ABC and 9/11 Mini-Series... Part II (Dems Threaten ABC Over Airing of MiniSeries)

[Sarge]

I posted this in the other thread too

Go watch the Predator video. Note the dates

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526024036&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

As the 9/11 commission investigates what Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush might have done to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, one piece of evidence the commission will examine is a videotape secretly recorded by a CIA plane high above Afghanistan. The tape shows a man believed to Osama bin Laden walking at a known al-Qaida camp.

The question for the 9/11 commission: If the CIA was able to get that close to bin Laden before 9/11, why wasn’t he captured or killed? The videotape has remained secret until now.

Over the next three nights, NBC News will present this incredible spy footage and reveal some of the difficult questions it has raised for the 9/11 commission.

In 1993, the first World Trade Center bombing killed six people.

In 1998, the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa killed 224.

Both were the work of al-Qaida and bin Laden, who in 1998 declared holy war on America, making him arguably the most wanted man in the world.

In 1998, President Clinton announced, “We will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long it takes.”

NBC News has obtained, exclusively, extraordinary secret video, shot by the U.S. government. It illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden. Critics call it a missed opportunity.

In the fall of 2000, in Afghanistan, unmanned, unarmed spy planes called Predators flew over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures that were transmitted live to CIA headquarters show al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills and then scattering on cue through the desert.

Also, that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures — a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is bin Laden.

Why does U.S. intelligence believe it was bin Laden? NBC showed the video to William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC. “You see a tall man…. You see him surrounded by or at least protected by a group of guards.”

Bin Laden is 6 foot 5. The man in the video clearly towers over those around him and seems to be treated with great deference.

‘It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day.’

Another clue: The video was shot at Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden is known to live. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches secret U.S. intelligence photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm obtained by NBC.

“It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day.… I guess you could say we’ve done it once, and this is it,” Arkin added.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

“We were not prepared to take the military action necessary,” said retired Gen. Wayne Downing, who ran counter-terror efforts for the current Bush administration and is now an NBC analyst.

“We should have had strike forces prepared to go in and react to this intelligence, certainly cruise missiles — either air- or sea-launched — very, very accurate, could have gone in and hit those targets,” Downing added.

Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, says the White House required the CIA to attempt to capture bin Laden alive, rather than kill him.

What impact did the wording of the orders have on the CIA’s ability to get bin Laden? “It reduced the odds from, say, a 50 percent chance down to, say, 25 percent chance that we were going to be able to get him,” said Schroen.

A Democratic member of the 9/11 commission says there was a larger issue: The Clinton administration treated bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.

Bob Kerry, a former senator and current 9/11 commission member, said, “The most important thing the Clinton administration could have done would have been for the president, either himself or by going to Congress, asking for a congressional declaration to declare war on al-Qaida, a military-political organization that had declared war on us.”

In reality, getting bin Laden would have been extraordinarily difficult. He was a moving target deep inside Afghanistan. Most military operations would have been high-risk. What’s more, Clinton was weakened by scandal, and there was no political consensus for bold action, especially with an election weeks away.

NBC News contacted the three top Clinton national security officials. None would do an on-camera interview. However, they vigorously defend their record and say they disrupted terrorist cells and made al-Qaida a top national security priority.

“We used military force, we used covert operations, we used all of the tools available to us because we realized what a serious threat this was,” said President Clinton’s former national security adviser James Steinberg.

One Clinton Cabinet official said, looking back, the military should have been more involved, “We did a lot, but we did not see the gathering storm that was out there.”

Game.............set.............match

[Sarge]

More

June 1995: The CIA concluded that Osama bin Laden authorized the failed assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The CIA also concluded that Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan's leader, knew where bin Laden was living and aided the plot. The United States weighed options for attacking bin Laden and al-Turabi's headquarters in Sudan's capital, but retaliation plans were ultimately rejected - as tantamount to staging war with Sudan.

February 1996 to October 1998: The United States targeted bin Laden's satellite phone calls. After a U.S. missile strike against bin Laden's camps on Aug. 20, 1998, however, an official leaked that the United States could track his movements through the use of the phone - nixing this key intelligence coup.

March to May 1996: Varying unverified reports indicated that bin Laden's sanctuary, Sudan, offered to hand over bin Laden directly to the United States, but U.S. officials decided not to take him because there was not enough evidence at the time to charge him with a crime. (The 9/11 Commission later concluded that there was no evidence that Sudan offered bin Laden directly to the United States, but it does find substantiation that Saudi Arabia was discussed as an option.)

March 1996 to April 1996: Eager to get from beneath sanctions, Sudan advised the United States that it had a vast intelligence database on bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his al-Qaida terrorist network. Although FBI officials wanted to parley with the Sudanese and get their files, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pressed to continue to box the country in economically. No deal was made for the files.

May 1996: When Sudan finally expelled bin Laden, the terror chieftain left in the company of many other key al-Qaida members, carrying cash. Flying to Afghanistan in a transport plane with his entourage, he made the trip unscathed - even though the United States reportedly knew of the particulars of the journey.

June 1996 to October 2001: Al-Qaida took control of Ariana Airlines, which transported illegal drugs and arms and became the main conduit of militants traveling incognito as airline employees. The United States failed to act swiftly against the airline.

1997: Although the CIA ramped up its Afghanistan operations and recruited some Taliban military leaders, none gets close to bin Laden.

February 1998: The United States rejected yet another offer of the Sudanese al-Qaida files. Although the FBI remained eager to accept the offer, the official posture was that Sudan's offers were not credible - owing to Sudanese leader al-Turabi's ideologically bond with bin Laden.

May 1998: The United States developed a plan to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan, using a CIA-owned aircraft that would swoop in from a nearby country, set down on a remote landing strip, and haul him aboard. Involved in the complex scenario that evolved over time was a team of Afghan informants who would kidnap bin Laden from his Tarnak Farm complex. CIA chief George Tenet, however, nixed the operation on grounds that, in his judgment, the impromptu Afghan allies were unreliable.

August 1998: After the al-Qaida bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton, in writing, authorized the CIA to arrange the capture of bin Laden, using force. Despite a lot of preliminary groundwork by the CIA, the plan never unfolded - reportedly owing to inadequate intelligence.

August 1998 to 2000: After the embassy bombings, the United States placed two submarines on station - likely in the Indian Ocean. They were poised to launch cruise missiles at al-Qaida targets, including bin Laden. However, by the time the drone Predator spy plane soared over Afghanistan in late 2000 and famously pinpointed bin Laden on the ground, the submarines had been redeployed elsewhere. Bin Laden escaped unscathed - since the Predator model used at that time was not armed with a missile.

