pearl Harbor attack and other events that pushed the USA into wars that fueled the military/industrial complex. Nothing new here as history repeats itself and the masses are manipulated.

So they were supposed to shut down the airlines completely? DUH!

and how do you know this

rfaber9

Any orders to stand down was immediate supervisors, not the upper levels. That was because they didn't feel the information and information they had was adequate. Since 911, all information gets forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security.

It is sad that a majority of readers of Kurt Eichenwald's article whom are making comment's probably do not even know that they are not being given all the facts about 9/11 and what high ranking government officials knew of Al-Qaeda well before Bush was in office. Former FBI Director Freeh was provide information through the 90's.

People should watch PBS Frontline's documentary "The Man Who Knew"

to have a better understanding. If you do decide to watch this you may not be so quick to pass judgement given the facts from this documentary.

db Akron - That was because they didn't feel the information and information they had was adequate.

Well, the information they had about Iraq seeking yellow cake uranium and having weapons of mass destruction wasn't "adequate", but they sure did feel that, didn't they?

rfaber9

Actually, the Bush administration did have warnings that the act was to be on our soil. the F.B.I. had multiple hints and clues from several agents that a terrorist attack, possibly using passenger jets, was being planned and that the terrorists were already in this country. They were ignored or ordered to stand down.

Yes, you're right. Google: Threats about Airplanes as Weapons before 9/11:

many of the reports came before Bush became President, but the point is, he knew. Everyone in the White House and Congress knew.
What is really amazing is that people who were there and who had access to the information – in the White House and in the Congress – have provided strong evidence that the statements above are false. For example, White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke acknowledges that the CIA knew there were al Qaeda terrorists in the US, and the FBI knew there were Arabic people taking lessons at flight schools, including some asking strange questions about crashing planes. Clarke says “red lights and bells should have been going off. They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen” (p. 237).
Clarke offers the following as evidence·

• In 1995, Clarke asked the FAA to ground all US flights over the Pacific because of a terrorist threat against airliners. This “Bojinka Plot” was discovered by Philippine police responding to a fire in an apartment building in Manilla. This was a plan by al Qaeda to blow up 12 commercial airliners and 9/11 mastermind KSM.

• In 1996, while preparing for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Clarke asked the Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Field Office and the head of FAA security, “What if somebody blows up a 747 over the Olympic stadium, or even flies one into the stadium?” Admiral Cathal Flynn, head of FAA security, replied, “... we could ban aircraft from over the stadium during the events ...”. The FBI agent also added: “Don’t let them hijack an aircraft in the first place.” (pp. 106-107). The preparations made to prevent this kind of attack became the “Atlanta Rules.” These rules were used in several CSG designated “National Security Special Events.” Clarke says: “The Secret Service and Customs had teamed up in Atlanta to provide some rudimentary air defense against an aircraft flying into the Olympic Stadium. They did so again during the subsequent National Security Special Events and they agreed to create a permanent air defense unit to protect Washington.” The Treasury Department did not want to pay for the permanent air defense unit so it was not established (p. 131).

• In 1996, President Clinton established new security mechanisms at the nation’s airports. They included not allowing passengers to board planes without a government issued photo ID that matched the name on the ticket, increases in random passenger and cargo searches, a temporary ban on parked cars near terminals, and temporary discontinuation of curbside check-in. Also Vice President Al Gore would head a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security that would recommend permanent changes to airport security. According to Richard Clarke this Commission “requested and got funding for programs involving baggage screening, carry on luggage checks, passenger profiling, screener training, research on aircraft hardening, and to hire more FAA security agents.” It did not “agree to recommend that the federal government assume the role of airport passenger and luggage screening ... It was clear even at the time that the Gore Commission had not been sufficiently ambitious about the job of airport security and passenger screening” (p. 130).

Further, former Senator Bob Graham, who held the highest Democratic position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who organized and co-chaired the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (House-Senate Congressional Inquiry), asserts that President Bush’s statements and those of his Administration about the 9/11 attacks are inaccurate. Graham says: “The first was that it was a surprise, a bolt from the blue. The second was that no one could have imagined such an attack carried out in such a manner. The third, that since no one could have envisaged the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction, no one could be held accountable. The forth was that for all of the devastation, the attack was basically quite simple, requiring nineteen people and a sum of money estimated between $175,000 and $250,000" (p. 112). These are all false!

In fact, the threats were many, and we knew it was coming ... Graham says there were at least 12 instances in which intelligence found information outlining terrorist plans to use airplanes as weapons, there were at least 12 instances in which the plot could have been interdicted but mistakes by individual people assured it did not happen (and yet not a single person has been held accountable for their failures), and the plot was very complex and resilient. In fact, as Graham notes: “I find a pattern of substantial logistical, personnel, and kills development and financial support consistent with what the President was told in his fateful August 6 briefing. I further suspect that the pattern of such support was more pervasive than is currently known or acknowledged” (p. 113). Graham also says this structure of support was maintained by a nation-state [and no he does not say it was Iraq!].

Graham asserts that “after September 11, members of the Bush administration would claim that nobody could have imagined that planes might be used as weapons, during the course of our inquiry, we found that the possibility had been imagined, investigated, and interdicted more than once, and that in one case the Pentagon had been a target”! His examples include:

• Algerian terrorists who in 1994 tried to fly an Air France plane into the Eiffel Tower;

• Project Bojinka in 1995 to blow up 11 planes simultaneously and crash a twelfth into CIA headquarters and thirteenth into the Pentagon;

• An August 2001 plot to fly a plane into a US embassy in Nairobi or bomb it from a plane (p. 81).

But of course, there is much, much more evidence! Consider for yourself the following:

• 1990-1996: Mary Schiavo, former Inspector General for U.S. Dept. of Transportation (1990-1996) resigned after the FAA tried to classify her report detailing lax security at the nation's major airports. Agents were able to sneak fake bombs, hand grenades, guns and knives through metal detectors. Congress, according to Schiavo, was not interested in making it hard on the airline industry, so they swept it under the rug!

• 1993 – A Pentagon expert postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. This idea is not published in the “Terror 2000" report.

• 1994 – Phoenix FBI discovers videotapes two men trying to recruit an FBI informant to be a suicide bomber, one of which is linked to Sheikh Abdul-Rahman (the blind Shiekh incarcerated in New York for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993).

• 1994 – Three planes are crashed or attempted to crash into buildings this year. A Fed Ex employee tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds. An Air France flight is hijacked by terrorists linked to al Qaeda, with the goal to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm plane before it takes off.

• Bob Graham asserts that since at least 1994, intelligence agencies received information indicating terrorists were contemplating using aircraft as weapons, and this information did not lead to any specific intelligence assessment of this form of threat or any government reaction to it.

• December 1994 – Ramzi Yousef plants a small bomb on Philippine Airlines flight to Tokyo as part of a trial run of Operation Bojinka.

• January 1995 – Philippines disrupts Operation Bojinka to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean and to crash others into prominent US buildings. Philippines warns US of targets for attack, including CIA headquarters, Pentagon, nuclear power plant, TransAmerica Tower (San Francisco), Sears Tower (Chicago), and World Trade Center. Plotter Abdul Hakim Murad is handed over to FBI in April 1995 and he identifies 10 other men in flight training who were involved.

• April 1995 – Senator Sam Nunn outlines an attack on the US Capitol using a radio-controlled airplane (idea taken from Tom Clancey’s book, Debt of Honour).

• 1996 – FBI investigates US flight schools after finding a business card for a school in the possession of Abdul Hakim Murad (who had been training at about 6 schools since 1990).

• January 1996 – US intelligence receives information of a planned suicide attack on the White House by a plane flying from Afghanistan.

• July - August 1996 – US officials identify crop dusters and suicide flights as threats to the Atlanta Olympics. They ban planes from getting too close to events, deploy Black Hawk helicopters and US Customs jets to intercept suspicious aircraft, monitor crop-duster flights near downtown, place armed fighter jets on standby at local air bases, screen passengers to Atlanta more carefully, and send law enforcement agents to regional airports to make sure nobody hijacked a small airplane (these become known as the “Atlanta Rules”).

• October 1996 – US intelligence learns of an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and to crash it into Tel Aviv.

• November 1996 – Ethiopians take over a passenger airliner, let it run out of fuel, and crash it into Indian Ocean off Comoros Islands.

• 1997 – FBI and CIA have concerns that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be used to attack a US embassy or delegates overseas.

• January 1997 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Clinton inauguration.

• February 1997 – White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (Gore Commission) issued its final report, reference failed Operation Bojinka, and call for increased aviation security. The commission “believes that terrorist attacks on civil aviation are directed at the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose.”

• December 1997 – Retired CIA agent and counter terrorism consultant Randy Baer meets with a former police chief from Qatar and learns that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed (KSM) was sheltered in Qatar by Interior Minister Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani. He is also told that KSM is a key aide to UBL and that KSM “is going to hijack some planes.”

• 1998 – FAA “Red Teams” conduct testing of screening checkpoints at domestic airports and successfully smuggle through guns, bombs, etc. and are successful in some case 85% of the time ... high level FAA officials are made aware of the problem and do nothing

• 1998 – FBI’s international terrorism squad investigates possible Middle Eastern man taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport. FBI agent Ken Williams starts an investigation into the possibility of terrorists learning to fly.

• 1998 – President Clinton is warned of a possible plan to hijack a plane to gain the release of Oman Abdul Rahman.

• May 1998 – A FBI pilot sends a memo to a supervisor warning of a large number of Middle Eastern men receiving flight training in Oklahoma airports.

• August 1998 – CIA asserts Arab terrorists plan to fly a bomb-laden plane from a foreign country to the World Trade Center ... FBI and FAA do not think the state of aviation in unstated country makes the attack possible.

• September 1998 – US intelligence learns that UBL’s next operation might be a crashed airliner loaded with explosives into a US airport.

• October 1998 – FAA issues 3 warnings to airports and airliners urging a high degree of vigilance against threats to civil aviation posed by al Qaeda ... threat specifically mentioned a metropolitan airport in the Eastern US.

• Fall 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plot to attack New York and Washington DC with airplanes ... learns that plans to attack are preceding well and 2 individuals have successfully evaded checkpoints at a New York airport.

• November 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plan by a Turkish extreme group to crash an airplane packed with explosives into a famous tomb during a government ceremony.

• 1998-1999 – FBI issues warnings of possible terrorists training at US flight schools.

• 1999 – US intelligence learns that an al Qaeda agent studied at a flight school in Norman, Oklahoma (hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi visited school there in 2000 and Zacarias Moussaoui trained there in 2001).

• September 1999 – FBI in Oklahoma City visits a flight school in Norman Oklahoma to investigate UBL’s personal pilot Ihab Ali who attended there in 1993.

• 1999 – Britain’s M16 domestic intelligence agency reports to US that al Qaeda plans to use commercial aircraft in unconventional ways possibly as flying bombs.

• 1999 – FBI learns that terrorists are planning to send students to US for flight training. FBI’s Counterterrorism Section issues a notice to 24 field offices to pay close attention to Islamic students from the target country engaged in training. Ken Williams’ squad receives this memo too. No investigation is conducted by any office. A 2000 notice sent out shows there was no indication uncovered that terrorist group is recruiting students.

• September 1999 – US intelligence suggests “Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land aircraft packed with high explosives ... into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House...”. Report is made by the National Intelligence Council which advises the President and US intelligence on emerging threats.

• October 1999 – EgyptAir flight 900 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off of Massachusetts. The eventual conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board is it was intentional crash, which killed 33 Egyptian military officers.

• 1999 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 50th Anniversary in DC.

• 2000 – FBI learns that a Middle Eastern nation has been trying to purchase a flight simulator in violation of US restrictions.

• April 2000 – Niaz Khan, a British citizen from Pakistan, tells FBI of a plot to fly airliners into building. He was trained on a mock cockpit of 767, including how to hijack a plane and how to smuggle guns and other weapons on board. He flew to US and was told to meet with a contact to then meet up with others to fly a plane into a building. He passes a polygraph given by FBI but he is deported to London.

