On this 9/11 please remember that on 8/6/2001 what W was handed

[Botany]

******************
It looks like W is gonna get away with his actions as per 9/11 too.

BTW to any lurkers or freepers please double check my facts.

[Berlum]

1. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[Botany]

3. W's response to the 8/6/2001 PDB

Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”

http://www.salon.com/2006/06/20/911pdb/

[barbtries]

24. yep.

how could he have known that his own ass would never be on the line.

[malaise]

2. The real Amateur team

Rumsfeld's 'so-called Commander in Chief' Dumbya , the War Criminal of a Dick, Chevron CondiLIAR and the rest of the incompetents - they did not keep anyone safe. 9/11 happened on their watch after they chose to ignore said facts.

[Botany]

6. and then they used 9/11 as a reason to invade Iraq

and at his mission accomplished speech W said something like ....



The enemy will no longer have a safe haven in Iraq from which to launch attacks on America. (very rough quote)

[hack89]

4. What was Bush suppose to do with that memo that Clinton hadn't already done?

it says that Clinton knew about OBL's plans for three years and was aware of Al Qaeda cells in America. Surely everything that could have been done was already done by Clinton.

[stevenleser]

7. You mean in combination with the warning of Al Qaeda planning to use airplanes as weapons?

How about an emergency implementation of much stricter checks at airports for starters?

[hack89]

8. That intel was from 1998

why wasn't an emergency implementation of much stricter checks at airports done then?

Is your argument that Clinton was clueless about the threat and this memo was the first time it was presented?

[stevenleser]

14. If there was such a warning in 1998, there was also one during Bush's term in the runup to 9/11 nt

[hack89]

15. So Bush reacted the same way Clinton did.

what level of blame should be directed at Clinton. Read the memo - it says during his presidency Al Qaeda was allowed to set up terrorist cells in America. Shouldn't he be held just as responsible or for what he didn't do in years that Bush didn't do in months?

[stevenleser]

16. No, he didn't and the situations are not similar. The CIA Director was thrown out of Condi's office

for repeated warnings that something big was about to happen. Combined with all the warnings in just 8 months in office, that should have been enough to take action to protect the airports.

[hack89]

18. Ok. nt

[stevenleser]

29. Here is a report of the first such meeting. This one did not end with Tenet being thrown out but you

can see where it went.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html

[Lurker Deluxe]

19. LOL

If W would have put the security in place before the attacks and that prevented the attacks, everyone would be bitching about "these crazy rules dictator W imposed".

W was a piss poor POTUS, at best, but the need by some to constantly bash him when he has been out of office for going on 6 years is pretty pathetic really.

[heaven05]

25. lurker from where?

pathetic? Responsible for a war based on lies. Killed between 100,000 and 1million iraqis, VA hospitals full of amputees, I've been there, more that 5000 unneeded deaths of soldiers fighting for PNAC, and him bushmonkey being the worst POTUS in modern times who stole 2 elections and you have no clue as to why he is being bashed 6years later. I hope if there's a hell the bashing continues after his demise! geez

[Lurker Deluxe]

38. Pathetic??

I'll ignore the personal attack ...

The question was, and still is, what was W supposed to do with that information??

If someone attempted to put the security we have in place now at the airports before 9/11 they would have been blasted. If someone mandated the expense that airlines now have to cover to prevent hijacking before 9/11 they would have been laughed at. Up until that very point in time, that very day, nothing like it had ever been attempted and to say that others knew it was coming is revisionist bullshit.

I did not defend the incompetence of W and stated in that very post that he was a "piss poor POTUS, at best" in case you can not comprehend this statement that means the best thing ... the best thing I could say about W is that he was "piss poor".

So you can take all your "responsible for blah blah, killed whoever, stole elections" and all that shit and shove it. We all know what he did and no one is defending him. The question was posed, "what was he supposed to do with that memo?"

So, I have a clue ... I just don't get why every year the same bullshit comes up and the same things get said and to question "what should he have done" gets you labeled a W defender every time. I have no idea why I even responded, I know the answer ...

[heaven05]

55. Pretty simple

"what was Bushmonkey supposed to do with intelligence concerning airplanes and bin ladin. NO I won't shove it. Bushmonkey probably used that piece of paper to cleanse himself after private time. I don't care that you're thin skinned. Increased security at the nations airports would have been one option. Duh. We spent trillions after the attack reacting when a little proactive millions would probably have done the job. Duh. When those planes started their wicked journey's, where in the hell was anyone who had seen that warning. The shrub was sitting in a classroom in florida no less with a thumb up his butt. Double DUH. Yeah blah, blah to you too. Facts disturb you huh. Wow lurker looks like your nap wasn't long enough today. I stand by my statement. No clue. I have no idea either. You could have saved it. Hasn't changed my mind about your post, why all this about W? W was an affectionate moniker for him and you're proud to use it I see. That's when the alarm bells started ringing. It means less than a roach in the street that you got angry. Period.