August 1998: The United States fired about 60 missiles at various al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, as well as a dozen missiles at a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan. No key al-Qaida cadre was killed.

December 1998: The United States once again pinpointed bin Laden in Afghanistan. Although missiles were readied, the strike was called off over fears of collateral damage.

February 1999: Intelligence put bin Laden at a desert hunting camp in Afghanistan. Cruise missiles are prepped, but royals from the United Arab Emirates are present and the strike is called off.

May 1999: Bin Laden was reportedly pinpointed again. Tenet nixed attack owing to usual concerns about collateral damage.

October 1999: A reportedly joint Pakistani Interservices Intelligence/U.S. commando strike to kill bin Laden is waylaid when Gen. Pervez Musharraf took over Pakistan in a coup and subsequently decided to abort the operation.

May 2000 to August 2001: When the CIA and FBI send a joint investigative team to Sudan, that country again offered to hand over its files on al-Qaida. Once again the offer is rejected.

September to October 2000: Predator flights over Afghanistan revealed movements of what appears to be bin Laden and his aides. However, because of high winds, the recon flights are discontinued until the spring.

[Sarge]

Even more. Man, this is tooooooo easy

http://newsmax.com/scripts/showinside.pl?a=2002/2/15/145708&s=lh

Clinton: I Wanted to Bomb Khandahar

Ex-President Bill Clinton racheted up his rhetoric on Friday in order to convince an audience that he did everything possible to stop terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, claiming that he had considered invading Afghanistan with attack helicopters and weighed a plan to bomb bin Laden's hideout in Khandahar.

"I actually trained people to do this. We trained people," Clinton told a Long Island Association luncheon crowd in Woodbury, New York.

"But in order to do it we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat, maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval."

Well, we can have that, can we?

Clinton said the option to bomb Khandahar was considered because they had tracked bin Laden to a compound in the city.

"As far as we knew, he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar, where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.

"So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children, that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him," the ex-president explained.

Can't have us bombing women and children. That might offeeeeeend someone

Clinton said that from a post-9-11 perspective he might have been wrong not to order the bombing. "But at the time we didn't think [bin Laden] had the capacity to do that," he added.

Contrary to the accounts of a number of former White House aides who described him as distracted by his scandals and dismissive of the terrorist threat, Clinton told the Long Island audience, "A lot of people thought I was too obsessed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.":rotflmao:

As for the failure of August 1998 cruise missile attacks he launched on bin Laden's Khost encampment, Clinton said he believed the terrorist mastermind was tipped off just hours ahead of time.

"I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him that our missiles might be there," the ex-president said, adding, "I think we were ratted out."

That woud be the Pakistani government, who we tipped off about the misslie strike. Way to go bubba!

Clinton also defended his administration against charges that it refused to accept Sudan's offer to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. six years ago.

"In the period when the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again, they released [bin Laden]. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him - though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

"So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

Clinton said that by 1999 he began to consider options like the helicopter attack and the bombing of Khandahar.

"So I tried hard [because] I always thought this guy was a big problem."

He also pointedly reminded the audience that for its first eight months, the Bush administration was no more successful in getting bin Laden than he had been.

"Apparently the options I had were the options that the president and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people involved had for the first eight months, until Sept. 11 changed everything."

But, said Clinton, "I did the best I could with him. I do not believe, based on what options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did."

Sounding like a man thoroughly haunted by the failure to eliminate the notorious terrorist, the ex-president added, "Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man."

Clinton's long peroration on bin Laden came during a pre-screened question-and-answer session following a speech in which he argued that America should mount a second Marshall Plan to save Mideast nations from the scourge of terrorism.

Though the event was promoted as likely to be sold out, the ballroom at Woodbury's Crest Hollow Country Club was not quite full, with approximately 800 people on hand to hear Clinton speak. Many left before the question-and-answer session had ended.

Clinton's speech was closed to the press except for a pre-approved group of reporters

[Sarge]

The hits just keep oooooon comin"

http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm

President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.

The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.

But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.

Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.

Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists.

The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.

Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.

But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.

Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.

And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

[Sarge]

And let's not forget that clinton and his boobs emasculated teh CIA almost as much as the military during the 90's. That really helped too. Dumb****s

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/9/11/232727.shtml

Clinton and company knew they could not just tell the CIA to stop recruiting spies. That would look stupid and embarrassing.

So they just changed the rules of how spies are recruited, raising the bar on requirements to such a high degree that the most valuable spies could never meet CIA standards and couldn't work for us.

Previously, I wrote how Clinton effectively stopped the recruitment of Chinese nationals by demanding that only high-ranking embassy officials could be recruited – knowing this is almost impossible. Roger told me that. Roger reminded me again of this today.

He noted that Clinton policies reached their zenith under CIA Director John Deutch and his top assistant, Nora Slatkin. The pair ran Clinton's CIA in the mid-1990s and implemented a "human rights scrub" policy.

Here's how Roger described it in an e-mail Tuesday evening: "Deutch and Nora, Clinton's anti-intelligence plants, implemented a universal 'human rights scrub' of all assets, virtually shutting down operations for 6 months to a year. This was after something happened in Central America (there was an American woman involved who was the common law wife of a commie who went missing there) that got a lot of bad press for the agency.

"After that, each asset had to be certified as being 'clean for human rights violations.'

"What this did was to put off limits, in effect, terrorists, criminals, and anyone else who would have info on these kinds of people."

Roger says the CIA, even under new leadership, has never recovered from the "Human Rights Scrub" policy.

[Destino]

All of this sounded familiar - and being that Fergusan was crying hypocrisy I remind you all of this:

CBS pulls Reagan miniseries

NEW YORK (AP) -- Capping an extraordinary conservative furor over a movie virtually no one has seen, CBS said Tuesday it will not air "The Reagans" and shunt it off to the Showtime cable network instead.

Based on snippets of the script that had leaked out in recent weeks, conservatives, including the son of the former president, accused CBS of distorting the legacy of Ronald Reagan.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/04/cbs.reagans.ap/

booya.

[Sarge]

All of this sounded familiar - and being that Fergusan was crying hypocrisy I remind you all of this:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/04/cbs.reagans.ap/

booya.

You forgot this part

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/04/cbs.reagans.ap/index.html

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said CBS' decision "smells of intimidation to me."

[Destino]

You forgot this part

I didn't forget it - if I had seen it I'd have posted it. Those are the same claims being made on talk radio right now. It's the same thing reversed. I've never claimed both sides don't do it.

[chomerics]

Chom- why do you make it so easy to destroy your arguments? :laugh:

"clinton never attacked Bush"... Oh really?

http://isfullofcrap.com/oldcrap/2005/09/clinton_attacks.html

Clinton attacks Bush (no, GEORGE Bush)

Bill attacks Bush. Let's look closer:..