• July–August 2000 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Republican Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic Convention in New York.

• August 2000 – Italian intelligence wiretaps al Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy and overhears plan to attack enemies of Islam with aircraft. Warning is sent to US in March 2001.

• October 2000 – Pentagon conducts an emergency drill for a crashed airline that had been hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.

• September 2000 - September 2001 – NORAD conducts regional war games exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets; one target is World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets conduct a mock shoot down of airliners over Atlantic Ocean. In another, the Pentagon is the target (but this one was called off). Exercises are called Vigilant Guardian and Northern Vigilance, and another is being held at the National Reconnaissance Office which included an airplane being used as a flying weapon.

• January 2001 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against an airplane attack for Bush inauguration.

• January - August 2001 – FAA issues 15 warnings to airliners ... Bush officials claim information is so vague it does not warrant additional security ... but the warnings remain classified today.

• February - July 2001 – Trial of embassy bombers in New York features testimony of 2 UBL associates that received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma. One UBL aide gives evidence to government about pilot training.

• March 2001 – Fox’s show The Lone Gunmen depicts an attack by terrorists using a remote-controlled 727 aircraft against the World Trade Center (the real attackers turn out to be US government agents who want to justify continued, large military budgets by creating fear of terrorism).

• April 2001 – NORAD special operations personnel imagine a scenario where a terrorist group hijacks plane and flies it into the Pentagon ... the plan is rejected as too unrealistic.

• April 2001 – FBI translators Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar learn of a warning given to FBI by an FBI informant that al Qaeda is planning to attack US and Europe with airplanes and that al Qaeda agents are being trained in US as pilots. Edmonds says: “President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that’s accurate. However, there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand, and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001." Says US claims about not knowing of 9/11 plan were outrageous lies ..."That's an outrageous lie and documents can prove it's a lie."

• April 2001 – FAA sends a warning to US airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up US planes and that carriers should demonstrate a high level of alertness.

• May 2001 – Pentagon practices for crashed 757 into Pentagon.

• June 2001 – German intelligence warns CIA, M16, and Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols, which stand out.”

• June 2001 – NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 01 and Amalgam Virgo 02, the latter of which involves two simultaneously hijacked commercial airliners. Fighters are to respond and consider shooting down planes.

• June 2001 – Men in Cayman Islands are overheard by Cayman Islands and British intelligence discussing plans to conduct hijacking attacks in New York City. Information is forwarded to US intelligence.

• June 2001 – Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke gives a direct warning to FAA to increase security measures in light of impending terrorist attack and FAA refuses to implement them.

• July 2001 – Attorney General John Ashcroft stops flying commercial aircraft due to an unknown threat assessment ... Ashcroft will not answer questions about it.

• July 2001 – FBI agent Ken Williams sends a message warning of suspicious activities involving group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Arizona: subtitle of memo is “Osama bin Laden and Al-Muhrjiroun supporters attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona.”

• July 2001 – US intelligence reports a spike in warnings against G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Head of Russia’s Bodyguard Service reports that al Qaeda will try to kill President Bush ... Egyptian intelligence discovers communication from UBL saying he would assassinate Bush and other leaders during the G-8 summit using an “airplane stuffed with explosives” ... US and Italy are sent urgent warnings ... Germany sends warning of UBL paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote-controlled aircraft packed with explosives into conference hall ... Bush and other leaders stay on an aircraft carrier and a luxury ship away from the area.

• July 2001 – FAA issues a warning telling airlines to use the highest level of caution and another saying “terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, as we ask you therefore to use caution.”

• July 2001 – Egyptian intelligence passes on message to CIA that 20 al Qaeda members had slipped into US and that 4 of them were training on Cessnas.

• August 2001 – Britain warns US of al Qaeda attack involving multiple airline hijackings.

• August 2001 – Russian President Vladimir Putin warns US that suicide pilots are training for attacks on US.

• August 2001 – US intelligence learns of a plot to crash airplane into US Embassy in Nairobi.

• August 2001 – Actor James Woods relays concerns of four Arabic-looking men who look suspicious in first class aboard his flight ... flight staff notifies FAA ... Woods is not interviewed by FBI until after 9/11 ... all four are believed to have been involved on 9/11 and were believed to be on one of their practice runs for 9/11.

• August 2001 – the “bin Laden Determined to Strike In US” memo is given to President Bush while he was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas ... it reads in part: “bin Laden wanted to hijack US aircraft to gain the release” of Oman Abdul Rahman and others and tells of “suspicious activity in the US consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

• August 2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested in Minneapolis, MN with letters that connect him to Malaysia (where a meeting of al Qaeda operatives occurred under the watch of the CIA in 2000) and some of the hijackers. He also has an unexplained $32,000 bank balance, two knives, fighting gloves, shin guards, and has prepared for violence through physical training. He paid $8,300 for flight training, mostly in cash, to use a 747 aircraft simulator. He asked “how much fuel is on board a 747 and how much damage could it cause if it hit anything”? He has no aviation background, little previous training, and no pilot’s license, he wants to fly only as an ego-boosting thing, he is extremely interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, and wants to know how to communicate with flight tower. He is evasive and belligerent when asked about his background. He mostly practices flying in the air rather than taking off or landing. The flight school sends information to the FBI and receives little interest, so it contacts them again as says: “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon.” Moussaoui is arrested but not connected to the 9/11 attackers until after 9/11.

• August 2, 2001 – FBI headquarters Radical Fundamentalist Unit agent calls FBI Minneapolis office supervisor that he is getting people “spun up” over Zacarias Moussaoui. The supervisor says he is trying to get people at FBI headquarters “spun up” because he is trying to make sure Moussaoui does “not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.”

• August 23-27, 2001 – FBI agents in Minneapolis are convinced Zacarias Moussaoui is planning to do something with a plane. One agent writes he might “fly something into the World Trade Center.” They decide to pursue a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant – in more than 10,000 requests over 20 years, every single warrant has been granted – yet FBI headquarters decides against it due to a mistaken understanding by its legal experts of the FISA rules.

• August 24, 2001 – A Minneapolis FBI agent contacts CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center and calls Moussaoui a “suspect 747 airline attacker” and a “suspect airline suicide attacker.” FBI headquarters chastises the Minneapolis office for contacting headquarters without permission.

• Bob Graham explained the Moussaoui failure by the FBI, and in doing so, discussed in depth the warnings that should have been clear. From June to July 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) noted an increase in threat activity (the third such rise since the winter). The US military declared ThreatCon Delta and all ships in the Persian Gulf were sent to sea. And Attorney General John Ashcroft began traveling only on government jet. Graham says this was “opposed to the commercial aircraft Attorneys General normally take, despite the fact that senior FBI and CIA officials knew of no specific threat against the Attorney General” (p. 72). In July 2001, when the FBI’s Phoenix office sent a memo voicing concern that UBL might be using US flight schools to infiltrate America’s civil aviation system, it was ignored by superiors and never reached the FBI’s Minneapolis office (which arrested Zacarias Moussaoui one month later for suspicious activities at a flight school). This is called stove-piping (when information did not move across FBI field offices).

• This “Phoenix memo” was sent by Kenneth Williams, who first became concerned with Libyans with suspected terrorist ties working for US aviation companies in the 1990s. Williams was later told about Arabs in a local mosque involved in aviation training. In April 2000, Williams watched a man name Zakaria Mustapha Soubra, a Lebanese national studying aeronautical safety in Arizona. Williams interviewed Soubra at his apartment and Soubra was defiant. He had photos of UBL and injured mujahedeen fighters on his wall. Soubra’s car outside had a license plate on it that came back of a man named Mohammed al-Qudhaeein who had been detained in 1999 for trying to get into the cockpit of an America West flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC. Al-Qudhaeein was traveling to a party at the Saudi embassy and his ticket had been paid for by the Saudi government. The FBI did not even investigate the case! In 2000, al-Qudhaeein was put on the State Department’s TIPOFF terrorist watch list after US intelligence learned he might have received explosives and car bomb training in Afghanistan. In August 2001, al-Qudhaeein applied for a visa to reenter the US but was denied entry! Perhaps he was an additional hijacker?

• Williams was taken off of counterterrorism to work an arson case in early 2001. The arson case was closed in April 2001 and he wrote an electronic communication (EC) to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (this is the Phoenix memo). The continuing investigation of Soubra found six associates also involved in aviation training. While Williams did not know it, it was discovered that Soubra knew Hani Hanjour through a local religious center and carpooled with him to flight school. On at least five occasions, they were at the same flight school on the same day and at least once, they flew together! In July 2001, Williams finished his EC and sent it to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters. READ the memo on pp. 44-45. Williams’ recommendations, if followed, would have prevented 9/11. Graham says that “had William’s recommendations been acted upon promptly, liaisons with the flight schools would have found at least one and perhaps as many as three other hijackers still developing their flying skills” (p. 47). ECs are sent to the specified units and then forwarded to the individual assigned to the lead. Williams sent the EC and requested that both the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and the Usama bin Laden Unit consider his recommendations. Both of these are operational units (that investigate specific crimes) but it did not go to an analytic unit (which considers long-term, strategic issues). It was ultimately forwarded to an FBI intelligence analysts in Portland, Oregon along with a note specifying Williams’ theory. The agent did not take any action or share it more widely and the lead was closed by officers in the RFU and UBLU on August 7, 2001. As it turns out, way back in 1983, the INS asked the FBI for assistance in locating Libyan nationals engaged in aviation or nuclear-related education! In 1998, the head of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office contacted headquarters to express concern about the large numbers of Middle Eastern males at Oklahoma flight schools. In 1999, the FBI received word that a terrorist organization was planning to send students to the US for aviation training. In response, the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters sent a communication to twenty-four field offices asking them pay close attention to Muslim students from the country who were engaged in aviation training in their areas. No FBI field offices followed up on this instruction. The investigation was dropped in November 2000 when the INS failed to respond to an FBI letter asking them to search databases for individuals from the target country studying in the US!

• Graham asserts that had the Minneapolis FBI Field Office seen these memos and requests, it might have broken the 9/11 plot when it arrested Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui was not a typical flight school student for he did not have a pilot’s license, was not employed by an airline, and had not logged any flight hours. His suspicious activities concerned flight school employees – he had extreme interests in operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, he repeatedly said he would love to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to JFK Airport in New York, and he paid $6,800 in cash. Employees say he discussed how much fuel is on a Boeing 747 and the damage such a plane could do if it were to hit something. A flight manager contacted a friend at the FBI and Moussaoui was arrested for being “out of status” (overstayed his visa). Minneapolis informed FBI headquarters of Moussaoui’s detention by the INS and it asked the CIA and the FBI’s legal attache in Paris for any information they could get on him. The FBI and INS went to his hotel and seized his laptop computer and belongings, yet they were told they need a warrant to search them. The FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant but it decided against this route! So they decided for the French to search his belongings and not get a FISA warrant. According to Graham, the FBI’s legal attache in Paris reported that Moussaoui had been in Chechnya assisting Chehen rebels which could have been enough to secure a FISA search warrant. The FBI mistake was thinking that Moussaoui had to be connected to an organization that the State Department listed as a foreign terrorist organization (which was not a FISA requirement). FISA does not require it be a “recognized foreign power” just a foreign power. So they spent about 3 weeks trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qaeda! The FBI did not even try for a normal criminal search warrant and did not even make his presence public, which could have disrupted the plot!

