Ways Bush botched 911

[Cell Whitman]

Clinton has said and the record shows his administration worked hard to prevent terrorism but also I have heard him say, like any human would, that in retrospect he didn't do enough - no one did prior to 911.

But Bush and his cultish following can't admit the same because they are small people, very small people. People who must constantly blame others in a never ending effort to convince themselves that following their failed and inept movement is the right path....

details and documentation here - centering on but not exclusively Hart Rudman.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/9/0644/75403

short excerpts:

Salon 9-12-2001

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/index.html

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January (2001) report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

CJR - Harold Evans

http://prisonplanet.com/what_we_knew_warning_given_story_missed.html

Hearings were scheduled for the week of May 7. But the White House stymied the move. It did not want Congress out front on the issue, not least with a report originated by a Democratic president and an ousted Republican speaker. On May 5, the administration announced that, rather than adopting Hart-Rudman, it was forming its own committee headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who was expected to report in October. "The administration actually slowed down response to Hart-Rudman when momentum was building in the spring," says Gingrich. ....

Conservatives are not allowed to know that it was Cheney in Feb 2001 who got the final word as to who was responsible for the Cole and that their "tough guy" leaders did nothing. Oh, and that terrorism review of Cheney's - never met. Not one time - Cheney was busy taking care of his oil buddies with his 'secret' so called "energy taskforce."

WP -Jan 20, 2002

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8734-2002Jan19

A Strategy's Cautious Evolution
Before Sept. 11, the Bush Anti-Terror Effort Was Mostly Ambition

- At least twice, Bush conveyed the message to the Taliban that the United States would hold the regime responsible for an al Qaeda attack. But after concluding that bin Laden's group had carried out the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole - a conclusion stated without hedge in a Feb. 9 briefing for Vice President Cheney - the new administration did not choose to order armed forces into action. ...

- On May 8, Bush announced a new Office of National Preparedness for terrorism at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At the same time, he proposed to cut FEMA's budget by $200 million. Bush said that day that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and "I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place. ...

"I have a real difficult time pointing to anything from January 20th to September 10th that can be said to be a Bush initiative, or something that wouldn't have happened anyway."

In May of 2001 Bush told Hart Rudman and three congressional bills to go jump in the lake. The same report and bills which begged him to take terrorism seriously and act quickly - Bush said the threat was "not immediate."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010508.html

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 8, 2001

Statement by the President
Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction

Against this backdrop, it is clear that the threat of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons being used against the United States -- while not immediate -- is very real.

[Cell Whitman]

1. making sure everyone cut and pasted those quotes to their

memory banks bump. :7