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Administration Ignored Bin Laden Intel
gettin-bored noted a nice article running in very high priority on the Washington Post, right up there on page 17 of the print edition, where it's revealed that the CIA Director warned Rice about Bin Laden two months before 9/11. And strangely, the meeting was never mentioned during all the 9/11 commission reports making you really question what exactly they were actually hearing that was more important than the CIA director telling the National Security Advisor that Bin Laden was going to attack Americans.
The fundamental problem is that the current White house administration is not remotely curious or interested in looking beyond their narrowly defined agendas. So, any deviation from what they expect is by definition, unexpected or inconvenient. This is a recurring theme again and again with hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, the economy, energy prices, the whole torture thing and recently with senator Foley, where higher ups *knew* what was going on but they either failed to act or simply did not care as long as they can maintain power. Power for powers sake seems to be the theme here as this administration is always behind the ball. They are constantly reacting to events rather than through analysis and action being proactive and it is costing the country financially and in lives lost as well as our international reputation.
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Uh, WTF does this have to do with "News for Nerds"?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a Green Party-voting liberal, but I don't see how this is even remotely in line with the supposed purpose of this site. I mean, do we really need another ten thousand Bush-bashing posts?
--saint
Most of the principals were in the country by the time Bush came to office, killing Bin Laden wouldn't have done much. Even now, Al Qaeda is not some monolith organization, and it is academically lazy to think of it as one. Bin Laden's capture would certainly have a demoralizing effect, but it would not cripple the organization, nor would killing him in early 2001 have done so. Hell, we really need to get Al-Zawahri, but have been failing at that.
9/11 CANNOT be blamed on one individual. True, Clinton did not do as much as he should have during his term, but Bush obviously didn't see the flaws being all that major as he didn't do anything about them in the first 9 months. Also recall that anything Clinton did in the Middle East(most hypocritically was bomb Iraq) was labeled as "Wag the Dog" by Republicans. Meanwhile, when they do similar things they are being "tough on terrorism".
The intelligence failures showed systemic flaws in the US intelligence gathering organization, flaws that go back decades(hell, Bush Sr. was head of the CIA for a few months). As George Tenet said, 9/11 was a "failure of imagination" on the part of the intelligence community. And so far in my opinion Bush has done almost nothing to fix those flaws. Well, he has allowed Army translators who are in short supply to be fired because they are gay, I guess there is always that. Also see the court cases of dismissed FBI agents who claimed they were ignored when they warned about attacks. The system is broken, and Clinton blaming Bush and Bush blaming Clinton surprisingly won't fix it. Killing Bin Laden won't fix it. Iraq certainly won't fix it. Nor will using homeland security money to pay off political backers and punish adversaries(Because we all know Indiana has the most potential terrorist targets). What needs to be done cannot be boiled down to a soundbite, but I do know that past administrations, this administration and in all likelihood future administrations don't have the will or desire to really fix it, but instead like to apply popular band-aids and use ad-hominem attacks on their critics.
Monstar L
Keith Olbermann has an incredibly poignant video response on this issue. This is probably what motivated some conservative nutjob to send him a letter full of soap powder. Sometimes I wonder about people.
As reluctant as I am to defend this loathesome administration, you need to get your facts straight.
Condi Rice served as National Security Council staff director for Soviet and East European affairs in Bush 41's administration. By all accounts she did a very good job--as judged by her superiors Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor, and the first President Bush. I think it's safe to say that a number of significant events in Soviet and East European affairs took place at this point in history, which I'll leave as an exercise for you to research. Do you think that maybe Rice had a hand in crafting the US response to those events, given her position?
Yes, Rice is black and female. So. What. Neither fact speaks to her qualifications to be National Security Advisor. Or is that a position that can only be held by a white male?
I think your racism and sexism is showing. (And no, your "male American of Japanese ancestry" comment does not insulate you.)
It wouldn't have mattered if they saw it or not. It didn't say anything about what happened on 9/11.
