Posted on 02/07/2023 7:44:52 AM PST by linMcHlp
EXCERPTS:
I was in the Situation Room in the White House on September 11, 2001 when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center . . .
At the time, I was special assistant to the president for the Near East and North Africa on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, with a portfolio that included Afghanistan. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had asked me to stay on in the NSC after serving four years with the Clinton administration.
The Saturday before the 9/11 attacks, my wife Elizabeth and I hosted a party . . . Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet and Saudi Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan went to dinner together after the party to discuss the al-Qaida threat.
We had been receiving a massive flow of reports from the agency that an attack was coming. The President’s Daily Brief on August 6 famously said that the group was determined to strike inside the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at brookings.edu ...
Bruce Riedel: Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology Director - The Intelligence Project
Not long after the attacks on the U.S., Condoleeza Rice testified before Congress, saying that she did not know the “time and place” of the pending attacks by Al-Qaeda / Taliban upon the United States (terra firma).
Report of the Joint [Congressional] Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-107srpt351-5.pdf
Pg. 118 of the report, aka pg. 150 of that PDF file:
17. Finding: Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001 indicating that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the United States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States.
[Further down that page:]
“The intelligence that was acquired and shared by the Intelligence Community was not specific as to time and place, but should have been sufficient to prompt action to insure a heightened sense of alert and implementation of additional defensive measures.”
February 6, 2023
Washington Times article by Mike Glenn
U.S. tracked Chinese spy balloon from the start but held off on attack, NORAD commander says
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4129102/posts
EXCERPT:
NORAD, the Pentagon‘s command defending North America, was tracking the Chinese surveillance balloon well before it entered U.S. or Canadian airspace, its commander said Monday, noting that at about 200 feet tall and carrying a payload the size of a jet airliner, it would have been hard for trackers to miss.
But Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of NORAD, said that as the suspected spy surveillance craft made its way across Alaska and Canada before crossing back into U.S. territory last week, there wasn’t much the military could do without a presidential order to act, given there was no imminent threat seen to the homeland.
“The domain awareness was there as it approached Alaska. It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical or military threat to North America,” Gen. VanHerck told Pentagon reporters on Monday. “I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating a hostile act or hostile intent.”
Crazy how you remember things. This man writes of Saturday.
The Saturday before the atrocity, I was up in western MD looking at German Shepherd puppies. Stayed with my aunt and uncle overnight as they lived nearby.
Happy time, then not.
The apparent defensive posture of the USA is the ostrich pose... head in the sand...or the teenage slouch (suggesting that America doesn’t care about defending itself).
I was heading to a flight, very early in the morning, driving between some major U.S. installations.
In a small reception area, a TV showed one of the World Trade Center Towers had been hit. I assumed that an unfortunate, local helo or small plane had plowed into the structure. (I recalled that a bomber had hit the Empire State Building, some time ago.)
I departed and headed for the flight, but upon arriving, a lady whom I knew, had just walked out the door and announced that the place was closed.
Did not take much to conclude that something else was up, and I headed back to the reception area, deposited my driver, and then headed back to camp.
In 2000, especially around September, I had already noticed the literally dramatic elevation of arrogance among the local Islamic visitors, to the point of overt theater in their behavior and disdain for “the west.”
The arrogant tend to abuse. They were playing with that; China’s Xi relishes that “empowerment.” Both Islamic cases and the communist/leftist dictators assert “we own the place.”
The big Chinese recon balloon, is a major rice bowl victory for Xi, “mud in your eye” for “Yankee dogs.”
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