9/11 Panel Provokes a Discussion the White House Hoped to Avoid

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/politics/28PANE.html?ex=1081054800&?en=5e918f83389ec69a&?ei=5062&?partner=GOOGLE

WASHINGTON, March 27 — In the summer of 2001, according to witnesses interviewed by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 hijackings, President Bush was told repeatedly of terror warnings pouring into American intelligence agencies, mostly about threats overseas.

The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who briefed Mr. Bush on threats almost daily, "was around town literally pounding on desks saying that something is happening, this is an unprecedented level of threat information," said Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, who was quoted in a Congressional report last year.

But even as the warnings spiked in June and July that year, there appeared to be little sense of alarm at the White House, officials of the Central Intelligence Agency told the commission. It was not until Sept. 4 that Mr. Bush's national security team approved a plan intended to eradicate Al Qaeda and not until Sept. 10 that Mr. Tenet was told to put the plan into effect.

Now, nearly two and half years later, the issue of whether Mr. Bush and his advisers failed to respond adequately to the threat of terror before Sept. 11, 2001, has become the focus of intense scrutiny and debate in Washington.

The White House had long hoped to avoid just such a discussion of Mr. Bush's actions before the hijackings, fearing it would draw attention to the first months of his presidency rather than the period after Sept. 11 when he took military action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The White House had opposed the creation of the independent commission and for many months cooperated reluctantly with the panel.

...more...

[Cush]

1. It was only a matter of time before people started to talk

[UpInArms]

3. the final two paragraphs of this story

are well worth reading - seems like those details are going to haunt *Co in a big way.

[tlcandie]

5. Can you snip them plz? I HATE registering for everything!!!

Not lazy, just hate them having my info and such :/ If not that is understandable too!

Thanks! :hi:

[Florida_Geek]

7. tlcandie

use http://www.bugmenot.com/ they has most site reg already :)

Last two:

Still, they have acknowledged that this would be a very different kind of election had it not been for the attacks, and that any advantage the president enjoys going into the election is because of that chapter of his presidency. The White House selected the time and place of the convention where Mr. Bush will be nominated — New York City, less than two weeks before the third anniversary of the attacks — with that in mind.

Several Republicans not associated with the Bush campaign said that they were concerned about the turn of events, warning that the commission findings and Mr. Clarke's testimony were a challenge to the central pillar of Mr. Bush's campaign appeal: his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks

[DeepModem Mom]

9. The two paragraphs are further proof...

that Bush is no more interested in serious matters in the White House than he has been all his life, and that all the protestations that he is "engaged" are false:

"....On Aug. 6, 2001, Mr. Bush, was told in a briefing held at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., that Mr. bin Laden's followers were believed to be capable of hijacking commercial jets in the United States. It was a scrap of information, based on a single 1999 British intelligence report and not enough to be considered credible.

The briefing was disclosed by Ms. Rice in May 2002 in an apparent effort to show that Mr. Bush was eager for information about terrorism and wanted to know more about the possibility of a Qaeda attack in the United States. But this week, Richard Ben-Veniste, a commission member, said that the C.I.A. had advised the panel that the agency's official who met with Mr. Bush did not recall him requesting the information and that the agency itself had come up with the idea of briefing the president on terrorist activities involving aircraft...."

[FloridaPat]

2. No one has mentioned the wining and dining Bush did with

the taliban as soon as he got into office. All that money he gave them. Plus he told the CIA and FBI not to investigate anyone from Saudi Arabia.

[leftchick]

4. how many times did chimpy* say terra, al-qaeda or Osama...

BEFORE Sept.11, 2001? I am betting not once....

<snip>A review of the evidence produced this week provides relatively little direct information about Mr. Bush's thinking, statements or actions regarding terrorism in the months after he took office. The commission's reports suggest that he left the issue largely to top advisers, who studied it, but took no concrete action against Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

The commission's reports show that Mr. Bush was warned repeatedly about terrorist threats, but they provide no indication that he urged his aides to accelerate their policy review or produce specific plans in response to the warnings, from outgoing Clinton administration officials and from Mr. Tenet, his own intelligence chief.

[sadiesworld]

6. Unprecedented threat level, ergo...

unprecedented presidential vacation.

[54anickel]

8. So he had no vision or objective for his residency before 9/11?

What, was he just gonna slack and skate on through this job too?

Mr. Bush has often talked about how his presidency did not, in a real sense, begin until Sept. 11 when, he said, he found in the aftermath of the attacks the defining purpose of his presidency. Mr. Bush and his aides have made his prosecution of the war on terror the touchstone of his re-election campaign.


This part makes a person rethink the L/MIHOP:

Mr. Bush and his aides say they believe that his leadership after Sept. 11 created an irrevocable bond with voters that would be nearly impossible to erase and will ultimately overshadow any questions raised about the pre-Sept. 11 period of his presidency.

Still, they have acknowledged that this would be a very different kind of election had it not been for the attacks, and that any advantage the president enjoys going into the election is because of that chapter of his presidency. The White House selected the time and place of the convention where Mr. Bush will be nominated — New York City, less than two weeks before the third anniversary of the attacks — with that in mind.

[Moderator]

10. Locking

1. NO opinion pieces, editorials, or other stories that are not news.

Everything in this story has been reported over the last several days.

Feel free to repost in GD.