OT : White House remarks doesnt jibe with me

[dchogs]

point 1: the exec. branch gets reems of info on a daily basis that they have to wade through and prioritize.

point 2: a lot of the info received was during the clinton presidency.

point 3: clinton's policies regarding terrorism allowed the terrorist cells to gain power and confidence.

point 4: the various agencies had very poor communication and were not coordinating efforts. this is not the exec branch's fault.

point 5: it is extremely difficult, even with lots of tips and such, to accurately identify who, what, when and how terrorists are going to attack.

so who's fault is all this mess? bush's? clinton's? in my opinion, no and kinda respectively. let's blame this fiasco on the correct people, the terrorists, and let's stop this political infighting so that the country can move forward as a unified front against a common enemy. the dems are looking for something to hang dubya by, and this rope, it appears, is paper thin.

[Terry]

point 3: clinton's policies regarding terrorism allowed the terrorist cells to gain power and confidence.

Which Policies?

[The Evil Genius]

Of course...if we hadnt trained and armed those terrorist cells...oops.

Still, I contend...the Executive Branch is a figurehead in our form of a Republic.

So it really doesnt matter.

[Mad Mike]

dchogs

I agree that the focus should be on the terrorist themselves but I am confident that history will agree with me when I say Clinton was negligent.

With all that happened during his 8 years in office (and I forgot to mentiion the first bombing of the trade center) I can honestly say that I saw a major attack of some type was on the way. Unfortunatly the man with the most power to reform our national security in time to deal with the threat was too busy playing schoolboy and getting his rocks off with a fat intern.

[Mad Mike]

Evil

To say that the executive branch has no power is a GROSS oversimplification of the actual facts. The title of Comander in Chief is not a paper one, and the fact that our government is balenced in no way takes away from the fact that NO SINGLE MAN in our government has as much power as the president.

[Terry]

I dunno about that.

The Clinton administration had pretty clear knowledge that Bin Laden was a major threat, the had rough intelligence on his whereabouts, they had a plan to 'dispose' of him (infiltration of special forces), but the circumstances didn't permit it (no precise info on his location).

Clinton ordered his assassination in 1998, it's a matter of record. But the intelligence on where exactly he was wasn't available.

Clinton

I wouldn't wait for history to confirm your views on that aspect of Clinton's presidency.

Mike sez:

Unfortunatly the man with the most power to reform our national security in time to deal with the threat was too busy playing schoolboy and getting his rocks off with a fat intern.

I don't recall Bush doing much to reform national security before 9/11 either.

And this was in the W. Post today:

As late as Sept. 9, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld threatened a presidential veto when the Senate proposed to divert $600 million to counterterrorism from ballistic missile defense.

and this:

"Even today I get dozens of reports a day from the CIA and none from the FBI," said a government counterterrorism official. "When an FBI SAC [special agent in charge] sends in a message, it never leaves the bureau. In fact, they can still get in trouble if they show it to you."

You'd think that after 9/11, reform and information sharing would be the best it has ever been. But there are obviously still problems. So why do you expect Clinton to have dome better WITHOUT the pressure of the events of 9/11?

[Mad Mike]

Terry

"I authorised the arrest, and, if necessary, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and we actually made contact with a group in Afghanistan to do it - and they were unsuccessful," Mr Clinton told a news conference in New York.

Sounds like a man trying to cover is @ss to me. There are also credible reports that he failed to act on a number of occasions.

In my opinion we had a clear opportunity to declare UBLs terrorist acts an act of war and go into Afghanistan to get him. I never said that Clinton did nothing. I said that what he did was weak. I also stand behind my statement that he had every opportunity to reform our national security procedures to deal with the growing threat and increasing number of attacks. He did nothing of the sort.

Franky, I beleve that anyone from a gass station attendant to a CEO to the president who is getting BJs and writing schoolboy notes to a silly @ss intern on the job is neglecting his dutys.

[Mad Mike]

Terry

"I don't recall Bush doing much to reform national security before 9/11 either. "

He had how many months to do it?

