Posted on 05/16/2002 6:21:24 PM PDT by Republican_Strategist
The Left Wing has begun its mighty assault on President Bush. Its on television. Its in the papers. It is everywhere. The big headline is “Bush Knew.” Now I have taken the liberty of collecting evidence that shoots down the latest assault by Democrats:
FBI Chief: Memo Warning of Flight Training Wouldn't Have Prevented Terror Attack
WASHINGTON — An FBI memo from Phoenix warning that several Arabs were suspiciously training at a U.S. aviation school wouldn't have led officials to the Sept. 11 hijackers even if they had followed up the warning with more vigor, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
"Did we discern from that that there was a plot that would have led us to the Sept. 11 [attackers]? No," Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Could we have? I rather doubt it. But should we have done more in regard to the Phoenix [memo]? Yes."
The Associated Press reported last week that an FBI agent in Arizona alerted Washington in July that several Arabs were suspiciously training at a U.S. aviation school and urged that agents contact other schools nationwide where Middle Easterners might be studying.
The FBI sent the intelligence to its terrorism experts for analysis and was considering a nationwide canvass of flight schools when the suicide hijackers struck. The bureau had not yet alerted other federal agencies, such as those that handle pilots' licenses or immigration visas, despite a recommendation by the Phoenix office that the information be shared.
"I believe the Phoenix memo is going to come to be one of the most important documents in our national discussion about whether we did enough to protect America from the attacks of Sept. 11," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
Mueller said it was unlikely that the FBI could have investigated all 2,000 aviation academies and their 20,000 students between July and September.
"It was perceived that this would be a monumental undertaking without any specificity as to particular persons," Mueller said.
None of the people being investigated in Arizona were involved in the Sept. 11 attack, Mueller said, although he admitted that one or two might have had connections to terror organizations.
Mueller said he did not believe that heads of the CIA or the FBI ever saw the contents of the Phoenix memo, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called "much more consequential" than the briefings she gets as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I think that recommendations of the agent are something that we should have more aggressively pursued," Mueller emphasized. "I do not believe that it gave the signpost of that which would happen on Sept. 11."
This was Mueller's first time in front of the committee since September's attacks. Mueller also said:
— That the Sept. 11 hijackers left no paper trail for law enforcers to pick up on. "We have not yet uncovered a single piece of information, either here or in the treasure-trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot," Mueller said. "As best as we can determine, the actual hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind."
— That the bureau still is getting leads on who mailed anthrax to Americans late last year. Contaminated mail killed five people and sickened 13. An anthrax-contaminated letter was discovered last October in an office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. A second anthrax letter was discovered later addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The investigation "is not in any way stalled," Mueller said. "Every day we receive new leads in regard to additional individuals and we have an ongoing very thorough laboratory investigation undertaken."
Administration Details Terror Briefing
WASHINGTON — National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that the Aug. 6 briefing to President Bush was the most generalized type of "analytic report" and not a "warning" of imminent attack.
"There was no time, there was no place, there was no method of attack," she said in describing the details of a summer briefing at the president's ranch that is under scrutiny after charges flew Thursday that the president knew details of a Sept. 11-style attack but sat on the information.
Rice said the details were so vague about possible hijackings that the administration didn't want to shut down the national aviation system with an alert.
"Steps were taken. And I'm sure security steps were taken. But you have to realize that when you're dealing with something this general, there's a limit to the amount that you can do," she said.
Several Democratic and Republican sources familiar with the intelligence information have described the material as "innocuous." Republican sources earlier in the day suggested the White House describe the information publicly in order to defuse the current controversy. Democratic sources also said it would be totally inaccurate to characterize the information as a "warning," and said it was consistent with the intelligence assessments that are provided to the Hill on a daily basis.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott disputed charges by congressional Democrats Thursday that the House and Senate intelligence panels knew nothing of warnings to President Bush last summer about the threat of imminent hijackings of American airliners.
"There's no question that the intelligence committee of the Congress and the administration had reason to suspect that hijackings were a possibility. I don't think anyone knew that they would possibly be used as a missile into a high-rise building," Lott, R-Miss., told Fox News.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking member of the Senate intelligence panel, said Thursday that his committee was given a "summary of a summary of a summary" given to the president, but none of the material constituted a "general warning."
