Thanks so much for that information, Tom. I remembered them being named that day too and was astounded how quickly we knew who did the attacks.
And this:
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke is told in private by Dale Watson, counterterrorism chief at the FBI, “We got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. they're al-Qaeda.” Clarke replies, “How the f_ck did they get on board then?” He is told, “Hey, don't shoot the messenger, friend. CIA forgot to tell us about them.” As they are talking about this, they see the first WTC tower collapse on television. [Clarke, 2004, pp 13-14] Some hijacker names, including Mohamed Atta's, were identified on a reservations computer over an hour earlier.
Well, just shoot me now. Clarke, you POS, trying to blame the CIA about this? And yet we had Operation Able Danger who knew all about this guy and wasn't allowed to talk with the FBI or CIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clarke knew darned well why they were allowed to board taht plane. I lay the blame for this entire matter at the feet of the Clinton administration. They could have prevented 9/11 by taking action against that group in 1999, and they didn't do it. They could have taken action in 2000, and they didn't do it.
I was astounded at the early findings also. Someone had to be watching them. Did they lose track of Atta? If I remember correctly, Atta was running up and down the coast the last few days before 9-11 in rental cars.
And, Bush could have done something about it in 2001, yada yada.
Did he clean house ... hell no .... in fact he kept a number of the "old hands" on!
What do elections mean? Anything?