Bush knew of Hijack threat before it happened

[Eaglecz]

after war is everybody general

[Intrepid]

Midnight where did you hear that?  What source?

Here is what I have been seeing reported:

Democrats: "We need to investigate these reports and see what we could have missed / what we could have done differently / why we waited 8 months to share this info.

From what I've read in the WSJ and washington post

Nonetheless, some Democrats suggested that President Bush was somehow complicit in Sept. 11: "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president, what the White House knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time," said Rep. Dick Gephardt, the House minority leader.


Cheney was the one who told'em to back off with the political smear campaign and agreed an investigation is in order to see what if anything went wrong.

http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110001725

[Jack55]

"Bush knew of Hijack threat before it happened."

That depends on what the definition of "knew" is.  

[Eagler]

Sunday, May 19, 2002 10:21 p.m. EDT
Giuliani: 9-11 Probe Should Include Clinton Administration

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that any investigation into what the Bush administration knew in advance of the 9-11 attacks should also probe the Clinton administration.

After an address to Georgetown University Law School graduates, Giuliani was asked about New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's call for a probe into the possible mishandling of 9-11 warnings by the Bush White House.

"The information that we're talking about, a lot of it goes back to 1998 and 1999 when Mrs. Clinton's husband was president," Giuliani told the Associated Press.

The man who earned the title "America's Mayor" for his leadership in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks said that any 9-11 probe should look at both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

"Remember, the Bush administration, when this attack took place, was a very new administration and they had just inherited the intelligence apparatus put in place by the Clinton administration. So when you look at this, you're going to have look at both," he told the AP.

"We're looking at a continuous course of conduct here," Giuliani added. "I don't know that people should be playing that kind of game."

The ex-New York City mayor said he didn't think either the Bush or Clinton administrations had enough information to have prevented the 9-11 attacks.

Giuliani's call for a probe into Clinton's handling of pre-9-11 intelligence information on al Qaeda follows comments earlier in the day by New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli, who recommended a probe into what he called a "misallocation" of counterterrorism resources during the Clinton years.

[midnight Target]

But it was such a good quote Toad!

You are correct about the personal attacks. My point is this:

1. It is the job of the opposition party to question those actions that they feel are not in the best interest of the Country.
2. The Dems have called for an investigation. Of course there is political intent, but no accusatory retoric.
3. The GOP has basically twisted the calls for an investigation into an attack on the President.

[RRAM]

I'll give a foreigner point of view... (so I may be messing in rough waters here, hehe )

Originally posted by Lance

From the day Clinton set foot in the Whitehouse, every turd that floated down the D.C. sewer was picked up and hurled at him by some conservative to see if it would stick.  From allegations of financial fraud to murder.  One finally did, and somehow that justifies all of the other attempts that were made to politically assasinate a President of the U.S.?  I guess it makes sense if you believe that you are somehow justified in imposing your preferred political ideology on the country irregardless of the one chosen by the will of the people, heh.

Well, you reap what you sow.  The Republican party set a new low-standard for acceptable political tactics during Clinton's terms and now the Democrats are simply using some of them themselves.  I'm not happy about it, but that is what is going on here.   Conservatives can't very well squeak now when it was perfectly justifiable for them to do the same things when the last President was in office.  

Doing something for the national best interest?  What a joke.  That has been absent from the thought process of both parties for a long time now.  It has been replaced with "win if you can, but if you can't, then take the other guy's bellybutton OUT."  Who gives a damn about the wishes of the people as expressed at the voting booth?  .

Aye, Lance...but main problem is that, back when Clinton was in office you weren't in the middle of a war. It was peace time and internal politics where what mattered.

Now, in a war, and with your national security under continuous compromise (like it or not, it has been this way since 11/9), internal politics are second to national security. And releasing this kind of toejam (true or not) at this moment is to act like a scumbag. No more no less.

Here in spain is the same old story, when a party is in the government, the other one tries to bring it down with whatever piece of toejam (true or untrue) ,related with the other party, can be used against them.  When the roles are changed, so does the accusations. Low standards are common in politics ,but they are so in peace times. Not at war.

And yes, Is true, politics are usually full of scumbags with no honor, but ,damnit, you're still at war, it's supposed that this kind of information MUST be held back until it's over, and that even jerks with no sense of honor will have some kind of NATIONAL pride!.

To release this information (?) is damaging to your country as a whole, and so, it borders treason (someone said it above and I agree with him). And...this is proof that low morale standards in politics have gone UNDER national loyalty and patriotism. And that is VERY disturbing. It would be for me, a stupid spaniard, if it happened in my own nation, go figure for you, guys, who are the ones fighting a war.


Low morale standards are admisible (barely, but we are used to them) when everything goes fine. now are not. IMO, of course.


P.S. I don't like Bush a single bit; but I'm sure he didn't knew THIS was going to happen.