• According to Graham, Minneapolis sent a memo to FBI headquarters stating that Moussaoui’s “possession of weapons and his preparation through physical training for violent confrontation” gave them reason to believe he “and others yet unknown” were conspiring to take control of an airplane. Minneapolis contacted the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for more information on Moussaoui and a Minneapolis case agent sent an email on August 21, 2001 to the supervisory special agent in the RFU who was handling the matter. It said: “It is imperative that the [US Secret Service] be appraised of this threat potential indicated by the evidence ... if [Moussaoui] seizes an aircraft from Heathrow to NYC, it will have the fuel on board o reach DC.” Yeah, not to mention the World Trade Center! On August 23, two FBI agents visited the Airman Flight School in Oklahoma City where Moussaoui first learned to fly ... one of the agents had visited the school in 1999 to investigate the training there of UBL’s personal pilot!

• August 2001 – FAA issues a warning to airlines that terrorists have made breakthroughs in disguising weapons as cell phones, key chains, and pens.

• August 2001 – Spanish police record conversations from calls in Britain to Spain saying “in our classes, we have entered the field of aviation, and we are even going to cut the Eagle’s throat.”

• August - September 2001 – NORAD practices for hijackings of planes from the states of Utah and Washington.

• September 2001 – NSA intercepts phone calls from Abu Zubaida, UBL’s chief of operations, into US (which are still classified) ... British intelligence intercepts call from UBL to man in Pakistan with specific information as to attack including time frame (which are still classified).

• September 2001 – Author Salman Rushdie is banned by US from taking internal US flights due to “intelligence of something about to happen.”

• September 2001 – Sydney Olympics officials reveal that “A fully loaded, fueled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience at the Sydney Olympics is one of the greatest security fears for the Games.” Australia puts 6 planes in the air at all times to intercept wayward aircraft (planning is also underway for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah to defend against plane attacks when 9/11 occurs).

• September 4, 2001 – FBI headquarters sends a message to US intelligence community about the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation. Warning is given to the FAA but the FAA does not issue a security alert to the nation’s airports.

• September 9-11, 2001 – NORAD runs Operation Northern Vigilance which deploys fighters to Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor Russian air force exercise in Russian arctic. US fighters are thus diverted from US. Exercise is cancelled at 9 am on 9/11.

• September 10, 2001 – Eight hours prior to the attacks, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown receives warning from his security people at the airport to be cautious when traveling ... he is headed for New York

• September 10, 2001 – President Bush is staying at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, FL. Surface to air missiles are placed on roof of the resort.

• September 2001 – Pentagon officials, including US generals, are warned not to fly and cancelled trips for the morning of September 11

So, there it is. Tell me again how we did not see this coming and how President Bush and members of his Administration can honestly say they had no idea using commercial planes as missiles was even a possibility?!?

many of the reports came before Bush became President, but the point is, he knew. Everyone in the White House and Congress knew.
What is really amazing is that people who were there and who had access to the information – in the White House and in the Congress – have provided strong evidence that the statements above are false. For example, White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke acknowledges that the CIA knew there were al Qaeda terrorists in the US, and the FBI knew there were Arabic people taking lessons at flight schools, including some asking strange questions about crashing planes. Clarke says “red lights and bells should have been going off. They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen” (p. 237).
Clarke offers the following as evidence·

• In 1995, Clarke asked the FAA to ground all US flights over the Pacific because of a terrorist threat against airliners. This “Bojinka Plot” was discovered by Philippine police responding to a fire in an apartment building in Manilla. This was a plan by al Qaeda to blow up 12 commercial airliners and 9/11 mastermind KSM.

• In 1996, while preparing for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Clarke asked the Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Field Office and the head of FAA security, “What if somebody blows up a 747 over the Olympic stadium, or even flies one into the stadium?” Admiral Cathal Flynn, head of FAA security, replied, “... we could ban aircraft from over the stadium during the events ...”. The FBI agent also added: “Don’t let them hijack an aircraft in the first place.” (pp. 106-107). The preparations made to prevent this kind of attack became the “Atlanta Rules.” These rules were used in several CSG designated “National Security Special Events.” Clarke says: “The Secret Service and Customs had teamed up in Atlanta to provide some rudimentary air defense against an aircraft flying into the Olympic Stadium. They did so again during the subsequent National Security Special Events and they agreed to create a permanent air defense unit to protect Washington.” The Treasury Department did not want to pay for the permanent air defense unit so it was not established (p. 131).

• In 1996, President Clinton established new security mechanisms at the nation’s airports. They included not allowing passengers to board planes without a government issued photo ID that matched the name on the ticket, increases in random passenger and cargo searches, a temporary ban on parked cars near terminals, and temporary discontinuation of curbside check-in. Also Vice President Al Gore would head a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security that would recommend permanent changes to airport security. According to Richard Clarke this Commission “requested and got funding for programs involving baggage screening, carry on luggage checks, passenger profiling, screener training, research on aircraft hardening, and to hire more FAA security agents.” It did not “agree to recommend that the federal government assume the role of airport passenger and luggage screening ... It was clear even at the time that the Gore Commission had not been sufficiently ambitious about the job of airport security and passenger screening” (p. 130).

Further, former Senator Bob Graham, who held the highest Democratic position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who organized and co-chaired the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (House-Senate Congressional Inquiry), asserts that President Bush’s statements and those of his Administration about the 9/11 attacks are inaccurate. Graham says: “The first was that it was a surprise, a bolt from the blue. The second was that no one could have imagined such an attack carried out in such a manner. The third, that since no one could have envisaged the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction, no one could be held accountable. The forth was that for all of the devastation, the attack was basically quite simple, requiring nineteen people and a sum of money estimated between $175,000 and $250,000" (p. 112). These are all false!

In fact, the threats were many, and we knew it was coming ... Graham says there were at least 12 instances in which intelligence found information outlining terrorist plans to use airplanes as weapons, there were at least 12 instances in which the plot could have been interdicted but mistakes by individual people assured it did not happen (and yet not a single person has been held accountable for their failures), and the plot was very complex and resilient. In fact, as Graham notes: “I find a pattern of substantial logistical, personnel, and kills development and financial support consistent with what the President was told in his fateful August 6 briefing. I further suspect that the pattern of such support was more pervasive than is currently known or acknowledged” (p. 113). Graham also says this structure of support was maintained by a nation-state [and no he does not say it was Iraq!].

Graham asserts that “after September 11, members of the Bush administration would claim that nobody could have imagined that planes might be used as weapons, during the course of our inquiry, we found that the possibility had been imagined, investigated, and interdicted more than once, and that in one case the Pentagon had been a target”! His examples include:

• Algerian terrorists who in 1994 tried to fly an Air France plane into the Eiffel Tower;

• Project Bojinka in 1995 to blow up 11 planes simultaneously and crash a twelfth into CIA headquarters and thirteenth into the Pentagon;

• An August 2001 plot to fly a plane into a US embassy in Nairobi or bomb it from a plane (p. 81).

But of course, there is much, much more evidence! Consider for yourself the following:

• 1990-1996: Mary Schiavo, former Inspector General for U.S. Dept. of Transportation (1990-1996) resigned after the FAA tried to classify her report detailing lax security at the nation's major airports. Agents were able to sneak fake bombs, hand grenades, guns and knives through metal detectors. Congress, according to Schiavo, was not interested in making it hard on the airline industry, so they swept it under the rug!

• 1993 – A Pentagon expert postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. This idea is not published in the “Terror 2000" report.

• 1994 – Phoenix FBI discovers videotapes two men trying to recruit an FBI informant to be a suicide bomber, one of which is linked to Sheikh Abdul-Rahman (the blind Shiekh incarcerated in New York for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993).

• 1994 – Three planes are crashed or attempted to crash into buildings this year. A Fed Ex employee tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds. An Air France flight is hijacked by terrorists linked to al Qaeda, with the goal to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm plane before it takes off.

• Bob Graham asserts that since at least 1994, intelligence agencies received information indicating terrorists were contemplating using aircraft as weapons, and this information did not lead to any specific intelligence assessment of this form of threat or any government reaction to it.

• December 1994 – Ramzi Yousef plants a small bomb on Philippine Airlines flight to Tokyo as part of a trial run of Operation Bojinka.

• January 1995 – Philippines disrupts Operation Bojinka to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean and to crash others into prominent US buildings. Philippines warns US of targets for attack, including CIA headquarters, Pentagon, nuclear power plant, TransAmerica Tower (San Francisco), Sears Tower (Chicago), and World Trade Center. Plotter Abdul Hakim Murad is handed over to FBI in April 1995 and he identifies 10 other men in flight training who were involved.

• April 1995 – Senator Sam Nunn outlines an attack on the US Capitol using a radio-controlled airplane (idea taken from Tom Clancey’s book, Debt of Honour).

• 1996 – FBI investigates US flight schools after finding a business card for a school in the possession of Abdul Hakim Murad (who had been training at about 6 schools since 1990).

• January 1996 – US intelligence receives information of a planned suicide attack on the White House by a plane flying from Afghanistan.

• July - August 1996 – US officials identify crop dusters and suicide flights as threats to the Atlanta Olympics. They ban planes from getting too close to events, deploy Black Hawk helicopters and US Customs jets to intercept suspicious aircraft, monitor crop-duster flights near downtown, place armed fighter jets on standby at local air bases, screen passengers to Atlanta more carefully, and send law enforcement agents to regional airports to make sure nobody hijacked a small airplane (these become known as the “Atlanta Rules”).

• October 1996 – US intelligence learns of an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and to crash it into Tel Aviv.

• November 1996 – Ethiopians take over a passenger airliner, let it run out of fuel, and crash it into Indian Ocean off Comoros Islands.

• 1997 – FBI and CIA have concerns that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be used to attack a US embassy or delegates overseas.

• January 1997 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Clinton inauguration.

• February 1997 – White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (Gore Commission) issued its final report, reference failed Operation Bojinka, and call for increased aviation security. The commission “believes that terrorist attacks on civil aviation are directed at the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose.”

• December 1997 – Retired CIA agent and counter terrorism consultant Randy Baer meets with a former police chief from Qatar and learns that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed (KSM) was sheltered in Qatar by Interior Minister Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani. He is also told that KSM is a key aide to UBL and that KSM “is going to hijack some planes.”

• 1998 – FAA “Red Teams” conduct testing of screening checkpoints at domestic airports and successfully smuggle through guns, bombs, etc. and are successful in some case 85% of the time ... high level FAA officials are made aware of the problem and do nothing

• 1998 – FBI’s international terrorism squad investigates possible Middle Eastern man taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport. FBI agent Ken Williams starts an investigation into the possibility of terrorists learning to fly.

• 1998 – President Clinton is warned of a possible plan to hijack a plane to gain the release of Oman Abdul Rahman.

• May 1998 – A FBI pilot sends a memo to a supervisor warning of a large number of Middle Eastern men receiving flight training in Oklahoma airports.

• August 1998 – CIA asserts Arab terrorists plan to fly a bomb-laden plane from a foreign country to the World Trade Center ... FBI and FAA do not think the state of aviation in unstated country makes the attack possible.

• September 1998 – US intelligence learns that UBL’s next operation might be a crashed airliner loaded with explosives into a US airport.

• October 1998 – FAA issues 3 warnings to airports and airliners urging a high degree of vigilance against threats to civil aviation posed by al Qaeda ... threat specifically mentioned a metropolitan airport in the Eastern US.

• Fall 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plot to attack New York and Washington DC with airplanes ... learns that plans to attack are preceding well and 2 individuals have successfully evaded checkpoints at a New York airport.

• November 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plan by a Turkish extreme group to crash an airplane packed with explosives into a famous tomb during a government ceremony.

• 1998-1999 – FBI issues warnings of possible terrorists training at US flight schools.

• 1999 – US intelligence learns that an al Qaeda agent studied at a flight school in Norman, Oklahoma (hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi visited school there in 2000 and Zacarias Moussaoui trained there in 2001).

• September 1999 – FBI in Oklahoma City visits a flight school in Norman Oklahoma to investigate UBL’s personal pilot Ihab Ali who attended there in 1993.

• 1999 – Britain’s M16 domestic intelligence agency reports to US that al Qaeda plans to use commercial aircraft in unconventional ways possibly as flying bombs.

