Bush Warned 40 Times Before 9-11

What should Bush have done that Tenet and Clarke didn't have the power to do on their own?

Come on larry. The president is the CinC. Are you suggesting Clarke and Tenet had CinC powers?

Bush could have made Bin Laden a priority. Bush should have, and any other president would have, taken those 40 warnings seriously and placed the entire nation on alert.
Airlines, vulnerable infrastructure locations, etc.

Instead we got silence.

While the Bush Administration was partly to blame, the US government – both presidential administrations and career civil service – both ignored warning or did not act against Islamic radicalism for geopolitical reasons.

The Clinton administration is at least as much to blame for 9/11, if not more so, as they continually chose not to confront Pakistan and the Taliban throughout the 90s for various reasons.

Bush has made unspeakable mistakes in his presidency, but its not fair to put 9/11 all on him. The stage began in 70s and was set when he took office.

I highly suggest anyone who wants to understand how we got to 9/11 to read "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll, if we you haven't already.

Maybe he could have concocted some sort of color-coded warning process for the nation, then pre-emptively invaded some foreign country. Or he could have tapped all our phones.

This is just silly. I don't understand how warnings could have prevented what ultimately happened. That's like saying, "They're going to assassinate somebody." Well, who? When? Where? How?

So, if they shot Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed in broad daylight, it would have been the fault of the White House? Yeah, they shoulda had Secret Service draped all over that guy's dopey fake hair and her big fake melons. It could have been prevented!!!

Is this a post from 2003 or 2008?

I am sure warnings like this come every day – and have since Sept 11. Everyone was to blame (except Democrats in your eyes probably). I echo the above comments of Graham.

Tomorrow maybe you could post about Whitewater or Iran-Contra.

What I expected, for the most part.

For those with hard of reading problems….

Bush received 40…f-o-r-t-y….Daily Briefings which either headlined or included direct warnings about Bin Laden. 40 in 7 months.

A normal human being, when hit in the head 40 times, comes to recognize that there might be a significant reason for getting hit 40 times in the head. But as the comments reflect….opinions vary.

alan: Let's remove the railroad crossing barriers and lights, then. If warnings can't do anything.

And Ben: As the progressive avalanche washes over ya' in November…..you'll be more than happy to talk about the past.

"Everyone was to blame"…..when there's no answer to glaring questions….just blame everybody. Very weak. Just one example would be Clarke. He tried repeatedly to get a briefing with Bush about terrorism…Condi wouldn't let him…..would he be to blame….would he be part of the everybody?

And this old news complaint is lame as well. Do you know what old news is? Freaking Iraq…..but we're still dealing with it and learning more and more every month about the criminals who took us there. Ditto 9-11.

You are all missing a very important point. Look at the evidence – NORAD vanished for two hours, WTC 7 was taken down in a controlled demolition, Bin Laden has not been connected to the attack – check the FBI website, they have "no hard evidence" on him. Bush was not taken to secure location, instead staying at the school for 40 minutes, because he was not a target and secret service knew this, which is why they broke protocol. This list goes on and on…There is no evidence to support the official conspiracy of 19 hijackers working under Bin Laden. Never underestimate the power of denial. The truth will set us free.

Forty times in a year. I wonder how many reports Bush received warning him about Saddam in that time period. Probably hundreds.

As for old news, it' hard not to notice you started rehashing this stuff as soon as The Manchurian's halo started to fade.

Ashcroft had his justice department "reviewing" pornography and Tommy Chong's bongs instead.

He was too stupid to comprehend all that national security stuff so he put it down.

larry: I'm just filtering the newest information on an unsolved event. We had never heard before, at least I hadn't, that Bush had been warned 40 times specifically that Bin Laden was about to attack.

Saddam was being bombed weekly by American fighter pilots before the act of aggression fully kicked off in March of 2003. Saddam was not a direct threat to the U.S., not so of Bin Laden.

In addition, there's no halo fading going on except in the heads of faith-based folks. I've told you repeatedly what the Padders were going to do. Now Hillary is triangulating with them and McCain and Limbaugh in creating some faux reality.

