MEMO PUTS SPY AGENCY, NOT BUSH ON THE SPOT

New York Post ^ | 4/11/04 | DEBORAH ORIN

[Piquaboy]

The media has already started spinning it into it being Bush's fault.

[van_erwin]

The buck stops...

Over there, somewhere I think...

[ShandaLear]

The New York Post is also the media and they are saying the opposite.

[Piquaboy]

That sounds like a Kerry statement

[hgro]

The toughest job when you are in charge of any operation is to remove those that are incompetant. They are mostly loyal, have families that will be adversely affected but in the end, if someone can't do the job especially in the national security area, they have to be removed.

If the President has one weakness, that is it. He has been slow to clean house of the Clinton stooges and other lackeys of bureacratic government.

The time has come to clean house. The country deserves it, the adminstration needs it to properly perform.

The secretary of defemse, Don Rumsfeld has been hot after the incompetants in the Army and he has the generals screaming. He does it anyway because it is the right thing to do.

[DustyMoment]

As I understand it, the PDB puts it in the context of "bin Laden and AQ might be involved in hijacking some planes to use as flying bombs; possibly against American government buildings."

Now, based on that, what action can Bush take? The PBD assures him that the CIA and FBI are investigating 70 cases in the US, so what else is he supposed to do?

This is what the Dems have been spinning for more than a year with their "Bush Knew" lie. That's the same as me saying I'm going to rob a bank in Oklahoma. If that's all the information there is about it, what action can anyone take to stop me other than alert the banks that somone might try to rob them?

This is more Dems spinning much ado about nothing than they usually try to spin.

[Don Corleone]

It took almost 2 years to get the "approval" for a strike after the fact of 9/11. Can you imagine the screaming and shouting if He tried to act "Before" the fact of 9/11? More Barbra Striesand by the Libs!

[Enterprise]

"The CIA also reassured Bush that the FBI was conducting "70 full field investigations" across America into al Qaeda and that the CIA and FBI were checking out two recent warnings."

The President is only strong as his most imcompetent link.

[gunnedah]

You are absolutely correct!
The greatest mistake Bush has made in his Administration is this.
It appears that we can no longer have independent people in positions of power or career employees as they are known because they all are in it for the money and can be bought just like Dick Clarke.
This is sad but a fact of life.Everyone of these people are like our elected official and are out for whatever they can get from it and the American public is not being served well by these attitudes.

[kattracks]

The buck stops...

Over there, somewhere I think...

Are you suggesting, with your snide remark, that the Bush administration should take responsibility for not specifically preventing 9/11 when they had only this vague intel to go by?

The function of this "commission" was originally, (before the Dims decided to turn it into a let's pin the blame on Bush game) to try to find out where the problems were with intel gathering so that something like this could possibly be prevented in the future. To that end the buck should stop with those responsible for the miscues and missed opportunities, which doesn't happen to be President Bush.

[MizSterious]

Tell that to the rest of the media, Deborah. CBS in particular has been completely disingenuous on this issue, but I'm reading articles from a lot of the print news that is just as bad.

[cwb]

"As I understand it, the PDB puts it in the context of "bin Laden and AQ might be involved in hijacking some planes to use as flying bombs; possibly against American government buildings."

It doesn't even go that far. The intel was based on the belief that "hijackings" would be used to gain the release of the Sheik...there was no mention of using planes as missiles. And as far the attack on lower Manhattan that some people are talking about (Compost), the assessment was based on the concern that surveillance was being done of federal buildings in NY. What the press is ignoring is that in 1997, OBL claimed he wanted to "bring the fight to America"...which he repeated in 1998, with his publicly announced declaration of war against the US...also telling his followers to kill Americans where ever they may be. This was nothing new...and in fact, should of been dealt with under Clinton.

According to the breifing: "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.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Lesson to W: Clean house. It doesn't matter if there are a few empty desks. They're government employees and don't add much value, anyway.

[kattracks]

Fortunately, the American public is learning to distruest what they read in the lamestream media.

[Ann Archy]

Tenet is Bush's WEAKEST Link, along with Louis Freeh as incompetent BOOBS.

Louis Freeh took off 6 WEEKS when one of his children were born....SIX WEEKS as the FBI DIRECTOR, he took Family Leave!!!! Talk about a Weak Sister!!!

[Ann Archy]

It took almost 2 years to get the "approval" for a strike after the fact of 9/11. Can you imagine the screaming and shouting if He tried to act "Before" the fact of 9/11? More Barbra Striesand by the Libs!

GREAT POINT!

[freeangel]

The media didn't get a lot further than the title of the memo before putting its own spin on it and ,indeed, a person over at that "other website" has already declared that they don't have to go further than the title. Could it be the poor reading skills taught by our ever liberal, socialist schools that is causingg this phenomena of not being able to read beyond a title, or are they just evil?

[tubavil]

Isn't Bush still Tenet's most ardent supporter, despite the CIA's colossal incompetence?

With dad as its former head, you would think he could find someone competent.

[backtothestreets]

I firmly believe there was responsibility for not defending our country, and that blame sets squarely on government bureaucrats not adhering to our laws and policies that were in place at the time. There were failures by the FBI, Immigration, the FAA, and the CIA to name a few agencies. The failures were bureaucrats within these agencies, not department heads, nor our elected officials.

It seems these agencies, with a lot of unintended help from the media, are prodding the investigators into political forays to keep the attention off their bureaucrats.