The New York Times dropped a bombshell, just in time for the eleventh anniversary of 9/11:
The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.
Go read the whole thing, please. Every time we think we understand how fucking dumb those dumb fuckers really were, we get more information and it turns out that, no, they were even dumber than that. Un-fucking-believable.
I would say he learned his lesson, and listened the next time, when they told him Saddam had WMDs.
Everyone has known and admitted as much.
Not a lot you can do in advance when the information missing is the WHERE WHEN and HOW
So, Paul, what would you have suggested Bush do with that information?
Detain everyone he thought might be a suspected terrorist when no crime had yet been committed? Tell the general public that threats had been made so the citizens could go into hysteria trying to figure out who was a terrorist?
Like D said above, this is useless information when you have no idea where, when, and how.
Hindsight is 20/20. You wouldn’t have known what to do if you were in their shoes, either.
Daaarg, if you got information about plans for an attack within the US on May 1, June 22, June 29, July 1, July 9, July 24 and August 6, I’d say you needed a really good reason to think it was all fake, and that the real attack (for which there was literally no evidence) was coming from Saddam.
Let me know when you find that really good reason, because I haven’t heard one.
Also, several of the people who recommended Bush ignore all the al Qaeda-related intelligence and focus on Iraq are working for Romney: John Bolton and Eliot Cohen, for example.
Right, and the multiple war game exercises the Air Force was running on the morning of 9/11 simulating hijackings over the continental United States that included (at least) one live-fly exercise under the name “Vigilant Warrior”, as well as simulations that placed “false blips” on FAA radar screens…….might have been a tell.
Eldepeche – No one is saying not to believe the threat is real. What we’re saying is, in this vast country, how in the hell would you even begin to know what to do in preparation for an attack?
An attack could be a bomb, gas, poison, or a plane into a building as we found out. There’s no way, and nowhere near enough people, to have been able to cover every base.
Which makes me go back to my point. Without WHERE, WHY, and WHEN, that is essentially useless information.