From CBS News... ________________ 9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003 For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston. "This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean. "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen." Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said. To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building. "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," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. "How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission. The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots. "If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said. Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers. Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will." Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
I hope the commission can expose this administration's coverup of what happened that day. Americans like their stories simple, and as we all know, there are no conspiracies. Hopefully some truth will come to light. I'm tired of people treating Incurious George like he's some kind of hero.
Glad to see Clinton might be called to testify. He has more splainin' to do that W. In other news, how about those new poll figures that came out? W has a 20 point lead on Howie? Wow!
in tomorrow's news, Kean has disappeared from the country. The Bush administration responds with, "Kean who? did we mention that we got Saddam? Don't try changing the subject..."
That's hilarious that Clinton gets blamed for everything that goes wrong during the Bushies stewardship, continually.
Seeing as how all of the terrorists got into the country to train in flight simulators under Clinton's watch... I find nothing hilarious about it. Actually tragic. If Clinton personally or Bush personally is responsible for breakdowns in the CIA, FBI, INS and other departments in charge, then you can call me a JAZZ FAN. I don't think it's ultimately either president's personal fault, after all, they do make all decisions based on what the surrounding advisors inform them of. It's just that since they are where the "buck stops" they'll catch it. But we all know Bush will catch more. It's the democratic way.
From the story: "Those documents may shed light on <b>one of the most controversial assertions</b> of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building." This strikes me as really ludicrous. Another: ""How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission." Isn't this tantamount to holding Clutch liable for everything posted?
Lots of people, including Bush Junior and Clinton, have some 'splainin' to do on this one. The citizens of this great country deserve nothing less.
Clinton obviously should have done more, and he should explain everything that happened while he was president. But to say that he has MORE explaining to do doesn't sound right. Clinton's staff warned Bush that the biggest threat to U.S. security was Osama Bin Laden. Was stepping up defense against terrorism the first thing the Bush white house did? No. Instead they found time work on the stupid but money making missle defense shield which has zero to do with terrorism. That was a serious mistake in Bush's plans, and it could have cost us 3,000 lives. I don't actually hold Bush responsible for those lives, of course. Only the terrorists have ultimate responsibility but the fact that something should have been done remains. The fact that the Bush team made a huge error in judgement also remains.
Had we done what was necessary to protect the country before 9/11, many of you would have been screaming about your liberties being trouced on. Even after the fact we're hearing that a lot. Did we know that airplanes could be hijacked and used as weapons, generally? Absolutely we did. I remember reading articles about that years before 2001. But that's like saying, "we know about the flu, so we should be able to wipe it out or prevent it entirely." This smells so much like 20/20 hindsight, it's silly. We have a very open country with tons of liberties...we don't have checkpoints...we don't have police with machine guns around every corner...we have open borders...and we invite the world to come here. We are an open target, and our Constitution makes it so.
Great post Max. I mostly agree with everything except the first sentence. I don't think we need to trounce liberties before or after to protect us from terrorism. That being said I don't think it's one president's fault that we weren't prepared, it really is hindsight. I do think that almost every president since Ford should have been shifting the military more towards fighting terrorism than conventional warfare. We definitely have an advantage already over anyone when it comes to conventional warfare, yet most of the training equipment, weapons programs etc. is still geared in that direction. Gary Hart and others were on a commission back in 1999(?) I believe. They said the military budget should go towards intelligence gathering, paying quality informants, and shifting towards fighting terrorism etc. This should have been happening long ago and should be happening more now. It's the fault of all the presidents and not just one. I guess it was back in 1999 that the Hart Rudman commission predicted that terrorists would cause U.S. casualties on U.S. soil. They recommended greater intel sharing with other nations homeland defense and numerous other things. However, nothing was done about it. This is an article which really only focusses on the present administration, but much of what the commission had asked for and the work they had done is in the article. http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/index.html?pn=1
September 3, 2003 "CBS reporter David Martin revealed that weeks before the attacks, the CIA had warned Bush personally of Osama Bin Laden’s intent to use hijacked planes as missiles. That followed the damaging exposure by The Associated Press’s John Solomon of a pre-9/11 FBI memo from an officer in Phoenix warning of suspicious Middle Eastern men training at flight schools—a warning that went unheeded." April 30, 2003 "One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike 'in the coming weeks,' the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: 'The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.'" http://www.msnbc.com/news/907379.asp?0cv=CB10 September 25, 2002 "A Minnesota FBI agent investigating Zacarias Moussaoui testified yesterday that he notified the Secret Service weeks before Sept. 11 that a terror team might hijack a plane and 'hit the nation's capital.'" http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/57848.htm July 26, 2001 "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." