How Bush Could Have Prevented the 9/11 Attacks

News Max ^ | Sunday, Apr. 11, 2004 | Carl Limbacher

[Kaslin]

A handful of Sept. 11 widows are outraged that President Bush didn't act on the August 6, 2001 briefing he got from the CIA.

"Everything is in [the briefing memo] but the date 9/11," complained Lori Van Auken whose husband died in the Twin Towers, in comments to the New York Daily News. "You have the who, what, where, why and how. The only thing you don't have is the when."

Actually, as far as the "who" goes, none of the hijackers' names appear in the Bush CIA briefing memo.

And the "what"? Nowhere does the memo warn that hijackers would use airplanes as kamikaze missiles.

"Where?" The memo mentions "federal buildings in New York." But Bush could have closed every one of them and the World Trade Center, which is not a federal building, would have still been packed with 50,000 workers on the morning of 9/11.

How about the "why" cited by Mrs. Van Auken? The CIA briefing says that "after US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington." But those attacks were launched by President Clinton, not Bush.

And the "how?" The memo makes no mention of hijackers overtaking U.S. flight crews with small knives.

Of course, if President Bush had treated the Aug. 6 PDB as actionable intelligence, there are indeed several measures he could have taken that would have guaranteed that a Sept. 11-style attack on America would have never happened.

* Because the CIA memo mentions only bin Laden by name, Bush would have had to round-up any and all of his potential followers inside the U.S., i.e., every Muslim in America, and throw them into internment camps - just like FDR did with Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor.

* Since reporters have been able to sneak any number of weapons past airport screeners even with post-9/11 security measures in place, President Bush would have had to close all America's airports to completely eliminate the possibility of hijackings.

* In order to protect against another Millennium plot bombing attack - which the memo explicitly refers to - Bush would have had to order that all shopping malls, schools, museums, movie theaters, train stations, large office buildings and other potential high value targets be closed till further notice.

* Because Millennium-plot bomber Ahmed Ressam tried to sneak across the Canadian border, Bush would have had to seal both the Canadian and Mexican border until the war on terrorism was won.

* In order to assure the elimination of the bin Laden threat, Bush would have had to launch a pre-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. If the master terrorist ran to Pakistan, the U.S. would need to invade that country as well.

Had Bush taken the above steps, the economy would have been in shambles, the airline industry destroyed, most of the nation unemployed, the U.S. at war and six million Muslims - almost all of them innocent - would be behind bars.

But the Sept. 11 attacks would have been prevented - at least for the few months that it would have taken for the Congress to impeach and remove Bush from office for massive abuses of power.

[NYCVirago]

Bump for a great article!

[MainFrame65]

>"Hindsight is always perfect."<

The only place "hind sight" has any value is in some of the sleazier drinking establishments where I spent part of my misspent youth.

[Imperialist]

I posted this rant at another thread, seems more relevant here on this thread though:

I just want to repeat something I have felt and mentioned since 9/11/01 with regards to the newly released "PDB". It seems everyone is looking to blame somebody for the attack, naturally. Though our intelligence apparatus could have performed better, they did manage to get some good intel prior to 9/11/01. So much intel that in June 2001 a warning was given to the FAA about AQ hijacking domestic flights. The info was passed on to the airline industry. And what did the airline industry do? Nothing. Prior to 9/11/01, alot of aircraft cockpits had what amounted to a shower curtain seperating the pilots from the passengers. I quit flying in 1999 because of security and mechanical problems the airline industry still has. I have stood in front of the curtain to the cockpit and looked in there to see what I could see. Back then I could hardly believe that the cockpit was so vulnerable. Gore even tried to get the airlines to tighten security but the airlines lobbied against it to the point where they had the suggested security improvements but which had no deadline for enforcement. All the airlines cared about was profit or lack there of. Upgrading security was to expensive for them back then. Your safety was/is not included in the cost of the ticket to fly, as an EL AL Exec. pointed out shortly after 9/11.

I blame the Airline Industry for 9/11/01 by not responding to the hijack warning given in June 2001. Of course Klintoon Admin could have declared war on AQ in 1996 and things might have been different.

Sorry about the rant. Thanks.

[Tunehead54]

The Democrats attempts to make it harder to prosecute this war and to try and make hay at President Bush really makes a case for them being a(n) pretty anti-American crowd that acts in the interest of their own power and NOT the American people IMO.