Clinton had how many YEARS?

Please.

"So why do you expect Clinton to have dome better WITHOUT the pressure of the events of 9/11?"

Riiiight. Clinton only had Somalia, The Cole, The first trade center bombing...

[Mickalino]

Actually Mad Mike, I think you're leaving out a couple others :

* Riyadh, Saudia Arabia bombing of US Militaty installation

* 2 U.S embassies simultaneously bombed, one in Kenya, and the other where ?

[Mad Mike]

Oh yeah, Thanks Mick.

I knew I was missing something.

[Riggo-toni]

Originally posted by Mick

Actually Mad Mike, I think you're leaving out a couple others :

* Riyadh, Saudia Arabia bombing of US Militaty installation

* 2 U.S embassies simultaneously bombed, one in Kenya, and the other where ?

Tanzania, I believe.

[redman]

What I keep waiting for is the argument from the Administration that the Senate Dems' insistence upon delaying confirmation of Bush's cabinet prior to September 11 (remember that Bush wasin office less than 8 months at that time) hindered the administration's ability to interpret terrorist intelligence. Any thoughts?

Also, aren't the Dems who are making these ridiculous charges against Bush the same people who were all in a huff last week over a benign photo of Bush in a plane being used for fund raising? Aren't they the ones who were accusing Bush of using 9/11 to gain political capital? Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.

And is there any doubt that this would not be happening if this was not the year of what is expected to be very hotly contested Congressional elections?

[redman]

[deleted- I'm not sure how this ended up in this thread]

[Golgo-13]

Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986.

The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo

agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to

release so-called "political prisoners". However, the Israelis

would not release any with blood on their hands.

The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his

Secretary of State "insisted" that all prisoners be released. Thus

Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an

airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center.

This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time

that the terrorists were first identified. It was censored in the US

from all later reports.

Why am I not surprised???

[The Evil Genius]

Of course, what you won't see repeated by our government (or either party for that sake) very often is that many of the "terrorists" including #1 most wanted Osama Bin Laden were at one time trained, educated, and funded by the U.S. to fight those darn commies and tyrants.

Convenient of us to forget that our own FBI trained Osama and that our own government funded him.

Of course, how were we to know that he would turn his back on his...its not like that have ever happened before

[Terry]

escholz,

Atta wasn't involved in that bus bombing, that is just an internet runor. As the Anti Defamation League reports:

An Internet rumor claims that Mohammed Atta, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against America, was involved in an earlier terrorist bombing of an Israeli bus in 1986.

In fact, the perpetrator of the April 1986 attack was a 33-year-old Jordanian and a naturalized U.S. citizen, who went by the name Mahmoud Atta. The Mohammed Atta behind the 9/11 attacks would have been 18 years old in 1986 (he was born in 1968) and was an Egyptian citizen. The Boston Globe, which was one of the few newspapers that printed this rumor, issued a correction a few days later and said their original report was "a case of mistaken identity."

On November 7, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Justice stated: "It's not the same person. It's obviously two different men with similar names."

And nobody has said anything about Rumsfeld threating an administration veto last September 9th, of a congressional bill that would earmark $600M for counter-terrorism funds.

If that had been Clinton, the right wing trogolodytes would have been all over him about being soft on fighting terrorism. But they are strangely silent when it comes to Bush.

[Mad Mike]

escholz

Interesting, I never heard about that.

FYI though. I'm not a big believer in the idea that things get censored by the Gov or the media themselves. Usualy it's a matter of things falling through the cracks ether because the media is distracted by other events or news or pure stupidity. In the rare event that the media is censored by the Gov. it's usualy a matter of national security.

Speaking of other things that have fallen through the cracks...

What ever happened to the story about the scientist who dissapeared who was an expert on Anthrax and Ebola? He was a family man with no known personal problems. His car was found on a bridge in the wrong direction from his route home after a scientific conference on the subject. Those who were interviewed said he appeard normal and showed no indication he might commit suicide and reports I saw said that it appeared that his dissapearence was intended to look like he took his own life by jumpin off the bridge. No body was ever found of course.