[stevenleser]

27. LOL, people still talk about WWII/Pearl Harbor, Civil war battles, etc. Thats what people who talk

politics and history do. That's how you learn from mistakes, you analyze past actions.

Do you really need this explained to you? You understand that you just said a lot more about yourself than about anyone else, right?

[Lurker Deluxe]

41. It does

It does say a lot more about me than others ... I don't know about anyone else.

Right.

People still talk about all sorts of things, and they even debate how things should have been done and who should have done what when.

The fact is I have moved on from the disastrous eight years W was POTUS, and look now to our current leadership to right the horrid policies that were put in place by an incompetent (but not really) administration.

The question was posed, "what should he have done" and you responded he "should have protected the airports" and I responded that he would have been laughed out of the room attempting to put the kind of security in airports that would have stopped this attack.

Which lead us here.

But yes, it does say something about me that when a disagreement comes up and I run across a debate over an issue I can look past some blind hatred of someone who has not been around for six years and address and issue with a serious tone.

[LanternWaste]

39. I think that confusing the largest intelligence failure in U.S. history with

I think that confusing the largest intelligence failure in U.S. history by an administration with "the need by some to constantly bash him..." is, at its best, misguided.

Which may also be seen as "pretty pathetic really".

(Insert rationalization here)

[Lurker Deluxe]

42. If you believe that

I guess it's easy to be strictly partisan and say that intelligence failure started on January 20th, 2011.

You see when people talk about policies that have been destructive to the country and the fact that Reagan's administration put in place policy that is now coming to fruition they are looking at something that makes sense. These policies of deregulation and anti-union proselytizing lead to where we are now, and we see the results of them.

Amazing all the intelligence failure that happened in just eight months.

That's like blaming all the outsourcing of our jobs on Obama ... it was all those before him who got this shit headed in the direction it is.

W is in no way immune from responsibility for the attacks that took place on 9/11, but to put every ounce of blame on him while at the same time making immune all those who came before is naive, at best.

[hack89]

20. Just out of curiosity, are you a Truther?

or do you put down Bush's actions to incompetence?

There are many here that point to his memo as proof that Bush was behind 9/11.

[stevenleser]

28. I am not a truther. I think he was incompetent. I think he hired people with the wrong skill sets

He put an expert on the old Soviet Union in charge of National Security. Condi had absolutely no knowledge or experience dealing with terrorism and had no interest in warnings about Al Qaeda.

[KansDem]

33. It's not just the memo...

It's Bush's actions on 9/11 that concern me.

For example, when told by his Chief of Staff that the second plane had it, we are under attack, this was his response:



And he's on the record for two versions of how he first learned of the first attack:

He saw it--

He was notified of it (0'49&quot --

Which is it? No one has asked him to clarify his remarks.

[rocktivity]

49. More

http://www.rocktivity.com/video/911requiem.mp4


rocktivity

[KansDem]

52. Excellent presentation!

Lays out all the facts.

And nice use of Mozart's Requiem!

[font size="1"](That was Mozart, wasn't it?)
[font size="2"]

[gussmith]

50. Rice Had Warnings

Richard Clarke, as a lower level official remaining from Clinton's presidency, did everything possible to inform the Bush administration of the impending attacks from Bin Laden. Their response - get rid of Clarke.

[Eddie Haskell]

31. He was covering Clinton's ass.

Clinton realized what the Bush administration was planning and to insure that he wouldn't get blamed for the attack, he had that memo put under W's nose. Bush saw it for what it was.

[KansDem]

37. Clinton did do something in 1998 to counter terrorism in the mideast...

U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan, Sudan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saying "there will be no sanctuary for terrorists," President Clinton on Thursday said the U.S. strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a facility in Sudan are part of "a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism."

His comments were broadcast live from the White House shortly after he arrived in Washington from his vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

American cruise missiles pounded sites in Afghanistan and Sudan Thursday in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden.

