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Rice
Warned about al-Qaeda Before 9/11
Responding to
claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice
stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was
turned over to the new administration." Two days after Rice's
March 22 op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, "there's a lot of
debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options. .
. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all
done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in
February." Also attached to the original Clarke
memo
are two
Clinton-era documents relating to al-Qaeda. The first, "Tab A December
2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist
Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects," was released to the National
Security Archive along with the Clarke memo.
National Security
Archive, 2/10/05
MORE
Bush,
9/11, the bin Ladens and the Carlyle Group
At least 13
relatives of Osama bin Laden, accompanied by bodyguards and
associates, were allowed to leave the United States on a chartered
flight eight days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,. . .One
passenger, Omar Awad bin Laden, a nephew of the al Qaeda leader, had
been investigated by the FBI because he had lived with Abdullah bin
Laden, a leader of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, which the FBI
suspected of being a terrorist organization. . . Among the other
passengers was Shafig bin Laden, a half brother of Osama bin Laden who
was reportedly attending the annual investor conference of the Carlyle
Group, a politically connected investment company in Washington, on
Sept. 11, 2001.
Dana Milbank,
Washington Post, 7/22/04
Bush
and the Saudis *
When I
interviewed him [Richard Clarke], he told me that he granted approval
for the Saudi departure contingent on it being vetted by the FBI. . .
. Given the FBI's sorry history, I have a hard time believing in their
infallibility. One of the [9/11] commission's findings is that the FBI
did not even check the Saudi passengers against their terror watch
list . . .just a few days after 9/11. Finally, there's the Iraq
war. . . I also believe Bush's policies are leaving the United States
with the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, we are giving the
Saudis a pass on terrorism. On the other, thanks to the Iraq war, no
moderate Arab leader can risk being friends with us. The U.S.-Saudi
relationship may be coming to an end. And when it comes to our energy
needs, that could leave us running on empty. Craig
Unger (author House of Bush, House of Saud), Slate, 7/6/04
Who let bin
Ladens leave U.S.?
The Bush
administration has refused to answer repeated requests from the Sept.
11 commission about who authorized flights of Saudi Arabian citizens,
including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States
immediately after the attacks of 2001. . . Democrats suspect President
Bush, who met privately with the Saudi Arabian ambassador, Prince
Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, on the morning of Sept. 13, 2001,
may have personally authorized the controversial flights, several of
which took place when all other U.S. commercial air travel had been
halted. . .In a recent interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Prince
Bandar said he did not discuss with Bush the need to evacuate Saudi
citizens . . .However, John Iannarelli, the FBI’s spokesman on
counterterrorism activities, has denied the FBI had any “role in
facilitating these flights one way or another.” Alexander
Bolton, The Hill, 5/18/04
Bremer Saw
It Coming *
The Bush
administration had been in power just about a month at this point, but
Bremer [the American viceroy in Baghdad] had already seen enough to
draw some conclusions about it.
"The new
administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of
terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major
incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized
to deal with this?' That's too bad. They've been given a window of
opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking
advantage of it. Maybe the folks in the press ought to be pushing a
little bit."
Michael Miner, Chicago Reader, 4/23/04
How Could
Rice Have Known? A Public Report from the Library of Congress Told
Her.
Osama bin
Laden also recruits highly skilled professionals in the fields of
engineering, medicine, chemistry, physics, computer programming,
communications, and so forth. . .The
WTC bombing may also have been a harbinger of more destructive attacks
of international terrorism in the United States. . .Suicide bomber(s)
belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an
aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the
Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the
CIA headquarters.
Rex A. Hudson Prepared
under an Interagency Agreement by the Federal Research Division,
Library of Congress, September 1999
9/11 Warning
Revealed*
For most
Americans, the disbelief was the same. The attacks of Sept. 11 seemed
to come in a stunning burst from nowhere. But now, after three weeks
of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the
lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack
by Al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of
the government.
The threat
reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously
known. Some focused on Al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as
weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on
United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation
Administration.
DAVID JOHNSTON and JIM DWYER, NY Times,
4/18/04
Bush Gives
Saudi Terrorists "Express Visas" Before 9/11*
In
June 2001, the American embassy announced a Visa Express program,
which allowed Saudis to get a visa to the U.S. without actually
appearing at the consulate in person.
This disastrous policy allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to enter the
country, Unger [author of House of Bush, House of Saud]
says. One month before the hijacking, as news of an imminent attack
traveled even up to the White House, George Bush took the longest
presidential vacation in 32 years - a month-long retreat to his
Crawford ranch.
The Bush administration was not just soft on terrorism pre 9/11,
"House of Bush, House of Saud" makes clear; it was asleep.