Still, Capitol Hill was astir with calls for an investigation into whether the White House knew prior to the Sept. 11 attacks that terrorists linked to Usama bin Laden might be planning to hijack American airliners.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle led the charge, saying, "additional examination of the facts in broader forms" is needed to determine whether the Bush administration failed to adequately protect the public from the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I think once we get beyond the intelligence committee, there are now issues that fall outside of intelligence that somebody is going to have to examine, that somebody I think for the public record is going to have to try to clarify," Daschle said. "And so I think the issue has become one that will clearly involve other committees besides the intelligence committees today and perhaps even beyond committees themselves."
Rice said the president was alerted in his daily briefing last August that terrorists might be planning to hijack planes, but the administration was considering the possibility of "traditional hijackings," not suicide missions.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted... that (terrorists) would try to use a hijacked plane as a missile," Rice said. "There was nothing in what was briefed to the president that would suggest that he would go out and say to the American people, 'Hey, I just read that terrorists might hijack an aircraft.'"
A senior intelligence official said the president was given a list of issues and concerns regarding Al Qaeda, "but the focus of it was that something is up, not that a hijacking is coming."
"If I had been asked on Sept. 10 what are the most significant threats from Al Qaeda, I would not have said hijacking. I would have bet on other kinds of threats," the source said.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said some law enforcement agencies were quietly put on alert based on the information given to Bush during a regular intelligence briefing while he was on vacation at his Texas ranch the first week of August.
At that time, the president was informed that a large number of Arabs were seeking pilot, security and airport operations training in at least one U.S. flight school. The appropriate agencies were given the information and urged to identify more possible Middle Eastern students at flight schools around the country.
The White House first confirmed the August briefing Wednesday in response to the discovery that the FBI's Phoenix office had written a memo in July to FBI headquarters informing the agency that Arabs linked to Al Qaeda were receiving flight instruction.
Rice said she and the president have no recollection of the specific memo, and have asked the FBI to determine whether the memo actually reached their desks. "I personally became aware of it recently," she said.
Fleischer said any alert sent out last summer to appropriate agencies to be on the lookout may have prevented the hijackers from using guns to muscle their way to the cockpits. The terrorists reportedly used box cutters and knives to threaten airline crews and passengers. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., characterized Daschle and Gephardt's "effort to blow this up into a scandal" as irresponsible.
"Their unspoken implication is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing," Bond said. "That is an insult." Rice said the president was alerted in his daily briefing last August that terrorists might be planning to hijack planes, but the administration was considering the possibility of "traditional hijackings," not suicide missions.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted... that (terrorists) would try to use a hijacked plane as a missile," Rice said. "There was nothing in what was briefed to the president that would suggest that he would go out and say to the American people, 'Hey, I just read that terrorists might hijack an aircraft.'"
A senior intelligence official said the president was given a list of issues and concerns regarding Al Qaeda, "but the focus of it was that something is up, not that a hijacking is coming."
"If I had been asked on Sept. 10 what are the most significant threats from Al Qaeda, I would not have said hijacking. I would have bet on other kinds of threats," the source said.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said some law enforcement agencies were quietly put on alert based on the information given to Bush during a regular intelligence briefing while he was on vacation at his Texas ranch the first week of August.
At that time, the president was informed that a large number of Arabs were seeking pilot, security and airport operations training in at least one U.S. flight school. The appropriate agencies were given the information and urged to identify more possible Middle Eastern students at flight schools around the country.
The White House first confirmed the August briefing Wednesday in response to the discovery that the FBI's Phoenix office had written a memo in July to FBI headquarters informing the agency that Arabs linked to Al Qaeda were receiving flight instruction.
Rice said she and the president have no recollection of the specific memo, and have asked the FBI to determine whether the memo actually reached their desks. "I personally became aware of it recently," she said.
Fleischer said any alert sent out last summer to appropriate agencies to be on the lookout may have prevented the hijackers from using guns to muscle their way to the cockpits. The terrorists reportedly used box cutters and knives to threaten airline crews and passengers.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., characterized Daschle and Gephardt's "effort to blow this up into a scandal" as irresponsible.