--more--
http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/

And, of course, that drew criticism from right-wingers and prompted Bush to make the remark, "I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt”

I agree that Clinton could've done more, but Bush didn't do anything. Maybe he didn't want to violate America's "white slave" status for his friends and business partners in the midEast--

Centrist liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. disseminated the unpleasant but important truth that the Gulf Arabs whose nations and oil we were supposedly defending held the United States in complete contempt. Scarcely a week before the bombing began, Schlesinger quoted in the Wall Street Journal dispatch from Saudi Arabia: "You think I want to send my teen-aged son to die for Kuwait? We have our white slaves from America to do that." And, quoting a Saudi teacher: "The American soldiers are a new kind of foreign worker here. We have Pakistanis driving taxis and now we have Americans defending us."

--more--
http://www.antiwar.com/mcconnell/mc012202.html

If we truly wanted to go after the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, we'd be bombing the Hell out of Saudi Arabia right now...

[mainstreetonce]

46. Thank you

I have been saying that for years.

What could Bush have done?

Stricter airline security measures
Lock cockpit doors

Work with security in the WTC to make them more aware. The second the first plane hit, both buildings should have been evacuated. There never should have been a "stay at your desk" announcement in bldg II. . Bush is responsible for the slow response by not making NYC aware of the memo .

[AllyCat]

9. It was time for an all-hands-on-deck approach

Security needed to increase. New safety procedures for airliners and airports. Additional surveillance on those cells?

Instead, Dim Son culminated a month of doing nothing with reading My Pet Goat to school kids.

[hack89]

11. So why wasn't that done in 1998 when we got that particular piece of intel?

you make it sound like Clinton was asleep at the switch for years and this memo was the first time they realized how big the threat was.

[Botany]

12. How about doing his job and not taking the month off after being told that OBL ...

... was planning to attack America? Or the fact that Sandy Berger tried warning Condi Rice
in Jan., 2001 about al Qaeda and she blew him off? Or that Richard Clark told W, Rummy,
Rice, and Cheney that all systems were flashing red about an upcoming attack in the summer
of 2001? Or that Condi Rice told San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown not to fly commerical
air liners in 2001?

BTW Clinton tried to kill bin Laden and his team stopped a 12/31/1999 attack on LAX.

[4Q2u2]

30. Both Failed

Why is it so hard to hold Clinton to a standard of Truth. Did he not sell out the American worker with NAFTA and GATT. How about DOMA, or Welfare Reform. So why not his failure as to Bin Laden.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/hank-crumpton-cia-clinton-bin-laden_n_1514895.html

From the 911 Commission:

On Friday, December 4, 1998, the CIA included an article in the Presidential Daily Brief describing intelligence, received from a friendly government, about a threatened hijacking in the United States. This article was declassified at our request.

The same day, Clarke convened a meeting of his CSG to discuss both the


The following is the text of an item from the Presidential Daily Brief received by President William J. Clinton on December 4, 1998. Redacted material is indicated in brackets.

SUBJECT: Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks

1. Reporting [-] suggests Bin Ladin and his allies are preparing for attacks in the US, including an aircraft hijacking to obtain the release of Shaykh 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, and Muhammad Sadiq 'Awda. One source quoted a senior member of the Gama'at al-Islamiyya (IG) saying that, as of late October, the IG had completed planning for an operation in the US on behalf of Bin Ladin, but that the operation was on hold.A senior Bin Ladin operative from Saudi Arabia was to visit IG counterparts in the US soon thereafter to discuss options-perhaps including an aircraft hijacking.

IG leader Islambuli in late September was planning to hijack a US airliner during the "next couple of weeks" to free 'Abd al-Rahman and the other prisoners, according to what may be a different source.
The same source late last month said that Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack US aircraft before the beginning of Ramadan on 20 December and that two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport. [-]
2. Some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources, but no group directly tied to Bin Ladin's al-Qa'ida organization has ever carried out an aircraft hijacking.Bin Ladin could be weighing other types of operations against US aircraft.Accord-ing to [-] the IG in October obtained SA-7 missiles and intended to move them from Yemen into Saudi Arabia to shoot down an Egyptian plane or, if unsuccessful, a US military or civilian aircraft.

A [-] in October told us that unspecified "extremist elements" in Yemen had acquired SA-7s. [-]
3. [-] indicate the Bin Ladin organization or its allies are moving closer to implementing anti-US attacks at unspecified locations, but we do not know whether they are related to attacks on aircraft. A Bin Ladin associate in Sudan late last month told a colleague in Kandahar that he had shipped a group of containers to Afghanistan. Bin Ladin associates also talked about the movement of containers to Afghanistan before the East Africa bombings.

