Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US

[Vander]

Ok, here's the PDB:

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin 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 Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a ...(redacted portion) ... service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an ... (redacted portion) ... service at the same time that Bin Ladin 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 Ladin'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 Ladin 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 Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin 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 Ladin 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-Qa'ida members -- including some who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida 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 Ladin 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 ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-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 Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

Now, here's AP's record of Bush's statements after the release of this document:

FORT HOOD, Texas -- President Bush said Sunday he was satisfied before Sept. 11, 2001, that federal agents were on top of the terrorist threat when he read a briefing memo on Osama bin Laden's intention to strike inside the United States.

"I wanted to know whether there was anything, any actionable intelligence," Bush said, and when he read the memo of Aug. 6, 2001, "I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into."

In his first comments since Saturday's release of the presidential daily brief, Bush said the document contained "nothing about an attack on America."

Bush said if there had been any specific intelligence pointing to threats of attacks on New York and Washington, "I would have moved mountains" to prevent it.

Here is Rice on the PDB during 9/11 commission testimony:

It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

To be sure, the PDB does not say "Mohammad Atta and crew to hijack United/American flights out of Boston/Newark and crash into WTC/Pentagon/FBIHQ on morning of September 11." I'm given the post 9/11 luxury of knowing what to look for, like "hijack" and "New York." But there are most definitely warnings. Enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Especially for those charged with the responsibility to defend against such attacks.

Now, the very title of the PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," belies the claims of Bush and Rice, that the PDB did not warn of attacks in the United States. Am I totally off base with that calculation? Am I failing to see the nuance because of my Bush Hatred?

Both Bush and Rice contend that they believed the FBI was doing all it could do. That there was really nothing more they could have done. That the bureaucracy failed. But there are few instances one can point to where Bush or Rice showed any urgency toward terrorist threats. By most accounts, in the later years, the Clinton administration was much more proactive on the bin Laden/Al Qaida threat. Richard Clarke contends that the cabinet level meetings held with great frequency on terrorist threats during the late Clinton years helped cure bureaucratic inefficiencies with regards to sharing information and keeping everyone on focus. He contends that this helped highten the alertness, and I have a hard time disagreeing.

So, who is to blame for 9/11? Al Qaida, of course. But I don't think the Bush administration did everything they could have to thwart it, especially given the example of how the Clinton Administration approached such tasks. And I think their inability to state this publicly is to their fault.

Agree? Disagree?

[Lothar]

disagree.

[Cuda68-2]

disagree. It ends with:

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

The only other choice I can see aside from an active investigation is a pre-emptive strike. A pre-emptive at that time on Bin Ladin would surly have set off a much larger war against numerious supportive countries.

BTW - What did Clinton do about it aside from informing a new administration?

[Vander]

Once again, perhaps my blind Bush Hatred is clouding my perception, but maybe, just maybe, the president's chosen course of action, taking a month long vacation after recieving the PDB, was a more lackluster choice.

Perhaps he or one of his people could have leaned on Ashcroft, who at the time, seemed to have other priorities than fighting terrorism.
http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcri ... 20Dept.htm

[Cuda68-2]

I am not a hardline democrat or republican, but as you pointed out Bin Laden is not new news and half the country did know but also also did nothing. He has been threating the US for 20 years or so. Ever since they drove out the Russians. Many mid western groups have been warning people for along time this was coming and no one listened, we called them radicals and dismissed what they where saying.
I get the impression you belive we should hold someone accountable and punish them. Like Bush, but he was far from the only president who knew about Bin Laden and none of them for the last 20 years or so took Bin Ladan serious.

[woodchip]

"I wanted to know whether there was anything, any actionable intelligence," Bush said, and when he read the memo of Aug. 6, 2001, "I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into."

Vander as I read the paper, Bush's statement is right on. Actionable information needs something specific for the govt. to act upon. The PDB has nothing actionable...period.

Lets suppose, on the other hand, Bush decided that something like the Patriot Act was needed prior to 9/11. Can you imagine the howls of condemnation from the ACLU, Tom Daschle and the liberal newsies? Would you have Bush issue a decree that all suspicious middle easterner's be hauled in for interrogation? Remember the racial profiling gnashing of teeth cried from on high the politically correct battlements when after 9/11 airport security gave extra attention to the muslim types?

I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this one ( as though I ever agree with you )

[Vander]

"I get the impression you belive we should hold someone accountable and punish them."

Well, like I said before, Al Qaida is to blame for the attacks. But that being said, I think the Administration should be held accountable for how they dealt with the threat. I think he should be harmed politically by this. I suppose that can be considered punishement.

"but he was far from the only president who knew about Bin Laden and none of them for the last 20 years or so took Bin Ladan serious."

I disagree with your timetable, but I half agree with your point. bin Laden came to be known as a terrorist leader in the mid-1990's. Clinton's priorities were elsewhere for much of his presidency (for which he should justly be held accountable) until the last couple years of it, when they took bin Laden very seriously. My main grumble is that when Bush took office, the continuity of that level of urgency seemed to drop off, dispite attempts by the Clinton administration to keep it up(transition briefings, etc). Perhaps that is something that will always happen with a change of power(read: beaurocracy failure), but I think their priorities at the time were incorrect. Thats something I think they should be accountable for.

