When Did Clinton Know of Plots to Use Planes as Weapons?

Patriot Paradox ^

[TigersEye]

Well someone dropped a pretty big ball before Bush even had a chance to run in 2000. He was still in TX.

I believe my post heavily reinforces that point. ; )

[mindspy]

All I can add is that I remember reading in the 90's that the Philippine Government had foiled a plot to use several jetliners in suicide missions. I would bet heavily that the Clinton Administration knew about the plot. I would bet that is where he got the idea.

[sonsofliberty2000]

Yes it does!

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Patriot Paradox

[TigersEye]

Great website you have there!

[nutmeg]

Thanks for the ping. I haven't had a chance to read this in-depth yet, but on the surface, this sure looks interesting. I'll ping a few FRiends here before I have to logoff for the night.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[nutmeg]

ping

[ladyinred]

There are many books out there that document threats sent to the Clinton White House. But not to worry, Bubba met with that oh so bipartisan commission yesterday and waxed eloquently about all of it with them behind closed doors. I just know he admitted his failures don't you? HAH!

[MCFujiTanker]

I remember seeing the airline suicide stuff from the PI and most people at the time blew if off as rantings from the Clancy Novel (where the JAL pilot crashed a 747 into a joint session of Congress). I see stacks of "what ifs" everyday. You can wring your hands to death, what's past is past, just don't make the same mistake twice. Now we know we have to deal with these new "kamikaze's". That's why a "Maginot Line" defense doesn't work. We have to hunt everyone of these bastards down and kill them. They can not be allowed to have sanctuary anywhere, period. We need to nail as many as we can in Iraq, while they're out in the open, not hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. The insurgents there have no superpowers sending unlimited supplies down a Ho Chi Minh trail. Let's crush them without mercy while we have the military over there to do it..

[texasbluebell]

Yet *another* failure on the part of Clinton and Clarke from the decade of ignoring the terror threat.

To put it in perspective here:

Clinton had 2920 days to stop terror attacks against the US.

Bush was in office 233 days before 911 happened, less than one-tenth the time.

[Reactionary]

"Question then should be: What did Clinton do after he learned of the plot?"

Of course it should be. But the liberals in the media have already been successful in putting us on the defensive. And they were able to do this after eight years of Clinton ignoring national security completely.

No one is asking the obvious question concerning Clinton and his Stalinist pig liberal party. After our weapons labs were pilfered for campaign cash, our nuclear secrets put on the open market by Albright, after Oklahoma City, after the Cole, the pig liberals have successfully pinned the entire thing on us.

Why? Because we're evidently too stupid to put them on defense, that's why.

[malia]

bttt

[elbucko]

Question then should be: What did Clinton do after he learned of the plot?

The answer is: Clinton abused himself.

[swilhelm73]

Additionally, the Democrats purposely held up a number of Bush's appointmens to spite him, especially in regards to National Security, a fact seldom remembered anymore...

[Eva]

Bill probably didn't know anything. On the other hand Hillary probably knew.

[malia]

I'm confused. I usually link to news/current events. Tonight I went to "latest" and this is where I found this article. Later wanted to look again and couldn't find it, remembered I had been to "latest" and sure enough there it was. I don't understand. But anyway this is very interesting and should be where all can read.

[texasbluebell]

I sure haven't forgotten. But you know Dan/Tom/Petah just can't quite remember it.

I also seem to recall something about the Bush transition team being denied the funds needed to set up their transition. Those funds I think are supposed to be supplied by the outgoing administration.

That seems to be what I recall. Maybe it's incorrect, but maybe not...

[Jim Robinson]

Lots of tinfoil and jumping to conclusions on this old thread, but it's an interesting read:

Catastrophic intelligence Failure - Clinton's Bin Laden GATE
Accuracy in Media | September 24, 2001 | Cliff Kincaid - Reed Irvine

Posted on 09/29/2001 1:10:15 PM PDT by majordivit

CATASTROPHIC INTELLIGENCE FAILURE

In 1995, the CIA and the FBI learned that Osama bin Laden was planning to hijack U.S. airliners and use them as bombs to attack important targets in the U.S. This scheme was called Project Bojinka. It was discovered in the Philippines, where authorities arrested two of bin Laden's agents, Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad. They were involved in planting a bomb on a Philippine airliner. Project Bojinka, which Philip-pine authorities found outlined on Abdul Murad's laptop, called for planting bombs on eleven U.S. airliners and hijacking others and crashing them into targets like the CIA building.

The hijacking part of the plan got less attention than the planting of bombs. It required aviators like Japan's kamikaze pilots who were willing to commit suicide. Bin Laden had no such pilots in 1995, but he set out to train young fanatics willing to die for him to fly airliners. Abdul Murad, whose laptop had revealed the plan, admitted that he was being trained for a suicide mission. Bin Laden began training pilots in Afghanistan with the help of an Afghan pilot and a Pakistani general.

Project Bojinka was known to the CIA and the FBI. It was described in court documents in the trial in New York of Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Murad for their participation in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Since the CIA had been mentioned as one of the targets in Project Bojinka, it should have had an especially strong interest in any evidence that bin Laden was preparing to carry it out. The most obvious indicator, and one that should have been watched most carefully, was the recruitment of young, dedicated followers to learn to fly American airliners. That would require keeping a close watch on flight schools where that training is given.