Former US president

Bill Clinton sharply criticized George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina

, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors

,

Actually, former President Carter has regularly savaged Bush from Day One.

Oh, you mean immediate sucessor? Well, there's also plenty of examples of Carter attacking Reagan's foreign policy, too. In fact, that was what the Carter Center was founded for.

Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

Virtually alone? Clinton probably shouldn't make any trips to the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain (who only left after the invasion), Bulgaria…

My god AFC, I ask you for proof of Clinton attacking Bush, and you give me a blog site which takes quotes out of context from a non-existant article and that is your proof??? The quotes used do nothing but state facts and this is "bashing the president"??? :rotflmao:

Man, you are as inept as a red headed step child with a cleft lip and a limp at a kickball game. :rotflmao:

man, that is just too much. . . :rotflmao:

[Popeman38]

Hmmm, getting a blow job, or lying about a threat in order to send our troops into a war which was not needed.

Chom, I know you do not like Bush, but to say he lied means that he intentionally misled. All reports from all countries had the same assesment we had. The Germans, the French, the British. All of them. Good decision? That is the question, not lying.

Then, single handedly labeling anyone who had an opposing view as a traitor and a terrorist sympathiser, while ignoring the constitution both home and abroad.

The Constitution only applies to home. Our Constitution does not apply to the citizens of, let's say Iraq, or you would bearguing that us going to war in Iraq was the ONLY option, right?

Taking a $6trillion surplus, turning it into a $8 trillion dollar deficit

Now, let's be honest. How did the surplus get to $6T? A lot of it came from fancy book keeping that you would be up in arms with if it were a corporation. Clinton sliced the military in half, gave paltry 1% raises, created a couple thousand civilian govt jobs, and then claimed to have cut spending while at the same time creating jobs.

Oh, and Bush had to deal with 9/11, waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Katrina.... Just small inconveniences to the budget. Just offering a few facts...

Now, just so you don't flame me for being partisan, other than missing a couple chances to nab UBL (hindsight is 20/20 guys, no one predicted the success he would have) and cutting the military, I think Clinton was a decent President.

[chomerics]

Oh, BTW Sarge, I can't believe you are still pimping that MANSOOR IJAZ crap here, because it has been debunked 10 times over. Hell, I remember schooling people about this POS a few years ago. . .

How about this thread Sarge, it brings up exactly WHAT Clinton did against terrorism, and you left with your tail between your legs as usual. . .

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57669&page=2&pp=40&highlight=IJAZ

[Sarge]

Oh, BTW Sarge, I can't believe you are still pimping that MANSOOR IJAZ crap here, because it has been debunked 10 times over. Hell, I remember schooling people about this POS a few years ago. . .

How about this thread Sarge, it brings up exactly WHAT Clinton did against terrorism, and you left with your tail between your legs as usual. . .

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57669&page=2&pp=40&highlight=IJAZ

I couln't help but notice Tarhogs post right under yours. Yet another former military person who has seen action but is not a credible source.....at least to you

Chomerics...you're coming dangerously close to spamming in some of your threads of late. If you're going to post semi-coherent rambling rhetoric, at least try to stop answering yourself and give those you believe you're providing information to respond.

You really astound me. You, like ME and damn near everyone else pre-9/11, had no idea the use of airliners as mass weapons was a legitimate threat. Those who have served in the military know that intelligence comes in every single day, metric tons of it. Much of it is unreliable. Its simply impossible to act on the majority of it. The same folks who are crucifying Bush for actions he should have taken based on 'the intelligence' at hand, skewer him alive for having done that exact thing in Iraq. Can you not see the inconsistency of your argument?

No US President, or anyone else in our government was 'at fault' for 9/11. No action, however prescient, could have avoided what happened. It was a paradigm shift on a national scale. Anyone with an ounce of decency and honesty knows it. What I don't hear any of you all-knowing critics offering is what the hell Bush could've done even if he had believed someone was about to fly airliners into skyscrapers? Not a damn thing. Just like there was nothing Bill Clinton could've done about it.

You're politicizing what should remain a national tragedy. Wrap it up in your need to find out 'the truth', call it whatever you want, but it still smells.

And then ther was Redmans post

Chomerics, you're at least offering some degree of intellectual honesty on this subject, so I appreciate the discourse. Let me compile my list of reasons why Clinton in my view failed significantly to meet the challenge (even though I don't believe that he could reasonably have "prevented" 9/11 given the national mood at the time).

1. He treated terrorism primarily as a law enforcement matter.

Clinton oversaw the most massive military cutbacks since the beginning of the Cold War. Certainly, some of it needed to happen given that the Cold War was ended and we needed to adjust our forces to a post-Cold War world. However, I saw nothing constructive about the way that he gleefully pulled down the military infrastructure that he'd made his political bones protesting.

Now, while you've been arguing how wonderful a doubling of the intel budget has been (see also, #2 below), consider this: what would we do with a strenthened intel if we lack the force to utilize it and act upon it? It's tantamount to doubling the number of police officers you have, while gutting your court and prison system and still trying to say that you're tough on crime. Do you start to understand why people like me aren't exactly enamored of our anti-terror efforts under Clinton? Besides, Clinton as an anti-military politician on the left, wasn't exactly positioned to be proactive against the growing terror threat against the U.S., was he?

A classic example of this criminal versus military mindset was the Administration's refusal to accept (or kill) bin Laden when the Sudanese offered him up to us. Their reaction was "we have no proof against him with which to bring charges" rather than "wow, we have a unique opportunity to take custody of an enemy of the U.S."

2. He segregated law enforcement intel from military/non-law enforcement intel.

Yes, he increased the intelligence buget. However, it was small to begin with given our overall spending on national security (which is a symptom of our historical emphasis on sig-int rather than human intel) and if you look at how much terrorism directed at U.S. targets increased during his presidency, a mere doubling of the intel budget (even assuming all of it went to anti-terror, which I doubt) seems pretty meager.

More to the point, while the budget was doubled, the effectiveness of our intel gathering was not doubled because what was likewise increased was the segregation between law enforcement intel information and classic intel generated by the spy agencies. The increased budget in some ways paid for us to be working against ourselves! That BTW was the significance of the 1995 memo I linked to earlier in this discussion.

3. He failed to lead on the terror issue.

Clinton did absolutely nothing to try to move the national will towards a greater awareness of the terror threat, much less towards an understanding of the need to shift our security priorities to anti-terror. This is what a good leader does; someone who's in love with the latest polling data won't take the lead on a mis-understood (by the public) and therefore unpopular policy.