The story ran for several days with one ore two small follow ups but nothing since.

[Mad Mike]

Evil

Not true. There has never been any evidence of the US training UBL.

In fact it has been reported that while the US did a great deal of funding of Afghan rebels it was actualy the guy that UBL had killed, Massoud who was the primary CIA contact.

UBL refused US help and bought his own weapons.

[Mad Mike]

Terry

Thanks for clearing the Atta issue up. I thought it was strange that I had not heard about it before. Now I know why.

[The Evil Genius]

What you want a receipt or something?

Try this link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_155000/155236.stm

Just one of a handful of articles on Bin Laden.

I like this section myself....

Sponsored by US and Pakistan

His power is founded on a personal fortune earned by his family's construction business in Saudi Arabia.

The Afghan jihad was backed with American dollars and had the blessing of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

He received security training from the CIA itself , according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian.

While in Afghanistan, he founded the Maktab al-Khidimat (MAK), which recruited fighters from around the world and imported equipment to aid the Afghan resistance against the Soviet army.

Egyptians, Lebanese, Turks and others - numbering thousands in Bin Laden's estimate - joined their Afghan Muslim brothers in the struggle against an ideology that spurned religion.

[Tommy-the-Greek]

This problem started when some of you guys were in diapers. The end of Carters term into the first Reagan term. This is the time that Muslim fundalmentalists started taking control of power in the middle east. To blame this on either party is just plain lunacy. When the shah of Iran fell the time bomb started ticking.

The bomb itself was created when we gave Isreal a homeland after WW2. And when England gave land which is now Jordan to the family of the ruling monachy of saudi arabia. This created king husseins country of Jordan. And Jordan by the way is over 70% palestinians. These two acts stole the land from the Palestinians and made most of the palestinians subjects of a monarchy they did not want. The muslum hatred of the US and the west started there. We supported the monarchies who ruled the arabs. And by the way, we still do.

These people will never like us. Do any of you really think they look at us as Rep. or Dems.? They see filthy american dogs period. It is about time that we the people start thinking like we the people. We are all in this together. They will strike again. We must put aside our petty political parties and unite as Americans. We have never lost a conflict when we were united as a country.

Sept. 11 would have happened no matter who was in office. I say enough is enough. They want to fight to the last man, I say look them in the eye and say, " I will take and kill your last man". This war on terrorism is a joke. Let's mobilize a 10-20 million man army. Go in an occupy Saudi Arabia and start pumping out all the damn oil. Anyone who objects send a cruise missle up there *** like preperation H suppository. All the oil taken will pay for the operation.

We swarm thru the middle east like a swarm of locust. House to house street to street city to city country to country. Anyone who opposes us gets a first class seat to meet there maker.

We cannot sit back and wait for them to attack us. We cannot patrol our borders by land and sea and think we can stop them. The best Defense is a good offense. I am sick and tired of waiting for them to nuke us or use chemical or biological weapons. Let's strike them first with such overwhelming power they cower at our feet. My people were the first in history to use chemical weapons on a enemy. I say we use all means necessary to eliminate all who oppose us over there.

Freedom is never free. If you object to my morbid opinion go hide in a closet till it's all over like the wuss you are. I would gladly lay down my life to assure my kids can enjoy the fruits of freedom. I am so pissed that they are growing up in an america that is vulnerable. That they are not safe anywhere.

[JimboDaMan]

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Clinton’s weak response to terrorist provocation was maddening. He absolutely bears the blame for that.

But in no way did he ignore the terrorist threat. He focused on trying to enhance intelligence-gathering by strengthening the intelligence agencies and widening the scope of activities they were allowed to pursue. The Republicans bear the blame for blocking that at every turn, despite repeated efforts by the Clinton administration to impress upon them the threats of terrorism.

I’m not making that up. Go back thru the archives of both the Wash Post and Times. The Post will focus on ‘bad Republicans obstructing’ and the Times will focus on ‘bad President infringing on rights’, but both sources give lie to the idea that Clinton ignored the threat. You or I may disagree with his methods, but that’s a different topic.

