Reply #5: Maybe this? [View All]

[shockingelk]

Terrorists were on the offensive around the world, emboldened by many years of unanswered attacks. Repeatedly, they had struck America with little cost or consequence. Terrorists tried to bring down the World Trade Center for the first time in 1993; they attacked us at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, in 1996; they blew up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in 1998; and they attacked the USS. Cole, in 2000. In none of these cases, did the United States respond very forcefully.

Our enemies took lessons from this experience. They concluded that our country was soft. They grew to believe that if they hit us hard enough, if they inflicted sufficient casualties, the United States could be forced to retreat and withdraw - - as we did after attacks against us in Lebanon in 1983, and Somalia in 1993. So they set in motion plans for an attack of tremendous magnitude, in the form of coordinated hijackings of American passenger jets on September 11th, 2001. As President Bush and I were sworn in, planning for this attack was well underway. Hijackers had been recruited, funds raised, training commenced -- and some of the 9/11 hijackers were already in the United States.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040701-8.html