And before you come back at me about how distracting his various scandals were (which I frankly view were of his own making anyway), I think he could have been a compelling advocate for a new awareness about a terrorist threat given his traditional tendencies against national defense, his overall speaking and persuasive abilities, and the fact that he remained popular with most of the American people.

I may come up with some additional criticisms, but the above certainly captures the theme. "It's the economy, stupid" seems to demonstrate where Clinton's heart and mind were. The economy was taking care of itself given the communications revolution that the U.S. was leading in the world, so he didn't need to lead there. What he did need to lead on, however, was in making the American people understand the new threats that faced them in the world. While Bush didn't come out swinging on that theme either, he at least pushed for a more aggressive foreign policy and he of course didn't have the benefit of the 12 times more time to react as President that Clinton had.

Then there's your own quote. Man, you should have worked for clinton

I will agree with you that he viewed terrorism primarily as a law enfrocement matter, but should the fight against terrorism be primarily a military issue? I personally don't think so. If you think back to pre 9-11, the failure wasn't in the military, it was in law enforcement, the same area Clinton thought the focus should have been. Arguments can be made weather the war on terrorism should be a military war, or a covert war, and IMO covert accomplishes more over the long hall. A military structure works against state sponseres terrorism, but in the late 90's it appeared that the focus was on rouge factions encompasing many different countries, hence a military action isn't the best option.

And of course there is the original article

CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9/11

WASHINGTON (AP) - Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA warned in a classified report that Islamic extremists likely would strike on U.S. soil at landmarks in Washington or New York, or through the airline industry, according to intelligence officials.

Though hauntingly prescient, the CIA's 1995 National Intelligence Estimate did not yet name Osama bin Laden as a terrorist threat.

But within months the intelligence agency developed enough concern about the wealthy, Saudi-born militant to create a specific unit to track him and his followers, the officials told The Associated Press.

And in 1997, the CIA updated its intelligence estimate to ensure bin Laden appeared on its very first page as an emerging threat, cautioning that his growing movement might translate into attacks on U.S. soil, the officials said, divulging new details about the CIA's 1990s response to the terrorist threat.

The officials took the rare step Thursday of disclosing information in the closely held National Intelligence Estimates and other secret briefings to counter criticisms in a staff report released this week by the independent commission examining pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures.

That commission report accused the CIA of failing to recognize al-Qaida as a formal terrorist organization until 1999. It characterized the agency as regarding bin Laden mostly as a financier instead of a charismatic leader of the terrorist movement.

But one senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the 1997 National Intelligence Estimate "identified bin Laden and his followers and threats they were making and said it might portend attacks inside the United States."

The National Intelligence Estimate is distributed to the president and senior intelligence officials in the executive branch and the Congress.

Philip Zelikow, executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, confirmed the 1997 warning about bin Laden, but said it was only two sentences long and lacked any strategic analysis on how to address the threat. "We were well aware of the information and the staff stands by exactly what it says" in its report, he said.

The intelligence official also said that while the 1995 intelligence assessment did not mention bin Laden or al-Qaida by name, it clearly warned that Islamic terrorists were intent on striking specific targets inside the United States like those hit on Sept. 11, 2001.

The report specifically warned that civil aviation, Washington landmarks such as the White House and Capitol and buildings on Wall Street were at the greatest risk of a domestic terror attack by Muslim extremists, the official said.

Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin testified Wednesday that by early 1996 his agency had developed enough concern about bin Laden to create a special unit to focus on him.

"We were very focused on this issue," McLaughlin told the commission.

The commission's report did credit the CIA after 1997 with collecting vast amounts of intelligence on bin Laden and al-Qaida, which resulted in thousands of individual reports circulated at the highest levels of government. These carried titles such as "Bin Laden Threatening to Attack U.S. Aircraft" in June 1998 and "Bin Laden's Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons" in February 2001.

Despite this intelligence, the CIA never produced an authoritative summary of al-Qaida's involvement in past terrorist attacks, didn't formally recognize al-Qaida as a group until 1999 and did not fully appreciate bin Laden's role as the leader of a growing extremist movement, the commission said.

"There was no comprehensive estimate of the enemy," the commission report alleged.

But the senior intelligence official said the commission report failed to mention that CIA had produced large numbers of analytical reports on the growth, capabilities, structure and threats posed by al-Qaida throughout the late 1990s and those detailed reports were distributed to the front lines of terror-fighting agencies.

The CIA most frequently provided these individual and highly detailed analyses to the White House Counterterrorism Security Group charged with formulating anti-terrorism policies and responses, the official said.

SIX YEARS

Yet I left with my tail between my legs? :laugh:

Oh,and don't let all the other dates bother you, you know, the ones starting with 199.............

I guess for all the "action" clinton took, for all the committees and positions he set up, they didn't do a DAMN THING to stop bin laden

Ineffectual at best

Incompetent at worst

Of course, that describes most of clintons reign anyway

[chomerics]

Chom, I know you do not like Bush, but to say he lied means that he intentionally misled. All reports from all countries had the same assesment we had. The Germans, the French, the British. All of them. Good decision? That is the question, not lying.

OK, would misled be a better pill to swallow? Read the report released today about how there were no ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and tell me again that was just a bad decision. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/08/iraqreport.ap/index.html

Now, let's be honest. How did the surplus get to $6T? A lot of it came from fancy book keeping that you would be up in arms with if it were a corporation.

Actually, no, we as a country were in the black. I am sorry the right has destroyed the surplus we had, I truly am, but they did.

Clinton sliced the military in half, gave paltry 1% raises, created a couple thousand civilian govt jobs, and then claimed to have cut spending while at the same time creating jobs.

The military wasn't "cut in half", spending was curtailed. He also increased funding from the projections Bush gave. Why is it that Clinton gets no credit for balancing the budget, yet he is to blame for the military being cut? There was a Republican congress at the time you know. . .

Oh, and Bush had to deal with 9/11, waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Katrina.... Just small inconveniences to the budget. Just offering a few facts...

Afghanistan cost what, $30Billion? Iraq, $300Billion. Tax cuts, are what killed the surplus, then he went on a mad spending spree. Nothing like finally getting all of your bills in line, then to have someone walk in there spend like a drunkin sailor and cut taxes without paying for a god damn thing.

Now, just so you don't flame me for being partisan, other than missing a couple chances to nab UBL (hindsight is 20/20 guys, no one predicted the success he would have) and cutting the military, I think Clinton was a decent President.