In other [-] Bin Ladin associates last month discussed picking up a package in Malaysia. One told his colleague in Malaysia that "they" were in the "ninth month [of pregnancy]."
An alleged Bin Ladin supporter in Yemen late last month remarked to his mother that he planned to work in "commerce" from abroad and said his impending "marriage," which would take place soon, would be a "surprise.""Commerce" and "marriage" often are codewords for terrorist attacks. [-]

[Eddie Haskell]

32. The Commission's report is a fairy-tale

[4Q2u2]

35. That Memo is not

That is a direct copy of a security memo.

[grattsl]

17. He was suppost to be the President of the United States.

Something he never really figured out how to properly do. It was always just a bit over his head.

[deutsey]

36. It wasn't just that memo

According to journalist Kurt Eichenwald, that briefing was the latest of numerous warnings to Bush going back to April 2001.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

[Mc Mike]

54. Thanks, d.

He was repeatedly warned, over and over, and did nothing. And we still have two post-ers on this thread defending him, and minimizing the issue.

[TBF]

48. The defense of GWB is stunning - but not surprising. nt

[hack89]

51. I am not defending Bush.

merely pointing out that Clinton had years to deal with Al Qaeda. Read the memo - it says during his presidency Al Qaeda was allowed to set up terrorist cells in America. Shouldn't he be held just as responsible for for what he didn't do in years that Bush didn't do in months?

There are things that GWB could have done, however I would have a hard time imagining that he could have stopped 911. If he had implemented stricter airport security then the plotters would have simply waited until the resultant public outcry would result in security going back to the way it was.

[MoonRiver]

5. Still makes me sick.

Nowadays, I usually have a grip on my rage against those monsters, then the reminders come.

[KansDem]

10. His response...

[DinahMoeHum]

13. Like he fucking didn't know what to do. . .

. . .like this was shit waaaay beyond his comprehension.

Fucking asshole.

[tanyev]

21. GWB to briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass now."

Ron Suskind’s “The One Percent Doctrine” is out this week, and the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman says it’s full of “jaw-dropping stories” about the Bush administration’s war on terror.

Or lack thereof.

We’ve known for years now that George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, in which he was warned: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” We’ve known for almost as long that Bush went fishing afterward.

What we didn’t know is what happened in between the briefing and the fishing, and now Suskind is here to tell us. Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”

http://www.salon.com/2006/06/20/911pdb/

[Snake Plissken]

22. If Linda Tripp didn't record the confidential phone calls she had with Monica Lewinsky

The poorly planned missile strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20 1998 wouldn't have needed to be rushed and the Neocons would have never got their Pearl Harbor which they desperately needed to rape and pillage the US Taxpayers with their wars for cheese.

Sure G. W. Bush was a fuckup, but our trainwreck of a foreign policy didn't start with him.

Eisenhower warned us about it, back when G. W. Bush was a cheerleader on the sidelines an Andover Academy



Blaming one side or the other is exactly what the Military Industrial Complex wants. It's what they need to continue cashing in on their war, spin, rinse, cycle.

It's pointless pissing on each other over who was responsible, what we need to do is follow the money and stop them for continuing this insanity.

[Overseas]

23. K&R. I remember.

[krispos42]

26. Only the oblivious are surprised by the obvious n/t

[RC]

34. The outgoing Clinton Administration gave the incoming bu$h administration a 2½ inch thick report

about the coming attack. The only thing not known was where. They even had the date down to with in a week. So, the bu$h administration had this information and did nothing. That is LIHOP.

[Dawson Leery]

53. +1,000,000

[lastlib]

40. I hereby proclaim that heceforth, Aug. 6 shall be.....

...known as "Cover Your Ass" day, to be observed annually by all Americans, and commemorated by a public reading of the August 6, 2001 PDB.

Make it so......

[Botany]

45. "he was a Constitutional expert"

Enjoy your stay

"he was a Constitutional expert" ..... no he IS a Constitutional expert and he was
a professor of Constitutional Law @ the University of Chicago.

[niyad]

44. I remember.. and I will always remember der chimpenfuhrer sitting in that classroom, with that

vacant, totally clueless look on his face.

[rocktivity]

47. Never stop bringing that up.

Or this:

http://www.rocktivity.com/video/911requiem.mp4


rocktivity

[Blue Owl]

56. "Now watch this drive"

[Scurrilous]

57. K & R

[Cha]

58. Mahalo Botany

[Botany]

59. no problem ... it seems real history has fallen down the memory hole