John Freeman, John Freeman, Denver
Post, 4/13/04
Bush Allows
Saudis to Flee*
[A]ir space
was completely restricted up through 9/13. And on that day, the first
flight took off from Tampa, Fl., to Lexington. I found at least eight
airplanes that stopped in 12 American cities. This was a massive
operation. They picked up roughly 140 Saudis, roughly two dozen
members of the bin Laden family, . . The problem is that they
were not vetted by the FBI. . . I was able to obtain the passenger
list for four of the planes.. . .we do know that one person in
particular is highly suspicious, and that is Prince Ahmed bin Salman,
who was a very high-ranking member of the royal family and was said to
have been a link between the royal family and al-Qaeda who may have
had foreknowledge of 9/11.Craig
Unger, Interviewed by Buzzflash.com, 4/6/04
Who
Authorized 50 Saudis to Fly on 9/13/01? *
The federal
government says the flight never took place. But the two armed
bodyguards hired to chaperon their clients out of the state recall the
100-minute trip Sept. 13 quite vividly.
In the end, the son of a Saudi Arabian prince who is the nation's
defense minister and the son of a Saudi army commander made it to
Kentucky for a waiting 747 and a trip to their homeland.
The hastily arranged flight out of Raytheon Airport Services, a
private hangar on the outskirts of Tampa International Airport, was
anything but ordinary. It lifted off the tarmac at a time when every
private plane in the nation was grounded due to safety concerns after
the Sept. 11 attacks.
KATHY
STEELE, Tampa Tribune, 10/5/2001
New Evidence from FOI filed by Judicial Watch
Proves there were at least 3 flights carrying at least 50 Saudis from
U.S. airports on 9/13/04. See Evidence HERE.
Bush's Other
Priorities*
When Senator
Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who was then chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, sought to transfer money to counterterrorism from
the missile defense program, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent
a letter on Sept. 6 2001, , saying he would urge Mr. Bush to veto the
measure. . .The military had offered a more comprehensive proposal. .
. the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lt.
Gen. Gregory Newbold, prepared a plan to incorporate military,
economic, diplomatic and political activities . ..
It was never acted on. The Bush White House deferred a recommendation
by Mr. Clarke to aid the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, calling it
premature
DAVID JOHNSTON and
ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times 4/4/04
Bush
Withholds Clinton Papers
Bill Clinton
authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on his
administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission. But
aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of
the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The
White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently
without notifying the commission, and might have kept them
indefinitely if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's
presidential foundation, had not publicly complained this week. . . .
Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the
president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were
duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he
said, had given the commission "all the information they need."
NY Times Editorial, 4/3/04
Bush
Stonewalls on 9/11
The
commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Thursday that it
was pressing the White House to explain why the Bush administration
had blocked thousands of pages of classified foreign policy and
counterterrorism documents from former President Bill Clinton's White
House files from being turned over to the panel's investigators. . .
The general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential foundation, Bruce
Lindsey. . .was concerned that the Bush administration had applied a
"very legalistic approach to the documents" . . ."I voiced a
concern that the commission was making a judgment on an incomplete
record," he said. "I want to know why there is a 75 percent difference
between what we were ready to produce and what was being produced to
the commission."
PHILIP SHENON and DAVID E. SANGER, NY Times, 4/2/04
Bush,
Cheney, Rice. . Finally*
Yesterday,
Mr. Bush's lawyer told the commission that Ms. Rice would testify. And
after months of unacceptable delay, the lawyer said Mr. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney would also talk to the entire commission in
private, not under oath. But the panel had to pay a price: it agreed,
at the administration's insistence, that after Ms. Rice testifies, it
will not call her back or ask any other White House official to
testify in public.
... This
president has repeatedly abused his executive privilege while seeking
to hide behind it, starting when Mr. Cheney invoked that privilege to
gather business executives in secret to draft the administration's
energy policy.
President
Bush may be right in holding that this battle has harmed his
important, but limited, right to executive privilege. If so, the
wounds were self-inflicted.
NY Times Editorial, 3/31/04
Bush Pulls
Resources from Hunt for al Qaeda*
In 2002,
troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle
East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to
prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were
troops with expertise in Spanish cultures. The CIA, meanwhile,
was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze
information coming from Afghanistan. When the White House raised a new
priority, it took specialists away from the Afghanistan effort to
ensure Iraq was covered. Those were just two of the tradeoffs
required because of what the Pentagon and CIA acknowledge is a
shortage of key personnel to fight the war on terrorism. The question
of how much those shifts prevented progress against al-Qaeda and other
terrorists
. . .
Dave Moniz and Steven Komarow,
USA Today, 3/28/04
On 10/12/01
Bush Cut Request for Foreign Language Intercepts*
In the early
days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by
nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by
the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.
The
document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5
billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts
with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of
Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney
General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut
the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign
language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three
quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative
capabilities."