I would like to know the "couple of chances" he missed to get Bin Laden, because if you remember corectly, when he left office, republicans said he was obsessed with bin laden. They said his focus was on Bin Laden instead of the country, and he shouldn't have spent as much time with him. Well, as usual, they were wrong yet again. :doh:

[Redskins Diehard]

Chomeric's history lesson

Sarge's response

I found it odd that he picked that thread to highlight dominance also. Tail between his legs? That thread was before my time around here...guess where I was when you were debating this?

Anyway, thank you for the trip down memory lane. When did "Klinton" with a K go away around here?

[chomerics]

I couln't help but notice Tarhogs post right under yours. Yet another former military person who has seen action but is not a credible source.....at least to you

And then ther was Redmans post

Then there's your own quote. Man, you should have worked for clinton

And of course there is the original article

Ant look at my argument then and today, has it changed one iota? Have I "flip flopped" in my opinions on how to handle this war? I was one of what, maybe two or three people who were against the war on this site, and now, what is there 50%?

Here, why don't you post my entire response to redman and try to rip it apart. Show the fallicy of the argument, which stood up two years ago and still stands up today?

Originally posted by redman in 2004

Chomerics, you're at least offering some degree of intellectual honesty on this subject, so I appreciate the discourse. Let me compile my list of reasons why Clinton in my view failed significantly to meet the challenge (even though I don't believe that he could reasonably have "prevented" 9/11 given the national mood at the time).

Been busy this weekend, sorry it took so long to respond.

1. He treated terrorism primarily as a law enforcement matter.

Clinton oversaw the most massive military cutbacks since the beginning of the Cold War. Certainly, some of it needed to happen given that the Cold War was ended and we needed to adjust our forces to a post-Cold War world. However, I saw nothing constructive about the way that he gleefully pulled down the military infrastructure that he'd made his political bones protesting.

Now, while you've been arguing how wonderful a doubling of the intel budget has been (see also, #2 below), consider this: what would we do with a strenthened intel if we lack the force to utilize it and act upon it? It's tantamount to doubling the number of police officers you have, while gutting your court and prison system and still trying to say that you're tough on crime. Do you start to understand why people like me aren't exactly enamored of our anti-terror efforts under Clinton? Besides, Clinton as an anti-military politician on the left, wasn't exactly positioned to be proactive against the growing terror threat against the U.S., was he?

A classic example of this criminal versus military mindset was the Administration's refusal to accept (or kill) bin Laden when the Sudanese offered him up to us. Their reaction was "we have no proof against him with which to bring charges" rather than "wow, we have a unique opportunity to take custody of an enemy of the U.S."

I will agree with you that he viewed terrorism primarily as a law enfrocement matter, but should the fight against terrorism be primarily a military issue? I personally don't think so. If you think back to pre 9-11, the failure wasn't in the military, it was in law enforcement, the same area Clinton thought the focus should have been. Arguments can be made weather the war on terrorism should be a military war, or a covert war, and IMO covert accomplishes more over the long hall. A military structure works against state sponseres terrorism, but in the late 90's it appeared that the focus was on rouge factions encompasing many different countries, hence a military action isn't the best option.

I'm not trying to argue against going into a country to rid the terrorists, but that shouldn't be the primary plan of attack, because in the end, it breeds more terrorism. If you look into Iraq right now, you can see what I'm talking about.

I don't see your argument that the increase in the anti-terrorism budget wasn't able to work because of a reduction of military staff. That had nothing to do with it. The entire military would not be used, only certain factions of it. There were plans in place for Delta Force to pull a "Snatch and Grab" mission, as well as other simultaneous attacks. The military budget had no effect on the ability to carry out these plans.

I also think your letting your prejeduices against Clinton give you an honest opinion on Clinton's acts against terrorism. You say he was "anti-military", yet that's just an opinion. You even mentioned we were coming out of the Clod War, therefor a military budget of well over $300 million just wasn't justified. I have argued with sarge about this point before, and my point has been "How much do we need to spend?". We were in the midst of righting the Regan era Trickle Down economics mess, which killed the federal budget. We took a budget deficet to a surplus and we were paying off the debt. IMO, this was more of a concern to the majority of Americans than spending more on military than the next 15 countries combined.

As for the Bin Laden-Sudan issue, there were mitigating circumstances for them transferring him to the U.S. but there were no grounds to hold him. This was before the U.S. even knew about depths of Al Qaeda and the information they had on him was sketchy at best. Remember, this was before the Patriot Act, so we had no legal grounds to detain him. The only thing we had on him was that he was against the U.S. this isn't enough to arrest somebody for. Also, this was before the info came out linking Youseff to Kalid Shiekh Muhommad and the Suadi's put to death the 4 responsible for a bombing before the U.S. got to question those responsible (showing a Bin Laden link). The only file we had on him was that he was a muhajedeen fighter and a "financeer". In hind sight, it would have been great to apprehend him, but the President still needs to adhere to the rules of the land. There were no charges we could bering against him at that time, so we couldn't take him.

On a side note, I'm still a little skeptical on the whole "Sudan offered Bin Laden" pattern. The only evidence I could find was a NewsMax mp3 supposedly of Clinton offering up an admission, but I never heard him say that. He claims he tried to get Saudi to take him and we had no grounds to take him in, but that's it. He makes no mention of an "offer". One more thing on the "offer", while the Clinton administration has made repeated clames this was a fabrication of the truth, they (Sudan) DID want to be taken off the U.S. terrorist list, but they gave no information to the U.S. I feel the administration thought this was a "ruse" by the Sudanese to lift sanctions against them, with no intentions af releasing Bin Laden to the U.S.

And of course, there was no offering of Bin Laden to Clinton as we now know.

2. He segregated law enforcement intel from military/non-law enforcement intel.

Yes, he increased the intelligence buget. However, it was small to begin with given our overall spending on national security (which is a symptom of our historical emphasis on sig-int rather than human intel) and if you look at how much terrorism directed at U.S. targets increased during his presidency, a mere doubling of the intel budget (even assuming all of it went to anti-terror, which I doubt) seems pretty meager.

More to the point, while the budget was doubled, the effectiveness of our intel gathering was not doubled because what was likewise increased was the segregation between law enforcement intel information and classic intel generated by the spy agencies. The increased budget in some ways paid for us to be working against ourselves! That BTW was the significance of the 1995 memo I linked to earlier in this discussion.

The budget he doubled was the terrorism budget. I was talking about the CSG's budget and it increased 100% at a time when every other budget was being cut. He signed into law PDDs 39, 62, 62 and 67. These PDDs directly fought the war on terrorism at a grass roots level. This was the first time in the history of US policy that a law specifically thwarting terrorism was EVER put into effect. Clinton approved 4 PDDs which ALL try to put a stop to terrorism. After 9-11, Bush used the power in these PDDs to do things such as pull financing from Al Qaeda.

