I consider these to be just a few of some damn good FACTUAL talking points. And I use them often...
February 26th, 2001, Paul Bremer (Co-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq) while speaking at the McCormick Tribune Foundation Conference on Terrorism stated: "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?' (1)
May 5th, 2001, Bush rejected the Hart-Rudman report, a two and a half year study on the threat of terrorism, considered to be the most in-depth security analysis since the National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council and the CIA. The fourteen member panel of intelligence and military experts, coming to the conclusion that "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers," recommended many improvements in our defenses (enacted since 9/11), including the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency. (2)
In the Summer of 2001, warnings of an al Qaeda attack in the United States using multiple aircraft as weapons began pouring in from international intelligence agencies all over the world, including: Germany, Russia (3) Jordan, Morocco (4) Israel (5) and Britain. (6) From 1994 through 2001 U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of numerous threats that al Qaeda could use airplanes as weapons against the United States. (7)
August 6th, 2001, Bush received a briefing from the CIA titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The U.S.," which emphasized that al Qaeda hoped to "bring the fight to America." Hijackings were mentioned specifically. When White House press secretary Ari Fleischer stated the title of the document to reporters in May 2002, he left out the word "In." (8)
In the middle of unprecedented warnings of a major terrorist attack in the United States coming from numerous international intelligence sources, what does Bush do? He takes a one month vacation. A one month vacation after being in office for roughly six months. A one month vacation after the most contested election in history. This is the longest presidential vacation in thirty two years - just shy of the record held by Richard Nixon who beats Bush by one day. (9)
FBI Director and counter-terrorism chief John O'Neill resigned in protest of the Bush administration because he believed they were obstructing the prosecution of terrorism. (10)
September 10th, 2001, John Ashcroft refused a $58 million request from the FBI for counter-terrorism funding and proposed cutting $64 million in state and local counter-terrorism grants. (11)
Despite the fact that Condoleezza Rice said on May 16, 2002 "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile" there was a mountain of evidence to the contrary. In October 2000, the Pentagon conducted a mock terrorist attack using a simulated plane crash into a model of the Pentagon. The exercise was called "The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise." (12) In September 1999, a federal report titled the "Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism" stated that al Qaeda suicide bombers might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, or the White House. (13)
Richard Clarke, Bush's former top anti-terrorism adviser, has condemned the administration's stance on the war on terror. Clarke, who served as deputy assistant and assistant Secretary of State in both the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, and was held over by both the Clinton and Bush administrations as their terrorism czars, holds the record as the longest continuously serving senior White House staff member. (14) He has a 30 year history in government service. In March 2004 Clarke said: "Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. (15)
(1)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4871819/(2)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,561758,00.html(3)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53065,00.html(4)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0523/p11s01-coop.html(5)
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/16/wcia16.xml(6)
http://www.sundayherald.com/24822(7)
http://www.wanttoknow.info/020919wsj.orig(8)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A35744-2002May17¬Found=true
(9)
http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2001/wpost080701.html(10)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/08/ltm.05.html(11)
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=33582(12)
http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html(13)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/17/attack/main509471.shtml(14)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17694-2003Mar12(15)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
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