"Their unspoken implication is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing," Bond said. "That is an insult."
A senior intelligence official said, "There is less here than meets the eye", adding that the media are "pole-vaulting over mouse (droppings)."
But political powers are already at work. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said he may attach an amendment to a defense spending bill near completion that would call for an independent investigation of the administration's handling of FBI information.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FBI, has requested that the Justice Department investigate FBI failures to respond to warnings of threats against the United States.
"The recent revelations about this memo and other apparent missteps have put the FBI's credibility at risk," Grassley wrote in a letter to Inspector General Glenn Fine Wednesday. "I ask that your review include how this warning came about, which FBI officials were aware of it, when the warning was provided to them, what actions were taken or not taken and why, along with any other relevant lessons to be learned," he wrote.
Grassley also wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was not heading up the FBI at the time of the warning, asking him to make the letter public.
Currently, a combined House-Senate intelligence panel is investigating intelligence failures that led to the intelligence community's failure to prevent hijackers from overtaking four planes on Sept. 11 and flying them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Daschle said that intelligence committee's inquiry, which began despite White House reluctance, may not be enough to uncover whether the White House sat on assorted clues before Sept. 11 that bin Laden's terror network might hijack American planes
"The White House has said publicly that they were not briefed, that they had no indication about 9/11," he added. "I am ready to listen to any plausible explanation so we can reconcile what we heard from what we are reading."
The information also included details about Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, who was in custody at the time of the attacks. Moussaoui, the lone defendant in the aftermath of the attacks, is charged with conspiring with bin Laden and the 19 suicide hijackers to attack Americans.
Within the case notes of an FBI agent who investigated Moussaoui is the speculation that "he might be planning to fly a plane into the (World Trade Center.)"
Lawmakers are questioning whether the various bits of information could have been collected to create a cohesive understanding of the terror group's plans.
"We need the facts on the table," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. "The reports are disturbing that we're finding this out now. I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president and what the White House knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time. And the reason getting these facts is important for the American people and for the Congress is to be able to avoid further acts of terrorism from occurring."
Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., who last month suggested that the president knew about the attacks but refused to act in order to benefit financially and politically, said she is vindicated by the new information.
"It now becomes clear why the Bush administration has been vigorously opposing congressional hearings. The Bush administration has been engaged in a conspiracy of silence. If committed and patriotic people had not been pushing for disclosure today's revelations would have been hidden by the White House," she said.
DRUDGE FLASHBACK 1998: BIN LADEN TERROR WARNING FOR NY AND DC...
Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden may be planning strikes on Washington or New York to avenge a US missile strike on his Afghan headquarters in August, Time magazine reported Sunday.
"We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours," the magazine quotes a State Department aide as saying.
US Attorney General Janet Reno organised an exercise at FBI headquarters in Washington on October 14 to plan for a possible terror attack by bin Laden, the weekly said. The 200 Washington policemen at the exercise, code-named "Poised Response," discussed four scenarios including an assassination attempt on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a car bombing, a chemicals weapon strike on a Washington Redskins football game and an explosive device in a federal building.
The magazine's report, to be published in its December 21 issue and available on newsstands Monday, also reported that a bin Laden ring that had been planning an attack on the US embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan was broken up three months ago.
But US agencies are questioning whether they could have prevented the August 7 twin bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that bin Laden is believed to have orchestrated.
Some 224 people, including 12 Americans died in the atrocities.
The United States responded by attacking suspected terrorist camps run by bin Laden in Afghanistan.
By August 1997, the CIA had evidence that bin Laden had agents operating in Nairobi, Kenya, but it believed that bin Laden would strike in a Persian Gulf country, where the US had a presence, not East Africa.
Two separate inquiries by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general (CIA) and by a State Department Accountability Review Board have questioned whether clues were missed.
Time also chronicles a four-year campaign to contain and control bin Laden's activities, including attempts to bring him to justice in the United States.
In 1996, the CIA was planning to snatch bin Laden from a foreign country and bring him to trial in the United States, but he avoided travelling to those countries.
