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Vladimir Putin said in an interview released yesterday that he had warned the Clinton administration about the dangers posed by Bin Laden. "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does not want to turn him over'."

Interesting. WTC could have been a "first strike" response, despite all the twaddle for the Arab Street. but also linked up with Osama's imperial plans. Or the "threat" was just one of many, why they would think this one special, who knows.

Actually, this is kind of "old" news that went under the radar, and should be examined more closely.

Officials Reveal Bin Laden Plan: Terror leader hoped to create Islamic

Interesting new combination of old news and old news. Anyone who isn't brain damaged of suffering from a condition which affects short term memory remembers that GW told the Taliban to hand over bin Laden or die [paraphrasing mine] within "weeks" of the NY AND PENTAGON attacks, and Putin complained bitterly, within a about three months of the attack that Clinton was unresponsive to arnings of terrorism.

Slow news day in the UK, I guess.

"The Taliban refused to comply but the serious nature of what they were told raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats."

"The warning to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July."

Pure, unadulterated horse-hockey. The terrorists were already in the US planning their attacks months before this conference. Amazing the lengths some will go to in order to justify their anti-american rhetoric.

We already knew about the Berlin negotiations and the threats delivered in them from the book Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite. Seems to me we were quite within our rights delivering those threats in view of the fact that Afghanistan continued to harbor bin Laden and his people after their involvement in the East Africa embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole.

Conspiracy theorists will say that we first provoked the 9/11 attack, and then allowed it to proceed. I suppose that's possible, but I think strong evidence would be required to prove it. Not only would such plotting appear to be out of character for George W. Bush and other leading figures in the administration, but the need for such a plot is not at all clear. The embassy bombings and the Cole were already sufficient reason for an attack on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, and I believe would only have required a bit of presidential speechmaking.

The alternate explanation is much more plausible. We made these threats, hoping the Taliban would accede and hand over bin Laden. We recognized the possibility that an attack would occur as a response. But we did not act out of an intention to provoke it, and did not consciously permit the attack to occur.