Cheney Thought Al Qaeda Was Bluffing, ignored warnings

[Panich52]

Daily Kos
by ericlewis0

In case you didn't yet know Cheney was recklessly incompetent. From firstlook.org:

When presented with an actual terror threat – the one that turned into the 9/11 attacks – Cheney thought al Qaeda was bluffing.
No kidding. This is from The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, a new book by former acting CIA director Mike Morell:

The threat reporting continued [in the spring and summer of 2001] — other pieces were titled “Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent” and “Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks” — but I sensed some skepticism about it. The vice president one morning asked me whether all this threat reporting might not be deception on the part of al Qa‘ida — purposely designed to get our attention and to get us to needlessly expend resources in response.

According to Morell, who was then in charge of the daily presidential intelligence briefing, the CIA felt they then needed to produce a report titled “UBL [Usama bin Laden] Threats Are Real.”

(DK author's bold)
https://firstlook.org/...

Thanks, Dick. Good thing you were there to ignore all the warnings from the CIA - so much so they felt it necessary to write a brief titled, "UBL Threats Are Real." Maybe they'd have done better to release one called "V.P. Cheney is a Dangerous Asshole."

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/19/1385971/-Cheney-Thought-Al-Qaeda-Was-Bluffing?detail=email

That's the entire article. But you should click link f/ Mad mag pic he chose.

[GeorgeGist]

1. Dick and Dubya remain free.

Hope and Change. Bait and Switch. What's the diff?

[Panich52]

4. Maybe not as free as you think

Have you noticed than none from tge top of Bush's admin has traveled out of the country? The reason may ve that Kuala Lampur tribunal found Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others guilty of war crimes. They could be arrested if caught overseas.

Euro courts also have investigations, mostly concerning CIA's rendition, but war crimes against admin is part of it. Italy already tried, convicted, and arrested CIA ops.

Just hope international officers keep watching for them to cross that safety zone...

[tanyev]

2. And Richard Clarke tried to get them to have a principal's meeting on Al-Qaeda in January 2001,

but Condi and Cheney knew better.

Interview: Richard Clarke

JB: Condoleezza Rice wrote today in response to your book - that the Bush administration did have a strategy for eliminating al-Qaida and that the administration worked on it in the spring and summer of 2001? Is that true?
RC: We developed that strategy in the last several months of the Clinton administration and it was basically an update on that strategy. We briefed Condi on that strategy. The point is that it was done before they came to office and she never held a meeting on it. It was done before she asked for it.

JB: What about the claim that the administration did work hard on the issue?

RC: Its not true. I asked - on January 24 in writing to Condi - urgently for a meeting on cabinet level - the principal's committee - to review the plan and I was told I can't have that. It had to go to the deputies. They had a principals meeting on September 4. Contrast that with the principal's meeting on Iraq, on February 1. So what was urgent for them was Iraq. Al-Qaida was not important to them.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/23/usa.september111

[Snow Leopard]

3. Oh the irony!

n/t