At best, it says bin laden from 2 or more years ago wanted to strike the US inside it's borders, Some of his operatives are US citizens and have traveled in or though the US, there are 70 investigation going on by the FBI suggesting more information would become availible and they were monitoring it, It gives a few misleading potential targets, referes to a foiled attempted attack on LAX by the candian government, and suggest if a plane was hijacked, it would be to hold hostages for the release of two operatives and not to use as a missle and destroy several buildings.
Smoking gun? Only if you read into it what you know today. But if you objectivly look at it from what was known then, how would you read it? How would you have know that event on 9/11 was going to happen and how could you have stoped it. Remeber, don't answer with anything known after 9/11 to be honest. But if you ask the Question "did you get a report claiming 9/11 was going to happen 2 months before 9/11?" you could probably reply with hoestly and say "no". I'm not saying that more wasn't known but if what we know that was known is true, it didn't offer much of anything on the predictability of 9/11.
Now as this is related to the July 10th 2001 meeting between Tenet and Rice concerning a June 30th 2001 report that was a consolidation of "bits and pieces" of inteligence sent to the NSA for verification and analisis, that the article, though Tenet's own admisions, claims he and the document didn't say much of anything specific other then it is likley Al Qeada and Bin Ladin are up to something and he had a gut feeling it was going to be big and soon. Then Augast 6th 2001 the refernced document "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," was submited to the presidential daily briefing.
What this shows to me is, that people were doing something about our security, they were analizing the facts and informing the people needing to make the decisions, but we didn't know how to act as Tenet would have liked on the information because it didn't tell us what was going to happen.
And the article did state a plan take out bin laden and Al Qeada leaders was in the works but stalled on technicle details and would take some time to work out. Curriously, I'm wondering why they couldn't use one of Clintons left over plans that should have already had the details worked out. I doubt just taking bin ladin and Al Qeada leaders out would have stoped or disrupted 9/11 though. The plan was too long in the making and too close to execution. I think this might be a political astro-turffing article designed to gain favor for republicans and motivate them to the polls this election cycle. It shows how dificult it was to determin what Al Qeada were upto and it shows that the government was actualy doing something, just not enough because the information wasn't there. I'm sure democrates will try to use the slant on this to make republicans look bad but repulican voters tend to look at all the information and see the entire picture so it is sure to infuriate them enough to show up.
Bush's mistake is still going and has taken thousands of American lives with no end in sight, countless numbers of Iraqi lives, and billions of dollars. What's the current cost, 1-2 billion a day? Is it really worth it? Didn't less people die in the unfortunate 9/11 incidents than have did in Iraq so far? Is this an appropriate response? Are we actually "winning" any war on terrorism by military destabilization, rather than education and assisting these people? I'd like to think that 300-400 billion dollars in aid every year could produce one hell of a better civilization for a 3rd world nation, rather than killing people and blowing things up, but that's just me.
When you're going to bomb a building, you should make sure you have the right intel. I'm not %100 sure but I think the building was bombed when there weren't many people inside (or a minimal amount) so the casualties weren't large. It's an appropriate response to a bad intel, which until the thing was actually bombed enough people thought it was a legitimate threat. (and honestly, there's no proof it wasn't making chemicals that could produce nerve agents, and there was still a very good chance it was supply the bin Laden group with money, which makes it a decent target anyway if you're actually fighting a "war on terror")
When you invade a country, depose their leader, destabilize the entire region, torture citizens and attempt to convert an entire nation to your form of government and social expectations in a small amount of time, I think you need to be absolutely sure of what you're doing and absolutely have your facts straight. It's a much larger idea. If Bush had decided to bomb all of the sites in Iraq that may or may not have had "WMD's", and just left things alone, I believe that the entire world would have supported his decision, even if a few of them were inaccurate. (they can probably dig up enough circumstantial evidence to attempt to prove that there was something sinister going on at a few sites, but perhaps not all). Instead, Bush went the extra mile of righteousness, and invaded the entire country under a very weak pretext. I don't care how Republican or Democrat you are, this should be a Very Bad Thing. Especially now that we know there was very little to no threat from Iraq in the near future.
This should not be about any ignorant partisan politics. People are currently dying, there's no end in sight, and people want to turn things into a "blowjobs vs. bombs" debate.
What a wonderful country. I've never felt more ashamed to be American.