I'll list some of the things in the PDDs for you as well as post links.

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm

I will shorten up an abstract on PDD39, it can be read via the link below in its entirety.

http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/pdd-39.htm

1. General. Terrorism is both a threat to our national security as well as a criminal act. The Administration has stated that it is the policy of the United States to use all appropriate means to deter, defeat and respond to all terrorist attacks on our territory and resources, both people and facilities, wherever they occur. In support of these efforts, the United States will:

Employ efforts to deter, preempt, apprehend and prosecute terrorists.

Work closely with other governments to carry our counterterrorism policy and combat terrorist threats against them.

Identify sponsors of terrorists, isolate them, and ensure they pay for their actions.

Make no concessions to terrorists.

2. Measures to Combat Terrorism. . . reducing vulnerabilities to terrorism, deterring and responding to terrorist acts, and having capabilities to prevent and manage the consequences of terrorist use of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, including those of mass destruction. . .

a. Reduce Vulnerabilities. . .all department/agency heads have been directed to ensure that their personnel and facilities are fully protected against terrorism. . .

Expand the program of counterterrorism.. . .

. . .Reduce U.S. vulnerabilities to international terrorism through intelligence collection/analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action. . .

b. Deter. To deter terrorism. . .Our goals include the disruption of terrorist-sponsored activity including termination of financial support, arrest and punishment of terrorists as criminals, application of U.S. laws and new legislation to prevent terrorist groups from operating in the United States, and application of extraterritorial statutes to counter acts of terrorism and apprehend terrorists outside of the United States. Return of terrorists overseas, who are wanted for violation of U.S. law, is of the highest priority and a central issue in bilateral relations with any state that harbors or assists them.

c. Respond. . .we must have a rapid and decisive capability to protect Americans, defeat or arrest terrorists, respond against terrorist sponsors, and provide relief to the victims of terrorists. . .

d. NBC Consequence Management. The development of effective capabilities for preventing and managing the consequences of terrorist use of nuclear, biological or chemical (BC) materials or weapons is of the highest priority. Terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is not acceptable and there is no higher priority than preventing the acquisition of such materials/weapons or removing this capability from terrorist groups.

In PDDs 62&63, he promoted an expansion of the US's counterterrorism authority and created a cabinet level position who's budget was directly funded by the OMB (A rarity in this age of government and it shows how serious he was against terrorism). This position, the CSG, would oversee the day to day operations and counterterrorism efforts. It also points out a distinct 10 points which will be carried out by various sectors of the federal gavernment.

Here's a link to the 2 PDDs and a summary of 63.

http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/pdd-62.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/paper598.htm

there is a bunch of stuff in this text omitted for size, but it set up the grounds for creating an anti-terrorism branch of government

Here is a list of the 10 programs set up by PDD 62.

1. Apprehension, Extradition, Rendition and Prosecution of Terrorists: Justice Deptrtment and FBI (a component of the Justice Dept.)

2. Disruption of Terrorist Operations: CIA

3. International Cooperation: State Dept

4. Preventing the Acquisition of WMD: CIA & DOD

5. Consequence Management:Health and Human Services, FEMA, Justice (FBI) DOD

6. Transportation Security: Dept. of Transportation, FAA

7. Protection of Critical Infrastructure: Justice (FBI), Commerce, DOD

8. Continuity of Government: Classified

9. Countering Foreign Terrorist Group Threat in the US: Justice (FBI), mmegration and Treasury

10. Protecting Americans Overseas: DOD and State Department

I left out Appendix B. As you can see, PDDs 62&63 help establish a central point for intel gathering. It has long been known that there are certain prejeducies existing between the CIA, FBI, DOD and NSA, but the President tried to overcome these inadequacies by giving the CSG the power to oversee all operations. You can argue that the CIA, FBI, DOD and NSA weren't talking to each other, but the President recognized this and thus established the CSG position to act as a central point for all intel gathering. He would act as the top level "intellegence gatherer".

It also establishes the NIPC as another means of intel sharing, again a focus on the internal struggles against each other by the various government agancies.

The NIPC will provide a national focal point for gathering information on threats to the infrastructures. Additionally, the NIPC will provide the principal means of facilitating and coordinating the Federal Government’s response to an incident, mitigating attacks, investigating threats and monitoring reconstitution efforts. Depending on the nature and level of a foreign threat/attack, protocols established between special function agencies (DOJ/DOD/CIA), and the ultimate decision of the President, the NIPC may be placed in a direct support role to either DOD or the Intelligence Community.

You argue that we were working against ourselves, and I won't argue there are rifts between certain government agencies, but PDD 62&63 eliminated the rifts and each agency was to report to the CSG on their own. This eliminated the need for the CIA, FBI et. all to be in constant communication with each other. Clinton realized the conflict of intrests that existed between the different gov. agencies, and he devised a way to circumvent the problem.

It was only after Bush eliminated the CSG position that these inadequicies became glaringly obvious. If the CSG was still in effect, the information would have passed across his desk concerning Moussoui, the Phoenix Memo and the Al Qaeda in the U.S. memo. Since the position was eliminated, the intel stayed within the orginization.

3. He failed to lead on the terror issue.

Clinton did absolutely nothing to try to move the national will towards a greater awareness of the terror threat, much less towards an understanding of the need to shift our security priorities to anti-terror. This is what a good leader does; someone who's in love with the latest polling data won't take the lead on a mis-understood (by the public) and therefore unpopular policy.

And before you come back at me about how distracting his various scandals were (which I frankly view were of his own making anyway), I think he could have been a compelling advocate for a new awareness about a terrorist threat given his traditional tendencies against national defense, his overall speaking and persuasive abilities, and the fact that he remained popular with most of the American people.

I may come up with some additional criticisms, but the above certainly captures the theme. "It's the economy, stupid" seems to demonstrate where Clinton's heart and mind were. The economy was taking care of itself given the communications revolution that the U.S. was leading in the world, so he didn't need to lead there. What he did need to lead on, however, was in making the American people understand the new threats that faced them in the world. While Bush didn't come out swinging on that theme either, he at least pushed for a more aggressive foreign policy and he of course didn't have the benefit of the 12 times more time to react as President that Clinton had.

Here are some speeches he made on terrorism during his last 4 years. I could pull out another 20 speeches, but these are good for a start.

President calls for new legislation

July 28, 1996

http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/28/clinton.speech/

The Enemy of Our Generation

AUGUST 6, 1996

http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/pas/pr/1996/0806b.htm

FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM FOCUS OF CLINTON SPEECH TO UNGA

09/18/98

http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/WF980918/epf505.htm

ON KEEPING AMERICA SECURE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

January 22, 1999

http://www.cybercrime.gov/nas9901.htm

In America, few people heard anything about this. Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the massive non-secret actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The TV networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag The Dog" to accentuate the idea that everything the administration was doing was contrived fakery.