[Kieran]

You are correct about the personal attacks. My point is this:

1. It is the job of the opposition party to question those actions that they feel are not in the best interest of the Country.
2. The Dems have called for an investigation. Of course there is political intent, but no accusatory retoric.
3. The GOP has basically twisted the calls for an investigation into an attack on the President.

Agree with #1, disagree with #'s 2 & 3. You're kidding yourself if you believe Democratic calls for investigations aren't finger-pointing. Notice the very narrow focus of their attention, not broadening the scope to include the Clinton administration (who btw had far more history with bin Laden).

The Republicans twisted Democratic accusations into attacks? Now that is one sweet spin...

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Kieran


Agree with #1, disagree with #'s 2 & 3. You're kidding yourself if you believe Democratic calls for investigations aren't finger-pointing. Notice the very narrow focus of their attention, not broadening the scope to include the Clinton administration (who btw had far more history with bin Laden).

The Republicans twisted Democratic accusations into attacks? Now that is one sweet spin...

You may be right Kieran, but I still have not seen an instance of the Democratic leadership "Accusing" the President of anything. If they are I will happily call them horrible names.
 
Of course finding out "what we knew and when we knew it" should extend to whenever, including the Clinton administration.

[Thrawn]

I guess no one should have questioned what Regan was doing during the war on plaque.

What about Bush Sr. during the war on drugs?

There is no foreseeable end to the war on terroism, does that mean from now on you should never question your President?  Makes a sweet dictatorship if that's the case.

Interesting how Bush Jr. had all the power of the President of the United States for 9 months, but some people believe he didn't have any of the responsiblity.  What if the the attack had come 12 months after his inaugeration...24?

[Kieran]

Thrawn-

It isn't that questions shouldn't be asked, or that there isn't some culpability somewhere- who knows? The point is the reason the calls are coming, and are pointed as they are, is purely political. This isn't fact-finding, this is smear.

Sure, explore Iran-Contra- wait, it was.

Sure, explore Bush Sr. and the war on drugs- wait, he was.

Did anyone blame WJC for the WTC bombing? Not in my memory, at least not anyone credible. He may have been criticized for his actions afterward, but that is not completely unjustified, either.

The suggestion being forwarded by this furor is that not only did Bush have foreknowledge of the attack, but he did nothing to prevent it. Pretty unfair accusation to make. bin Laden says, "we're gonna get that WTC someday soon"- wow! This was pretty much public knowledge. So, what now?

[AKIron]

We’ve known for almost a decade now that there are Muslim extremists intent on destroying western civilization and the U.S. in particular. The question as to whether we could have prevented the 9-11 attack is moot. The question we now face is can and will we prevent another perhaps dramatically worse attack on the U.S.. No one in the U.S. wants a police state but what measures are we willing to endure to prevent such an attack?

The government walks a tight rope here, ensuring civil liberties while also ensuring the safety of it’s citizens. Can we have both, and at what point does safety outweigh freedom?

[Thrawn]

Many people on this board have said that Clinton didn't act on the infromation he recieved on  Bin Laden, while he in office.  It now appears that Bush Jr. had the same information Clinton had.  

Now, some of these same people say that Bush isn't responsible for his inaction.  I find the hippocracy interesting, but in no way surprising.

[Kieran]

I take nothing from Clinton for not acting on information he had per se, as I don't know about the quality of said information. What I can criticize him for is his actions on both occasions when it was obvious bin Laden was the mastermind behind the 90's attacks (WTC and USS Cole). Both could be construed as acts of war, particularly the Cole. Sending a few missiles over has proven to be seen a weakness. This is hindsight of course. And, to be totally fair, at least minimum Muslim support must be had by any power thinking of attacking any Muslim faction or nation. This is an unpalatable reality to many Americans, but it is nonetheless true.

[H. Godwineson]

A couple of points to ponder;

1.  The terrorist threat grew significantly during Clinton's watch.  What measures did he take to counter it?  How well did they prepare the American people for the possibility of a terrorist attack?

2.  Had you been President in the month prior to 9/11, what actions would you have taken given the amount of information available to President Bush?  Remember, all you have to go on is a single, vague memorandum lost among a vast pile of similar documents about threats all over the world.

Not so easy, is it?

Regards, Shuckins

[wsnpr]

Originally posted by AKIron
We’ve known for almost a decade now that there are Muslim extremists intent on destroying western civilization and the U.S. in particular. The question as to whether we could have prevented the 9-11 attack is moot. The question we now face is can and will we prevent another perhaps dramatically worse attack on the U.S.. No one in the U.S. wants a police state but what measures are we willing to endure to prevent such an attack?

The government walks a tight rope here, ensuring civil liberties while also ensuring the safety of it’s citizens. Can we have both, and at what point does safety outweigh freedom?

LOL it is sad how we ignore what effects US foriegn policy has on other people's right to self determination and democracy. Multinational corporations have been controlling other 2nd and 3rd world nations' economies and their political leaderships for decades now.