• 1999 – FBI learns that terrorists are planning to send students to US for flight training. FBI’s Counterterrorism Section issues a notice to 24 field offices to pay close attention to Islamic students from the target country engaged in training. Ken Williams’ squad receives this memo too. No investigation is conducted by any office. A 2000 notice sent out shows there was no indication uncovered that terrorist group is recruiting students.

• September 1999 – US intelligence suggests “Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land aircraft packed with high explosives ... into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House...”. Report is made by the National Intelligence Council which advises the President and US intelligence on emerging threats.

• October 1999 – EgyptAir flight 900 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off of Massachusetts. The eventual conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board is it was intentional crash, which killed 33 Egyptian military officers.

• 1999 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 50th Anniversary in DC.

• 2000 – FBI learns that a Middle Eastern nation has been trying to purchase a flight simulator in violation of US restrictions.

• April 2000 – Niaz Khan, a British citizen from Pakistan, tells FBI of a plot to fly airliners into building. He was trained on a mock cockpit of 767, including how to hijack a plane and how to smuggle guns and other weapons on board. He flew to US and was told to meet with a contact to then meet up with others to fly a plane into a building. He passes a polygraph given by FBI but he is deported to London.

• July–August 2000 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Republican Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic Convention in New York.

• August 2000 – Italian intelligence wiretaps al Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy and overhears plan to attack enemies of Islam with aircraft. Warning is sent to US in March 2001.

• October 2000 – Pentagon conducts an emergency drill for a crashed airline that had been hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.

• September 2000 - September 2001 – NORAD conducts regional war games exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets; one target is World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets conduct a mock shoot down of airliners over Atlantic Ocean. In another, the Pentagon is the target (but this one was called off). Exercises are called Vigilant Guardian and Northern Vigilance, and another is being held at the National Reconnaissance Office which included an airplane being used as a flying weapon.

• January 2001 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against an airplane attack for Bush inauguration.

• January - August 2001 – FAA issues 15 warnings to airliners ... Bush officials claim information is so vague it does not warrant additional security ... but the warnings remain classified today.

• February - July 2001 – Trial of embassy bombers in New York features testimony of 2 UBL associates that received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma. One UBL aide gives evidence to government about pilot training.

• March 2001 – Fox’s show The Lone Gunmen depicts an attack by terrorists using a remote-controlled 727 aircraft against the World Trade Center (the real attackers turn out to be US government agents who want to justify continued, large military budgets by creating fear of terrorism).

• April 2001 – NORAD special operations personnel imagine a scenario where a terrorist group hijacks plane and flies it into the Pentagon ... the plan is rejected as too unrealistic.

• April 2001 – FBI translators Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar learn of a warning given to FBI by an FBI informant that al Qaeda is planning to attack US and Europe with airplanes and that al Qaeda agents are being trained in US as pilots. Edmonds says: “President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that’s accurate. However, there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand, and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001." Says US claims about not knowing of 9/11 plan were outrageous lies ..."That's an outrageous lie and documents can prove it's a lie."

• April 2001 – FAA sends a warning to US airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up US planes and that carriers should demonstrate a high level of alertness.

• May 2001 – Pentagon practices for crashed 757 into Pentagon.

• June 2001 – German intelligence warns CIA, M16, and Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols, which stand out.”

• June 2001 – NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 01 and Amalgam Virgo 02, the latter of which involves two simultaneously hijacked commercial airliners. Fighters are to respond and consider shooting down planes.

• June 2001 – Men in Cayman Islands are overheard by Cayman Islands and British intelligence discussing plans to conduct hijacking attacks in New York City. Information is forwarded to US intelligence.

• June 2001 – Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke gives a direct warning to FAA to increase security measures in light of impending terrorist attack and FAA refuses to implement them.

• July 2001 – Attorney General John Ashcroft stops flying commercial aircraft due to an unknown threat assessment ... Ashcroft will not answer questions about it.

• July 2001 – FBI agent Ken Williams sends a message warning of suspicious activities involving group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Arizona: subtitle of memo is “Osama bin Laden and Al-Muhrjiroun supporters attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona.”

• July 2001 – US intelligence reports a spike in warnings against G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Head of Russia’s Bodyguard Service reports that al Qaeda will try to kill President Bush ... Egyptian intelligence discovers communication from UBL saying he would assassinate Bush and other leaders during the G-8 summit using an “airplane stuffed with explosives” ... US and Italy are sent urgent warnings ... Germany sends warning of UBL paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote-controlled aircraft packed with explosives into conference hall ... Bush and other leaders stay on an aircraft carrier and a luxury ship away from the area.

• July 2001 – FAA issues a warning telling airlines to use the highest level of caution and another saying “terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, as we ask you therefore to use caution.”

• July 2001 – Egyptian intelligence passes on message to CIA that 20 al Qaeda members had slipped into US and that 4 of them were training on Cessnas.

• August 2001 – Britain warns US of al Qaeda attack involving multiple airline hijackings.

• August 2001 – Russian President Vladimir Putin warns US that suicide pilots are training for attacks on US.

• August 2001 – US intelligence learns of a plot to crash airplane into US Embassy in Nairobi.

• August 2001 – Actor James Woods relays concerns of four Arabic-looking men who look suspicious in first class aboard his flight ... flight staff notifies FAA ... Woods is not interviewed by FBI until after 9/11 ... all four are believed to have been involved on 9/11 and were believed to be on one of their practice runs for 9/11.

• August 2001 – the “bin Laden Determined to Strike In US” memo is given to President Bush while he was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas ... it reads in part: “bin Laden wanted to hijack US aircraft to gain the release” of Oman Abdul Rahman and others and tells of “suspicious activity in the US consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

• August 2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested in Minneapolis, MN with letters that connect him to Malaysia (where a meeting of al Qaeda operatives occurred under the watch of the CIA in 2000) and some of the hijackers. He also has an unexplained $32,000 bank balance, two knives, fighting gloves, shin guards, and has prepared for violence through physical training. He paid $8,300 for flight training, mostly in cash, to use a 747 aircraft simulator. He asked “how much fuel is on board a 747 and how much damage could it cause if it hit anything”? He has no aviation background, little previous training, and no pilot’s license, he wants to fly only as an ego-boosting thing, he is extremely interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, and wants to know how to communicate with flight tower. He is evasive and belligerent when asked about his background. He mostly practices flying in the air rather than taking off or landing. The flight school sends information to the FBI and receives little interest, so it contacts them again as says: “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon.” Moussaoui is arrested but not connected to the 9/11 attackers until after 9/11.

• August 2, 2001 – FBI headquarters Radical Fundamentalist Unit agent calls FBI Minneapolis office supervisor that he is getting people “spun up” over Zacarias Moussaoui. The supervisor says he is trying to get people at FBI headquarters “spun up” because he is trying to make sure Moussaoui does “not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.”

• August 23-27, 2001 – FBI agents in Minneapolis are convinced Zacarias Moussaoui is planning to do something with a plane. One agent writes he might “fly something into the World Trade Center.” They decide to pursue a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant – in more than 10,000 requests over 20 years, every single warrant has been granted – yet FBI headquarters decides against it due to a mistaken understanding by its legal experts of the FISA rules.

• August 24, 2001 – A Minneapolis FBI agent contacts CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center and calls Moussaoui a “suspect 747 airline attacker” and a “suspect airline suicide attacker.” FBI headquarters chastises the Minneapolis office for contacting headquarters without permission.

• Bob Graham explained the Moussaoui failure by the FBI, and in doing so, discussed in depth the warnings that should have been clear. From June to July 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) noted an increase in threat activity (the third such rise since the winter). The US military declared ThreatCon Delta and all ships in the Persian Gulf were sent to sea. And Attorney General John Ashcroft began traveling only on government jet. Graham says this was “opposed to the commercial aircraft Attorneys General normally take, despite the fact that senior FBI and CIA officials knew of no specific threat against the Attorney General” (p. 72). In July 2001, when the FBI’s Phoenix office sent a memo voicing concern that UBL might be using US flight schools to infiltrate America’s civil aviation system, it was ignored by superiors and never reached the FBI’s Minneapolis office (which arrested Zacarias Moussaoui one month later for suspicious activities at a flight school). This is called stove-piping (when information did not move across FBI field offices).

• This “Phoenix memo” was sent by Kenneth Williams, who first became concerned with Libyans with suspected terrorist ties working for US aviation companies in the 1990s. Williams was later told about Arabs in a local mosque involved in aviation training. In April 2000, Williams watched a man name Zakaria Mustapha Soubra, a Lebanese national studying aeronautical safety in Arizona. Williams interviewed Soubra at his apartment and Soubra was defiant. He had photos of UBL and injured mujahedeen fighters on his wall. Soubra’s car outside had a license plate on it that came back of a man named Mohammed al-Qudhaeein who had been detained in 1999 for trying to get into the cockpit of an America West flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC. Al-Qudhaeein was traveling to a party at the Saudi embassy and his ticket had been paid for by the Saudi government. The FBI did not even investigate the case! In 2000, al-Qudhaeein was put on the State Department’s TIPOFF terrorist watch list after US intelligence learned he might have received explosives and car bomb training in Afghanistan. In August 2001, al-Qudhaeein applied for a visa to reenter the US but was denied entry! Perhaps he was an additional hijacker?

• Williams was taken off of counterterrorism to work an arson case in early 2001. The arson case was closed in April 2001 and he wrote an electronic communication (EC) to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (this is the Phoenix memo). The continuing investigation of Soubra found six associates also involved in aviation training. While Williams did not know it, it was discovered that Soubra knew Hani Hanjour through a local religious center and carpooled with him to flight school. On at least five occasions, they were at the same flight school on the same day and at least once, they flew together! In July 2001, Williams finished his EC and sent it to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters. READ the memo on pp. 44-45. Williams’ recommendations, if followed, would have prevented 9/11. Graham says that “had William’s recommendations been acted upon promptly, liaisons with the flight schools would have found at least one and perhaps as many as three other hijackers still developing their flying skills” (p. 47). ECs are sent to the specified units and then forwarded to the individual assigned to the lead. Williams sent the EC and requested that both the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and the Usama bin Laden Unit consider his recommendations. Both of these are operational units (that investigate specific crimes) but it did not go to an analytic unit (which considers long-term, strategic issues). It was ultimately forwarded to an FBI intelligence analysts in Portland, Oregon along with a note specifying Williams’ theory. The agent did not take any action or share it more widely and the lead was closed by officers in the RFU and UBLU on August 7, 2001. As it turns out, way back in 1983, the INS asked the FBI for assistance in locating Libyan nationals engaged in aviation or nuclear-related education! In 1998, the head of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office contacted headquarters to express concern about the large numbers of Middle Eastern males at Oklahoma flight schools. In 1999, the FBI received word that a terrorist organization was planning to send students to the US for aviation training. In response, the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters sent a communication to twenty-four field offices asking them pay close attention to Muslim students from the country who were engaged in aviation training in their areas. No FBI field offices followed up on this instruction. The investigation was dropped in November 2000 when the INS failed to respond to an FBI letter asking them to search databases for individuals from the target country studying in the US!

• Graham asserts that had the Minneapolis FBI Field Office seen these memos and requests, it might have broken the 9/11 plot when it arrested Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui was not a typical flight school student for he did not have a pilot’s license, was not employed by an airline, and had not logged any flight hours. His suspicious activities concerned flight school employees – he had extreme interests in operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, he repeatedly said he would love to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to JFK Airport in New York, and he paid $6,800 in cash. Employees say he discussed how much fuel is on a Boeing 747 and the damage such a plane could do if it were to hit something. A flight manager contacted a friend at the FBI and Moussaoui was arrested for being “out of status” (overstayed his visa). Minneapolis informed FBI headquarters of Moussaoui’s detention by the INS and it asked the CIA and the FBI’s legal attache in Paris for any information they could get on him. The FBI and INS went to his hotel and seized his laptop computer and belongings, yet they were told they need a warrant to search them. The FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant but it decided against this route! So they decided for the French to search his belongings and not get a FISA warrant. According to Graham, the FBI’s legal attache in Paris reported that Moussaoui had been in Chechnya assisting Chehen rebels which could have been enough to secure a FISA search warrant. The FBI mistake was thinking that Moussaoui had to be connected to an organization that the State Department listed as a foreign terrorist organization (which was not a FISA requirement). FISA does not require it be a “recognized foreign power” just a foreign power. So they spent about 3 weeks trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qaeda! The FBI did not even try for a normal criminal search warrant and did not even make his presence public, which could have disrupted the plot!

