[codebreaker]

Looks like Osama knew his time was up.

[be-baw]

a formal National Security Presidential Directive

If this is true, it should take a lot of the heat off Bush. Will they prove it, or is this damage control?

[habs4ever]

This is over 7 mos old, and now it's news?He ordered a review, unlike anything Clinton ever did, and was thinking of doing what a 9/11 made it imperative to do.Damn, the media are stupid and lazy, with attention spans of 4 yr olds.

[knak]

United States and foreIgn sources told NBC

makes me wonder if somehow this was leaked to al-qaeda and that's why they hit when they did?

[Shermy]

Leak by the Saudis to Osama?

Anyway, possible 9/11 scenario - Osama always planned for the attack, probably had lots of plans. Most of his efforts were aimed at disrupting Central Asia and the Caucasus (i.e., Chechnya). Such helped deter, delay, and even destroy competitive hydrocarbon development in the region, a Iranian and Saudi strategic coalescence of aims. They funded him, facilitated him, and profited. Al Qaeda did nothing about Israel. Big on Kashmir, necessary for ISI support. Useful fanatics in oil politics.

Anyway, the 6+2 countries, especially Russia and the US, warned the Taliban to stop supporting local terrorism earlier in 2001, even threatening some kind of attack. Osama was appointed Taliban Minister of Defense by Mullah Omar. The attack on the WTC may have served as a kind of low tech attack on the US to forestall a perceived attack on the Disneyland of Islamist Terrorism, Afghanistan. Certainly the assassination of Massood three days before anticipated the attack, and attempted to disorient the local opposition which could ffight back in alliance with the U.S.

Miscalculation. That's the problem with fanatics, they're true believers. The worst thing that's ever happened to Saudi.

[Timesink]

This bit of info that Brokaw is trying to report as some exclusive, was actually made public somewhere around 9/12. Practically every newsmagazine article the next week made note of the irony.

Someone who wants to dig through the FR archives could probably find it.

[doug from upland]

A commander in chief who knows how to lead. He was going to do what was right even if we were not attacked. What I said to him at the Town Hall meeting in Ontario still holds.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Is it just me, or are the Demorats having a bad day all of a sudden????? ;0)

[jrlc]

The RATS had better be carefully about opening this can of worms. The worms inside are all Clinton. Clinton was more interested in gays in the military than going after OBL. Clinton had Janet Rhino pushing the FBI to deport a child to Castro's nondemocratic Cuba, not searching out OBL sleepers in the USA. Clinton was too busy getting BJs in the Oval Office to do more than Wag the Dog after the Cole was hit. If the RATS want to push Howard Baker questions maybe we should start with the first attack on the WTC -- what did Clinton know and when did he know it. There's the real blame.

[WaterDragon]

I agree it's old news. During the Clinton administration wasn't some group tasked with determing the liklihood of an attack and plotting a response if we were attacked by the terrorists? And as I recall, made recommendations that Clinton ignored. Hasn't Dick Morris written about this? And the Bush administration was just getting into looking at this matter when Sept 11th struck. That's my recollection.

[NCDoc]

The formulation of a detailed plan to go into Afghanistan and wage war suggests that the Bush administration knew that the oncoming attack would be severe enough to galvanize the public into being willing to send our armed forces into that war.

[Mike Darancette]

President Bush was given detailed plans for a worldwide war against Al Qadea two days before Sept. 11

On a Sunday?

[Lucas1]

GAWD I HATE the media. This is so PATHETIC. They are showing 9/11 victims and making them think that Bush knew this was going to happen! How sick has the media become. Are the American people going to BELIEVE THIS CRAP! BUSH WAS READY TO GO TO WAR AGAINST THESE PEOPLE...UNLIKE CLINTON WHO WAS NOTHING BUT A WASTE......BUSH WAS PREPARING TO WAGE WAR AGAINST THESE TERRORITSTS....This whole story just makes me SICK. People need to readjust the way this is being spun. The media/dems is basically waging war against Bush. Come on people wake up

[ladyinred]

Perhaps in a perfect and sane world, this would shutup the lying RATS who have raced to the microphones today to express shock at the revelation that the Bush administration had been warned of possible hijackings by the Muslim terrorists!
Of course, there is nothing perfect or sane about the leftists.

[Salvation]

BTTT! This is especially good for all the Bush-bashers today.

[Mr_Magoo]

Maybe, just maybe the plans were drawn up in response to the Cole bombing.

[patriciaruth]

TERROR WARNING FOR N.Y. AND D.C.
Daily News (New York)
December 14, 1998, Monday

Terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden may be preparing to bomb New York or Washington to avenge the U.S. attack on his secret bases in Afghanistan, according to a new report.

"We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours," a State Department official tells Time magazine in this week's issue. "The game is tilted in Osama's favor until he's gone." The CIA as far back as 1996 was planning to "snatch" Bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. for trial. But the Saudi millionaire foiled the plot by staying away from countries eyed by the CIA, Time reports.

Bin Laden has been linked to bombings in Somalia in October 1993 that killed 18 U.S. troops and at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7 that killed 223 people.

His family owners of Saudi Arabia's richest construction firm disowned him and the Saudis stripped him of his citizenship after he turned radical in 1990. Bin Laden fled to the Sudan, then to Afghanistan.

American missiles struck and destroyed two of his Afghan bases Aug. 21 in retaliation for the embassy attacks. He has been in hiding since.

Bin Laden was indicted in New York last month on charges of masterminding the embassy slaughter, prompting a worldwide search and a $ 5 million reward for his capture.

Time says Attorney General Janet Reno invited 200 Washington metro policemen to FBI headquarters in October to map a simulated response to a terrorist attack. Among the exercises were four scenarios: a car bombing, a chemical-weapons strike at a Redskins football game, an explosive device in a federal building and an assassination attempt on Secretary of State Albright.

But the war games quickly deteriorated into interagency squabbling, disturbing Reno greatly, the magazine said.

Apparently, a Bin Laden terrorist ring planned an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baku,Azerbaijan, but was successfully broken up three months ago, according to the magazine.

end

[philman_36]

Looks like Osama knew his time was up.
So who leaked the information giving him time to strike first?
A couple of secure phone calls and...wallah for Allah.