Posted on 05/18/2002 5:21:10 AM PDT by Retired Chemist
TAMPA - Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham on Friday backed up White House accounts that terrorist warnings President Bush received before Sept. 11 weren't detailed enough to warrant actions beyond those taken.
The senator did say, however, the government failed to do all it could have to prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He named as a ``glaring example'' a memo from the FBI's Phoenix office in July that reportedly never reached the president's office.
The memo to FBI headquarters warned that Arabs were training at a U.S. flight school.
It urged that flight schools nationwide be checked, but the FBI failed to act before Sept. 11.
Of all the dots to be connected, this was a ``big dot,'' he said. ``There were people on that list that would have generated further intelligence activities,'' Graham said. ``A pattern could have been seen.''
The Aug. 6 briefing to the president, however, is another matter, Graham said. It was not specific enough to push the president to act.
He based his assessment on a summary of the briefing materials he received two days ago, he said. He has never seen the documents.
Graham spoke at the local FBI headquarters before the start of an evening with Tampa's Joint Terrorism Task Force, a group created after Sept. 11 that combines federal and local law enforcement agencies.
Did anyone notice that after the story of Clinton getting a warning in 1998 came out, that all the Democrats suddenly started saying "We need to take a deep breath here"...?
Out of all this uproar- that is the one relevant thing. It had nothing to do with Bush but it is the one thing that might've made a difference if the FBI had pursued it.
St Petersburg Times ( Very Liberal)
Graham: Government Had Chance To Foil Attacks
Tampa Tribune ( More Middle Of The road)
Graham: Warnings Insufficient To Stop Terrorist Attacks
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