Powell: Early Action Might Not Have Stopped 9/11

[rodbarnett]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even if the United States had gone after al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks it might not have prevented them from taking place, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told investigators on Tuesday.

In a defense of the administration's conduct before the attacks that killed 3,000 people, Powell also said top officials mistakenly believed the main danger from the militant network was against targets abroad.

<snip>

He said the Bush administration determined early on to destroy al Qaeda but did not complete a strategy to carry out that decision until just days before the attacks.

"Most of us still thought that the principal threat was outside the country," Powell told the commission meeting in a hearing room at the U.S. Congress. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was to appear later in the day.

"Anything we might have done against al Qaeda in this period or against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) may or may not have had any influence on these people who were already in this country, already had their instructions, were already burrowed in and were getting ready to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11," Powell said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=1&u=/nm/20040323/pl_nm/security_commission_dc

[CO Liberal]

1. In Other Words, Bill Clinton's Off The Hook

:-)

[Lorien]

9. That was my first thought too

won't keep the creeps from trying to pass the buck again, though.

[HuckleB]

2. Ah, so early action MIGHT HAVE stopped them!

Yet, early action didn't happen -- because the White House didn't do its job and ignored a great deal of information given to them by the Clinton administration -- so there was no chance that it might have done so.

Oops. Colin let the cat out of the bag! He admitted that the White House blew it.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

22. Yeah, early action, like not recruiting OBL for the CIA during

REAGAN's administration in the first place.

Or abandoning him during BUSH41's administration.

[goforit]

23. Ahhhh........but was he really abandoned?

He just mysteriously escapes every time.

Hmmmmmm.............

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

26. No, when the Russians left, we stopped paying him

that is when we became the great satan to him.

[onehandle]

3. Every word quoted there tells me one thing...

They f*cked up. These are the phrases of an administration with no excuse.

"might not have prevented"

"top officials mistakenly believed"

"did not complete a strategy (until it was too late)"

"Most of us still thought"

"Anything we might have done.....may or may not have had any influence on these people"

[LynneSin]

4. You know it takes 20 minutes to get those jets from Dover to DC

Maybe we could have prevented some of it. As soon as that first building was attacked we should have had our jets out there monitoring any commericial airline off it's normal course.

We might not have saved everyone, but we could have saved more!

[papau]

5. NOPE - Powell says Early Action might not stop-AP says bad Clinton (Tenet

diplomacy. But all agree military invasion of Afghanistan was not possible because not supported by public pre 9/11

Some Data sources: Sept 11 panel: http://www.9-11commission.gov

Commission statements are available at:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/documents/911commission6.pdf

http://wid.ap.org/documents/documents/911commission5.pdf

Tuesday, July 8, 2003: First Interim Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/report_2003-07-08.pdf

Wednesday, September 23, 2003: Second Interim Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Press Briefing http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/report_2003-09-23.pdf

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=716&e=11&u=/n...

Powell: Early Action (from 1/20/2001 to 9/11) Might Not Have Stopped 9/11 By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even if the United States had gone after al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks it might not have prevented them from taking place, Secretary of State Colin Powell told investigators on Tuesday.

In a defense of the administration's conduct before the attacks that killed 3,000 people, Powell also said top officials mistakenly believed the main danger from the militant network was against targets abroad. <snip>

"Anything we might have done against al Qaeda in this period or against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) may or may not have had any influence on these people who were already in this country, already had their instructions, were already burrowed in and were getting ready to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11," Powell said.

Separately, a commission report said the Clinton administration had four opportunities in the late 1990s to try to kill bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, but held back -- for fear of killing innocent civilians or out of lack of confidence in the intelligence. <snip>

Albright said she and other members of the administration would have been prepared to kill bin Laden from the time of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa until the day Clinton left office. <snip>


http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZEUWC6SD.html
Preliminary Findings of Sept. 11 Commission The Associated Press Published: Mar 23, 2004

<snip>-From the spring of 1997 to September 2001 the U.S. government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan to a country where he could face justice and that would not be a sanctuary for his organization. The efforts employed inducements, warnings and sanctions. All these efforts failed.

-The U.S. government also pressed two successive Pakistani governments to demand that the Taliban cease providing a sanctuary for bin Laden and his organization and, failing that, to cut off their support for the Taliban. Before Sept. 11 the United States could not find a mix of incentives or pressure that would persuade Pakistan to reconsider its fundamental relationship with the Taliban.

-From 1999 through early 2001, the United States pressed the United Arab Emirates, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside world, to break off ties and enforce sanctions, especially related to air travel to Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little before Sept. 11.

-The government of Saudi Arabia worked closely with top U.S. officials in major initiatives to solve the bin Laden problem with diplomacy. On the other hand, before Sept. 11 the Saudi and U.S. governments did not achieve full sharing of important intelligence information or develop an adequate joint effort to track and disrupt the finances of the al-Qaida organization. <snip>

-Both civilian and military officials of the Defense Department said that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap...