[snip]

Damage Control

President Bush has fingered bin Laden as a prime suspect but also says countries which harbor terrorists will be held accountable. The Clinton administration identified seven state sponsors of terrorism—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan—but bin Laden is reported to have thousands of followers and terrorist cells in 50-60 countries, including the U.S. The Washington Post published a long article about bin Laden's worldwide activities, noting his presence in places like NATO- and U.N.-occupied Bosnia and Kosovo, but failed to explain how this occurred under the watchful eye of the Clinton administration.

Bob Woodward of the Post co-authored a September 14 front-page article insisting that the CIA has been authorized since 1998 to use covert means to disrupt bin Laden's operations under a presidential directive signed by Clinton. This article had the earmarks of a damage control operation on the part of the U.S. officials who worked with bin Laden's followers in the Balkans and now realize that their efforts have backfired. CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl aired a similar report on September 16, adding the tantalizing tidbit that Clinton may have authorized bin Laden's apprehension or assassination. Virtually admitting she had been leaked this information by former Clinton officials, Stahl said "there are people in Washington who want the American people to know they have not been asleep at the wheel in the war on terrorism and, even though there may have been some failures, they have been trying."

The Clinton administration's soft-on-terrorism policy actually began when it blamed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing on individual terrorists, not on any state. Evidence to the contrary has been assembled in the important book, Study of Revenge, by Laurie Mylroie, that the mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, was in fact an Iraqi agent. The book was published by American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Press at a time when Vice President Dick Cheney was vice-chairman of the AEI board of trustees.

James Woolsey, who served as a CIA director under Clinton, has also become an advocate of the view that Iraq was behind the first World Trade Center bombing. Woolsey notes that James Fox, the FBI's chief investigator into the 1993 bombing until his replacement in 1994, believed in the Iraqi connection. "And indeed," Woolsey adds, "ever since Fox's ouster, federal prosecutors and the White House have hewed to the line that most terrorist attacks on the United States are either the products of ‘loose networks' of folks who just somehow come together or are masterminded by the mysterious and unaccountable bin Laden. Explicit state sponsorship, especially by Iraq, has not been on the agenda."

Woolsey says intelligence and law enforcement officials would be well-advised to consider the possibility that the recent attacks, "whether perpetrated by bin Laden and his associates or by others—were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein." However, on NBC's Meet the Press on September 16, just five days after the new attacks when investigations were still presumably underway, Cheney seemed to arbitrarily rule out an Iraqi role.

[snip]


The commission didn't explain why the Clinton administration failed to pursue a foreign connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. Convicted bomber Terry Nichols had connections to the Philippines, where Muslim terrorists are very active. Middle East analyst Laurie Mylroie believes the government of Iraq was behind the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Stephen Jones, lawyer for the other convicted bomber, Timothy McVeigh, also believes Iraq was ultimately behind the plot.


[snip]



The Attack on the USS Cole

The establishment media helped the Clinton administration put on a good face in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. 60 Minutes aired an interview with Clinton's "terrorism czar" Richard Clarke, who was responsible for counter-terrorism at the National Security Council. He told Lesley Stahl that the U.S. was trying to determine who staged that attack, and suggested it may have been committed by Osama bin Laden. He also warned that terrorists have infiltrated the U.S. and that it was just a matter of time before American territory was the site of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack. If this was true, it was because Clinton had allowed such a situation to develop. But that's not the conclusion Stahl came to. Bin Laden took credit for the attack on the Cole but no retribution was ever exacted for that. Mylroie says Iraq probably assisted in this attack.

The Clinton administration's handling of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia became a subject of some controversy in the media. Bin Laden was suspected of bankrolling this terrorist incident, which left 19 American servicemen dead and scores injured, and which was reportedly carried out with Iranian government support. The evidence connecting Iran to the plot was the subject of a report by John McWethy of ABC World News Tonight, who cited overwhelming evidence of Iranian involvement. He said the evidence included U.S. intercepts of Iranian communications and admissions of Iranian involvement by the bombers themselves. McWethy said the bombers were recruited by Iran during a trip to an Islamic meeting in Syria, took religious training in Iran, and terrorist training in Lebanon. Kenneth R. Timmerman has also cited evidence of an Iranian link to the Khobar Towers bombing. However, Saudi Arabia was reluctant to provide evidence on the Iranian role, and the Clinton administration put the blame on Osama bin Laden. Still, no retaliation was ordered. The August 2, 1996 USA Today identified a network of 11 different terrorist-training facilities in Iran, citing classified U.S. intelligence documents. Yet no U.S. action was ever been taken by Clinton against those camps.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/535793/posts

[Jim Robinson]

U.S. Long Underestimated Qaeda's Scope, Officials Say
The New York Times ^ | June 9, 2002 | JUDITH MILLER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.


Posted on 06/08/2002 1:38:38 PM PDT by sarcasm


ASHINGTON, June 7— A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda's reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week.

As Congressional investigators look back far beyond the series of signals missed before the Sept. 11 attacks, they are seeking answers to many questions about Al Qaeda that law enforcement and intelligence agencies still cannot answer themselves, officials said.

In particular, they said, Congressional investigators are trying to determine whether the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. overlooked a possible Qaeda connection to the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. The United States has still not officially blamed Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden for that operation.

Law enforcement officials acknowledged this week that they did not know how and when Al Qaeda was created, or whether it was connected to a tangled array of terrorism plots and plotters, including Abdul Hakim Murad, a Pakistani who told the police in the Philippines in 1995 of a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II, blow up 12 American jetliners over Asia and fly a plane into C.I.A. headquarters.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/696886/posts

[Mo1]

btt