AP: Al-Qaida Threat Included in Bush Memo (Misleading Headline)

Breaking AP ^ | 4/9/04 | AP

[Jewels1091]

The democrats are going to try and make somemore than what's here.

[Spruce]

Landslide. Bush.

[savedbygrace]

BenVeniste, Roemer, or Kerrey. Which one leaked this carp?

It's still Classifed. Aren't there penalties for leaking Classified documents?

[CMailBag]

Whatever happened to "If I tell you I'll have to kill you"
It appears that now you just write it all in a book.

[ironman]

Should be a short investigation as to who is leaking classified information. Not too many people have had access.

[mabelkitty]

Gorelick.
They've been trying to recast this document for 24 hours.
Buh-bye, and don't declassify.

[Dog]

BenVeniste

Look no further..

[cyncooper]

This is basically what Rice testified to yesterday at the public hearing.

Yes, Ben Veniste pushed it, but Rice answered without hesitation. I'm thinking the WH was ready and willing to declassify this and wanted it out to the public or she would have demurred when he brought it up.

[deport]

Sen Graham of FL on the memo from back in May 2002......

CLICK

Ben-Veniste's rudeness was clear for all to see, but to understand just how dishonest was his line of questioning, look at this article from the May 27, 2002, issue of Human Events, a conservative Washington weekly:

Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration.

"Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did."

Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen earlier. "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old," Graham said. "It was not a contemporary piece of information."

Graham is far from a supporter of the Bush administration, as he made clear last year in his brief but loopy presidential campaign. The 9/11 commission is supposed to be an impartial search for the truth. Is there any doubt that Ben-Veniste is guilty of trying to turn it into a partisan witch hunt?

[Sender]

...al-Qaida was trying to send operatives into the United States for an explosives attack

So naturally Bush should have known that this really meant running airliners into buildings. Bush knew!

[Sgt_Schultze]

The same month as that briefing of Bush, U.S. intelligence officials received two uncorroborated reports suggesting terrorists might use airplanes, including one that suggested al-Qaida operatives were considering flying a plane into a U.S. embassy, current and former government officials said. ..

If the terrorists were planning to fly a plane into a US embassy, then Condoleezza was correct that the danger was offshore. I don't know of any US embassies located within US borders. Furthermore, how does that concern (the planes flown into embassies) support the contention made by the title?

[savedbygrace]

How could I have forgotten her?

[savedbygrace]

I wonder who gets to investigate such a leak. This isn't a Congressional committee, is it? Does General Ashcroft get to do it?

[savedbygrace]

I'm sure that's true to a point. But I also think there are other issues involved in declassifying a PDB, and I'm not convinced President Bush has decided to let it out yet.

[savedbygrace]

As I posted above, I wonder who gets to investigate this.

[mabelkitty]

Fedora has a thread on Dick Clarke and the VVAW running, and it is hot with info.

Things about her on it lead me to believe without a doubt she is the one.

[marginoferror]

The AP must have just received a copy of the Joint Intelligence Inquiry Report issued in December 2002.


PAGE 9 JOINT INQUIRY REPORT RELATING TO THE PDB;

Of particular interest to the Joint Inquiry was whether and to what extent the President
received threat-specific warnings during this period. The Joint Inquiry was advised by a
representative of the Intelligence Community that, in August 2001, a closely held intelligence
report for senior government officials included information that Bin Ladin had wanted to
conduct attacks in the United States since 1997. The information included discussion of the
arrest of Ahmed Ressam in December 1999 at the U.S.-Canadian border and the 1998 bombings
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It mentioned that members of al-Qa?ida, including
some U.S. citizens, had resided in or traveled to the United States for years and that the group
apparently maintained a support structure here. The report cited uncorroborated information
obtained and disseminated in 1998 that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack airplanes to gain the release
of U.S.-held extremists; FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for
hijackings or other types of attacks; as well as information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a
group of Bin Ladin supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives]


PAGE 212 JOINT INQUIRY REPORT


In August 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information about a plot to bomb
the U.S. embassy in Nairobi from an airplane or crash the airplane into it. The
Intelligence Community learned that two people who were reportedly acting on
instructions from Bin Ladin met in October 2000 to discuss this plot.

AND FINALLY PAGE ONE WASHINGTON POST MAY 19, 2002

Aug. Memo Warned Of Attacks Within U.S.; Bush Frustrated by Lack Of Fresh Information:[FINAL Edition]
Bob Woodward and Dan Eggen. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: May 19, 2002. pg. A.01

The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.

The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.

Whatever became of that Clinton line that "this is old news." After watching Chris Matthews on HARDBALL on Thursday it became apparent to me that he must of let his Washington Post subscription lapse in early 2002. I may send him a gift
subscription this Christmas.

[abner]

I apparently was under the mistaken impression that this hasn't been released to the public or the press yet. . . . .

Why do they have this information????

[cyncooper]

You're right. Fox news has been reporting that the AP is reporting that they have learned (so there ya go) the memo includes a threat from the previous spring.

This is being spun in advance because Rice forcefully described the memo as a summary of intelligence data, not a warning document.

She will turn out to be 100% accurate, of course, judging the parties by track record, but the effort is being made to make her look like she was misrepresenting.

It still won't work.

[TommyDale]

It appears Bob Graham has already killed this DemocRAT theory...