• According to Graham, Minneapolis sent a memo to FBI headquarters stating that Moussaoui’s “possession of weapons and his preparation through physical training for violent confrontation” gave them reason to believe he “and others yet unknown” were conspiring to take control of an airplane. Minneapolis contacted the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for more information on Moussaoui and a Minneapolis case agent sent an email on August 21, 2001 to the supervisory special agent in the RFU who was handling the matter. It said: “It is imperative that the [US Secret Service] be appraised of this threat potential indicated by the evidence ... if [Moussaoui] seizes an aircraft from Heathrow to NYC, it will have the fuel on board o reach DC.” Yeah, not to mention the World Trade Center! On August 23, two FBI agents visited the Airman Flight School in Oklahoma City where Moussaoui first learned to fly ... one of the agents had visited the school in 1999 to investigate the training there of UBL’s personal pilot!

• August 2001 – FAA issues a warning to airlines that terrorists have made breakthroughs in disguising weapons as cell phones, key chains, and pens.

• August 2001 – Spanish police record conversations from calls in Britain to Spain saying “in our classes, we have entered the field of aviation, and we are even going to cut the Eagle’s throat.”

• August - September 2001 – NORAD practices for hijackings of planes from the states of Utah and Washington.

• September 2001 – NSA intercepts phone calls from Abu Zubaida, UBL’s chief of operations, into US (which are still classified) ... British intelligence intercepts call from UBL to man in Pakistan with specific information as to attack including time frame (which are still classified).

• September 2001 – Author Salman Rushdie is banned by US from taking internal US flights due to “intelligence of something about to happen.”

• September 2001 – Sydney Olympics officials reveal that “A fully loaded, fueled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience at the Sydney Olympics is one of the greatest security fears for the Games.” Australia puts 6 planes in the air at all times to intercept wayward aircraft (planning is also underway for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah to defend against plane attacks when 9/11 occurs).

• September 4, 2001 – FBI headquarters sends a message to US intelligence community about the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation. Warning is given to the FAA but the FAA does not issue a security alert to the nation’s airports.

• September 9-11, 2001 – NORAD runs Operation Northern Vigilance which deploys fighters to Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor Russian air force exercise in Russian arctic. US fighters are thus diverted from US. Exercise is cancelled at 9 am on 9/11.

• September 10, 2001 – Eight hours prior to the attacks, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown receives warning from his security people at the airport to be cautious when traveling ... he is headed for New York

• September 10, 2001 – President Bush is staying at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, FL. Surface to air missiles are placed on roof of the resort.

• September 2001 – Pentagon officials, including US generals, are warned not to fly and cancelled trips for the morning of September 11

So, there it is. Tell me again how we did not see this coming and how President Bush and members of his Administration can honestly say they had no idea using commercial planes as missiles was even a possibility?!?

Isn't it ironic? Even Mitt Romney, planning for the 2002 Olympics in Utah, knew about the possibility of airplanes being used in a terrorist attack--and planned accordingly! BUSH WAS STUPIDLY BLINDED BY HIS OBSESSION THAT HIS DAD HADN'T FINISHED THE JOB IN IRAQ--and now the whole muslim world is after us. Thanks, Dubya.

Your post is longer than the original article. Who is going to read that?

I do like the fact you did research but you did forget that during Clinton's administration, our forces were being decreased. Military bases being closed. Guam Naval and Airforce base with less than 100 military personnel. This is a important area. Why did many people chose to retire early due to "what they saw coming" quoted by my uncle (General) and his other military friends. Why? Why within 9 months of Bush administration 911? Why was attacks to USA not handle during Clinton's administration? See the picture.
Could USA quickly respond to attack? No. This was a great time because we hand limited of military personnel. HMMM Makes you wonder why?? Why when Clinton was asked about his thoughts of the attack his quick response was "I was in Australia" What?? Hello? So what I am saying, is what said is good but you did not mention all the other crap that was going on in USA and other countries. There is a system to everything. How about stay up to date with what other countries are saying (and don't use AP or other American news reporting systems--go in the back door) then may be use may see some of this in another light.

ultra

Your first points are completely irrelevant. What does a base in Guam have to do with intelligence? Clinton was not president during the attack, or did that fact escape you?

Ferro: You don't understand the premise Dee Turner began with: This “Bojinka Plot” was discovered by Philippine police responding to a fire in an apartment building in Manilla. This was a plan by al Qaeda to blow up 12 commercial airliners and 9/11 mastermind KSM.

-----------------------

This was the first alert involving KSM, who was the mastermind of 9/11. It makes no difference who was president. The Bojinka Plot was the tip off to an organization called Al Queada.

Good job, Dee Turner: We all know that you cannot convince a fool. A fool will always remain a fool.

Very impressed by all the posts by Dee Turner. Research that few know about. I hope you are part of the Democratic fight for the White House, you'd be an asset. I am for Obama even though I know he's not perfect. I whole heartedly agree that Republicans obstructionish actions are unpatriotic and against what the people voted for. They did it to the Clinton adminstration as well. We the people voted Obama into office and when the Republican targets his administration, its not what the people wanted and they are wrong and should be held liable. They just want to win and that's more important than fixing our country and working with the Democrats and other views.

My biggest concern is about my fellow citizens and how they can think Obama could erase the 8 years of Bush and the terrible mistakes and errors he made. Can't be done in 4 years, worst econcomy since the 30's Depression. Ask some one who went thru the Depression and how long it took to get out of it. Also, it's hard to fathom why lower and middle class voters vote Republican, they are not on your side. Thanks for listening and the valuable info many have posted.

You miss out on the many facts that Israel was the true regime responsible for the events of 9/11!!!!! Zionism will be held accountable for their atrocities and we Americans will defeat those fascist scumbags!!! Remember the USS Liberty! Destroy Israel!!!!

They did want a war. Look up the Partnership for a New American Century (PNAC) and their position paper regarding military build-up that referenced a catalyzing event such as a "modern-day Pearl Harbor." I don't want to go so far as to believe that BushCo knew that the WTC was going to be hit, but based on these reports they KNEW we were going to be the target of a terrorist attack and did nothing to prevent it.

10 years and thousands of lives later, we're still bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Imagine for a microsecond if this had all occurred during the democratic administration. We would still be hearing how democrats failed America and should never, ever, be trusted to protect American soil.

Alas, it happened under Bush, the pretender to the throne, and Democrats politely stood down and bit their tongues on the most heinous failure of responsibility since Benedict Arnold's traitorous acts. Democrats have pride in the USA and loyalty to the nation. Republicans would rather have the office of the President in a burning nation than stop the fires. They have become truly pathetic. Would any of you still vote Republican? It says volumes about you, too, if you refuse to see the writing on the wall. Stop saying you love America when there is NO SUCH EVIDENCE.

Bill? Are you recreating history? I can recall those "polite" democrats calling the previous president every foul slur that could be uttered.

the pretender to the throne,

the puppet to the throne.

Fixed it for you

Stay classy, Tracy.

Just calling out the BS when is presented on this board.

I can recall those "polite" democrats calling the previous president every foul slur that could be uttered.

Do you have any facts, any videos, anything to back that up with? One thing that did not happen -- we never had a nationally syndicated talk show host say eh wanted Bush to fail.

Bill, none of us outside the Clinton/Bush administrations really knows what Clintons team knew or claimed to know about a potential terror attack in the U.S., and what was actually passed on to the Bush team during the transition, and how much urgency was attached to it. We all know the claims by Clinton, oh yea it was all right there in black and white, right down to the date and the flights. Now Bill Clinton wouldn't be covering his a$$ would he?? Not a chance, right Bill? I do hold Bush accountable for 9/11, but I hold Bill Clinton accountable too. What, wasn't the 1st WTC attack motivation enough to have Osama rubbed out? Maybe the Cole bombing could have tipped the scale, nope. No action. Oh I forgot, Clinton blew up a baby formula factory in response, the famous "Monica Missiles", who could forget that stellar response to an act of war! No fricken wonder they hit us with that wimpy response.

However ther is 1 thing I will agree with you Bill, had Gore won the 2000 race, he and the democrats would have been savaged forever and a day by everyone who wasn't a democrat. There is no doubt in my mind that 9/11 would still have happened had Gore won. He's the luckiest man alive not to be president on that day.

Chef

Nothing nearly as vile as what we hear daily about our sitting president. Bush was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and he was called on it, but he was not called a traitor etc. etc. At least not in the way we hear it today, but then Bush is white.

arcangle

As for FDR. The Pearl Harbor attack was not exactly known, but there were precautions taken, just not enough. FDR knew we were going to war and he wanted to begin preparations but the isolationist republicans wouldn't let him, so he did it quietly and rather effectively, starting civilian pilot training in 1940 even and began making airplanes in much greater numbers (the part I know best as I'm an airplane freak). Note the B-29 was designed before WWII and flew in September 1942. The design work started much earlier. Even the B-36 design was initiated before America was involved, but not flown until after the war as we didn't need it until later.

Clinton had info, true and he gave it all to Bush who just ignored it. I don;t believe the conspiracy stories, I just think the republicans weren't too bright and just didn't want to act on anything the democrats gave them for the same reason they don't cooperate with anybody today.

To..hard """

Funny I could have sworn I already posted this to you ..anyway notice the date

“We predicted it”

A bipartisan commission warned the White House and Congress that a bloody attack on U.S. soil could be imminent. Why didn't anyone listen?
Wednesday, Sep 12, 2001

By Jake Tapper

They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president “We told you so.”

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism — which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying — while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA’s attention.

But in May, Bush announced his plan almost as if the Hart-Rudman Commission never existed, as if it hadn’t spent millions of dollars, “consulting with experts, visiting 25 countries worldwide, really deliberating long and hard,” as Hart describes it. Bush said in a statement that “numerous federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon in the United States. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious and comprehensive.” That, according to the president, should be done through FEMA, headed by Allbaugh, formerly Bush’s gubernatorial chief of staff.

Bush also directed Cheney — a man with a full plate, including supervision of the administration’s energy plans and its dealings with Congress — to supervise the development of a national counter-terrorism plan. Bush announced that Cheney and Allbaugh would review the issues and have recommendations for him by Oct. 1. The commission’s report was seemingly put on the shelf.

http://www.salon.com/2001/09/13/bush_111/

Bill - it did happen under Clinton. The first trade center bombing was by El Qaida. The Clinton administration apparently didn't note that and tried the ones they caught as individuals.

Bill, your views about Republicans are extreme and offensive. Idiotic really. I don't know why I continue to read the garbage on this newsvine.

DB-There was no other way to handel these guys at that time. It has been changed and people don't like the new procedures for dealing with terrorists either. No matter what you do, someone's going to be pissed.

To..DB''''''

No ...nobody listened to Clinton

SALON | Aug. 27, 1998

Is bin Laden a terrorist mastermind --
or a fall guy?

The Clinton administration accuses Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden of being directly responsible for almost every terrorist act of the last decade. But where's the evidence?

To the litany of terrorist acts that President Clinton laid at the feet of renegade Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden in justification of his cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and the Sudan last week, the administration has now alleged a murky plot to assassinate the president as well.

The alleged plot against Clinton was to have taken place when he was to have visited Pakistan. The anonymous intelligence sources that have made such an industry in bin Laden revelations this week acknowledge that the plot never went beyond the coffee-shop talking stage.