The investigation also revealed that intelligence officials discovered in 1993 that bin Laden was shopping for nuclear weapons.
But bin Laden agents scouring former Soviet republics for enriched uranium and weapons components were offered unusable low-grade reactor fuel or radioactive garbage.
X X X X X
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
TERROR THREATS HIT AMERICA
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON DEC 14, 1998 04:09:22 UTC XXXXX
TERROR THREATS HIT AMERICA
Osama bin Laden may be planning a strike on Washington or New York, TIME magazine is reporting in fresh editions. Just as, U.S. embassies in four Persian Gulf countries were warning Sunday night of a "strong possibility" that terrorists might attempt an attack against one or more U.S. targets in the region in the coming weeks.
According to reports, the U.S. government has obtained information indicating "a strong possibility that terrorist elements are planning an attack against U.S. targets in the gulf, possibly in the next 30 days."
The U.S. issued the warning on Sunday to Americans in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The warning was "unusually precise," reports the NEW YORK TIMES on Monday. "And it was backed up by a show of particular concern." In Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, nearly 1,000 U.S. military personnel have been put under curfew and told not to gather in public places.
But the Laden scare also is being felt domestically, intelligence sources tell TIME they have evidence that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet--a strike on Washington or possibly New York City in an eye-for-an-eye retaliation. "We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours," a State tells TIME.
No one has yet used the new "threats" in any argument against the pending impeachment.
Developing...
X X X X X
HEWITT: BAN ALL POLITICAL ADS
60 MINUTES Executive Everything Don Hewitt is now advocating a complete ban on all television political ads.
Hewitt proposed the ad ban at the Media Studies Center's 21st Annual Frank E. Gannett Lecture in New York City last week.
"The First Amendment has never stopped anyone from refusing to broadcast or print obscenities, and I contend that political commercials are just that -- obscenities -- and could be banned for that reason alone," Hewitt told the crowd.
"What I would do is give [candidates] news space when they do something newsworthy," declared the media godfather.
Hewitt conceded that his idea probably runs smack into the First Amendment.
"There's got to be a way to skin that cat," he smiled.
Calling Kevorkian.
X X X X X
'THE AMERICAN PEOPLE' CONT.
The epidemic of all-knowing continues to rage on with media pundits of all ranks!
Events in Washington, DC are building to a political broil and never before have so many professed to be speaking for so many.
Uttering the phrase "The American people..." [usually followed by "believe", "have decided", "want", or "understand"] has become the ultimate ego-trip of TV and radio hosts, their guests and callers, newspaper columnists, White House advisers and congressional know-it-alls.
Just ask CNBC's Geraldo Rivera. His show is king of the term "American People." The ego phrase was used 53 times in the past week on GERALDO LIVE, according to a DRUDGE REPORT crunch taken from transcripts.
"It makes the American people think... the American people are not behind it... unless you have the support of the American people... the interests of the American people... the American people in their heart and souls... the American people know that the Congress hasn't done a great job... the American people are not behind this... the American people aren't for it... It's the American people... there isn't support of the American people... now this is something that bothers the American people... the American people are looking at all of this... the American people feel that there should be... "
AND ALL THAT JUST CAME OUT OF ONE GUEST, DURING ONE GERALDO EPISODE!
Clinton attorney Bob "The Rat" Bennett may have broken the broadcast record for using the term "The American People" during a recent appearance, but it's not because others aren't fighting for the crown.
"The American People..." was used 33 times on CNBC's HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS during the past week.
[Host Matthews, in a complete fit, used the term 10 times in one exchange.]
There were 14 mentions of 'The American People..." on CNN's LATE EDITION with Wolf Blizter [12/13].
*14 mentions on NBC's MEET THE PRESS [12/13]
*9 mentions on ABC's THIS WEEK [12/13]
*9 mentions of FOX NEWS SUNDAY [12/13]
*5 mentions of CBS's FACE THE NATION [12/13]
Throw in programs rotating on MSNBCFOXNEWSCSPAN, where references to "The American people..." occur by the minute, and the brainwashing nears perfection.
