Bush said he wanted a "new plan for the war on terrorism"....

[kentuck]

Rumsfeld just repeated this. Colin Powell said the same thing in his testimony earlier. Has anyone else heard about this Bush "strategy" before today? Today I hear that Bush was tired of swatting flies and wanted a different strategy for fighting terrorism. He wanted to do something different from Clinton because he thought they were not doing enough. Is this a brand new lie that has never been told before today. At least, I had never heard this new 'strategy" mentioned before...

[moondust]

1. You'd think the counter-terrorism czar would have heard about it.

n/t

[Guaranteed]

4. LOL exactly

It's a pile of garbage. Just a flat-out lie.

[moondust]

8. And why would he lower the rank of the counter-terrorism czar?

Not credible Rumbo.

[kodi]

14. it was a secret plan so secret no one knew of it.

.

[hippiechick]

2. Yeah, he wanted to stop chasing the ones on the BFEE payroll ...

Damn that Clinton, going after the bad guys instead of the pre-approved evil scapegoats !!!


:eyes:

[proud patriot]

3. Then why did he take funds away from Terror Fighting to persue Iraq ?

These people have just lied themselves into a real Pickle .

[rucky]

5. Yep, a new one... but it's top secret so we can't tell you

but vote for bush cuz it's a dern good strategy

[Mandate My Ass]

6. I've heard this before

The huge whitewash that appeared in the NYT after 9-11 alleged that the Bush admin was focused on creating a new strategy for fighting terrorism that landed on Bush's desk on (drumroll please) September 10th, 2001!

(see today's Paul Krugman article on how Ashcroft wiped terrorism off his agenda and the requested funds for fighting terrorism were slashed by Bush)

[nostamj]

7. yeah, right

he wanted to DESTROY al qaeda.

something that existed in 50+ countries and nothing less than total annihilation would satisfy him.

talk about Mission: Impossible

[skypilot]

9. They wanted a NEW plan???

Yeah, right. As though they bothered to familiarize themselves with the OLD (Clinton) plan.:eyes:

[kentuck]

10. Yep. and they didn't want to use the old 'Clinton" plan....

So, in effect, they had no plan at all. That is what he is saying.

[skypilot]

11. Which dovetails nicely...

...with what Clarke is saying. See how it all works out.

[BJ]

12. Swat at flies.....

Reminds me of an old Fleischer Bros. Studio Popeye cartoon from 1941 Flies Ain't Human, in which our hero's nap is interrupted by a buzzing fly. In the end Popeye takes a sledge hammer and knocks down all the walls of his house in an attempt to kill the annoying fly. The sailor settles back down to nap when a swarm of flies land on his bald head and begin partying, driving Popeye insane. The end.

[chookie]

13. Another stitch in their fabric of lies

If this is true -- why then did they airily dismiss the comprehensive Rudman/Hart report? (Seems they ended up adopting most of its emasures AFTER you know what happened.)

If this is true -- why did they marginalize and then demote the guy, Richard Clarke, who was on the same page as they regarding the worst threat to the US being Al Qadea and Osama? Why was he not allowed to attend the meetings that the grownups say they held on a daily basis on the subject of fighting terroristic attacks in the USA? Funny how Clarke never had any indication from anyone that the matter was being taken care of by ANYONE, even if he was not part of it.

WHY if terrorism was such a priority did His Chimperial Highness appoint a Sovietologist as national security advisor? NeoCondi herself admitted in 2001 (pre-Sept 11) that she had little expertise in the Middle East?

Why was all they talked about regarding national security pre-Sept 11 high tech missile defence systems? Why did NeoCondi Rice just repeat over and over and over and over that "The Cold War is over." What the hell does that have to do with terrorism? Sounds to me as though she was suggesting that now that there was no opposing Superpower, it was time for the US to be able to go into the Middle East

Obviously, the "New Plan" that Bush was looking for was a concrete implementation of the PNAC Project -- a major military committment to occupy and restructure the Middle East permanently. That sure would explain why Iraq was so "important" -- it was the first stop in a regional takeover.

If Innocent Little Good-Hearted Georgie really had a "humble foreign policy" until he was forced by Evil Do-ers to use the mightiest army to invade a sovereign power with no connection to Al Qaeda (apart from the fact that Iraq was ALSO an enemy of Al Qaeda) -- why the hell did he appoint advisors like Perle, Wolfowitz, Negroponte and Poindexter (etc etc etc) for had advocated violent military force against Arab nations for decades?

BTW -- unfortunately through the death of many many many more Americans, His Chimperial Highnenss is going to learn that terrorism is ALL about "swatting flies". His style of waging war is very profitable for him and his friends, but alas, it is ineffective and worst of all, just makes the whole bloody mess worse.

[kentuck]

15. chookie, you should be on the commission !

Those are the best questions asked today... :)

[RamboLiberal]

16. Clarke book p235 on Bush "Swatting Flies"

"We agreed that Tenet would insure that the PDB's would continue to be replete with threat information on al Qaeda. President Bush, reading the intelligence every day and noticing that there was a lot about al Qaeda, asked Condi Rice why it was that we couldn't stop "swatting flies" and eliminate al Qaeda. Rice told me about the conversation and asked how the plan to get al Qaeda was coming in the Deputies Committee. "It can be presented to the Principals in two days, whenever we can get a meeting," I pressed. Rice promised to get to it soon. Time passed.

I believe this was early summer 2001.

[sandnsea]

17. Terrorism Archive - 2001 Reports

The only thing in here that I really see that addresses terrorism is a statement by George Tenet in Feb, 2001. Most of the statements about the Taliban and al qaeda are in regards to sanctions. And the rest of their concern seems to be ballistic missile and missile defense. Remember how obsessed they were with China and NKorea and missiles? I don't believe there was ever any request for a new plan to deal with terrorists. I think they thought they were just going to flex their muscles and the world was going to cower in fear.

Here's what Rummy said on Feb 11,2001:

"Snow: Now, one of the other threats emerging is so-called transnational terrorism, people like Osama bin Laden. How do we fight them?

Rumsfeld: Well, that's true. It is a very serious problem. And if one thinks of all of the so-called asymmetrical threats -- the kinds of things people would do, or threaten doing, rather than to try to contest Western armies, navies and air forces, which doesn't work, obviously. The Gulf War proved that.

Terrorism, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, cyber warfare, information warfare. These are all things that are cheaper than land wars, and where the technologies are currently available. And the United States has to recognize those emerging threats, and see that we're arranged so that we are not subject to nuclear or terrorist blackmail.

Snow: We have talked about -- and also, President Bush has talked about -- swift and decisive responses to those who harm Americans. Say Osama bin Laden or somebody like that orders a strike. Would it be appropriate for a president to revise policy and to go ahead and approve assassination attempts against such people?

Rumsfeld: That's not a subject that I -- that has been addressed with the new national security team that President Bush has assembled."
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01021201.htm

All kinds of statements, briefs, etc from 2001:

http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/archive1.htm

[Bandit]

18. He is right ~ Clinton's plan was to hold weekly meetings to discuss

Terrorism and any new data and how to deal with what was happening. Bush*'s new plan was to go on vacation and not worry about such trivial stuff. If he was going to swat at flys it would be from his pig farm in Texas. So There. Problem solved.