But the charge helped to reinforce the president's claims that bin Laden is "perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," and that there was "compelling" -- if unrevealable -- evidence that a network of terrorist groups he controlled was planning "further attacks against Americans and other freedom-loving groups."

At a time when presidential veracity is at an all-time low, one might have wished that the president and his national security advisors had laid out in detail just what was the "compelling evidence" that led the United States to launch some 75 missiles at two sovereign nations.

As it is, the public, both here in the United States and in the more critical world at large, is being asked to take a giant Kierkegaardian leap of faith in the president's claims. Given Clinton's recent track record in the "trust me" department, this is a lot to demand.

For while there is little doubt that bin Laden is a sworn enemy of the United States with the financial means to put some teeth in that enmity, his exact role in anti-American terrorism is unclear. The administration's claims are based more on conjecture -- mostly bin Laden's own braggadocio and the bad company he apparently keeps -- than hard and convincing evidence.

******Clinton and his security staff have now blamed bin Laden for being behind almost every terrorist act in the past decade -- from plotting the assassinations of the pope and the president of Egypt to the planned bombing of six U.S. jumbo jets over the Pacific, with massacres of German tourists at Luxor and the killings of U.S. troops in Somalia, fatal car bombings of U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia and this month's truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam thrown in. Not since the '70s heyday of the terrorist Carlos has there been such a Prince of Darkness, if the allegations are to be believed.

But so far, for all of the accusations, no government, not even that of the United States, has established enough credible evidence against bin Laden to conclusively prove his direct participation in, much less leadership of, any of the ugly plots and acts he stands accused of. To date no formal request for his extradition has ever been made, either to the Sudanese government that once housed him or to his current hosts, Afghanistan's Taliban leaders.

Though it was suddenly leaked this week that a federal grand jury's continuing investigation into the World Trade Center bombing in New York City in 1993 had belatedly handed up a sealed indictment against bin Laden in June, the indictment is understood to be only for "sedition," that is, incitement to violence, not the violence itself. That is the same charge under which the Unites States previously convicted Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Trade Center bomber's spiritual leader.

The only link between bin Laden and the World Trade Center bombing seems to be the fact that the mastermind of the bombing, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, was eventually detained by U.S. agents while living in a guest house in Pakistan reportedly rented by bin Laden. The Saudi was also implicated in a failed 1994 plan to blow up American jumbo jets over the Pacific because the plot mastermind, Wali Khan Amin Shah, reportedly was a "close friend" of bin Laden's. *********

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/08/27news.html

Hardtostarboard - feel free to question the Big Dog on the first WTC attack. Do you remember that the US found all the participants, convicted them in an open trial on American soil, and sentenced them all where they are still doing time for their crimes.

What was Bush's scorecard over eight years?

Bill- ever heard of Pearl Harbor.

raider64... "What was Bush's scorecard over eight years?"

I dunno'. Maybe it was hiding from the National Guard. Kinda' like he was.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Amunaka....Great posts!

Has everyone gone crazy??? OMG!! I cannot believe the amount of hate I am reading in here. Is there anyone here who remembers their WWII history?? After Pearl Harbor was attacked (if anyone doesn't remember Pearl Harbor is in Hawaii and was blown to bits by the Japanese December 7, 1941) there were those that said President Roosevelt knew about the attack before it happened and ignored the warnings. That was no more true than the lies you are telling about President Bush. Your hatred is destroying this country. I am so scared for my children and grandchildren. STOP this nonsense now!!!! You are so hurtful!!

ferrosythesis-you're wrong on one account. republicans weren't isolationist. the whole country was isolationist (except FDR). FDR WAS NOT quiet about anything; the lend lease act, extended to Britain and Russia, was blatant in showing which side America was for; we sent not only supplies, but fully constructed tanks, ships, and aircraft to these countries on the promise that, after the war, they would be returned (but of course, how can you return a tank after it is destroyed in war?). Furthermore, FDR was not shy about his support of the allies, telling Churchill personally on a U.S. ship that the plight of Britain was not lost on him, and strongly objecting to Hitler's advances in 1938 and on. Believe it or not, FDR pushed the country into the war, whether we liked it or not. Of course, he was 100% right in doing this; but the fact remains of what he did. The vast majority of Americans were anti war, democrats and republicans alike (although, I think I know what you were getting at: Charles Lindbergh, American hero and staunch republican, was a part of the America First group (also very republican), which, as the name implies, campaigned HEAVILY in support of isolationism and was successful in swaying many people's minds). WWI was still fresh in the public mind; little was known of Hitler's, Mussolini's, and Tojo/Hirohito's atrocities (in the public light anyways); and we had spent the last decade and a half starving through the Great Depression. No one wanted a war; in many respects, prior to the events of Dec. 7, 1941, we weren't ready for war. Pearl Harbor was the thing that finally changed the tone of the country. Many people forget that prior to FDR, almost every president after Lincoln supported isolationism (Woodrow Wilson, mastermind of the League of Nations, being the most prominent exception). It was not a democrat vs. republican thing; it was a political thing. Wilson and FDR were just brilliant men; they knew that America was destined to be a major part of the world's affairs. But, the country wanted isolationism; how could they (or any of their fellows for that matter) openly support intervening in world affairs and still be popular? This also, inevitably, leads to the discussion that the U.S. was not ready to be a world power before WWII; even WWI didn't fully establish that status, as the U.S. only fought for a quarter of the war. Once the U.S. established itself in WWII by turning the tides, perhaps it was easier to sell the idea of us needing to be involved globally, and therefore led naturally to a shift in policy. However, strict partisanship was not a reality then; no doubt the republicans gave FDR trouble in congress, but remember that while FDR was a genius in foreign policy affairs, he was dismal in his success domestically, and not just due to republicans, but also due to many democrats as well, who weren't afraid to decline something just because it came from a president who was from their own party. Examples: court packing, the entire set of first New Deal acts, and ideas for fighting the depression (the depression, contrary to popular belief, was still in effect all through WWII; it was not until late in America's involvement in the war that the country started to shake the effects of the depression). There's actually a funny side note on FDR's brilliance; a lot of those "failures" were not failures at all in his mind. Many of those things he did just to test public opinion and see how much he could toe the metaphorical line without ruining himself. The guy had a natural feel for the American people, and that's why so many people recognize him as the best president of all time (or at least top 5). Anyways, that's my little history discussion. Fascinating!!!

Not surprising to see more evidence that Bush failed to act on available intelligence...

Because "acting on available intelligence" was never his strong suit no matter what the occasion, period.

@Patwick: although I agree with your last sentence and wish for civil, intelligent dialogue; I can't help but refer to this paragraph in the article:

Would action by the White House have helped? Like Eichenwald, Cressey says he isn’t sure, but notes that when similar intelligence pointed to attacks on Jan. 1, 2000, “Sandy Berger (Rice’s predecessor) and (President Bill) Clinton went to battle stations.” Did warnings prior to the millennium help thwart a number of attacks back then? Cressey believes they did.

All accounts of this situation point to a breakdown in the decision process and ultimately leadership of our country. Although not the chapter president of the W fan club, I cannot help but feel that the incompetence and ideology of Dick "Sure Shot" Cheney is at the core of this failure to assess and respond appropriately. Who knows what palace intrigue he plotted in his secret bunker during the Bush administration? I'm just glad he's gone, but I fear the more we learn about these events, the less comfortable we're going to feel about our government.

Speaking of Dick, where is he?

Or Bush, for that matter?

You'd think that with their entire set of policies on parade at the GOP convention, they'd at least have been invited to stop by and talk about them.

Wouldn't you?

Perhaps if former FBI Director Freeh had provided the Bush Administration the information he was given through the years prior to 2000 that John O'Neil had gathered during this time, the administration may have acted on the reports coming in, but that information was held back and O'Neil was forced to resign in August 2001. Sadly John O'Neil became head of security at the Trade Center and perished along with all the other people.

@RealAmericansFirst: Bush actually was there - he did a commemorative fly-over of Tampa at the end of the convention in a Cessna 172 ... it was the perfect way to celebrate that disaster.

Oh Dick raises his ugly head to bash this President and his daughter is not far behind

Dick Cheney why are you not in shackles before the Geneva Convention and spending your rotting soul in prison

Liz Chaney = least qualified person in the US to discuss anything of importance

All that idiot can do is shout unrelated neocon (she has non of her own) talking points at / over other people on "news" shows. She has no useful function in American society and is a drain on our economy. You'll never see that intellectual coward step into a real debate with the many people who have offered because she knows how what a poor showing she would make.

We all know it is Zionist pigs who are responsible for what happened on 9/11!!!

They sure did do the wrong thing. The capitulated to Bush's doctrine of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and let him go to war with bad intel, let him pass the Patriot Act, and let him acclimate us to a growing police state. The Dems are every bit as guilty, if not more so, as Bush and his pals.

I can recall those "polite" democrats calling the previous president every foul slur that could be uttered.

Do you have any facts, any videos, anything to back that up with? One thing that did not happen -- we never had a nationally syndicated talk show host say eh wanted Bush to fail.

Actually we do!

http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html

,,,, your right Ransom... the Dems voted for the war ... but, what wasnt known at the time was... IT WAS BASED ON LIES FROM THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ..... wmd's lies... none ever found.... and that makes it a war criminal offense .....

you want lies,look at present administration,from obama down(make deal with Russia,I pay taxes geitner,holder,with fast and furious ,I didn't sell guns to mexican drug cartel and get 300 people killed)

Mischief, if my representative votes for something and doesn't actually look in to it, I hold him/her accountable. I blame BushCo #1 for the whole fiasco, but Congress was complicit by virtue of their ignorance and/or fear.

I'm dead sick of fear, there's nothing in this world worth being afraid of.

Cappy-1911...

When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth, they will either cease being mistaken or cease being honest.

Hey let's forget the fact that Saddam broke SIXTEEN UN resolutions after the first gulf war. That ALONE was reason to finish the job that should have been done in 1991 but idiots like Al Gore told the senate that it wouldn't be in our best interest....

Saddam had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Neo-cons at New American Century had plans to attack Iraq before 9/11. It was in Cheney and his cronies at Haliburton's best interest. You should ask the Mothers of 4500 war dead if it was in our countries best interest. Poppy Bush did not FINISH the job because he was advised he would be mired in an never ending war. Try and get some real info B4 posting. DUH

justin - I don't care if Saddam broke a thousand resolutions he was not involved in 911

It was all about the oil baby and Cheney and haliburton thrived on that

It's all about zionist pigs capitalizing on war and creating anti-Islamic world views to support their apartheid scumbag regime. While they control our banking system and seek to run our nation into the ground.

Nice to see that Big is trotting out all the anti-Obama rhetoric that was debunked 3.5 years ago. Thanks for being so obviously a troll, now we don't even have to try to figure it out for ourselves.

Bush, Rice, Cheney, all of them -- they failed to connect the dots. I'm not sure anyone could have connected the dots. If anyone whats to read a good account of 9/11 -- go the a library and get The Cell by John Miller and Chris Mitchell. It's an eye opener.

Hey Big...Show, go back to the strip club with your idiot friends and keep thinking the girls all WANT you SO badly; you seem to enjoy believing in fairy tales.

To..Chef"""

Clinton wasn't a draft dodger...he was clearly anti war ...his number came up 311 in the draft lottery..never would have been picked

Right Amunaka to..chef; Clinton was NOT a draft dodger.

But MITTENS sure was...pathetic lump of bs. romney's lies, distortions and tax returns are an example of how he will lead...pay attention, don't be dazzeled by hate...

Vote Obama/Biden the American People's Choice!

And when did Biden or Obama serve? How many deferments for Biden?

Obama is AGAINST the American people!! Look how he refused to enforce immigration laws, but sues those states that tried to enforce them! Our unemployment rate is thru the roof! Where are those jobs he promised? He has spent MORE money in four years than any other president! HE LIES! He promised to raise energy rates to force us to go green! Look at gas prices! He calls those who disagree with him ENEMIES! I almost voted for him, but got smart and realized, we are in trouble if he becomes president! No, not another four years! And I don't like Bush either! I voted for Clinton!