There have been no truths in any of the bluster, none that disqualify Obama, but I fully expected all of it.

I'm not sure I follow you on the 'unsolved event' part, but it seems pretty much recorded history that our nation did not pay enough attention to the terrorism threat leading up to 9-11.

Rev,
I don't know how you keep so many balls in the air on this issue.
First, you said Bush didn't have any meetings about terrorism prior to 9/11. Now you say there were 40.
You say Bush should have done something then, but now you call the war on terrorism phony.
You blame Bush for taking no action then, but now you blame Bush for every action he does take.

Keep juggling those balls Rev, trying to keep them all in the air.

You used to say that Bush didn't have any meetings about terrorism prior to 9/11. Now you say there were 40.

You say Bush should have done something to prevent 9/11 (but of course you don't specify what he should have done), but now you complain about everything Bush does do to prevent attacks. Now you call the entire war on terrorism phony. You attempt to trivialize or dismiss every attack that has been stopped subsequent to 9/11. You rail against harsh interrogation techniques and wiretaps. You want to sue companies who cooperate in the fight against terrorists. You want to throw Gitmo terrorists into our civilian court system (back onto the streets). Every time a government official warns of a possible attack now, you call it neocon wingnut fearmongering. You want to dump the Protect America Act. You want to dump the Patriot Act.

With all the conflicting signals you emit, if I didn't know better, I'd think maybe you are being driven by some sort of political agenda.

Let me pose a scenario for you that might help shed some light on this:

There will be a murder this year inside the United States…

Now tell me what action you would take as president to stop it.

larry: So you now have the answers to WTC-7? Great….I've been waiting for, you know, the truth.

I"ve also been waiting for a credible explanation, as have the 9-11 victims families, on why Bush and His Pet Goat were never alarmed or quickly swept out of Florida.

I suppose you also have an answer to why it was that Ashcroft quit flying commercial airlines in June 0f 2001. Please advise me of the, you know, real reason.

Ditto on why the missile launchers on the Pentagon were never manned…..no fighter pilots could be summoned within a two hour time frame….and last but certainly not least….I suppose you also have the "unsolved event" answers to why it was on the morning of 9-11 that, all up and down the east coast our military was conducting mock terrorist attack exercises, that just coincidentally, effed up radar control towers decision making abilities.

Looking forward to hearing all those answers you have.

King: You either have to read slower or retain more…..you decide.

I have said repeatedly that Richard Clarke, no longer invited to the principals' meetings in 2001, was doing everything he could to impress upon the new Bush bunch that terrorism from Bin Laden's bunch was super-important. No principals meeting was ever held about terrorism. Clarke was never allowed to brief the president.

The 40 briefings I mentioned were just that…..Daily presidential briefings by intelligence officials, usually by George Tenet. A presidential intelligence briefing is daily. A principals meeting to discuss intelligence and what to do about it……never happened at all.

After the much warned about event happened. An event that Bush's bunch did NOTHING to prevent…..then this same bunch took advantage of the "opportunity" they had allowed to happen to roll out their pre-ordained Iraq invasion and occupation plans…..the only way they could get away with the great lie was to instill fear into the national bloodstream. That's exactly what they did and continue to do today.

The Protect America Act is an Orwellian farce and even the spineless Democrats in the House are now realizing that. The Patriot Act….please. It would have been more aptly labeled "The Limiting of American's Rights Act" or perhaps "The Police State Act."

There's no conflicting signals here. Bush/Cheney et al are the terrorists of the world…..the most dangerous terrorists the world faces. Every sentient being, except for the 30% still supporting the international criminals, realizes all of what I'm saying is true.

You, King, have bought into the neo-con philosophy. I know you love your country. Joe Lieberman loves his country too but he is a neo-con whose thinking about the middle east and militarism can not be trusted.

Islamic terrorism is a small threat to America. That's simply a fact. The reason there haven't been any further attacks inside this country is because we don't have any terrorists within our shores…..and really never much did in the first place.

Neo-cons take this small threat and want to lock down America with it. What they really are doing is cynically robbing the Treasury blind while positioning their corporate crony buddies for even more windfalls, all this while counting on the fear-factor to tamp down any contrarian viewpoints.

