LINK TO 8/6/01 PDB: ""Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

FoxNews ^ | April 10, 2004 | White House Staff

[RobFromGa]

Q: Why was this PDB prepared?

DCI Tenet has already described the genesis of this PDB item in a letter to the 9-11 Commission dated March 26, 2004. This PDB item was prepared in response to questions President Bush asked his PDB briefer. The President had seen previous intelligence reports about possible al-Qa'ida threats to U.S. targets outside the United States. The President had asked whether any of the information pointed to a possible attack inside the United States. When this PDB item was presented to the President on August 6, 2001, his PDB briefer told him that it was prepared in response to the President's previous questions.

[Wolfstar]

Congress took 2 months to confirm FBI Director in 2001. They went on summer vacation before getting around to it. Mueller wasn't worn in until 9/4/01.

United Press International (UPI) report
Friday, July 6, 2001

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday [7/5/01] named San Francisco U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller to head the FBI, ending a troubled search for a new bureau chief after the resignation of Louis Freeh.

[SNIP]

Freeh stepped down last month [June 2001]. His resignation was unexpected, and recent troubles at the bureau clouded the search for a new director.

In February, veteran counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen was charged with spying for Moscow for 15 years and collecting $1.4 million in money and diamonds. Next, the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had to be postponed because the bureau discovered that thousands of documents had not been turned over to the court.

[SNIP]

The FBI is under investigation by Congress and the Justice Department. Many in Congress appear to want to limit its jurisdiction and increase congressional oversight.

Already taxed trying to get people in place in the new administration, the White House put together what one former senior Justice Department official called a "hasty list" of candidates.

[SNIP]

By mid-June Mueller stood alone.

[SNIP]

Although Freeh left under criticism, most law enforcement officials credit him with understanding that crime and terrorism had become as international as the Internet and the global economy.

He pushed the bureau into joint investigations with police around the world, training and liaison with Russia, daring international investigations that not only snared foreigners who committed crimes on U.S. soil, but also built cases against people who planned the crimes abroad and never set foot in the United States.

This has made the director's job an astounding combination of manager, senior diplomat and hard-nosed cop. The FBI's employment ads in the nation's newspapers tell a lot. They need agents who speak Arabic and Farsi, Urdu and Korean. They need computer wizards who can trace cybercrimes and financial analysts who follow money-laundering trails through the most sophisticated banks in the world.

[CyberAnt]

It was really even worse than that. I think it was back in the 70's - there was legislation passed which forbid the sharing of information.

Also .. the Clintons did strip the CIA and FBI by not only money, but their ability to put human intel on the ground in order to infiltrate hostile groups.

A lot of things the dems think Bush should have done - they had already made impossible by their own legislation. As usual they had cut off their own nose and spited their own face.

[samadams2000]

October Surprise...

How about this for a call...

Next they get Clark or others to leak that we shot down the airline in the Pa. field..its classified Im sure but they will attempt to cite that Bush killed our own people...

Anyone else see this one coming. I think its thier October surprise

[hole_n_one]

CNN's Bill Schnieder says that the 8/06/01 PDB now places Bush in the position of having known in advance of 9/11, 3 of 4 critical items about the attacks......

the who, the how and the where.

According to Schnieder, all that Bush lacked was when.

Schneider: Memo 'could be seriously damaging'

(CNN) -- The White House has released part of a key intelligence report on Osama Bin Laden that says the head of al Qaeda had been determined to conduct terror attacks in the United States since 1997. CNN's Carol Lin talked to senior political analyst Bill Schneider about the implications of the memo's contents.

LIN: Bill, you heard the body of the top secret memo that was just released by the White House. How damaging could this be?

SCHNEIDER: I think it could be seriously damaging. What this says is, the White House knew what bin Laden was capable of planning, where he intended to do it, which was New York or Washington, D.C., how he was going to do it. There was only one thing missing, which was exactly when he was going to do it, which turns out to be September 11.

Critics and members of the commission will say, the White House should have been far more aggressive to prevent, what sounds from this memo, like an imminent strike, obviously years in the planning, but a real danger to the United States, particularly in New York and Washington. And they will, I think, make it a cause for very severe criticism.

LIN: Does the [memo] support [former chief counterterrorism aide] Richard Clarke's criticism of President Bush that he and his administration were not taking al Qaeda seriously?