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001 /07/26/national/printable303601.shtml September 24th, 2001 "On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns." http://www.msnbc.com/news/629606.asp September 7, 2001 "Based on the potential massive damage to life and property that may result from an act of terrorism at a Florida port, the necessity to protect life and property from such acts of terrorism..." http://sun6.dms.state.fl.us/eog_new/eog/orders/ 2001/september/eo2001-261-09-07-01.html From Village Voice: Maybe the Bush team dismissed warning signals as the discoveries of an overly hyped up Clinton team. But John Dean, a White House counsel under Nixon who has become a guide to deciphering reports on 9/11, says this is unlikely. Condi Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, "stated in a May 16, 2002, press briefing that, on August 6, 2001, the President Daily Brief (PDB) included information about Bin Laden's methods of operation from a historical perspective dating back to 1997." Rice also said at this briefing that the PDB pointed out that Bin Laden might hijack an airline and take hostages to gain release of one of their operatives. She said the warning was "generalized"—no date, place, or method. As Dean notes, how could Rice, having known all this, say that the administration had no idea "these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon"? "In sum, the 9-11 Report of the Congressional Inquiry indicates that the intelligence community was very aware that Bin Laden might fly an airplane into an American skyscraper," says Dean. "Given the fact that there had already been an attempt to bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center with a bomb, how could Rice say what she did?" We don't know because Bush has invoked executive privilege to withhold from Congress this key briefing on August 6, 2001. link
i don't necessarily disagree with your post...but i will point out that the blame we're casting here is largely policy choices...ideas that we should be defending more against one kind of threat than another. i have no problem with that sort of analysis, except that it to is of the hindsight variety. but even if we did those things, there is no guarantee that 9/11 would have been prevented, as these statements from the article seem to indicate. i mean, he's not saying that they COULD have been prevented...but that they SHOULD have been prevented. second...we see all these warnings in Mulder's post...my questions are: 1. were all of these warnings going to one centralized source that could process and organize them in a way where there could be a meaningful and timely response? 2. how many other warnings did they get of other sorts of terroristic activity that didn't happen? 3. how much "noise" is there...i mean, if these were just a few of thousands of warnings they receive every week, then it shouldn't be unexpected that they might be disregarded. I think we ask more of our government than it can possibly ever give us. Nothing our government can do is capable of making our lives entirely safe. Nothing at all. We learn from our mistakes and try to prevent repeat performances....but there are no guaranteed outcomes in life...
Mulder: which of those is specific enough or sufficiently viable enough for some kind of defensive action to have been successfully taken... and what action do you think should have been taken? This is all great hindsight. It's like going back and reading all the critical comments in Eddie Griffin's scouting report.
Oh I know, I'm just stirring the pot a bit as it were. I'm sure they get THOUSANDS of tips a week. It's just that when you see all that information about Al-Queda and Bush was asking specifically about and getting daily briefings on Al-Queda, agents were saying "pay attention to this" and no one did, it is a policy failure. I'm not trying to give credance to some big conspiracy theory, despite what my handle might suggest. I'm just saying it seems like a lot of good information was ignored or not dealt with properly. The more stuff comes out the more it seems like agencies need to stop trying to play top cop and start cooperating with each other; and this is not an issue that the Bush administration caused it's one that needs to be fixed regardless of who is in office.
1. The warnings were part of govt. funded study. They were addressed to both Congress and the Whitehouse. 2. I don't know about other warnings. I think as far as specific warnings it may have been difficult to sort out. This is more a broad policy thing. It's more about concentrating our efforts against terrorism as opposed to major theatre warfare. If we had been doing that who knows what could have happened. It definitely doesn't guarantee that we would have prevented 9/11. 3. I don't know how much noise was going nor the reliability of the sources of intel gathered. I do agree that talking specifically about preventing 9/11 is hindsight. But knowing that we should have been concentrating more on terrorism in general was not hindsigh. The study predidcted the results of not doing that, and it was brought to the attention of policy makers capable of making those decisions. I think assigning blame to one president or two about 9/11 specifically isn't wise, at least based on things I've seen. Blaming many presidents for not changing the emphasis our defense has been heading is reasonable and we should hold them accountable.
Backtrack, backtrack... __________ Sept. 11 Panel Chief Clarifies Remarks Fri Dec 19, 2:06 AM ET Add Politics - AP to My Yahoo! By LAURENCE ARNOLD, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two presidential teams. "We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong," chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" taped for airing Thursday night. Kean said the 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has not decided whether to ask former President Clinton (news - web sites) or President Bush (news - web sites) to testify. He also said that any conclusions about the performance of high-level officials "will be reached when we are finished with our job, not now." Kean sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday. In the CBS interview, Kean said the commission's report, due May 27, will detail "what wasn't done and what should have be done" to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He added, "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed." CBS reported that Kean's comments constituted "pointing fingers inside the (Bush) administration and laying blame." On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark (news - web sites) labeled Kean's statements "disturbing" and said they showed the Bush administration could have done more to protect America from a terrorist attack. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said Kean's comments meant "that Bush administration officials had valuable information that could have prevented the terrorist attacks." But Kean said in Thursday's interview that he did not mean to suggest that certain federal officials should have been fired after Sept. 11. He said he was commenting on obvious mistakes that were made, such as letting terrorists into the country and letting dangerous items onto planes. "There are a number of steps along the way, that if they had occurred differently, this event wouldn't have occurred," he said. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he reviewed the CBS report and did not believe Kean leveled accusations against the Bush administration. "There is nothing that we have seen that leads us to believe that Sept. 11 could have been prevented," McClellan said. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, was appointed by Bush to lead the bipartisan commission.