Someone's back on the sauce!

Interesting, don't ya' think…..whenever I have enough time to elaborate my points….like I did yesterday…..then I'm back on the sauce.

And I'm not even a fan of Italian food.

Well it gets a little silly, Reverend.

Your original post suggests Bush is incompetent because he ignored the terrorist threat. Yet in the end, you're arguing there really isn't much of a terrorist threat.

Rev,
I think that being warned by 40 briefings in 8 months about an upcoming attack on our nation should have stirred anyone into action. Historians will wonder why the administration slept. Of course, their are many things about 9/11 to wonder about. How was it that a NORAD training exercise was happening at the same time? How was it that the training exercise effectively left DC unprotected? Why weren't SAMs located on various government builidings used? Isn't it unusual that the WTC towers are the only steel frame buildings to succumb to fire? Isn't it convenient that they and WTC 7 fell onto their footprint like a controlled demolition? How were the hijackers identified and what was the source of their mug shots that were displayed? Why did Bush have to be forced by the 9/11 widows to conduct an investigation?
One thing that will not be questioned is that the Bush administration used 9/11 to enact a series of unconstitutional acts and actions.

larry: There was a specific threat in 2001. A specific threat pertaining to a small band of Islamic radicals. A threat the White House really didn't have much time invested in finding out about.

Now that this White House failed so miserably at protecting the country….I say so miserably because they weren't even interested in finding out why 40 specific briefings referred to Bin Laden striking….that's some real defenders there…..now that they failed, not until after they had failed….did they get all hysterical about instituting a King and a police state completely decked out with torture and wars of aggression.

All based on fearmongering over the same small band of Islamic radicals they weren't interested in, in the first place.

That's what's silly.

Rev,
You have never to date responded to my multiple requests asking what Bush should have done to prevent 9/11, so I'll repeat the theoretical question to you. I'll even make it simpler this time:

You are the president, and you are told there will be a terrorist attack in the country sometime this year. What would you do to prevent it ? That's pretty much what Bush faced according to you.

Obviously, we can eliminate you doing anything like wiretaps, telecom cooperation, harsh interrogation, detaining suspects, racial profiling, a Patriot Act, updating FISA, or anything like that, since you know all that is unconstitutional and wouldn't work, and besides, the warning about the attack is probably just scare tactics meant to instill fear into people so they'll vote for a certain candidate.

Keep juggling, Rev.

I'll even help you out by telling you one thing Bush could have done that could possibly have prevented 9/11 – He could have torn down the Clinton/Gorelick intelligence "wall" that prevented our intelligence agencies and justice departments from sharing information (assuming he even knew about it). Of course, Clinton could have not erected the wall in the first place to "safeguard our rights".

But why do I think if Bush had done that prior to 9/11, some lefty like, oh, say, YOU, would have crucified him for it and called him a fascist, criminal, constitution trampling, unitary executive dictator who was removing the protections for american citizens ?

Mr. King,
I think you are the one who is juggling. The Rev's point is that Bush took no action despite the forty warnings he received. Do you think that if this information had been accumulated through illegal wiretaps, torture, or other unconstitutional means, that Bush would have paid attention? The information was already there; none of those illegal acts were necessary in gaining that information. This was not an intelligence failure, it was a failure to respond.

frank,
Are you actually suggesting that Bush had specific knowledge of the who, where, and when of the 9/11 terrorist attack, and just ignored it and let it happen, perhaps in order to further some machiavellian goals ?

There's a word for people who believe such things. It begins with "moon" and ends with "bat". Up until now I didn't think you were one of them. Sorry to hear that you are. I'm selling tin foil hats for $9.95, and I have a buy one get one free sale going on. Get yours now, before supplies run out !

Mr. King,
Time to get your reading specs checked. I did not say that Bush had prior knowledge (though I wouldn't rule it out). The Rev wrote that Bush did nothing despite forty warnings about Al-Qaeda in eight months. I tried to point out that he received pretty good intelligence without resorting to the unconstitutional and illegal methods used subsequently.
I can understand why you have a surplus of tin foil hats. All your supporters already have theirs.