This is 100% Clinton's fault.

---

There. That's better. Let's not mince words when our national security is at stake. Hope you don't mind! (Bump for your thoughts.) ;-)

[rj45mis]

"This is 100% Clinton's fault."

Although one can rarely blame a single individual for such a tragedy, I am comfortable in saying that FORMER President Clinton should have to bear the brunt of the blame for 9/11. He cared about little else but maintaining power and satisfying his sexual urges at the expense of the welfare of our nation. IMO he truly is the worst President in our history. He receives credit for an economic recovery that started long before he took office.

[NYCVirago]

Someone recently posted the question if these widows aren't the ones who refused to accept the offer of $2.5 million in damage because they were hoping to get more money. I thought that was a good point.

At least some of these professional victims are not taking money from the 9/11 Victims' Compensation Fund, so they can sue the government, and try to hurt Bush. Money is part of it, but left-wing ideology is what's really driving them. And I think the ones not taking the money are also the ones with wealthy husbands who had lots of life insurance. Remember, life insurance payoffs are deducted from any money received from the 9/11 Fund.

[Solamente]

Don't forget all the racial profiling stories in the year or two before 9/11. Law enforcement was just getting used to all the restrictions of their suspicions.

[CalKat]

Perhaps it goes even further back to when we overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to put the Shah back in power. The seeds of the so called democracy we want were there, but the elections didn't go our way, so we squashed it immediately, to no advantage of average Iranians.

[CalKat]

People keep using the Clinton excuse, that Bush couldn't "have taken the necessary steps...that Congress would have been in an uproar". If Bush couldn't do it, how could Clinton do it?

[FlashBack]

I agree, Clinton will go down in history as THE worst President in America's history...THAT'S his legacy!!
Tough words on terrorism for eight straight years with no substansive action to back it up is the reason behind 9-11, that and all the PC crap flying around out there...wouldn't want to "offend" anyone for crying out loud!! The Clintonistas tied the hands of our law enforcement agencies, ransacked the military, gutted the intelligence communities, and now it's ALL Bush's fault???
These people need to get a f'n clue!!!

[garbanzo]

Just a few more pieces being put in their proper place might have foiled the whole thing.

And if I'd picked the lottery numbers in the right order I'd be rich.

[boop]

And of course, Bush should have prevented the LIBERALS from passing the Church amendment, preventing assassination of foreign leaders. Ooooops, that was in the 70's. Maybe Bush should have had the CIA and FBI work together. Ooops, another liberal idea prevented this. Or just simply questioned muslim extremists. Nope, the leftists would cry racism.

[Kaslin]

These are the ones the poster was talking about

[reluctantwarrior]

Bravo molto grazie bravo

[reluctantwarrior]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet post

[pierrem15]

How Bush Could Have Prevented the 9/11 Attacks

He could have run and won in '96.

[marktwain]

And that would have somehow permitted the experts he would have brought on board to connect all the dots.....before 9/11?

Of course not! But we would not have Noman Mineta doing all he can to prevent pilots from being armed, refusing to profile, and wasting resources by insisting that no one can carry razorblades on an airplane, even though anyone who can think now realizes that the threat from razor blade weilding terrorists is no longer credible. No pilot, crew, or passengers will make the mistakes that were made on 9/11, with the now discredited assumption that the best thing to do was be a passive victim.

In addition, he wouldn't have Dick Clark now claiming that he did everything that could be done for eight years of the Clinton administration, so they are not responsible. But suddenly Bush, who started taking the threat seriously, was responsible for 9/11.

I have to admit, that I might have held Clarke on as well. After all, he was in the loop, a career civil servant.

The temptation of all that cash was just too much, I guess. I read a NYT article, I think, which explained that Clarke was *not* trying to cash in, because his first idea for a book was about cyperterrorism, until his agent convinced him there was a lot more money to be made by bashing the Bush administration. It sounded a lot more like a confession than a vindication to me.

[MACVSOG68]

But Mineta is a Bush appointee.

[jackbill]

Frankly, I've had more than a belly full of these "9-11 wives". When will someone have the guts to tell them to STFU?

[chiller]

I hope someone prints this, wads it into a ball and stuffs it down that bitch's throat. After she's exposed as being wrong on every count. They're driving me CRAZY!