X X X X X
Justice: Ashcroft warning to avoid commercial flights didn't involve bin Laden
By Associated Press, 5/16/2002 13:23
WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was urged in early summer last year by his top security experts not to fly aboard commercial aircraft because of personal threats on his life, not out of fears about possible terrorist hijackings, the Justice Department said Thursday.
The department moved quickly to quell suggestions that Ashcroft, who routinely flies aboard a small jet operated by the FBI, took precautions for his own safety in the months before Sept. 11 based on warnings of any threats involving Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaida terrorist network.
''It was completely unrelated to this,'' Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said, referring to what the White House described as general information conveyed to President Bush in August that bin Laden's group might be planning to hijack planes.
The Justice Department said Ashcroft's travel patterns did not change after the White House learned of possible hijacking threats by al-Qaida.
An FBI security review after Ashcroft took office recommended that the attorney general eschew flying on commercial planes whenever possible, citing non-specific threats against Ashcroft's life.
Since July 2001, Ashcroft has typically flown aboard an FBI jet or aboard other jets leased by U.S. agencies, although he occasionally has traveled on commercial flights, such as during a recent trip to Trinidad, Corallo said.
White House was told planes might be hijacked
U.S. intelligence told President Bush before the September 11 terrorist attacks that Osama bin Laden's network might hijack American airplanes, prompting the administration to issue a private warning to federal agencies, the White House acknowledged last night.
But officials said the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use the planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"There has been long-standing speculation, shared with the president, about the potential of hijackings in the traditional sense," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. "We had general threats involving Osama bin Laden around the world and including in the United States." He said the administration, acting on the information received last summer, notified the "appropriate agencies" that hijackings "in the traditional sense" were possible. The warning was never made public, he said.
The development, first reported by CBS News, comes as congressional investigators intensify their study of whether the government did not respond adequately to warnings of suicide hijackings. It is the first direct link between Mr. Bush and intelligence gathered before September 11.
Mr. Fleischer would not discuss when or how the information was given to the president, but a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the president was made aware of the potential for hijackings of U.S. planes during one or more routine intelligence briefings last summer.
The CIA would not confirm what it told Mr. Bush, but the agency said the issue of bin Laden's attempting an airline hijacking was among a number of terrorist methods raised to U.S. government officials at the time.
But the information did not suggest that hijackers would crash planes into American landmarks, nor did it mention a date, a CIA official said.
The information was based on intelligence obtained by the U.S. government, the official said, without specifying.
"I will tell you there was, of course, a general awareness of Osama bin Laden and threats around the world, including the United States; and if you recall, last summer we publicly alerted and gave a warning about potential threats on the Arabian Peninsula," Mr. Fleischer said. But he said Mr. Bush had never been told about the potential for suicide hijackers steering the planes toward U.S targets.
Still, acting on the information the government did have, the administration "notified the appropriate agencies," he said.
"I think that's one of the reasons that we saw the people who committed the 9/11 attacks used box cutters and plastic knives to get around America's system of protecting against hijackers." Mr. Fleischer said he did not know which agencies were notified or what they were told. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning that there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport-operations training at at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.
A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to Osama bin Laden, speculating that al Qaeda and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said. The officials said, however, that the memo offered no evidence that bin Laden was behind the students who raised the concern.
Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat and Senate Select Intelligence Committee chairman, said through a spokesman yesterday that the revelations in the memos marked an important discovery in Congress' investigation into why the FBI, CIA and other U.S. agencies did not learn of and prevent the September 11 plot.
"It represents a failure to connect the dots," said Graham spokesman Paul Anderson. "This was dismissed rather lightly at FBI headquarters."
The FBI also has faced tough questioning about whether it acted aggressively enough after arresting Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, in August after he raised concerns by seeking flight training at a Minnesota flight school.
Moussaoui has emerged as the lone defendant charged in the aftermath of the attacks, which killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. He is charged with conspiring with bin Laden and the 19 suicide hijackers to attack Americans.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III repeatedly has said he wished the FBI had acted more aggressively in addressing the Arizona and Minnesota leads but said nothing the FBI possessed before September 11 pointed to the multiple-airliner suicide-hijacking plot.
