Dereliction of Duty (Excerpt)

2003 | Lt Col Buzz Patterson USAF ret (and Clinton's Nuclear Football Carrier)

[ml/nj]

During the summer of the 1996 attacks, I myself learned firsthand that the administration knew that terrorists were plotting to use commercial airliners as weapons. The president received a Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, every morning. It was a document encased in a smart leather folder, and emblazoned with the presidential seal, that contained the president's daily intelligence update from the NSC. A senior NSC representative normally delivered it to the president. On weekends, at Camp David, and on vacations, the military aide was responsible for delivering and retrieving the brief.

One late-summer Saturday morning, the president asked me to pick up a few days' worth of PDBs that had accumulated in the Oval Office. He gave them to me with handwritten notes stuffed inside the folders and asked that I deliver them back to the NSC.

I opened the PDB to rearrange the notes and noticed the heading "Operation Bojinka." I keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons and another plot to Put bombs on U.S. airliners. Because I was a pilot, this naturally grabbed my attention. I can state for a fact that this information was circulated within the U.S. intelligence community, and that in late 1996 the president was aware of it.

Shortly thereafter, the president appointed Vice President Gore to chair the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. ...

[ml/nj]

And the rest is history, as they say.

(I did a search and didn't see this posted.)

I guess I want to know if the Mighty 911 Commission expects to call Lt Col Patterson as a witness, or maybe whether it has and I missed it. I want to know who else knew about this besides President Clinton. I want to know whether this information was highlighted in any way for the Bush Administration during the transition, or later.

I want to know why the schmucks on the Commission don't seem to be interested in stuff like this.

ML/NJ

[Diogenesis]

[ml/nj]

I made a mistake and posted before proofreading. Please correct the spelling in the title.

ML/NJ

[tsmith130]

I posed this question on another thread. IF the information contained in the PDB of August 6, 2001 was historical, who ELSE had it in a PDB? Why are none of the Clinton PDB's being released? Oh wait...stupid question; I withdraw it.

[Smartass]

[harpo11]

Pres. Clinton thought that the enemy was Ken Starr.
He thought it was the House Managers.
Clinton thought it was the VRWC.
He pressed on that the enemy was right-wing fundamentalist Christians.
He blamed Rush Limbaugh.
He thought the Republicans were a bunch of "pesky mosquitos that could easily be swatted".
He had four chances to get bin Laden.
He lobbed off a few missiles when GJ Testimony was slated.
He hit a few empty tents.
He thought, but did not think at all.

[LiteKeeper]

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