You see, the President viewed terrorism as a national security problem, yet it was the press who was concerned with Lewinski. No matter how many times he spoke on terrorism, the press was only concerned with the blue dress and impeachment hearings, while Clinton was still focused on his job.

But in this day, no campaign for peace can succeed without a determination to fight terrorism. Let our actions today send this message loud and clear: There are no expendable American targets.

There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values. We will help people of all faiths, in all parts of the world, who want to live free of fear and violence.

We will persist and we will prevail.

excerpt from a speech he made on Aug. 20, 1998. It wasn't his fault that the public wasn't listening to the warning signs, he was speaking on the subject, but it was the American public and to a lesser extent the American media that was failing to listen to the warnings.

So when you say "Clinton did absolutely nothing to try to move the national will towards a greater awareness of the terror threat, much less towards an understanding of the need to shift our security priorities to anti-terror. This is what a good leader does;" You are uninformed. He did make a series of speeches warning the American public of the threat of terrorism, it's just that the American public was more concerned with stains on dresses than terrorists.

In review,

Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The enemy of our generation."

I think these links pretty much debunked your three points, if you care to change your opinion feel free

[Sarge]

So now you contend he did all this great stuff, that he was on the ball, that he spent all this money and had such focus

What did it get us

A great predator video of bin laden walking around in a camp in Afghanistan,and no one with the balls to shoot him

Lovely

[chomerics]

So now you contend he did all this great stuff, that he was on the ball, that he spent all this money and had such focus

What did it get us

A great predator video of bin laden walking around in a camp in Afghanistan,and no one with the balls to shoot him

Lovely

No Sarge, you contended he did nothing, let Bin Laden go and was the reason for 9-11! I simply called you on your game, and showed you exactly what he did, when he did it, what he said, and how much time, energy and effort he put into getting Bin Laden.

What did George Bush do before 9-11 to get Bin Laden? . . .

. . .

. . .

crickets. . .

. . .

. . .

Clarke is demoted and counter terrorism position is removed

. . .

. . .

. . .

Aug. 6th pdb. Bush is on vacation. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

crickets. . ..

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

BAM!!!! 9-11 we get hit by Bin Laden. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

So we attack Iraq :doh:

Yes, that was what Bush did to combat terrorism, WAY TO GO THERE DUBYA!!!! :doh1: What a effin joke. BTW, why is Osama still alive?

[NoCalMike]

Harvy Kietel speaks out about being duped over "facts" in the movie......

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/07/harvey-keitel-speaks-out-on-path-to-911-it-turned-out-not-all-the-facts-were-correct/

[chomerics]

Anyway, thank you for the trip down memory lane. When did "Klinton" with a K go away around here?

Sarge was told not to do it a while ago, I think sometime in 05' if I remember correctly. . .

[nelms]

Ain't it sweet that the "chickens have finally come home to roost". hehehehehehehhehehehehe!

As much as the left has claimed that Clinton was crucified for the whole Lewinsky thing, he really was treated with kid gloves, especially from the liberal media. Finally, we are seeing the Clinton presidency for what it was: an occupied and distracted president who couldn't (and wouldn't) take all the necessary steps to protect the American people.

[chomerics]

Ain't it sweet that the "chickens have finally come home to roost". hehehehehehehhehehehehe!

As much as the left has claimed that Clinton was crucified for the whole Lewinsky thing, he really was treated with kid gloves, especially from the liberal media. Finally, we are seeing the Clinton presidency for what it was: an occupied and distracted president who couldn't (and wouldn't) take all the necessary steps to protect the American people.

Evidently you missed the reading course in school huh. . .read 5 posts above yours:doh:

[Seabee1973]

OK, would misled be a better pill to swallow? Read the report released today about how there were no ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and tell me again that was just a bad decision. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/08/iraqreport.ap/index.html

Actually, no, we as a country were in the black. I am sorry the right has destroyed the surplus we had, I truly am, but they did.

The military wasn't "cut in half", spending was curtailed. He also increased funding from the projections Bush gave. Why is it that Clinton gets no credit for balancing the budget, yet he is to blame for the military being cut? There was a Republican congress at the time you know. . .

Afghanistan cost what, $30Billion? Iraq, $300Billion. Tax cuts, are what killed the surplus, then he went on a mad spending spree. Nothing like finally getting all of your bills in line, then to have someone walk in there spend like a drunkin sailor and cut taxes without paying for a god damn thing.

I would like to know the "couple of chances" he missed to get Bin Laden, because if you remember corectly, when he left office, republicans said he was obsessed with bin laden. They said his focus was on Bin Laden instead of the country, and he shouldn't have spent as much time with him. Well, as usual, they were wrong yet again. :doh:

The military was cut about 35% But not all thefault lies with clinton only 8 tenths of it as the cutbacks started in 90. but with the cutbacks came an increased workload of about 300% for the military during that time frame. why are you blaming reuplicans for saying clinton was obsessed with osama when it was straight from the horses mouth?

President Clinton says he was "obsessed" with bin Laden during his time in office and denies he refused opportunities to capture the al Qaeda leader.

Clinton: To the best of my knowledge it is not true that we were ever offered him by the Sudanese even though they later claimed it. I think it's total bull. Mr. Absurabi, the head of the Sudanese government was a buddy of bin Laden's. They were business partners together. There was no way in the wide world this guy who was in business with bin Laden in Sudan was going to give him up to us.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/21/eveningnews/main625205.shtml

[Thiebear]

No Sarge, you contended he did nothing, let Bin Laden go and was the reason for 9-11! I simply called you on your game, and showed you exactly what he did, when he did it, what he said, and how much time, energy and effort he put into getting Bin Laden.

What did George Bush do before 9-11 to get Bin Laden? . . .

crickets. . .

Clarke is demoted and counter terrorism position is removed

Aug. 6th pdb. Bush is on vacation. . .

crickets. . ..

BAM!!!! 9-11 we get hit by Bin Laden. . .

So we attack Iraq :doh:

Yes, that was what Bush did to combat terrorism, WAY TO GO THERE DUBYA!!!! :doh1: What a effin joke. BTW, why is Osama still alive?

Wasnt the chatter up in May with everyone having high alert and vacations cancelled for several months.. then it died down when nothing happened.

And we attacked Afghanistan ....

THEN

Iraq.

oh and if you can list everything from one side and not EVEN BOTHER to do a google link that says "Intelligence alert may 2001 chatter" and come up with this: ARE you really trying to be fair???