SCHNEIDER: I think it sounds exactly like Richard Clarke. I think Richard Clarke's testimony sounds almost exactly like what is in this presidential briefing. He was repeating what the president had been told on August 6. And he was urging the president to take these threats very seriously.

As I say, just about everything that happened in broad outline is in this memo, the only thing missing is that it would happen on September 11.

LIN: Do you have any idea how more specific security briefings can be with the president? I mean, given that ... every day the president hears about threats against the United States. It is impossible to act on every single document that crosses his desk. Is there an argument to be made by the White House that lots of information crosses [his] desk, [and that] not all of it is credible.

Even [CNN's] Suzanne [Malveaux] was saying a portion of this has not been corroborated. The part where [the memo says] bin Laden back in 1998 was saying that [he] wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of two extremists, is uncorroborated information as it stood in this memo.

SCHNEIDER: A couple of things. One is [that] the White House, I think, can argue and probably will argue and probably has evidence to argue that this information was uncorroborated. I think [it] can come forth with other material from briefings indicating that [it] received lots of warnings of this type and therefore it was not clear that this particular warning should be taken more seriously than others.

On the other hand, Osama bin Laden had already carried out attacks, not on the American homeland, but overseas on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies [in Kenya and Tanzania], and he clearly was associated here, associated his organization with the attempts on Los Angeles International Airport at the millennium. So I think there are pretty clear indications that this wasn't hypothetical. This man had acted and had tried to act on the United States homeland.

Source

[Wolfstar]

Mueller didn't even get into office until about 6 weeks before 9/11.

A week before. He was sworn in 9/4/01.

[rhombus]

A counterattack about what ..??

Talking points just faxed in... http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/otsc.schneider/

[justshutupandtakeit]

I would put the order of danger as 1) RATmedia 2) RATS 3) radical Islam. Without the first two the third would be confronted by a United American people who would not quibble when the President attacks our enemies. Radical Islam vs an American People unified around the truth would no have a prayer.

[xzins]

It's the 2nd time I'd heard it repeated....It was the Fox show this afternoon with Rita Cosby, Geraldo, and 2 other talking heads -- they repeated what I'd heard on another program the day of Rice's testimony. The bottom line was a doubly repeated story that, even though this pdb says there were 70 ongoing investigations, that, in fact, NONE were taking place.

If I see it anyplace in print, I'll ping you...my memory ain't anything to write home about, but I might be able to remember CYBERANT. :>)

[ARA]

You weren't listening to Wayne Resnick and KFI were you?

Resnick pissed me off...

Ara

[justshutupandtakeit]

They were Liberals to begin with and thus are immune to the Truth living LIES is their normal mode of existence.

[xzins]

Not these 70 mentioned to the Pres. is what I heard on the Fox show.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. they were clever and just ask her questions about it - I think Condi actually revealed the contents of the document - which her boss probably gave her approval to do.

[CyberAnt]

Yes, Fox was talking about that - and the only other thing I have seen is that it occurred about 3 months earlier than the PDB. But even then .. being info discovered in May of 2001, if the men were found to be just tourists, what kind of flag would that have been - NOTHING!

[CyberAnt]

Sooooo .. that's probably why he released it!! Gooooood poker player.

[Wolfstar]

Wow! Ms. Parker's article is both brilliant and chilling. Chilling because it's true — that's exactly how the Dems would have reacted if President Bush had been able to take preemptive action to prevent 9/11.

[Kozak]

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

This is a key passage. It implies that a hijacking would be the usual, hostage taking to trade. It was for this type of hijacking that the standard airline response was crafted, the "don't resist, do what they ask". NO implication of the kamikazi attack that occurred. While I've seen some stuff that conjectured it could occur, NOTHING THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A CHANGE IN THE BASIC RESPONCE TO A HIJACKING. NOTHING.

[samadams2000]

"The loyal opposition"...

You know I would almost be ok with me if they were true patriots ...manuevering to win power because they had the best interests of the country in mind...it would comfort me to know that the second in power was on the ball looking for weakness...but these guys..??

They are basically traitors and no longer worthy of loyal opposition status.

[Wolfstar]

Sorry for not catching the typo in my #161. Obviously should have been "sworn in" rather than "worn in."

[Wolfstar]

I wouldn't put it past the Left/Dems. I think they're likely to do just about anything to win this election.

[Wolfstar]

Bill Schneider is a first class a-hole.