Posted on 11/27/2003 7:37:26 AM PST by ChiefKujo
President Bush secretly landed an hour ago and is currently eating Thanksgiving dinner at my undisclosed location. Anticipate a press release after he takes off.
ChiefKujo
It's not like the President was taking a jaunt down to the Canal Zone now, was he?
That's when I strongly suspected that the POTUS was in Baghdad. It was confirmed in my mind shortly thereafter when some very alarmed moderators had done an Emergency Pull pursuant to JimRob's "Loose Lips" ruling.
The people holding up the Yellow Caution Flag are correct: all it would take would be for one satellite call to activate the local jihadi. Whether or not the jihadi could have reacted in time is another question, but beside the point. I'm not sure of the range of either the STRELA or the 82mm mortar; it becomes an intellectual exercise to discuss how soon a unit of terrorists could have gotten into position. However, my assumption is that the President wouldn't go in without an infantry screen, and Apache screen, and aircap.
I just don't want to see anything untoward happen to the Chief, but I assume he's got a paper trail on this board, so he may be up Shi'ite Creek.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
You may be glad I'm not President, but I'm gald you're not incharge of SECOPS.
Air Force One, with its lights turned off for security reasons, touched down at Baghdad International Airport at 5:31 p.m. (9:31 a.m. EST) and taxied to a remote corner of the airport.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/27/sprj.irq.main/index.html
Dude, you're making a mountian out of a molehill. Researching random clues that an event would occur after the fact is child's play, intel wise. People will be doing it for decades with 9/11. The trick is that ChiefKujo didn't give them any reliable or actionable information, and what he did give couldn't be verified until well after it was common knowledge.
Intel analysts look for patterns, past behavior, and capabilities. Think abuot it. Military rumors about VIP visits are a dime a dozen, especially when you're close to the flagpole, or during certain events. Also, U.S. Presidents visiting troops don't do it secretly, especially when they would have to fly across the planet to do so. Just think of how shocked you were to hear of it in the first place. It's unheard of.
Yes, we now know Bush had the capability to do what he did. Also, a lone anonymous poster on an 'non mainstream news website' that is generally regarded as a little off kilter suggested that he *might*. Assuming that they have guys on FR at all times (which is a absurd stretch) that's not much to go on. No intel guy in his right mind would suggest that it's anything more than an internet rumor, especially when the rest of the known media world was saying he was at Crawford.
(This also hinges on the assumption that they would WANT to kill the President, but that's another topic entirely.)
In hindsight, and with a little research, it's easy to connect the dots. Your dilligence and concern are commendable, and I don't mean to encourage poor OPSEC or blatant security breaches. Having some knowledge of how things work, I just wanted to point out that I didn't think that CK endangered the President in the any meaningful way.
What a thrill. My husband and I actually watched NBC network news just to see how a regular channel would cover this. They were very good and I think David Gregory was a little in awe that President Bush did this (I know, he may get over it).
But NBC reported something I haven't seen reported on the threads yet: That President Bush was up front with the pilots during the lights-out landing!
I read the Fox News article you linked to and if you read it closely It said he took the plane he usually takes. It is very possible he does not go in the Presidential Marked plane most times. When he was done in Iraq and got back to DC he then boarded the AF1 to go back to Crawford.
Go to posting #1579. TexKat posted an article that gives the information I told you I heard.
It makes a whole lot more sense then to think he took the AF1 that has all the Presidential markings on it into Iraq.
Here is a snippit:
"Instead, Bush had quietly slipped away from his home on Wednesday evening, in an unmarked vehicle and wearing a ballcap pulled down low over his forehead. He flew to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington accompanied from Texas by two reporters and a few photographers summoned only hours before. There, he picked up a few aides and some more reporters sworn to secrecy, and made the switch to another plane inside a huge hangar for the long flight.
It was evening in Baghdad when the president's plane which had flown the whole trip with its lights darkened and window blinds closed landed under a crescent moon, with Bush himself in the cockpit to watch Air Force One pilot Col. Mark Tillman "bring it in."
That's possible, but that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is it is possible that this thread could have sent the location of the President to their command and control chain, aka Saddam and his cronies, faster, or possibly confirmed their suspicions, giving them a window of opportunity to act or encouraging them to take risks they otherwise would not have taken.
I'm also not saying they were capable of acting on such information, but I would not want to leave that up to chance.
If you cannot see the additional risk, that's fine. But it was there.
Air Force One landed in darkness at Baghdad International Airport. Security fears were heightened by an attack Saturday in which a missile struck a DHL cargo plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.
That's okay, I glowed with pride all day.
In the fog of war, one never knows which bit of intelligence will prove to be the one that the enemy acts on.
That you think they already have 8 bits of evidence compromising an operation is no excuse to let them have the 9th. It might be they only realized 2 of the bits so far and the bit you leak is what crystalizes their response and moves them to action.
Shut up, just shut up, on anything that might be useful.
My thanks to the Moderator for pulling this thread until it was after the fact.
And my thanks to the Chief - for all he does for protecting our country, and for posting this great thread.
Or in this case, where we wanted the terrorists to think he was. :)
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