HILLARY CLINTON SHOULD BE CAREFUL WHAT SHE WISHES FOR. . . / THE REAL PROXIMATE CAUSE OF 9/11

The New York Times, C-SPAN, Newsmax.com | 5.17.02 | Mia T

[Mia T]

05-16-02

HILLARY CLINTON SHOULD BE CAREFUL WHAT SHE WISHES FOR. . .

THE REAL PROXIMATE CAUSE OF 9/11

 

In a Senate speech, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, called on Mr. Bush to "come before the American people at the earliest possible time to answer the questions so many New Yorkers and Americans are asking."

The New York Times, Democrats Say Bush Must Give Full Disclosure

Clinton Warned on Bin Laden Hijack-Kamikaze Plot

Newsmax | 05.16.02

Posted on 5/16/02 8:03 AM Pacific by callisto

If you don't recall seeing the blaring post-9-11 headline "Clinton Warned on Bin Laden Hijack-Kamikaze Plot," it's not because your memory is failing.

In fact, the big media mostly ignored the story - in marked contrast to today's wall-to-wall coverage of news that President Bush received a pre-9-11 CIA briefing on a possible bin Laden hijack plot.

And while the warning transmitted to Bush gave no inkling that bin Laden planned to transform U.S. airliners into flying bombs and slam them into American office buildings, in fact, Clinton administration intelligence officials were in the possession of detailed information on an al Qaeda conspiracy to hijack several U.S. airliners - including a plan to crash one of the planes into the Pentagon or CIA.

It was called "Operation Bojinka," a 1995 plot hatched by an al Qaeda cell in the Philippines with an eye towards blowing up 12 American airliners. Some would be booby trapped with bombs like Pan Am 103, others hijacked like the four U.S. jets commandeered on 9-11 and crashed into buildings.

Though the mainstream press never demonstrated much enthusiasm for the story, Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine detailed what the Clinton administration knew - and when it knew it - for NewsMax.com last October.

Citing a Sept. 13 Agence France-Presse report, Irvine noted that Philippine Police Chief Superintendent Avelino Razon had uncovered the plot to "plant bombs in U.S. airliners and hijack others to crash them into buildings like the CIA headquarters."

"Razon said (the plot) was found on the computer of Ramzi Yousef, the organizer of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center," Irvine reported. "He had fled to Pakistan, but his laptop was found in the apartment he shared with his accomplice, Abdul Hakim Murad. Razon said both were agents of Osama bin Laden."

A later Agence France-Press report noted:

"Among targets mentioned (in Yousef's computer files) was the World Trade Center in New York..... CIA offices in Virginia and the Sears Tower in Chicago."

Picking up where Irvine left off, the Washington Post quoted a Filipino investigator, who said that as he watched the attack on the World Trade Center on television he exclaimed in horror, "It's Bojinka. We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?"

Chief Police Superintendent Avelino Razon told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the Philippine intelligence report was passed on to the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Joint Task Force on Terrorism.

"It was not given credibility. Otherwise, it could have prevented the destruction of the World Trade Center," he explained.

The Clinton FBI was in full possession of all the frightening facts on Bojinka, but did nothing. Instead, as Reed Irvine revealed, the bureau assured Congress that everything was under control.

"In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Terrorism in February 1998, 'Bojinka' - which means 'big bang' - was described by Dale L. Watson, chief of the International Terrorism Operations Section of the FBI, only as a plot to blow up 'numerous U.S. air carriers.'

"He said that the FBI had identified 'a significant and growing organizational presence' of foreign terrorists in the United States. He swore the bureau had them under control."

The Clinton FBI counterintelligence chief told the Senate that as a result of the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 the FBI had developed an 'enhanced capability' to track terrorist activities.

Is it likely that U.S. intelligence possessed this much information on al Qaeda plans to slam planes into U.S. buildings - and didn't tell President Clinton?

Actually it is, if you believe the account of his former CIA Director James Woolsey, who said Clinton never bothered to meet with him during his stint as the nation's intelligence chief.

What about other administration officials, like Attorney General Janet Reno, who certainly should have known about Bojinka?

There Clinton may also have an alibi.

During all of 1998 - the same year FBI counterintelligence briefed Congress on the al Qaeda hijack plot - Clinton met with his Cabinet exactly twice: Once in January to lie to them about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and again in August to come clean about the affair.