@From Idaho and a Liberal-then we might as well hold every president accountable for lieing during their pledge to uphold the constitution. The constitution does not grant the president many powers at all; as many know, they were downright terrified of giving one single person too much power. The office of the president today compared to that of 1789 is vastly different; in fact, Alexander Hamilton, during discussions of what needed to be included in the constitution, proposed a plan for a president who would be similar (in power) to the one we have now (not specifically Obama; again, I'm referring to the office of the president, so please don't attack me for not liking Obama), and was greeted with absolute silence from the fellow delegates. He walked out of the hall in shame. The fact is that EVERY SINGLE president since the day Washington first stepped into office has pushed the boundaries of what a president can and can't do to new limits. In article II, section III, the constitution says that the president should execute the laws faithfully; this means that he shouldn't decide if a law is good or bad, but simply enforce the laws that congress approves. Going by this measure, Obama could technically face impeachment trials for refusing to uphold DOMA! Of course, we know that this is not reality, and nor should it be. He didn't do anything that didn't have a precedent in this country's history! But, my point is this: every president has pushed the bounds of what the constitution says they are allowed to do. It doesn't make it right, but we all have to admit that the founders couldn't have forseen the things that the nation would one day have to face. Personally, I think our president's have a little to much power generally, often times influencing lawmaking (which was a big no-no to the founders; they wanted the executive branch to have ZERO, NADA, ZILCH law making ablilty; he can propose laws to congress, but only those that are necessary to the union; you won't see a lot of presidents following that line of the constitution lol). As a final sidebar, one thing you should also be aware of when you accuse republicans of being warmongers, and of bush not telling people all the facts about iraq, etc., is that both FDR and Truman (democrats) funded the Manhattan project with $2 billion worth of money that was never approved by congress; many historians argue that had Truman not dropped the bomb, his legacy as well as FDR's would have been vastly different, as this is a VERY illegal practice. To put a little perspective on this for everyone, $2 billion dollars in that time was worth roughly 25 trillion dollars today (according to davemanuel.com; i simply googled an inflation calculator for that number so don't hate me too much if that's not entirely accurate; the point is still the same :P)! Imagine that kind of money being spent without congresssional approval!! Now, I'm not saying FDR or Truman were bad presidents (quite the contrary, they are both top 5 for me); nor am i saying that democrats are bad, or that bush is actually a hero, or anything of the sort. It just coincides with my former point; all presidents of both parties have pushed the limits on presidential power, not just republicans, and it is also not just republicans that have some gray parts of their presidency! Very interesting stuff, no???

To..hard""""

Funny

FBI to resume Cole probe in Yemen

August 31, 2001 By Andrea Koppel

CNN Washington Bureau WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After an absence of more than three months, FBI investigators are expected to return to Yemen as soon as next week to resume their investigation into last year's bombing of the USS Cole, a senior administration source tells CNN.

An advance team from the FBI, consisting of "technical folks," are now in Yemen to pave the way for next week's arrival of FBI agents after the long holiday weekend. Earlier this month, the FBI and the State Department reached a tentative agreement on security arrangements for FBI investigators working in Yemen.

The FBI pulled all of its investigators out of Yemen in June after a dispute between the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, and the FBI's lead supervisor of the investigation, John O'Neill, who wanted permission for his agents to carry heavier weapons in Yemen due to "specific and credible" security threats.

When Bodine denied O'Neill's request, saying that FBI investigators would be protected by the same diplomatic security rules as agents who guard U.S. diplomats at the U.S. Embassy, the FBI suspended its operation in Yemen. In recent weeks, teams from the FBI, the U.S. Navy and the State Department have been meeting in Washington and in Yemen to try to work out a compromise acceptable to all parties.

Officials are reluctant to provide details of the compromise security arrangement for fear of tipping off terrorists in the region. The United States is not yet able to say definitively who was responsible for last October's bombing of the USS Cole at the Yemeni port of Aden, officials say. However, one senior U.S. official said "our theory hasn't changed" that associates of Saudi militant Osama bin Laden were behind it.

Officials say their hope is that once the FBI is back on the ground in Yemen, investigators will be able to go through telephone records, interview and reinterview witnesses and suspects and the investigation will "be able to pick up where it left off" in June.

There will be one significant difference however: Bodine will be gone. Her tour in Yemen ends Friday. Bodine's replacement with be Edmund Hull, most recently the acting head of the U.S. State Department's office of counterterrorism.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/31/fbi.cole/

I do believe the incident with the USS Cole happened under CLINTON!

To..garry"""

Yup ...and ...

that happened in Oct 2000...

Missing Link

How feuds and culture clashes have stymied the U.S.S. Cole investigation

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

Tuesday, Jul. 10, 2001

The investigation was troubled from the start. On Oct. 13, within hours of the suicide blast that killed 17 American sailors on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, FBI agents assigned to the case touched down in the port city of Aden—and started to wait. For several hours the agents sat on their plane while the Yemenis searched through their luggage, itemizing every piece of high-tech equipment the gumshoes were bringing in. It was downhill from there. When they finally arrived at the Hotel Movenpick, where they would bunk three or four sweaty bodies to a room, they realized nobody had enough cash.

They had taken off so fast few had got to the bank; and with the closest ATM 700 miles across the desert in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the FBI had to figure out how to fly in cash for living expenses.Nine months later, the investigation into the attack in Yemen has ground to a halt. The bureau and the Yemenis have tried and failed to bridge the cultural chasm between them, haggling over investigative methods and security. The FBI and the U.S. State Department began a bitter feud over dealing with the Yemenis, leading to an open rupture between the agency's chief investigator and the U.S. ambassador there.

The upshot, U.S. officials say, is that the FBI still cannot prove what it believes: that the notorious Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network are behind the attack.At the same time, mounting indications of bin Laden's reach are coming to light. In a New York court earlier this month, a U.S. prosecutor suggested that Mokhtar Haouari, an Algerian citizen, was a bit player in a larger bin Laden plot. Not only were U.S. sites targeted to be bombed on Jan. 1, 2000, but there was a similar plot in Jordan and a planned attack against the U.S.S. The Sullivans while it was at port in Aden. "It is clear that the general guidance was given by al Qaeda network to pursue these three plots," says a U.S. counterterrorism official

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,166998,00.html

"It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people." Gore Vidal

"People get the government they deserve." Alexis de Tocqueville

Oh...

""How feuds and culture clashes have stymied the U.S.S. Cole investigation"""

The sad irony is that John O'Neill the inexhaustible man who hunted bin laden for years...was killed on 9/11 working security at the WTC

a job he had just started a few weeks before

Uh-huh. Threats come in all the time---where in this does it say they were to use a plane? I'm no Bush fan, but this is vague at best....what could any president do except keep an eye on it and with all the people who have ALWAYS worked on that interest pre-9/11 to protect us how is we could expect more when the attacks were so unconventional......CLINTON HAD OSAMA HANDED TO HIM MULTIPLE TIMES AND NEVER TOOK THE SHOT. Does this story mention that?

Let's look at some real threats from the past-

Clinton GAVE the Chicoms ICBM tech to allow them to deliver a missile to our doorstep and Obama gave the launch sites of the ICBM's of Great Britain to Russia. And what did he tell Medyedev (SP? WHO CARES) to tell good ol" Vlad about after the election----what horror MIGHT come from that?

Every president has faced threats----but none saw this coming. NBC should be ashamed of it's timting on this. Partisan hacks!

Hold on a second, let me clear my throat...

.

Is it wrong for me to ask questions?

Is it wrong to seek the truth?

I just can't blindly accept their version.

I can't base my logic on proof.

Almost all the evidence points one way,

But I'm like Charlie Sheen and Gloria Estefan:

I need to know what really happened

On 9/11-leven-leven-leven-leven.

.

.
What really happened
On 9/11...

:)

By a cartoon I saw on Youtube called South Park or something.

They sure are, most voted for Bush - twice!

and would have voted a third time rather then allow the most corrupt, ineffective administrationunder obama in the history of the united states to take office

Cameron Ford "But Wait! I thought Bush kept us safe"!

not! part of thre gop charm/policy is to use fear tactics, it's easier to manipulate people that way..

bush/cheney=ryan/romney= same results

Obama/Biden 2012 Vote for America's Best Interest

obama would sell the country done the river in a heart beat, along with the rest of his stooges

Geo Bush and his teabagger friends set up the 9-11 attack, Obama was in college how was it his fault??

gun...too late...Romney sold it offshore already...money is in offshore accounts.

starsailing: money in off-shore accounts because that moron corrupt obama has polluted the US economy to the extent that the only safe investments are off shore

According to his brother Jeb at the convention, W kept us safe. I beg to differ, the attack happened on his watch, and it's been proven over and over that he was given the memo that Bin Laden was planning an attack with large planes, Condeelesa even testified to the fact at the 9/11 Hearings. They were ignored by is V.P. Cheny and all those responsible. Bush , he was too busy playing golf and tap dancing and smirking to find any reality in being a responsible President.

So you're saying that Bill Clinton, who left office in January 2001, should have done something to prevent an attack that took place in September 2001? How exactly would that work?

There is known information that the Clinton also knew of this activity and chose to not do anything

The fact that 9-11 didn't happen on Clinton's watch shows that Clinton was doing his job of preventing it.

Bush is the one who was asleep at the wheel and Bin Laden struck when he knew we were vulnerable. It's Bush's folly no matter how hard you try to change history and push it onto Obama or Clinton.

These plans were know before. The world trade center has been the target of many close calls, some have been used. remember the parking garage? Every admin is aware of these plans. Nothing knew here.

Because shimloom is a moron who exists in a fanstasyland.

When Clinton authorized missiles sent to destroy bin Laden, which missed by an hour or so, Foxpublicans dismissed the action as "Monica missiles". Truth, look it up.

I think you mean nothing "new" here. I'm still trying to follow your logic that Clinton should somehow have prevented an attack that came on Bush's watch--that Bush received security briefings about.

Oh, and an attack that Bush's cronies in the PNAC were secretly hoping for so that they could fire up the military-industrial complex that Clinton had curtailed so well during his terms in office.

For all of you who are suggesting that Clinton had no part in this scenario - you should do some research. Al Qaida was a known threat for years prior to Bush taking office and committed attacks aimed at the United States well BEFORE Bush took office. The fact that the Sept. 11 attacks took place during the Bush administration is no more Bush's fault than the previous attacks were Clinton's fault. The failure is collective and the fault belongs to Al Qaida. But be prepared to take some of the same criticism that you are so happy to dish out.

yes. i remember the threats long ago, in Ny media the NYPD always was n alert, the news stations always mentioned this Al Qaida group and the threat of Bin Laden was always a story...the 9-11 attacks go way back even to the 70's if half of you would do your research you would see this war was started a long time ago....soon Muslim empathy and then they will take over from the inside out. No one will recognize this nation in about 10 years and the whole Jesus thing will go way beyond Tebow fever, the whole unfolding of the last days will be right in front of us, and yet many many will blame something or someone else and fail to see the Second Coming, many will worship the new global and charismatic world leader who will nite a no religious universal peaceful group of pluralists who want compromise for they choose peace never adhering to the factor of sin and forgiveness and this will be the great divide between real Christian born again disciples and false Christians as well as all other so called "religions" of the world. The Jews , many will become Messianic and very late the last evangelists. A lot to learn you got to sift through the false prophecy garbage but most of all people need forgiveness of sin mercy and grace , Jesus is the ONly way and its not a religion like the media tries to depict it and pluralist politically correct schools try to water it all down for common tolerance and afraid to offend, but this time was predicted as well.

