September 11 attacks: What did Bush know?

[papau]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=505463

September 11 attacks: What did Bush know?
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
27 March 2004


One of the most tumultuous weeks in recent Washington history ended yesterday with the same over-arching, monumental question with which it began. Could the Bush administration have prevented the attacks of 11 September 2001? Upon the answer hangs a Presidency.<snip>

<snip>By July, so nervous were intelligence specialists that two unidentified CIA officers dealing with al-Qa'ida contemplated resignation in order to go public with their fears. But, by the end of July, the "chatter" had subsided. Wrongly, Mr Tenet concluded that any attacks had been postponed.

Mr Clarke was so upset his advice was not being followed that he prepared to ask for a new post. In June, a new presidential draft on ambitious covert action against al-Qa'ida was circulating. But nothing happened.

The next, and penultimate, key date is 6 August 2001. That day Mr Bush, on holiday at his Texas ranch, received his top-secret "President's Daily Briefing", or PDB. The document contained the CIA's latest assessment of the terrorist threat, including renewed intelligence that hijacked aircraft might be used in an attack. Calls for its release have been resisted.

On 4 September ­ the day the new blueprint for action against al-Qa'ida was approved ­ Mr Clarke wrote to Ms Rice asking how she would feel if hundreds of Americans were killed in a terrorist attack. A week later, the Eastern seaboard was attacked.

By then, clues of what was about to happen had been gathered. The CIA knew that two al-Qa'ida terrorists, who would take part in the attacks, were in the country. The FBI had discovered strange goings-on at pilot schools, of Middle Eastern men wanting to learn how to fly airliners, but not to land or take off. But the agencies would not share the information. Had he been in possession of them, Mr Clarke said, "I like to think I would have connected the dots". But that probably was wishful thinking ­ as wishful as Mr Bush's belief that Saddam was involved with 11 September. Meanwhile requests for Ms Rice to appear before the federal commission have been turned down. <snip>

[livetohike]

1. This is really important!

<The next, and penultimate, key date is 6 August 2001. That day Mr Bush, on holiday at his Texas ranch, received his top-secret "President's Daily Briefing", or PDB.>

Yet he continued to remain on vacation and wander out for his photo ops. He's despicable and it is about time he got caught.

[BOSSHOG]

2. AND WHAT WAS HIS MOTIVE?

Was he looking for a reason to take the Iraqi Oil fields and ensure no bid contracts for Halliburton; a plan no doubt outlined in cheney's energy task force. Is that why cheney must keep the task force so secret that he has to take tony the fixer duck hunting? Is that why he can't have condi raise her right hand? Is that why bush's team worked at warp speed to have intel skew data to "account" for WMD?

KNOWLEDGE, MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY - BUSH'S TRIFECTA!

[indepat]

3. If all you said were proven factual beyond a reasonable doubt, would GWBs

poll numbers plummet even a full point or two, all the way down to the mid-high forties, considering all the apathetic, the indifferent, the brain-dead, the number of ideologues out there?