9/11 Panel Blames Intelligence Failures By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Lacking the intelligence information they needed to strike directly at Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), Clinton and Bush administration officials fruitlessly sought a diplomatic solution to get the al-Qaida leader out of Afghanistan (news - web sites), a federal panel said Tuesday.

Not until the day before the Sept. 11 attacks did U.S. officials settle on a strategy to overthrow the Taliban Afghan government if a final diplomatic push failed. That strategy was expected to take three years, the independent commission investigating the attacks said in one of two preliminary reports.

U.S. officials feared that a failed attempt on bin Laden could kill innocents and would only boost bin Laden's prestige. And the American public and Congress would have opposed any large-scale military operations before the September 2001 attacks, the report said. <snip>

_ U.S. officials were concerned that Taliban supporters in Pakistan's military would warn bin Laden of pending operations. The U.S. government had information that the former head of Pakistani intelligence, Hamid Gul, as a private citizen, had contacted Taliban leaders in July 1999 and assured them that he would provide three or four hours of warning before any U.S. missile launch as he had the "last time'" — an apparent reference to a failed 1998 cruise missile attack on bin Laden. <snip>

_ Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the commission that "he did not recall any particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention before" the Sept. 11 attacks, other than using unmanned aircraft against bin Laden.

"From the spring of 1997 to September 2001, the U.S. government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden to a country where he could face justice," the report said. "The efforts employed inducements, warnings and sanctions. All these efforts failed." <snip>

The report described Saudi Arabia as "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism," citing lax oversight of charitable donations that may have funded terrorists. <snip>

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout...

9/11 commission chides Clinton's diplomacy
Decision not to pursue terrorists militarily cost later, panel says
HOPE YEN ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Clinton administration turned to the Saudis for help. Clinton designated CIA Director George Tenet as his representative to work with the Saudis, who agreed to make an "all-out secret effort" to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden.

Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, using "a mixture of possible bribes and threats," received a commitment from Taliban leader Mullah Omar that bin Laden would be handed over.

But Omar reneged on the agreement during a September 1998 meeting with Turki and Pakistan's intelligence chief.

"When Turki angrily confronted him Omar lost his temper and denounced the Saudi government. The Saudis and Pakistanis walked out," the report said.<snip>

The commission's report Tuesday said Clarke pushed for immediate and secret military aid to the Taliban's foe, the Northern Alliance. But Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, proposed a broader review of the Al Qaeda response that would take more time. The proposal wasn't approved for Bush's review until just weeks before Sept. 11.<snip>

[54anickel]

6. But what about the argument by Clarke, that if Bushco would have

taken the threat of Al Qaeda seriously, the cells here in the states that planned these attacks would have probably been stopped. Bushco supposedly dropped the ball on intelligence in this area, No? Did I misunderstand some of what Clarke was saying?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Demo Tex knew there was a problem....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1263588

[Tansy_Gold]

8. Demo Tex was correct.

The main point is that the attacks were carried out by human beings; they were not events of natural occurence that could neither be predicted nor countered nor prevented.

They could, therefore, have been stopped. Period. There is no law of physics that says "Acts of terrorism cannot be prevented."

And given what we now know about the events leading up to and on 9/11, there are many points along the sequence that could have led to very different outcomes.

As early as, IIRC, the afternoon of 9/11, reports were out that ticket sellers at Logan admitted they should have flagged the cash sales of eight one-way tickets for passengers without luggage. This portion of the sequence had NOTHING to do with the * administration or anything else; it was simple ordinary routine security. The ticketsellers should have notified someone -- FAA, airport security, the pilots, whatever.

Taking that back just one tiny step, IF the * administration had quietly informed the airport security mechanisms to be on heightened alert -- no more difficult than warning Ashcroft to avoid flying on the airlines, as Demo Tex pointed out -- someone could have delayed the boarding of those eight passengers. The slightest change in the hijackers' plans could have prevented the hijacking, could have put them on different flights, could have grounded them, could have. . . . just about anything.

Human actions have consequences, and even human inaction has consequences. I suppose the criteria then becomes, what would a reasonable person do in those circumstances? Would a reasonable person, knowing that there had been increased terrorist chatter and that the terrorists who were doing the chattering were linked to previous attacks against U.S. interests and facilities, would that reasonable person have taken extra precautions against another such attack?

Personally, I think a reasonable person could be expected to do that. To do SOMETHING, at least. And yet what I think we've seen out of the * administration is that they did nothing, they couldn't be expected to do anything, they didn't KNOW anyone would fly planes. . . . etc., etc., etc.

Much as I would like to think -- just because I loathe and despise them so much -- that the *ies LIHOP or even MIHOP, I think the more likely explanation is that IHBTASFINCI -- It Happened Because They Are Such Fucking Ideological NeoCon Idiots. And because they are idiots who should never have been allowed to take control of the U.S. government.