To..truth""""

Official: White House Slow to OK Drones to Kill Bin Laden

June 25, 2003
FoxNews

WASHINGTON — When President Bush took office in January 2001, the White House was told that Predator drones (search) had recently spotted Usama bin Laden as many as three times and officials were urged to arm the unmanned planes with missiles to kill the Al Qaeda (search) leader. But the administration failed to get drones back into the Afghan skies until after the Sept. 11 attacks later that year, current and former U.S. officials say.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90318,00.html

YashBudini: wow just goes to show how many liberties we right wing Americans permit - we allow an illegal alien like you to spout your nonsense in an open forum. In most country's you would have been picked up, imprisoned or hung from the nearest tree unless of course it was a Muslim country then not only would you have been executed but your entire family would have been raped, tortured and then executed. Welcome to America loser.

I was born in the US you moron.

Chef, you simply don't have the balls to admit GWB was asleep at the wheel on September 11th, 2001.

YASHI: YOU realize how stupid you sound?

If the "wheel' was a book entitiled My Pet Goat, you would be correct!

YASHI: YOU realize how stupid you sound?

Well to be completely correct asleep at the wheel from the day he took the oath up and through September 11th. Sorry for the oversight, glad you caught it and made it "fair and balanced."

The USA invastion of Iraq was a set in stone fact the moment shrub was elected. Shrub was simply waiting for a spinable event to justify the invasion of Iraq. A family friend provided the spinable event.

YashBudini: you have a selective memory are are just flatout ignorant. Clinton dismantled our entire CIA network throughout the world in some misguided kumbaya notion that spies are bad people allowing bad people to wreck havoc on innocent Americans in the world trade center. The greatest miscarriage of justice is that Clinton was not brought to trial for treason and the same for his fat ass wife Hillary

Thank you for a voice of reason.

This is one of the saddest articles that I have read in some time. No specific threats, no specifics on where, how or when. Yet this is posted to be more blame Bush rhetoric.

Very sad.

DaveMMM,

Did you happen to hear the president's speech from the DNC last week? He said he is trying to fix things that have been building up for decades, not just during Bush's term. He implicitly lumped Clinton into the fray of people to blame. The current president has no shame (or dignity for that matter).

You are IDIOTS!!

The only idiots out there are the ones that believe corporations are people too, thanks to Nazi Justice Roberts.

Chef

Except it's true. It ahs been degrading for decades under both watches. The republicans say the same thing, only they stop at Clinton and don't mention Bush

Yashbudini; wow a bit emotionally disturbed are you? Perhaps as a soceity we in total would be better off if we deported your dumb ass back to whatever third world piece of @!$%# hole you call home of origin. What do you think moron?

JohnMann: We have asart prez now? What drugs have you been on and what planet have you been on?? The current guy is incompetent, is clueless and will be a ONE TERM president like the weak stupid guys: Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover.....

Eric-1132156, seriously. The President is obviously a lot smarter than you.

At least we have a smart prez now.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Eric-1132156, seriously. The President is obviously a lot smarter than you.

Please, my shoes are smarter than Eric-1132156.

I didn't vote for Bush either time, but your comment is not only mean it is completely unfair.

O&Joe 2012

Troll of the day award goes tooooooooooo! Flabby Chest!!!!!

JON MEYERS: NO YOU SIMPLETON... it could rest with Clinton for NOT STRIKING WHEN HE HAD THE CHance in his time at 1600 Pennsylvania, so, just shut up and crawl back underneath your rock.

Clinton did strike and it was called wagging the dog by the republicans, remember? He just missed Bin Laden by a few hours.

Ferrosynthesis: the operative term is he missed Osama not once but 4 times because of indecision and cowardice on the part of Clinton and his administration

cold blooded unamerican scum. shame on you for such a mean comment.

There is credible evidence that the attack plan was known. Just think about these two:

1) It makes no sense whatsoever when the country is under attack for the President to sit in a place where he was publicly scheduled to be. Absolutely no sense. They should have left the school building immediately (and evacuated the children as well).

2) We spend more on "defense" than all other nations combined. Yet, our military headquarters was attacked successfully, even though it was known that we were under attack for some time when the plane struck. Washington DC is the center of our government and of the highest importance to defend, but not a single military jet was in the air in the area when that plane crashed into the Pentagon, in spite of the warning. No defensive missiles (rumored to exist) were launched to protect Washington. Either our "defense" is totally incompetent or there was a stand down.

Most people deny of the wealth of evidence that the plan was known ahead of time. The irony is this: they insist that such a conspiracy is impossible and therefore they would never believe it even though it happened. This is exactly what protects the conspiracy. Anyone who suggests its existence is a nutcase, which I expect to be denounced as now.

shame on you for posting such propaganda.

My Gosh, smoke some more crack you liberal tard.................

much as I think that "truthers" (who are just as delusional as "birthers") are nuts, the "libtard" comment doesn't apply, since some of the radical right thinks that GW is part of the "secret conspiracy"

Thats what happens when you have two slobbering chicken hawks in the whitehouse.

Why do you make yourself look so crazy? With your buzzwords, and Fox Speak, do us a favor: Slap some feathers on yourself and act as the Fox Parrot you are.

Lene: take off your rose tinted glasses and put aside your drung indiced haze and smalle the roses - you liberal numb minded left wing radical

You can always tell a Foxtard because they are the only ones in the world who spell Osama with a "U"... Ternan, your spelling shows that you are a Foxtard and a memeber of the Tealiban... so STFU and go watch Focks

How about some justice against the biggest act of treason ever enacted against our country?

They rounded up all the evidence and destroyed it. That's what criminals do with evidence.

Yashi: Speaking of crminals. there is a warrant out for your arrest in connection with Grand Theft as well as check fraud.... turn yourself in..... the authorities have been notified and are tracking the IP address you used to post on this site. can you say, in your simpleton way: BOOKEM' DANO!

eric 1132156 get some help with your anger b4 it kills you. u r creepy...

Poor Eric, still on the crack pipe.

eric 1132156 get some help with your anger b4 it kills you. u r creepy...

They developed lithium with him in mind.

Time to expand the war against the religion that has declared war on everyone considered a non-believer. The world becomes a safer, better, more humane place once every Muslim extremist is exterminated

10 CRUISE-MISSILES sent at bin laden's camp in Afganistan

1 at his aspirin factory in Sudan

Possible the replicans and there supposed anger at infidelity

took the countries focus off bin laden after-that

FOCUS became FU-K US.

Jokin fails to factor in the pub mentality. Anything Clinton could have suggested the extremists would have simply said no. During Clinton's presidency Hillary suggested perhaps there should be a Palestinian state, and she was booed all over the place. GWB made the same suggestion 8 years later, and all of sudden he's a mastermind. Yeah, right.

Clinton had asked for more fund for covert ops during his term, guess which extremists said no?

Jokin, you're logic is a joke, you cast stones while your entire house is made of nothing but glass. You attempt to deflect all your party's problems by parroting Faux News the other guys are worse, as if all of a sudden that makes things OK.

Bush, Cheney, bin Laden, and Saddam all share the same @!$%# gene. They were all willing to send other people's kids to die in war, but not their own. That's a fact, not like the fantasy you posted.

If McCain were president today we'd all be buying World War III bonds and would be in even more debt.

YASHI: AGAIN SURRENDER... it is your best option. Felons like yourself, have NO where to hide.

YashBudini (25.2)

Excellent post and you're 100% correct. Your fourth paragraph sums it up perfectly..........

In my heart, I believe the Bush administration allowed 9/11/01 to happen so he would have a united USA because he had already planned to invade Iraq.

See: "Zeitgeist the Movie" for free on the internet.

http://vimeo.com/13726978

Felons like yourself, have NO where to hide.

You're a farce. Words don't make anyone a felon. You're a product of GWB's no child left behind act. Bush & Cheney however have treaded closer to treason than anyone in recent history. Your commentary merely shows you're choking on it.

The whole thing was explained years ago by Craig Unger in his book House of Bush, House of Saud. This is a MUST-READ for anyone who was alive and cognizant on 9/11/2001. The Bush family have been willingly taking it up the ass from the Saudi royals for decades.

msn, i would appreciate it if you would collapse this smut.

Damnit....we could have made good use of Lee Harvey Oswald back about that time....

This guy just made a death threat against an ex-president.

R U Jokin', Clinton killed some sperm over a lie, opposed to Bush killing how many American soldiers, Multi-National forces, and countless civilians over a lie? Clinton was impeached by the GOP over that lie, including spending millions of taxpayer $'s in doing so, opposed to NOTHING done against Bush, for betraying AMERICA, assisting Saudi Nationals who were personal friends of the Bush family (btw, Bin Laden family associated with Bush family for over 30 years), and illegally invading a country for personal gain. You can go ahead and dip that cigar in your ear now, though it won't get wet since there isn't anything there.

^^^
<<<------------------- "Sir Mittens Romney, known LIAR"

On Aug. 6, 2001, Dubya Bush received a TOP-SECRET presidential daily brief, prepared by America’s intelligence agencies, TITLED “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.
Dubya Bush administration officials DIDN'T understand its magnitude and urgency. Their negligence and incompetence to ACT on a viable THREAT on American SOIL lead to the DEADLIEST attack in American HISTORY. America was ATTACKED and THOUSANDS of American CIVILIANS were MURDERED on THEIR watch. The sorry TRUTH, Dubya & Cronies DIDN'T keep us SAFE...How freaking SAD, this could have been PREVENTED if the intelligence given by our very smart and diligent officers was JUST taken seriously, as it should be, and acted upon, like it should have been.

Just six months after 9/11, Dubya Bush suggested in a press conference that Bin Laden was not a top priority for his administration. Dubya Bush SAID, "I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."
Yeah, after NOT stopping 9/11 with credible evidence to be acted upon, Dubya Bush GIVES UP on bringing the REAL evildoer, Osama bin Laden, to JUSTICE, to INSTEAD invade IRAQ based on LIES.

The UNJUSTIFIED and UNFUNDED Iraq war COST 4,487 AMERICAN troop casualties (54% of US casualties were under 25 years old), COST 32,223 AMERICAN troops wounded (20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries /Total excludes psychological injuries), COST over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, COST 150 journalists killed (98 by murder and 52 by acts of war), COST spent & approved war-spending - about $1 TRILLION of US taxpayers' funds spent or approved for spending through 2011, COST lost & unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 BILLION of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 MILLION in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors/ Also, 190,000 GUNS, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles, COST lost and reported stolen - $6.6 BILLION of U.S. taxpayers' money earmarked for Iraq reconstruction, reported on June 14, 2011 by Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen who called it "the LARGEST theft of funds in national HISTORY", COST missing - $1 BILLION in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces, COST mismanaged & wasted in Iraq - $10 BILLION, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings, COST Halliburton overcharges classified by the Pentagon as unreasonable and unsupported - $1.4 BILLION/ amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 BILLION/ portion of the $20 BILLION paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 BILLION, COST U.S. annual air-conditioning cost in Iraq and Afghanistan - $20.2 BILLION.

PRESIDENT Obama was THE one who brought focus and resources back to target America's #1 enemy, Osama bin Laden, after Dubya Bush actually freaking SHUT DOWN the ACTIVE Bin Laden Task Force Unit.

PRESIDENT Obama's ORDER to take OUT Osama Bin Laden with a covert SEAL strike team invading sovereign Pakistan was one of the GREATEST and GUTSIEST decisions in PRESIDENTIAL history!

“We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.” — Barack Obama, 2008 debate.

"Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago!"

We are in a HOT war, LONGEST war in American HISTORY, $2 BILLION dollars a WEEK, American SOLDIERS getting SHOT and KILLED every WEEK...And Sir Mittens DOESN'T mention ONE word of the Afghanistan war or HONOR and THANK our BRAVE American TROOPS in his RNC coronation speech!
A candidate running for PRESIDENT better DAMN mention THIS, and Sir Mittens DIDN'T!
UNBELIEVABLE! Deplorable. Detestable. Disreputable.

I read that "brief" dated when Clinton was in office.... wow... how convenient... Why should Then President Bush... take a 5 yr old document as relevant when then Pres Clinton did not?... (snore)