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020516-13.html

Now, there was a clear concern that something was up, that something was coming, but it was principally focused overseas. The areas of those concern were the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe.

In the June time frame, arrests for the Millennium plot, there was testimony by the participants in the Millennium plot that Abu Zabeda had said that there might be interest in attacking the United States. And this comes out of testimony that was there as a result of the Millennium plot. And then in June -- on June 26th, there was a threat spike, and as a result, again focusing overseas, the State Department issued a worldwide caution. Again, that was June 26th, and you probably remember that caution.

Now, the FAA was also concerned of threats to U.S. citizens such as airline hijackings, and therefore, issued an information circular -- and an information circular goes out the private carriers from law enforcement -- saying that we have a concern. That was a June 22nd information circular.

At the end of June, there was a status of threat and action meeting that the -- what we call the Counterterrorism Security Group -- it is a group that is interagency that meets on the direction of an NSC Special Assistant, Dick Clarke at that time. There was a meeting of that, and Dick Clarke reported to me that steps were being taken by the CSG.

On July 2nd, as a result of some of that work, the FBI released a message saying that there are threats to be worried about overseas, but we cannot -- while we cannot foresee attacks domestically, we cannot rule them out. This is an inlet, and again, an inlet goes out to law enforcement from the FBI.

On July 2nd, the FAA issued another IC, saying that Ressam -- again associated with the Millennium plot -- said that there was an intention of using explosives in an airport terminal. This was a very specific IC.

On July 5th, the threat reporting had become sufficiently robust, though not, again, very specific, but sufficiently robust, there was a lot of chatter in the system, that in his morning meeting the President asked me to go back and to see what was being done about all of the chatter that was there. Andy Card and I met that afternoon with Dick Clarke, and Dick Clarke informed us that he had already had a meeting of the CSG core group and that he was holding another meeting that afternoon that would be focused on threats, and that would bring the domestic agencies into the CSG.

On July 6th, the CSG core players met again because there was concern about -- very high concern about potential attacks in Paris, Turkey, Rome, and they acted to go so far as to suspend non-essential travel of U.S. counterterrorism staff. So this is a period in which, again, attacks -- potential attacks overseas were heightened enough that there was almost daily meeting now, sometimes twice a day, of either the CSG or its subgroups. Contingency planning was done on how to deal with multiple, simultaneous attacks around the world.

The period in mid-July was a point of another major threat spike, and it all related to the G-8 summit that was coming up. And in fact, there was specific threat information about the President. There was a lot of work done with liaison services abroad; in fact, the CIA went on what I think you would call a full-court press to try and deal with these potential attacks, and indeed, managed through these intelligence activities and liaison activities to disrupt attacks in Paris, Turkey and Rome.

On July 18th, the FAA issued another IC, saying that there were ongoing terrorist threats overseas, and that although there were no specific threats directed at civil aviation, they told the airlines, "we urge you to use the highest level of caution."

On July 18th also, the FBI issued another inlet on the Millennium plot conviction, reiterating its July 2nd message saying we're concerned about threats as a result of the Millennium plot conviction.

At the end of July, the FAA issued another IC, which said, there's no specific target, no credible info of attack to U.S. civil aviation interests, but terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, and we ask you, therefore, to urge -- to use caution.

Throughout July and August, several times a week, there were meetings of the CSG, reviewing information at hand. There was no specific new information that came in in that period of time after the end of July and sort of in August, leading up to September. But the agencies were still at a heightened state of alert. Particularly overseas. I think the military actually had dropped its state of alert, but everybody was still on a heightened state of alert.

On August 1st, the FBI issued another inlet on the upcoming third East Africa bombing anniversary, and again reiterated the message that had been in the July 2nd inlet.

Now, on August 6th, the President received a presidential daily briefing which was not a warning briefing, but an analytic report. This analytic report, which did not have warning information in it of the kind that said, they are talking about an attack against so forth or so on, it was an analytic report that talked about UBL's methods of operation, talked about what he had done historically, in 1997, in 1998. It mentioned hijacking, but hijacking in the traditional sense, and in a sense, said that the most important and most likely thing was that they would take over an airliner, holding passengers and demand the release of one of their operatives. And the blind sheikh was mentioned by name as -- even though he's not an operative of al Qaeda, but as somebody who might be bargained in this way.

I want to reiterate, it was not a warning. There was no specific time, place or method mentioned. What you have seen in the run-up that I've talked about is that the FAA was reacting to the same kind of generalized information about a potential hijacking as a method that al Qaeda might employ, but no specific information saying that they were planning such an attack at a particular time.

There is one other FAA IC in this period, issued on August 16th, where the FAA issued an IC on disguised weapons. They were concerned about some reports that the terrorists had made breakthroughs in cell phones, key chains and pens as weapons.

There are a number of other ICs that were also issued; we don't think they were germane to this, but I'm sure you can get the full record of all of the ICs that were released from Transportation.

I want to reiterate that during this time, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas. The State Department, the Defense Department were on very high states of alert. The embassies were -- have very clear protocols on how to button up; so does the military. That was done. But at home, while there was much less reporting or chatter at home, people were thinking about the U.S. and the FBI was involved in a number of investigations of potential al Qaeda personnel operating in the United States.

[Thiebear]

By the way:

Listening to Glenn Beck interview a lawyer of the ACLU that is fighting this:

What is the difference between JFK / and the Warren commission vs.

miniseries vs. the 9/11 commission and the lawyer finally said.

One is my client and one isn't in his rant on things being perfect.

I also find it disheartening that 5 Senators would threaten a broadcast company over a show.... any for any show...

I also find it odd that WTC had lots of things wrong.

I also find it odd that Flight 93 had lots of things wrong.

I also find it odd that Fahrenheit 9/11 had lots of things wrong.

also: Munich, Nixon...

Yet during a SECURITY briefing they are talking about a mini-series...

For Gods sake get back to business: This Congress is setting a record for what their NOT doing....

[nelms]

I find all of this very interesting. I think what we are starting to see is Clinton's legacy and it isn't a very good one. It ususally takes 5 or 6 years before a president's legacy starts taking shape and about 15 to 20 years before that legacy and historical perspective has fully matured.

Clinton's presidency was one of squandered opportunities and flat out gross negligence. I find it ironic and hilarious that the two biggest critics claiming ABC's presentation is full of lies are two of the biggest proven liars in political history (Clinton himself and Sandy Berger, who also happens to be a convicted thief of classified materials). Was the Clinton presidency soley responsible for 9/11? No, but if we're going to assign blame, they should get most of it. Clinton's top priorities unfortunately didn't include keeping America safe, but chasing skirt seemed to be high on the list.