What shall we call their inaction? Contributory negligence? Can we throw them in jail on those charges? I sure hope so.

Tansy Gold, stealing time from work while the boss is away

[Beetwasher]

12. Actually, I Think They Got Played, Big Time

I think they pulled back investigating some of the hijackers at the request of their Saudi business partners and were told not to worry about them and they got played.

[skypilot]

10. You know what?

Let's just, for a minute, forget about the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to 9/11. What about ON 9/11? What did they do to stop or minimize the devastation of the attacks ON Sept.11?

[FormerOstrich]

11. and let's not forget that

August.....

......2001


* was on VACATION.......



........... on the ranch


the entire month.............

[BigBigBear]

13. Well, we already know

what effect NO action had on 9/11.

[thingfish]

14. While technically true in a semantic sense, this is a bogus evasion.

The question is not whether they could have stopped 9/11 from happening. It's whether they took sufficient steps to do so. If they'd taken sufficient steps, and the terrorists had still succeeded, that would be different from if they took no steps at all, which is apparently the case.

[ignatius]

15. It was more than taking no steps at all, it was having someone

in the administration telling the military to stand down,thus not following standard operating procedures, thus taking steps to allow 9-11 to happen. That is the question which begs asking, who was that person? Why 2 days later were Saudi Arabians, including members of the Bin Laden family, allowed to leave this country unquestioned?

[0007]

16. What could anyone with a brain expect Colin Powell to say?

The least piece of credibility that rides in junior's boat and bull shits the world, couldn't say anything less.

[Disturbed]

17. Colon Credibilty= Zero

Another lame statement of Cover Bushco Asses.

[chookie]

18. Why is it a good idea now, but "impossible" then, Colin?

It seems that every couple of weeks, we get some sort of TERRA TERRA TERRA! alert. On a number of occasions, suspect individuals are identified, and the news media broadcasts their photos and descriptions, and the public and various agencies know to be on the lookout for these creeps. People can *choose* whether they want to fly, or tour a "symbolic target".

Gee -- the creeps that committed this act were already being tracked, by Mossad, and had been identified by our excellent FBI agents -- but in spite of George Dubya's Total Focus on the Terror Menace -- their warnings were ignored. IF His Chimperial Highness was so damn on top of the issue WHY THE HELL DIDN"T HE ALERT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO BE MORE VIGILANT during this time? Gee -- the FAA had been warned, and Ashcroft knew it was too dangerous to fly commercially -- why did they not warn the American people that it was a bit "iffy" to fly? That way, people could have been on the lookout for suspicious creeps, or chosen not to fly.

Why is it such a great idea to broadcast these alerts now, but so NOT a good idea to then, IF, as His Chimperial Highness claims, he was SO knowledgeable and SO focused on the terror threat in a way that NO ONE ELSE ever had been?

If Clinton was Soooooooooo off-base and clueless about how to protect the Homeland from terror-strikes within our borders -- why did our government, under Clinton, manage to foil the Millennial Terror attack? Gee, seems to me that in between the first WTC bombing, mere months after Clinton took office, and the second, 9 months after 8 YEARS of the Clinton Presidency, our government was ***successful*** in protecting us against terrorism. Gee, what were they doing right? (Of course -- I leave out OK City, which was the result of a corn-fed home-grown murderous creep. Also, clearly they messed up with the bombings in AFrica and the Cole, but they seem to have learned from their mistakes, and attempted to pass on the lessons to the smirky administration.)

None of their explanations hold water. At best, they are incompetent. At worst, they let it happen.

[Mandomaniac]

19. Here's what I love..

Was it Dick or Rummy that said that Clarke was out of the loop?

Wasnt' Clarke basically our Terrorism Czar for what, 4 administrations?

So, if Clarke was out of the loop, doesnt that pretty much mean that the * admin was doing a pretty f'king bad job on combatting terror? If our head honco is out of the loop?

But then again, that would make too much sense for this pathetic administration.

[Emboldened Chimp]

20. Then by that logic...

attacking Afghanistan won't prevent future 9-11s, right?

[gasperc]

21. then why are we fucking around in Iraq

wasn't that a premetive action to avoid a WMD attack, what fucking idiots!!

[Rex]

24. So 911 was a CRIME and not an act of war?

Do tell Colon Blow...how deep a hole can you dig? So we invaded Iraq for what purpose? They commited the crime right? Wrong?

[leftofthedial]

25. two observations

1. if they had acted on Clarke's recommendations and the Clinton plan immediately on seizing power, the Justice Department, INS, et al almost certainly would have caught at least two of the hijackers pre-9-11. They also would probably have acted on the lower-level FBI concerns about flight schools and hijackers. they didn't need a war against Afghanistan at that point, just the same level of concern and attention that the Clintom Administration showed pre-coup.

2. Powell absolves the Clinton Administration from blame.