Condi Rice testifies before 9-11 commission

[Lincoln]

Yeah. We should have instituted the Patriot Act long ago so we would have had the tools necessary to catch these people. We should have stopped all air traffic just in case and also we should have isolated all Arab looking people and done whatever else was necessary to stop these people before they destroyed the WTC. You cannot be too careful, and no suspension of civil liberties is too harsh when you have a threat like this to consider. Bush has no excuse for not shutting down the entire country if necessary and forcing everyone to remain in their homes just in case... And 70 full field FBI investigations is not near enough. There should have been at least 7,000.

[Lincoln]

Sorry. I am in a sarcastic mood. Please forgive me...

[joncha]

...and I was about to bite on your troll, too.

[Lincoln]

Boredom can lead in many directions.

[Agathon]

I'm not accusing Bush of not preventing 9/11. In fact I think no one probably could have.

But the families of the victims deserve to know whether the administration was appropriately vigilant. The administration has a solemn obligation to protect the US from attacks, including terrorist attacks. If the administration failed to be duly diligent in that respect by ignoring mounting evidence, then even if they couldn't have prevented 9/11, they weren't doing their job properly and people deserve to know that. The victims' families deserve to know whether everything that could reasonably have been done was done.

It doesn't matter whether Bush could have stopped 911 or not, what matters is whether he did his job properly, and the evidence is mounting that he did not.

[Jaguar]

nm

[Jaguar]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/911.commission/

Rice also sparred with Kerrey, who took issue with Rice's repeatedly quoting Bush that he was "tired of swatting at flies" and that he demanded a more comprehensive strategy to attack the terrorist network.

Kerrey pointed out there was no U.S. response to the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors, an attack blamed on al Qaeda.

Hmm, perhaps Mr. Kerrey believes that President George W. Bush was asleep at the switch there...

****ing idiot

[Agathon]

Eh? Clinton had no time to organize retaliation for the Cole attack. Remember how badly he was pilloried after his last attempt to retaliate killed a few Afghan goats and destroyed half the pharmaceutical supplies of a third world country.

If anyone was in a position to retaliate for the Cole it was Bush.

[Jaguar]

Bush came into office in March, right? That's 5 months after.

[Agathon]

Clinton was effectively holding time from November until then and the transition was taking place during that time. He didn't want to burden the next administration with the consequences of his own retaliation (considering the flak he attracted the previous time).

He had the Bush people briefed on the situation and warned about Al Qaeda. As we now know, they didn't listen and they basically did nothing.

[Jaguar]

Of course Clinton was keenly aware that Al Qaeda was a threat. That was why he took Osama bin Laden when Sudan offered him to America.

Oh, wait a minute, my mistake. He didn't take Osama when he had the chance.



(Yes, that was a genuine mistake, and not in any way used to make a point. )

[joncha]

ok, you win Jaguar. Clinton and Bush both suck.

Vote Nader!

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by joncha
Vote Nader!

Is that a joke? Nader is a dim wit.

[joncha]

Nader may be many things, but he is no dim wit.

Honestly, I don't know who--if anyone--I would vote for if I lived in the States. Certainly not one of the Republocrats. That's like deciding which conjoined twin you want to marry.

I may end up joining the majority of Americans and not vote. If I thought voting for Nader would lead to a credible left alternative to two big business parties, I would vote for him. I'm not convinced, though, that a vote for Ralph is anything more or less than a vote for Ralph.

[DAVOUT]

For the President Only
Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate (Osama) Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America".
After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a ...(edited)... service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told a ... (edited) ... service at the same time that Bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation.
Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.
Ressam says Bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.
Bin Laden associates surveilled our embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al-Qaeda members - including some who are US citizens - have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (edited)... service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other US-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Laden-related.
The CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

Rather than having the memo disclosed, the commission should have asked : Is there any reference to the WTC in the memo?

Seriously, this memo is a summary of intelligence knowledge on Ossama Bin Laden; saying that it is historical is stupid; saying that it does not mention that hijack airplanes could be used as missiles is also stupid. The NSA implies that short of a memo saying that within one month the WTC will be stricken by two hijack planes, no action could be engaged. As a matter of fact, Condi Rice acts more as a coordinator than as an advisor; as noted by Woodward (in Bush at war), she is reluctant to give her opinion, preferring to take side when the President has made known his preference.