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 3/22/04
Bush
Outrageous on Terrorism
Richard A.
Clarke, the former [Bush]White House counterterrorism coordinator. .
.said . . . "I find it outrageous that the president is running for
re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about
terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe
we could have done something.'' . . .Almost immediately after
the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke . . .told the president that U.S.
intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and
al-Qaida. . .``He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find
out if there's a connection,' . . .``Bin Laden had been saying for
years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country . . . So what did we
do after 9/11? We invade ... and occupy an oil-rich Arab country"
TED
BRIDIS, Associated Press, 3/20/04,
SEE 60 MIN. INTERVIEW HERE
Bush Weak on
Terror*
Some of the
administration's actions have been so strange that those who reported
them were initially accused of being nutty conspiracy theorists. For
example, what are we to make of the post-9/11 Saudi airlift? Just days
after the attack, at a time when private air travel was banned, the
administration gave special clearance to flights that gathered up
Saudi nationals, including a number of members of the bin Laden
family, who were in the U.S. at the time. These Saudis were then
allowed to leave the country, after at best cursory interviews with
the F.B.I.
And the administration is still covering up for Pakistan, whose
government recently made the absurd claim that large-scale shipments
of nuclear technology and material to rogue states — including North
Korea, according to a new C.I.A. report — were the work of one man,
who was promptly pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf.
Krugman, NY Times
3/16/04
Bush Helps
in 9/11Escape*
Immediately
after 9/11, dozens of Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family
fled the U.S. in a secret airlift authorized by the Bush White House.
One passenger was an alleged al-Qaida go-between, who may have known
about the terror attacks in advance. . . .the Saudi bailout of Harken
Energy that helped George W. Bush make his fortune were small potatoes
compared with what had happened since.
The Bushes and their allies controlled, influenced or possessed
substantial positions in a vast array of companies that dominated the
energy and defense sectors. Put it all together, and there were myriad
ways for the House of Bush to engage in lucrative business deals with
the House of Saud.
Excerpt from House of Saud House of
Bush in Salon, 3/11/04
What They
Knew Before 9/11/01*
In response
to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively
by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice
Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and
said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the
remainder of his term.
"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting
under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the
Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when
it was detected or who made it.
A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats
against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in
California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.
CBS,
July 26, 2001
Bush Blocks
Truth*
The White
House seems more worried about the public's finding out how much it
knew and how little it did before 9/11 than it does about identifying
and fixing security weaknesses.
After trying to kill the commission and then trying to put Dr.
Strangelove-Kissinger in charge, President Bush and Dick Cheney have
done their best to hamper the panel that's the best hope of the 9/11
widows, widowers and orphans to get justice.
. . . Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow. [said] "You don't just let people
go on doing what they're doing wrong." . . .
Mr. McCain said he's expecting the same administration "obfuscation
and delay" when he sits on Mr. Bush's hand-picked intelligence review
board. "That's why I made sure I got subpoena power," he said.
MAUREEN DOWD, NY Times, 2/29/04
Bush Hobbles
9/11 Commission*
The National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, . . .has been
hobbled by a series of disputes with the Bush administration over
access to documents and other issues. . . .Kean and other commission
officials said that without an extended deadline, the panel would not
be able to hold all eight days of public hearings it is planning.
Already scheduled is a two-day session in late March, . . .White House
officials have said Bush does not intend to meet with the entire
commission -- which includes a number of outspoken Democratic critics
-- but instead would meet with a few of its representatives.
Kean said he does not know whether such restrictions would be
acceptable Dan Eggen,
Washington Post, 2/20/04
9/11 - What
Bush Knew
The independent commission
investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said Thursday that it would
seek public testimony from President Bush and Vice President Dick
Cheney about intelligence agency warnings they might have received
before the attacks, a move that could provoke a new showdown between
the panel and the White House. . . . Scott McClellan, told reporters
that the request was among the "issues that we'll continue to discuss
with the commission."
Mr. Bush
could expect to be questioned closely about an Oval Office
intelligence briefing that he received in August 2001, which suggested
that Al Qaeda might be planning terrorist strikes using commercial
airplanes. The White House has refused to make the briefing papers
public PHILIP
SHENON, NY Times, 2/13/04
Will Condi
Tell the Truth*
Two government
sources tell TIME that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is
arguing over ground rules for her appearance in part because she does
not want to testify under oath or, according to one source, in public. .
. .Rice could face tough questioning. One Republican commissioner says a
comment by Rice last year—that no one “could have predicted that they
would try to use a…hijacked airplane as a missile”—was "an unfortunate
comment . . . that was, of course, a wrong-footed statement on its
face," given that there was years of intelligence about Al Qaeda's
interest in airplane attacks.
TIMOTHY J. BURGER , Time Magazine, 12/20/03
Bush
Administration Knowledge Before the 9/11 Attacks*
For the first
time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept.
