.....Saw you on C-SPAN here's some info I know you'll just love!
RE: Ashcroft not flying commercial just before 9/11,
Here's the story from CBS News from July 26, 2001 posted at 21:53:20 EST.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml<Begin>
(CBS) Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.
In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.
"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.
A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.
"I don't do threat assessments myself and I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes," Ashcroft said.
Asked if he knew anything about the threat or who might have made it, the attorney general replied, "Frankly, I don't. That's the answer."
<Snip>
Here's another source or two.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,719231,00.html<Snip>
On September 10 last year, the last day of what is now seen as a bygone age of innocence, Mr Ashcroft sent a request for budget increases to the White House. It covered 68 programmes, none of them related to counter-terrorism.
He also sent a memorandum to his heads of departments, stating his seven priorities. Counter-terrorism was not on the list. He turned down an FBI request for hundreds more agents to be assigned to tracking terrorist threats.
Nevertheless, he began using a chartered private jet to travel around the country, rather than take commercial airliners as Ms Reno had done. A justice department spokesman said this was done as a result of an FBI "threat assessment" on Mr Ashcroft, but insisted that the assessment was not specifically linked to al-Qaida.
But Mr Ashcroft stopped using commercial flights in July, just as the intelligence "chatter" about a possible al-Qaida strike on US soil was getting louder.
According to yesterday's edition of Newsweek, he had a showdown on counter-terrorism with the outgoing FBI director, Louis Freeh, in the spring of last year in Quantico, Virginia, at an annual meeting of special agents.
People at the meeting said the two disagreed fundamentally on their priorities.
Mr Ashcroft's agenda comprised "basically violent crime and drugs" and when Mr Freeh began to talk about his concern about the terrorist threat facing the country, "Ashcroft didn't want to hear about it".
<Snip>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/03/hsorensen.DTL<Snip>
Ashcroft used to fly commercial, just as Janet Reno did. So why, two months before Sept. 11, did he start taking chartered government planes?
CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart asked the Justice Department.
Because of a "threat assessment" by the FBI, he was told. But "neither the FBI nor the Justice Department ... would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it," CBS News reported.
The FBI did advise Ashcroft to stay off commercial aircraft. The rest of us just had to take our chances.
The FBI obviously knew something was in the wind. Why else would it have Ashcroft use a $1,600-plus per hour G-3 Gulfstream when he could have flown commercial, as he always did before, for a fraction of the cost?
<Snip>
And then there's this warning to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown mere 8 hours before the attack.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/12/MN229389.DTL<Begin>
For Mayor Willie Brown, the first signs that something was amiss came late Monday when he got a call from what he described as his airport security - - a full eight hours before yesterday's string of terrorist attacks -- advising him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel.
The mayor, who was booked to fly to New York yesterday morning from San Francisco International Airport, said the call "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement."
In fact, at the time, he didn't pay it much mind.
"It was not an abnormal call. I'm always concerned if my flight is going to be on time, and they always alert me when I ought to be careful."
Exactly where the call came from is a bit of a mystery. The mayor would say only that it came from "my security people at the airport."
Mike McCarron, assistant deputy director at SFO, said the Federal Aviation Administration "routinely" issues security notices about possible threats. He said two or three such notices have been received in the past couple of months,
but none in recent days.
<Snip>
Of course you'll probably just shrug this off as 'internet rumors' after all, who are Willie Brown, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian and CBS News anyway!
You also say we didn't give Saddam WMD's? Just 'pre cursors'? Boy you don't seem to know the truth do you? I'll dig you up the Congressional testimony regarding the anthrax, botulin toxin, and a whole slew of other bio weapons materials that Bush Sr. gave Saddam when he was our 'friend' fighting against Iran as well as the list of American companies that supplied the equipment to manufacture them.
What flavor is that Kool-Aid anyway? :)
Pat x. xxxxxx
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