NYT: The Bush White House Was Deaf to 9/11 Warnings
September 10, 2012
On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.
On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief — and only that daily brief — in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the document’s significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.
That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.
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.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.
More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
If only a handful more of Americans had known the truth in 2004, Bush would not have been 're-elected'.
Bush & the Republicans presented themselves as the guardians of national security, whereas they should have been taken to task for leaving America vulnerable in the first place.
This is also the problem with the whole military-industrial complex machinery and with the practice of waiting years to de-classify information.
By the time the information is released, the administration is out of office and can no longer be held responsible! 
We warned about ALL these things, because we here on DU and elsewhere in the blogosphere bothered to take the time to look stuff up and dig and read other sources than the superficial or agenda-driven ones like Pox Noise and the New York Post. There WERE other sources. I liked the UK Guardian a lot. And THEY were telling the truth. Of course NOBODY here in the US media listened. NOBODY here bothered to dig, or even to interview opposing views! NOBODY gave a damn. They were all like lester holt on NBC and others who were nothing more than frickin' CHEERLEADERS for war. And they were proud of this. They helped ramrod the rest of us into war with Iraq - that made NO sense, and was based in NO truth.
I've felt really sour about this. I'm tired of being correct about something, and being ignored and slammed and insulted and attacked (mostly verbally), and then I and others who were activists on this score turned out to be correct. WE were correct. WE were the ones shunned and shut out of the media, never invited to be commentators or talking heads or guests on shows. It was all republi-CONS, CONservatives, neoCONS, and more GOPers. Most of them chickenhawks, too - NEVER had bothered their pretty little heads about enlisting in the military, wearing their country's uniform, and maybe even seeing combat, close up. They all were home in their comfy chairs surrounded by their many excuses and deferments and other cop-outs. But they sure liked to talk tough - and they had a mighty big Wurlitzer behind them, amplifying everything they said, every false claim they made, and every lie they told. They got listened to, and paid attention to, A LOT. They ran the table as far as that went. There was no room nor was there any time, face time or otherwise, in the media for the growing number of objectors and experts and opposing views. NONE.
And we lost more than 4,000 American troops - who died for a lie.
