Bush knew of Hijack threat before it happened

[Ripsnort]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/politics/16INQU.html?ex=1022126400&en=39284647d5a85528&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

Granted, it was "The threat of knowing Bin Laden wanted to hijack in the traditional sense, not knowing that suicide extremists would take part in the sneak attack..."

Do you think he's to blame or partially to blame for 9/11?

[Sikboy]

I'm probably biased due to my Intel insterest and Experience, but I'd say no.

-Sikboy

[Udie]

heh I was watching CNN this morning and just luaghed at Paula Zahn.  She was typical of the left.   She was interviewing Sen. Shelby and talking about intelligence matters when she says "to be fair to the administration, they were not told that the planes would be used as missles, but does that make this any less inditing?"  

 Gotta love that soft spin....  I can't wait to hear what Dashle has to say

[hblair]

He's no more to blame than Roosevelt was for Pearl Harbor.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by hblair
He's no more to blame than Roosevelt was for Pearl Harbor.

....as the can of worms is not only opened, but droped on the floor

[Lance]

I don't think they are to blame.  But I do think we should have a thorough and honest critical analysis of what went on preceding 9/11 to figure out if we could better protect ourselves in the future.  Glad to hear it sounds like we are doing that.

As mentioned in that article, you had the FBI and CIA both seperately developing intelligence that taken together might have raised more of a red flag in terms of a likely attack.  Neither knew what the other was doing, and so the information was never collated and presented as a whole to the President.  It would seem like right there we have room for improvement.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Lance

As mentioned in that article, you had the FBI and CIA both seperately developing intelligence that taken together might have raised more of a red flag in terms of a likely attack.  Neither knew what the other was doing, and so the information was never collated and presented as a whole to the President.  It would seem like right there we have room for improvement.

Agree 100%

[NATEDOG]

If you think about it, he knew about as much as we knew.......... some dumb bellybutton terrorist is gonna hijack a plane....... that's little more than common sense. I know it's gonna happen, but I don't know when or where or what plane, or what they will do with it....... That's just the crazy world we live in.

[miko2d]

OBL says to one of his friends "we are going to hijack an american plane".

 CIA learns about that - no time, no specific target, no idea how credible it is. What can Bush do? Ground all american planes until further notice? That would immediately cost us an intelligence source for no apparent gain - as OBL will see that an info he told one "friend" is immediately available to us. Bush cannot even defend himself by revealing exactly what and how he knew because while that info might not have been helpfull in preventing the attack, it would definitely blow our intelligence networks that provided it.

 Even if such an action really prevented a hijacking (99.99% of threat warnings are not valid), the public would not know that and would not tolerate such shutdown.
 How about bombing OBL and Afghanistan on such warning? Millions of americans and most people abroad opposed such actions even after 9/11. What would have been a chance of getting the measure approved (including by US Congress) before 9/11?

 Let's be consistent guys. We know that there are massive terrorist organisations out there planning our downfall. We may not be able to deflect all their attacks. Why not ground all our planes preventively right now until we deal with them?

 How about just using less oil? Any takers?

 miko

[miko2d]

Originally posted by Lance
...in that article, you had the FBI and CIA both seperately developing intelligence that taken together might have raised more of a red flag in terms of a likely attack.  Neither knew what the other was doing, and so the information was never collated and presented as a whole to the President.  It would seem like right there we have room for improvement.

 There is a good reason for not collating work of two intelligence agencies or departments of the egencies. Once you do that they become one and a single point of failure develops. Penetrate the collating center and both are compromised without any way to fix it.
 The whole point of duplication and loss of efficiency is to allow different entities control each other.

 miko

[Udie]

What year did OBL declare "war" on america?  We've known since then.  We had our collective eyes closed to that until the 9/11 wake up call.

[Wanker]

If this would've happened when Clinton was President, you guys would've been all besides yourself with rightous indignation about how he was asleep at the wheel, and that it was another example of the Liberals taking the country down the tubes.

Yet, when this happens with Bush in the White House, you just wave it away with an "oh well, what can you do?"

As C3PO says, "How typical".

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by banana
If this would've happened when Clinton was President, you guys would've been all besides yourself with rightous indignation about how he was asleep at the wheel, and that it was another example of the Liberals taking the country down the tubes.

Yet, when this happens with Bush in the White House, you just wave it away with an "oh well, what can you do?"

As C3PO says, "How typical".

No, we'd be saying "how he was asleep at the wheel getting blowjobs in the Whitehouse"...big difference between doing your job, and getting blowjobs in the Oral office.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by banana
If this would've happened when Clinton was President, you guys would've been all besides yourself with rightous indignation about how he was asleep at the wheel, and that it was another example of the Liberals taking the country down the tubes.

Yet, when this happens with Bush in the White House, you just wave it away with an "oh well, what can you do?"

As C3PO says, "How typical".

You sure are painting with a wide brush there banana.

-Sikboy

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Ripsnort


No, we'd be saying "how he was asleep at the wheel getting blowjobs in the Whitehouse"...big difference between doing your job, and getting blowjobs in the Oral office.

If GW had gotten a hummer in the "Oral Office" maybe it would have cleared his mind a little.