Ashcroft Learned of Agent's Alert Just After 9/11 but Bush Was Not Told

New York Times ^

[Henchster]

HA-HA! Dems caught again in hysteria over Lib-spin non-story!

[NormsRevenge]

Watch the dems screw this up too! Mueller should have never been FBI Director nor Ashcroft AG ... if dead folks didnt vote, that is..

[dts32041]

No what would you suppose would have happened, prior to 9-11, if the FBI with no provocation went ahead and question every muslim taking flight training?

For that matter what has happen with the FBI checking every Muslim taking flight training since 9-11?

[RCW2001]

Or grounded all flights for 3-4 days while 'security procedures' were updated for airport check-ins?

[terilyn]

This must be what little Tommy was smiling/smirking about today...

[Dog Gone]

This is stupid. Even assuming the Phoenix memo would have generated a lot of interest at FBI headquarters, it would have taken months to check out all the flight schools in the country and track down any leads.

This looks important only in hindsight.

[Utah Girl]

Did I misread this article? Ashcroft was told a few days after the WTC terrorist bombings? And this would be important, because....I don't get it.

[Rome2000]

These are the same SOB's that will scream bloody murder if W does the right thing and interns all foreign nationals from Arab countries.

Somebody ought to ask the rats what their position is on internment, being that we have been warned that additional attacks are imminent, not interning will be viewed as W's fault as well.

In other words, no matter what W does, he's wrong to the press and the lying leftist rats.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

The only news here is the Blatant fact that it was the FBI who dropped the ball on 9/11…

If anyone or anything should be investigated forthwith it should be the Federal Bureau of Incompetents. Then they should be summarily disbanded and dissolved, this is just yet another in a laundry list of major cases where they have screwed up in reverse and people have died for it.

When will this bureaucracy of buffoons be held accountable?

[terilyn]

More like 3-4 months. Heck, it's been eight months and some of the airports still aren't up to speed. How many times have we heard of a concourse or an entire airport shut down recently for a security breech?

Whoever was filling in for Alan Colmes tonight was still arguing against racial profiling. They even had a muslim on who indicated that the first priority for the US Government is security. Further, if it's justified, (example was the Middle Eastern men video taping on top of the water tower in CT), they should do it. The lib idiot still kept arguing.

LOL...fair & balanced...Sean and both guests against the Colmes fill in.

[RightWhale]

The memorandum wouldn't have been a high priority after WTC911. It was a time for action and just too late for the memo to do any good. But prior to WTC911 the security agencies could have been better coordinated especially in areas of passing intelligence up the chain. They are probably much better coordinated now, and will continue to become even better coordinated. The memo is far from a dead issue; it will be one of the prime examples of lack of coordination for years to come.

[rack42]

What about Vreeland?

What the CIA doesn't want you to know

Vreeland Talks

Of course, this is just BS.

[hchutch]

Drip... drip... drip...

This is a textbook example of everything Bernard Goldberg said in Bias.

[RCW2001]

However, I might add.... IF this report is true that Mueller and Ashcroft knew of such memo and DID NOT inform the President, then they were both derelict of their duty.

The next question is, did they (Mueller & Ashcroft) collude in not informing the President?

The President should have been informed regardless of whether the information was timely or not. It should have been his call whether to go public with this information sooner, rather than later. Not the AG or FBI...

[Mo1]

Did I misread this article? Ashcroft was told a few days after the WTC terrorist bombings? And this would be important, because....I don't get it.

That was my take .. kind of hard for the Administration to react to a memo they never got in time

[rwfromkansas]

At first glance this sounded bad....but after looking at it, THIS is supposed to be bad for us...give me a break. So, Ashcroft was told AFTER 9-11 that the FBI screwed up. And this is exactly national headlines why?

[RCW2001]

But senior Bush administration officials said neither Mr. Ashcroft nor Mr. Mueller briefed President Bush and his national security staff until recently about the fears of an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix that members of Al Qaeda were training at American flight schools, though the two men began daily briefings of the president at the White House immediately after the hijackings.

This is the rub...

[terilyn]

From your link:

"I was sent there by the U.S. government and the ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence]. I got my orders between Sept. 4 and Sept. 7, 2000."

So is the inference that this is a leftover from the Clinton Admnistration? The orders and the threatened assassination?

[Shermy]

This is totally weird and obsessive. So what they didn't tell him about this specific memo in some far away state - they knew the same thing in about two days after 9/11 - that Al Qaeda trained at American flight schools (and not the Arizona one).

This argument has the "verisimilitude" of truth, but is meaningless.