[Vander]

Wood, I know what actionable means. In my opinion, the PDB has plenty of actionable intelligence. It justifies an action like, say, telling Ashcroft to stop poo-pooing funding for more FBI counter-terrorism agents. Bush did not do even this simple thing. I don't say he should have attacked Afghanistan, enacted the Patriot Act, or done some of the more extreme measures.

[Tyranny]

I disagree based on the fact that hindsight is always 20/20. That, and this issue is getting VERY old.

[Will Robinson]

He's damned if had done something and he's damned that he didn't. There is nothing he could have done with what he had that would have prevented 9/11....period.

I heard a funny joke on the radio that sums it up.

The Pope goes to Washington to visit Bush. They take a ride in a boat on a river. During the ride the wind blows the Pope's hat into the water, Bush tells the captain to stop the boat, he steps out of the boat and walks on water to pick up the hat, walks back to the boat, gets in and gives the Pope his hat back.

Word gets back to the democrats of the incident and the next day John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy and company all find a way to complain to the press that Bush can't swim.

[index_html]

I can only imagine the outrage had any president started revoking visas, flooding the airports with the National Guard troops, and detaining Muslims based on the nebulous contents of that memo. The assertion that the administration was grossly negligent by not identifying 19 covert operatives on a unprecedented, first strike suicide mission, armed with nothing more than box cutters just seems lame and desperately political.

For the sake of partisan politics, I don't see many on the Left talking about the fact that 154 Democrats voted to cut intelligence spending in 1996 and 158 did the same in 1997. Only 61 in 1999, but it's pretty obvious where the opposition to our intelligence community has come from. Anyone remember Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.), calling for the abolition of the CIA on the House floor in March 1997. I do. Apparently, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) has introduced legislation numerous times to do the same.

Furthermore, you had Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee say in May of 2002 that Congress had the same information the White House had, only in a different form, most of which was distributed to Congressional committees in the form of a Senior Executive Intelligence Digest (SEID). And the only reason guys like Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) and Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.) weren't aware of it and saw it as an opportunity to attack the Bush administration is because they apparently didn't bother to read it or disregarded its contents. I sure don't remember anyone from Capitol Hill sounding the alarm on Sept. 10, 2001.

[bash]

Richard Ben-Veniste and the rest of the 9/11 Commission had privately seen, read and noted the contents of the memo. However, because it had such a provocative title (which Jeff has made the title of this thread, coincidentally), you will recall that was all he asked Condi Rice about; the memo title. And he became quite rude when Rice attempted to summarize the contents. Why would he try to preclude her from summarizing the guts of the memo? Because he didn't want us to know what was in it because that would have undercut his strategy to cast suspicions on the memo's contents.

What we're witnessing is the game of *What Are They Hiding?!!* designed to promote the illusion that *there's a smoking gun somewhere around here with Bush's name on it but, damnit, we just can't find it yet so you'll just have to trust us on that.*

The Dems played that game with Rice after her initial refusal to repeat her previously-given private testimony a second time publicly. *What is she hiding?!!* howled the Dems and parroted the liberal press. So she relented out of concern for the political fallout of being made to look like she was part of a deception. Turns out she was hiding absolutely nothing, as we all discovered in her public testimony. In fact, the President's approval rating rose immediately following Rice's testimony.

So the game moves on.

Richard Ben-Veniste gets only the memo's omnious title aired publicly during Rice's testimony and tries to block her from summarizing it's contents. *What are they hiding in the memo?!!* howls the Dems and parrots their sympathetic liberal shills. Conventional wisdom speculates that Ben-Veniste was betting the farm that the Bush Administration would refuse (at least initially) to declassify the memo as a matter of principle against continual attempts to erode the privacy rights of the Executive Branch. The Dems were hoping to get some real partisan mileage out of that *What are they hiding in the memo?!!* suspicion Ben-Veniste planted. Pity for them Bush declassified it immediately. Turns out nothing was being hidden. Another fetid red herring.

This is crass and disingenuous partisan manipulation of the commission's purpose. Prepare yourselves for the next *mystery* round of *What Are They Hiding?!!* gamesmanship. The Dems love playing it and it has a certain effectiveness as a sort of Chinese water torture of throwing endless red herrings at the public. None may actually gain any traction individually but the hope is the barrage will have the cumulative effect of filling the room with enough stink to cast the appearance of guilt that might sway some fence-sitting voters toward Kerry.

The Dem members of the 9/11 Commission have been too enthusiastic to portray the 9/11 inquiry as a criminal prosecution of the Bush Administration. And it shows. The American public deserves better. Their partisan spinning will only further undermine the credibility and value of the final report. Once again, in the Democrats' jihad to regain the levers of power, America will suffer.

