Oh, and also notice no mention of the Clinton administration in association with yet another lost opportunity to get Bin Laden out of Afghanistan and into the hands of justice. Add that to all the times Clinton turned down the Sudan when they all but offered to hand us Bin Laden on a silver platter. When Clinton's people told them to expel him to Afghanistan instead, the Sudanese offered to land the plane carrying Bin Laden and 150 top Al Qaeda leaders in Qatar so we could arrest them. Clinton said no, allow them to proceed to Afghanistan. The Sudanese then offered to provide us the flight plan so we could force the plane down ourselves, and yet again we refused. (Source: "Why America Slept" by Gerald Posner, Random House, 2004. Also see "Losing Bin Laden" by Richard Minitier for more information on Clinton failures to allow Sudan to hand over Bin Laden after repeated offers) Bet the 9-11 Commission won't ever talk about what Clinton's incompetence in contiually turning down years of offers by the Sudan to hand over Bin Laden meant in ensuring one day Bin Laden would attack us on our own soil.
Amazing howall of these stories seem to neglect to mention who was President at the tume.
I remember Bush demanding the Taliban hand over Bin Laden repeatedly prior to the invasion of Afghanistan.
If there was a credible offer a year before 9/11, it would have certainly have been credible afterwards. That they refused is clear indication that there was not a credible offer.
I vaguely remember this coming up a year or so ago. The decision was thought to have been due to the in-process change of administrations due to the election. At that time, 'transition' was not happening because of the election result in FL being in the court system.
The media dropped it. They certainly didn't want it landing on the Clinton watch. But notice how they didn't mind trying to pin a 'response' to the USS Cole bombing on GWBush, even though that also took place on the Clinton watch.
Well if Al Qaeda said they'd turn him over I'm sure they meant it. I mean if you can't trust a terrorist who can you trust ?
/sarcasm off
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Yet another claim emerged Saturday that American officials had prior indications of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, this time from an aide to a former member of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.
The aide to former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil made his claim in an interview aired Saturday with the BBC's former Kabul correspondent. The man, who wasn't identified, told Kate Clark he was sent to warn U.S. diplomats and the United Nations of the planned attacks just weeks before they took place.
But he said his warnings in July, 2001 to the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan and the United Nations were brushed off.
Muttawakil, a reputed moderate, turned himself in to the authorities in Kandahar, Afghanistan this past February and was given over into U.S. custody.
The aide told Clark that Muttawakil learned of the impending attacks from Tohir Yuldash, the leader of an Uzbekistan Muslim movement. Yuldash, he said, was in Afghanistan at the time and had strong links to al Qaida.
The BBC quoted an unidentified American official as saying of the aide's warning that there were so many rumors at the time that a kind of "warning fatigue" had set in.
The aide had also been told not to mention Muttawakil's name, the network said, which meant that his warnings had been taken less seriously.
The network didn't give any further information on the aide's identity or whereabouts, or when the interview took place.
I suppose their willingness to be rid of him is why they tasked him to kill their chief guerrilla threat after they made him "Minister of Defense" for the Taliban regime.
This reporter doesn't even read the papers and official actions of the time discussed in his story.