11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been
prevented . . ."How
is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying
we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records
from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser,
one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to
appoint the commission. . . . Kean promises major revelations in public
testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA,
Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush
and former President Clinton.
Randall Pinkston, CBS News, 12/17/03
What's Bush Afraid of? *
The
chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001,
terror attacks said that the White House was continuing to withhold
several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that
he was prepared to subpoena the documents if they were not turned over
within weeks.
The
chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey,
also said in an interview that he believed the bipartisan 10-member
commission would soon be forced to issue subpoenas to other executive
branch agencies because of continuing delays by the Bush administration
in providing documents and other evidence needed by the panel. . .
Last
year, the White House confirmed news reports that President Bush
received a written intelligence report in August 2001, the month before
the attacks, that Al Qaeda might try to hijack American passenger
planes.
PHILIP SHENON, NY Times, 10/26/03
"The Jersey Girls"
The women;
Lorie van Auken, Kristen Breitweiser, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza
continue to find a lack of official cooperation as well as a great deal
that doesn't add up. They wonder why NORAD - North American Aerospace
Defense Command - didn't act as they should in the case of any air
attack. And if it's true the administration did not know specifics prior
to 9/11, then why is it Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to fly
commercial airlines in the weeks before 9/11? Why did Bush sit in a
classroom joking with second-graders after he was told the attack on
America was underway, while, as Mrs. van Auken puts it, "...my husband
was burning in a building."
For obvious
reasons, it's best not to argue that an investigation such as this is
pursued merely to gain political benefit. Aside from insulting widows,
that argument only reminds us that a sinking Bush presidency itself
gained a number of benefits from 9/11. Let's remember the PNAC, Project
for the New American Century and its "Pearl Harbor" statement which said
a domestic disaster would be helpful in implementing plans to invade
Iraq and sweep the Middle East. Let's remember that George Bush himself
said 9/11 was part of his having "hit the trifecta." That's our Mr.
Bush, the man who really knows how to put the "con" in "compassionate
conservatism."
The group has
not found any satisfactory answers to their many questions, nor do they
see any proof that we're safer now than prior to 9/11. A subsequent lack
of spectacular, multiple attacks within our shores does not prove much
more than that a disaster of Sept. 11 proportions would never have
happened had our government been doing its job. So then, why didn't it?
When we know the answer to that, then we might begin to safeguard
ourselves.
Kurt Kurowski, Democratic Underground.com 9/11/03
Pre-9/11 Intelligence: Kimmel
sees the same patterns surrounding the Bush administration's handling of
9/11. Rather than accepting key officials' protests that the suicide
jetliners caught everyone flatfooted, the 59-year-old, former
counterintelligence expert offers copious evidence to the contrary. For
example, this September 1999 CIA National Intelligence Council Study
excerpt: "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion
could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and
Semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White
House." Billy
Cox
FLORIDA TODAY , 9/5/03
Triumph of a Bush
"[H]aving just been told the country was under attack the commander in
chief appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there
had been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how
to best protect the country from further attacks, or what the current
status of NORAD or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nor did he
call for an immediate return to Washington. Instead, in the
middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turned back to the matter
at hand; the day’s photo op. Precious minutes
were ticking by, and many more lives were at risk. 'Really good readers,
whew!' he told the class as the electronic flashes once again began to
blink and the video cameras rolled. 'These must be sixth graders.'" -
From James Bamford's "Body
of Secrets" Anthony Lappé, September 4, 2003 at Guerrilla News
Network
Bush the Believer:
The real mystery is whether Bush himself realized
how weak the evidence for a preemptive war was or was being manipulated
by a cadre of disciplined administration aides who long had sought a war
with Iraq. . . .
that America should abandon containment, "removing
Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." Ten of the 18 signatories --
including Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz -- are now in the Bush
administration and were among the most vigorous proponents of war.
Richard
Cohen,
Washington Post 7/22/03
9/11 Cover Up?In a status report on its work, the commission
[investigating the 9/11 attacks] said various agencies —
particularly the
Pentagon and the Justice Department —
were blocking requests for vital information and
resources. Acting more like the Soviet Kremlin
than the American government,
the administration has insisted that monitors from various agencies
attend debriefings of key officials by investigators. Mr. Kean is quite
correct in objecting to this as a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation.
Meanwhile, the clock is running for the commission to complete a full
report to the nation by next May.
NY Times Editorial 7/9/03 |
Read the U.S. Patriot Act
HERE.
Patriot Act
Expansion *
In Seattle, the public library printed 3,000
bookmarks to alert patrons that the FBI could, in the name of national
security, seek permission from a secret federal court to inspect their
reading and computer records --
and prohibit librarians from revealing that a
search had taken place.
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