[Palzon]

i don't think the point is that Bush should've prevented the attack. i think the point is he didn't take reasonable steps to prevent it. it's a question of intent.

by analogy...

if a child is sick, a parent is obligated to obtain medical attention. if the child ultimately dies of a terminal, incurable illness - then perhaps no medical attention could have prevented the child's demise. however, the parent is still obligated to seek medical attention.

similarly, i agree there is probably nothing bush could've done to prevent 9/11. that doesn't mean the administration took all reasonable steps called for based on the PDB in question and other available info. this is another point so modest that it is difficult to understand why anyone would dispute it.

the post by Will where Bush walks on water seems to be too real to some of you.

[Top Gun]

I think this commission should stop this stupid, politically motivated witch hunt. What's done is done; we can't change the past. Let's just stick to making sure that what did happen doesn't happen again. I don't believe for a minute that any steps Bush could have taken would have prevented the attacks. Intelligence conjectures and possibilities are not concrete enough to stop determined, suicidal attackers. This farce of a commission has gone on far enough.

[index_html]

Conventional wisdom speculates that Ben-Veniste was betting the farm that the Bush Administration would refuse (at least initially) to declassify the memo as a matter of principle against continual attempts to erode the privacy rights of the Executive Branch.

I think that's exactly right and it makes Richard Ben-Veniste look like a chump considering he had read the memo himself prior to its release. But, he's probably an operative on Karl Rove's payroll (that'll likely be the Democratic Underground's theory anyways).

[Lothar]

From the Washington Post:

The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.

The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.

Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.

That was written by Bob Woodward and Dan Eggen, and published in the Washington Post on May 19, 2002.

So, like I said, V, I disagree.

[woodchip]

Perhaps some of the answers will be made clear at the commission hearing today as the head of the FBI has to testify. In my opinion this will be the most important testimony to date. Field agents had enough info that may have prevented 9/11 if the middle management would have tied the Arizona and Minnisota agents reports togeather and allowed further investigations, wire taps and court orders that the field agents wanted. The leads were there but the FBI mid level supervisors dropped the ball (and ultimately the twin towers)

[Zuruck]

Top Gun, commissions like these are sort of good because they can lead to fixing the leaks in the systems. However, the rarely do that in politics because it veers from actual fact-finding (oxymoron) and partisan politics.

I think the FBI and the CIA dropped the ball. Now they have the hardest jobs anyone could imagine. What they do is amazing, but if we were to blame anyone, it should be them. It's not Bush's fault he really didn't have anything to go off of, the CIA did not give him a clear enough picture because of all the tied up crap. Oh well...

[Tetrad]

If somebody wanted more fuel to add to the "it could've been prevented" fire, they got it.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm ... ction=news

Pentagon Crash Scenario Rejected Before Sept. 2001
Wed Apr 14, 2004 01:30 PM ET

By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military rejected a scenario in which a hijacked airliner flew into the Pentagon as it planned a training exercise months before an airliner was slammed into the building by hijackers in September 2001, defense officials said on Wednesday.

The proposed scenario was rejected by the Pentagon's elite Joint Staff as not in keeping with the April 2001 exercise, which dealt largely with how U.S. forces would be commanded in a confrontation with North Korea if defense headquarters somehow became incapacitated.

Defense officials said several scenarios under which military command had to be moved from the Pentagon were rejected and that the suggestion involving a possible foreign commercial airliner strike not only appeared unrealistic but could have taken over the whole exercise.

"They (planners) needed a scenario under which the Pentagon became inoperable. But the focus of the exercise was command continuity and it was decided that there was enough (cause) already built in," Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said.

Conspiracy theorists could have a field day with that.

[Bold Deceiver]

i don't think the point is that Bush should've prevented the attack. i think the point is he didn't take reasonable steps to prevent it. it's a question of intent.

I gather, then, that Palzon and Vander both fully support the Iraq war. This is fully consistent with their position that positive steps by the president should have been taken to deal with threats to the United States, before they happen -- not after.

I for one welcome this strong affirmation from the left, and I admonish those of you (Lothar, Bash, et al.) who are disquieted by the new solidarity.

BD

[callmeslick]

I disagree based on the fact that hindsight is always 20/20. That, and this issue is getting VERY old.

really? That's a short historical attention span, there. 3500 people died, we got into 3 trillion bucks worth of wars and will pay for 9/11 for the foreseeable future, to a great extent. Better be willing to revisit until we absolutely, collectively learn never to repeat some of those mistakes.

[Spidey]

OMG...he dredged up an 11 year old thread.

[callmeslick]

OMG...he dredged up an 11 year old thread.

nah, Vander linked it back to life.

[Nightshade]

OMG...he dredged up an 11 year old thread.

nah, Vander linked it back to life.

Wow. Talk about necro...

[woodchip]

And from I re-read here, no one mentioned Jamie Gorelick and the wall separating the various intelligence agency's from sharing information. Instead I see the left leaning people here blaming Bush when it was really Gorelicks directive back in 1995 that set the whole intelligence failure up. this failure is what led to the formation of the DHS. So if you want to find a scapegoat and blame Bush, so be it.