Want to know more about why U.S intelligence missed the 9-11 clues during the Clinton years. Get your copy of NewsMax.com's "Off the Record" interview with FBI whistleblower Gary Aldrich.

May 17, 2002

Democrats Say Bush Must Give Full Disclosure

By ALISON MITCHELL

ASHINGTON, May 16 ó After months of unstinting support for President Bush's handling of the war on terror, leading Congressional Democrats changed course today and demanded full disclosure of what Mr. Bush was told last summer about the danger of terrorist hijackings. They also called for a broad public inquiry into what the government knew before Sept. 11.

The sharp questions about possible intelligence lapses and about the vigor of the administration's response to terrorist warnings came a day after the White House announced, eight months after the terror attacks, that President Bush had been alerted by the Central Intelligence Agency last summer to the danger of hijackings by terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden.

Even some Republicans questioned the government's response to information gathered last summer.

"I think it should have been acted upon, and it wasn't," said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee.

Mr. Shelby was particularly critical of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying officials there had been "asleep."

But Democrats were the fiercest. For the first time since Sept. 11, the bipartisan unity over how Mr. Bush has conducted the war on terror appeared to be dissolving in sharp questions, accusations and partisan finger-pointing.

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, said he was "gravely concerned" and asked, "Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information?" Mr. Daschle added that the president should immediately hand the Congressional intelligence committees "the entire briefing that he was given" in August.

Democrats were also seeking an F.B.I. memorandum warning that many Middle Eastern men were training at American flight schools.

Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader, said, "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president, what the White House, knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time."

Mr. Gephardt, of Missouri, said the long-planned investigation by the intelligence committees was no longer enough. "I don't think this can just be a closed-door secret intelligence investigation," he said. (The joint committee is planning to hold both public and closed hearings.)

In a Senate speech, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, called on Mr. Bush to "come before the American people at the earliest possible time to answer the questions so many New Yorkers and Americans are asking."

Most of the Republicans who spoke publicly today rallied around Mr. Bush, arguing that the information he had received in August in a briefing paper several pages long was too generalized to act on. They said the Democrats were playing election-year politics.

Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, accused the two Democratic leaders of an "effort to blow this up into a scandal."

"Their unspoken implication," Mr. Bond said, "is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing. That is an insult to the U.S. intelligence community, to the president and the American people."

Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said in a Senate speech tonight that "there is nothing more despicable ó and `despicable' is a tame word ó in American politics than to insinuate the president of the United States knew that an attack on the United States was imminent and did nothing to stop it."

"For us to be talking like our enemy is George W. Bush and not Osama bin Laden, that's not right," Mr. Lott added.

But Democrats, who until now have been reluctant to speak out against Mr. Bush on foreign policy, said it was their duty to seek information.

"We have a right and responsibility to speak out," said Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who may run for president. "Preventing another Sept. 11 undoubtedly requires understanding our past vulnerabilities."

The questions over what the administration knew ignited a battle over whether to create a special commission to look into the events surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, have long argued for an independent commission. They said they would move quickly to try to create one in an attachment to other legislation, perhaps as early as next week. Mr. Daschle suggested he might support the idea.

Mr. Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000, pointed to an array of warnings to intelligence agencies last summer that have recently been made public.

"If there had been one person receiving all that information, would it have been possible to prevent Sept. 11?" he asked. "That's the question an independent commission has to answer so we never have to ask it again."

Senator Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, who has also pushed hard for a commission, noted that Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly pressed Congress last fall to avoid an investigation while troops were in Afghanistan. In light of recent disclosures, Mr. Torricelli said, "that argument just became extremely disingenuous."

One dispute that simmered across the day was about just how much members of Congress knew last August about intelligence warnings.

After Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, pointed to an assertion by Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that the Congressional panels had been given similar information, Senate Democrats quickly contested the remark.

Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said that the committees were given more general information than the president received last August and that it did not include references to hijackings.

Mr. Daschle, at Mr. Graham's side at a news conference, said, "There is no one in Congress who had that information."

Mr. Goss said all the information in the president's intelligence briefing had been given to his committee as well, but over time. The information, he said, included "no specificity as to time, place, date or method."

The senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is also the No. 2 Democrat in the House leadership, joined Mr. Goss at his news conference and agreed that some of the information in the president's memorandum had been available to the lawmakers.

But, Ms. Pelosi added, the president's briefing paper had three pieces of specific information that day in August that the intelligence committees had learned over several months. That, she said, "raised it to a different level" and needed to be part of the Congressional investigation into Sept. 11.

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[buffyt]

Many of our world leaders are evil geniuses. I think Clinton was just an abomination. He was too busy in the Oral Office playing hide the sausage with young nubile interns. Hillary on the other hand IS an evil genius. Bill is a baffoon. Gore is an idiot. Hillary is an evil person with desire to rule the world. Maybe the ani-Christ is a woman, Hillary, to fool us all!

[FreedominJesusChrist]

Thanks for another great post Mia. I admire your vigilance both to justice and the truth! Unfortunately, people like you, me, ChaseR, and BeAChooser, are getting to be less by the day. The quest for truth and justice in our lives must be constant.

[tm61]

billy was ruled by public opion polls as much as anything else, hildebeast doesnt have that crutch, she knows exactly what she wants, mainly the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in pieces.

[MasonGal]

I have been wondering the very same thing.

Clinton has been very quiet about this.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Yep, I wonder if all this was put out by the Clintonites as a smear laying the groundwork for his 'everybody does it' defense. Is the Iraqi/OKC connection that may have been purposefully ignored to pin all the blame on the 'radical right' about to go mainstream? Schippers getting to close?

[crypt2k]

CLINTON CRIME SYNDICATE EXILE TO ELEPHANT ISLAND: A MODEST PROPOSAL

[FryingPan101]

Thanks! Glad to have this post. Good job, Mia T!

[christine]

thanks, mia!

[christine]

The quest for truth and justice in our lives must be constant.

absolutely!

[RightWhale]

That's right. HRC is totally visible in her new elective office. The aroma of her own words will follow her around like the smoke of a pungent herb.

[Geezerette]

Hi, Chase!

Thanks, Mia!

Bump!

g

[Spar]

Mia T did not have to try so hard with this post Honorary Serb. The Balkan psoters on Free Republic were warning Americans about al-Qaeda months before 9/11.

This is clearly the Clinton administration's BIN LADEN GATE, but it will become Bush's if he does not place the blame on the heads of those that are guilty, those in our govt past and present that supported our Balkan misadventure and who made common cause (willingly and unwillingly) with al-Qaida against Yugoslavia in the 90s.

Better late then never, but time is running out before the scandal taints the Bush administration too.

[RightWhale]

Whether it affects this administration adversely is one thing, and whether it affects the elections is another. A likely result is a stronger, more effective FBI, CIA, and Homeland Defense. The effect will not be to the liking of the Dems, but the voting public will like it. Both the election of Conservatives and the administration in the White House could be strengthened.

[Spar]

My point is that if the same people who were there before 9/11 who are a rot on our nation are still in place having oversight of these new policies and revamped agencies, we will solve nothing.

If your a State Dept official for example that made the paper work go away to allow Albanian Muslims from America to organize militias and purchase arms in the States and then fly over to Kosovo to fight in that war can you be trusted? Should he/she not be punished? shamed? Removed from our lives?

[RightWhale]

Did HRC or any other Dems of national prominence ever complain about the many warnings given since WTC911 where nothing happened?

[RightWhale]

the same people

The average bureaucrat does what he is told to do. Most will be more alert to terrorist dangers if so ordered, but will shuffle the papers if told to stop bothering people outside his cubicle. Seems like HRC is requesting the bureaucrats be allowed to send their reports to higher levels so each report will go up one desk higher than before.

[Spar]

It did not seem to bother the Clinton's that the first WTC bombers were veterans of the Bosnian Jihad as were the US African Embassy bombers, the thwarted LAX bombers, the thwarted Philippines airline bombers, etc., etc., etc.

[Spar]

I don't want the average bureaucrat from the Clinton years, I want the policy makers.

[RightWhale]

Remember the sudden paleness of Pres Clinton's complexion when word of TWA800 came? Looked like shock. Something big had happened [I won't speculate exactly what,] but he never said a word about it beyond the usual statement of compassion for the victims.

[Cindy]

Hillary might be surprised that many people today ignore the spin and are actively pursuing the truth.