Warnings Were Issued Last Summer
The Democrats are trying to make hay that information was "held back" concerning the 9-11 attacks, and that there was general incompetence on President Bush's part. Well, we decided to do a little research of our own here at EIB - and just wait until you find out what we came up with. Basically folks, unlike with Clinton, we don't have to play the "what if" game with Bush.
We found two incidents where the administration, based on information they had, issued specific warnings to Americans. This means that when the administration receives specific information, they issue the warning and take whatever action they think is appropriate to take.
First: On July 20, 2001, the United States placed its forces in the Middle East on the highest level of alert in anticipation of an imminent terrorist attack orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. The warning went out from the State Department, as reported in an Australian paper, which we've linked to below.
Also, based on our research, prior to September 11th, the administration made it public knowledge that, to the best of their intelligence, Americans were in for it in Asia, most notably in Japan. I doubt many of you remember it, we certainly didn't, but then again, we were all thinking a lot differently before September 11th. There was a very large warning, on bin Laden and Asia, made in early September - just days before the 11th. Theoretically, the administration could remind us of this now in the heat of these accusations. But we're speculating that a possible reason why they aren't, is that it could serve to alert people that we have a mole. The administration may not want to burn an agent, so to speak, by reminding anyone of this again, so they may remain quiet on these specific alerts.
The fact of the matter is that prior warnings have been made. You can hear them explained in more detail in the audio link below - and read the material we've dug up as well.
Even The Hijackers Didn't Know
While the Democrats were going berserk over the FBI memo on Thursday, we remembered something. This might prove a little disheartening to those of you on the left, but even the hijackers didn't know their ultimate target until D-Day. So how could Bush?
Osama bin Laden revealed this on one of his tapes. From his perspective, the only way to really guarantee the success of the operation was to not even tell the agents involved what they were doing. When they got on those airplanes, some of them didn't know they were on suicide missions.
Now, if the hijackers themselves didn't know they were going into their own martyrdom to meet those seventy olive-eating virgins up there, how was anybody in the United States supposed to know? Yet we're supposed to have the ability to figure it all out from a couple of non-specific FBI reports out of Phoenix?
Additional Links:
Clinton Warned on Bin Laden Hijack-Kamikaze Plot
Dems, Media Attack Bush, Ignore That Clinton Was Warned of bin Laden Plot
Presidential Briefing Contained No Warnings, Rice Insists
Administration Issued Numerous Terror Warnings Before 9-11
U.S. planned for attack on al-Qaida
Former FBI Agent Gary Aldrich Accuses the Clintons and Louis Freeh's FBI
Rumsfeld: Bush 9-11 Flap 'Much Ado About Nothing'
How many of them has W replaced?
The democrats are trying to get the faithful ignoramii back into their fold. They may have succeeded, but paid a price with the swing voter.
Great Job on the research!
We cannot sit by and let these bogus attacks on President Bush take place without countering their flapdoodle!
Get in the game - join the fun - write a letter - email somebody - call a few people - call a talk show today.
Ping somebody I left out!
Links above provide ample ammunition. Now, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!
It's simply amaaaaaazing-but not surprising- how the media has remained silent about all the information that we've been seeing on-line for months implicating Clinton on terrorism failures, but when they find one little way to somehow blame Bush- THE FLODDGATES OPEN.
Prediction:People who have been on the fence politically for years are now scared to death for their children-their families, and they are going to vote in Novemeber-some for their first time ever- and the DemoCraps are gonna be tossed out-BIG TIME, count on it.
Catch you tonight on the Dose, I hope.
What would it have hurt to brief the air carriers and have this information passed to the pilots and flight attendants, at a minimum. My guess is that it would not have been politically correct to warn air crews to be on increased alert for Middle Eastern males as potential hijackers. If an Arab had been offended by this I am sure the President would have gotten "really hot."
I think the confusion on this matter concerns timing. After 9-11 the appropriate warrant was approved and Moussaoui's hard drive was searched. My entire point is that the request for a warrant should have been approved prior to 9-11 and some responsible authority needs to answer the question why the warrant was denied, since clearly the requirements for a FISA warrant had been met.
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