There’s no way that military action could have reliably prevented this, because of its simplicity. It didn’t take an army, it just took a handful of guys and blind determination. As we’re finding out now, better gathering and processing of intelligence data would have been the best chance of stopping something like this. In fact, we had much of what we needed but just weren't able to put it together.

I find the claim that there’s no way we could have predicted this laughable. As has been noted, Clancy wrote this scenario years ago. I spent 5 years working in the Pentagon. On nice days I’d eat lunch in the courtyard, watching the planes fly almost directly overhead and wondering why our enemies DIDN’T do this – it looked so darned easy.

Heck, one of the principals in the earlier WTC bombing (either suspect or material witness, can’t remember) actually testified that one option they had discussed was to hijack a plane and fly it into the towers. I remember reading this in the papers at the time and thinking it must be harder than it sounds, because it sounds like an easy thing.

The Post is reporting that George Tenet (CIA Dir) was “frantic” in the weeks approaching 9/11, trying to make people listen to the looming threat. So much so that apparently other officials started to ignore him in good Chicken Little fashion.

To suggest that Bush deliberately allowed this to happen is despicable. But more and more it appears that his conduct after 9/11 was far superior to the administration’s actions prior, and that he has perhaps understandably been less than forthcoming about some of the less laudable details.

[NavyDave]

Another thing thats funny is that the Spineless Liberals are leaving out the fact that thy received the sam info during briefings also.

The guys on the board who are intel could tell you how much stuff we see every morning before 0830 and from numerous sources who didnt talk to each other and in alot of cases the reasons were to not compromise agents and contacts within the groups.

Prior to the Patriot Act which liberals snivelled about it wasnt legal to have organizations do this.

These agencies have had thier scandals but lets not frget they have beeen hampered the past decade by touchy felly liberals who didnt like the way they used people who werent choirboys to help gather info.

[fansince62]

terry........i realize that you have honorably elected to pursue a line of thought that questions received opinion......that notwithstanding........information sharing among the various actors in this drama has improved remarkably since 9/11. it's far from perfect, but culture does not adapt as quickly to change as circumstances might warrant. moreover, there are all sorts of legal matters (title 10, title 50, patriot act, and on) that qualify not only what, but who and how. from a technical point-of-view step into the world of data warehousing, data minining, olap, etc., for data fusion & analysis, and then consider all the interoperability isuues associated with information sharing/knowledge management and you begin to understand that the problems we are encountering are multi-dimensional and are not going to be resolved over the course of a few weekends - no matter how strong the collective will. what is transpiring right now is largely symbolic of what passes for "on the job" in Washington , DC: the diurnal strugggle for power and influence. others would cynically call this POLITICS.

i'm not in a position to state what i do or do not feel about our Commander-in-Chief. However, pausing for a moment, the hidden assumption in all of this that the President of the United States possessed enough information to anticipate and ward off the 9/11 attacks and did not do so out of self interest, callousness, or intellectual lassitude simply defies imagination. the tacit moral accusation doesn't even warrant consideration - for any President. without intending to ruffle too many feathers, it may prove more fruitful for us to ask "what have I done to assist in combatting this cancer"? what are my obligations? what do I bring to the table?

enough sermonizing from me!!!!

[Darth Tater]

We train, finance or otherwise support our enemies all the time. In the early years of his revolution. we financed and supported Castro in an attempt to overthrow a corrupt regime but soon he was co-opted by the communists. During WW2 we trained people like Ho Chi Mihn and help arm people like Mao Tse Tung.

We are probably now training, arming or otherwise helping our future enemies. Problem is, we need their help to deal with a crisis now and the help you give to your future enemies is part of the price you pay when your on top (ask England).

What I was going to say:

Just about every threat one can imagine is possible. Most are just not likely. Since we have limited resources, we can only deal with the threats we think are most likely to prove problems, carry with them a very high price and has a feasable solution.

We have a long history of denying threats that proved to be true. We also have tried to protect ourselves against threats perceived but not real.