What should have been done in response to the briefing that Bin Laden planned to attack the US?

[oberliner]

Several folks have brought up the briefing where Bush was informed that Bin Laden intended to attack the US. The implication seems to be that the US could have (or should have) taken action that might have prevented 9/11.

What action could/would/should that have been and would we as Democrats had supported Bush in pursuing whatever those actions were to try to preempt the 9/11 attack before it occurred?

That is to say, a president who wanted to "keep us safe" in the face of that briefing ought to have done what?

[Oneironaut]

1. Do these things:

A - Take the intelligence seriously and not brush it off
B - Use intelligence assets to hunt down the threats in the U.S. and abroad.
C - If possible, arrest or take out the hijackers.

It's easy to Monday Morning Quarterback I guess, but I really think more could have been done. They might have failed to stop the attacks anyways, but the effort seemed to be very poor.

[oberliner]

2. Good points

I definitely agree that Bush ought not to get any credit for "keeping us safe" but I just don't know what it is he ought to have done that might have helped to prevent the attacks.

[jberryhill]

15. " I just don't know what it is he ought to have done that might have helped to prevent the attacks"

Straight up question - have you read the 9/11 Commission Report?

As expected, the people saying "it was a whitewash" have shown up. It is a damning indictment of the Bush Administration.

[PufPuf23]

24. I have read the 9-11 Report - "it was a whitewash"

The panel was not established for well over a year after the event and then Kissinger was proposed as head. KMAFB.

If the document was a "damning indictment of the Bush Administration", why was no one held to any individual responsibility?

The citizenry and public interest were harmed by the event and the aftermath of 9-11, a sickness to our Nation's soul that endures.

[unblock]

27. kmafb?

[PufPuf23]

30. I forgot already lol nt

[unblock]

41. awesome ;)

[PufPuf23]

51. OK I was rudely swearing at Kissinger

maybe fb was facebook??

edit to add:

fascist bastard

freaking break

this is fun isn't it?

[unblock]

53. yeah, i started off fine with "kma" but the "fb" tripped me up.

after that i had a hard time not seeing the "afb" as "air force base", which i knew couldn't be right,....

[jberryhill]

59. This is your definition of "whitewash":

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm

Nonetheless, there were specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt it. Operational failures-opportunities that were not or could not be exploited by the organizations and systems of that time-included

not watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar, not trailing them after they traveled to Bangkok, and not informing the FBI about one future hijacker's U.S. visa or his companion's travel to the United States;

not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar;

not taking adequate steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmi in the United States;

not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described as interested in flight training for the purpose of using an airplane in a terrorist act, to the heightened indications of attack;

not discovering false statements on visa applications;

not recognizing passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner;

not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watchlists;

not searching airline passengers identified by the computer-based CAPPS screening system; and

not hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to prepare for the possibility of suicide hijackings.


...

[PufPuf23]

62. OK Then incompetence and "whitewash" nt

[oberliner]

57. No - but I should and I will

Thank you for suggesting it.

[jberryhill]

9. The memo says...

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

So, let's say you are president. Do you say, "make it 80 investigations"?

Again, the focus on this memo, as opposed to the systemic inattention caused by chasing pet projects, is beside the point. The memo is only a very small piece of that. Overemphasis on that one daily briefing - out of 365 a year - invites the type of question by the OP, which is really just a dodge for the overall systemic problem in the W administration.

But, seriously, in relation to just this memo:

"We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists."

Is that what happened, no? If you've been warned someone wants to hijack an aircraft to gain release of a prisoner, then how does that in any way suggest someone is going to fly an aircraft into a building. That's not what anyone does in order to use an aircraft as a bargaining chip in a hostage negotiation.

Oh, and in relation to any highjacking at all, the memo prefaces it with "We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting..."

Okay, you are president. You say, "corroborate it"? "Act on the most sensational uncorroborated reports"?

"Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

Now it is "hijackings or other types of attacks"... Okay, is the order "prepare for all types of attacks!"

And what did "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York" have to do with anything carried out on 9/11?


"The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives."

Aha! Okay, well, be on the lookout for anyone transporting explosives! Were any explosives used by the 9/11 attackers?

In broad outline, because the specific details are all over the map in relation to anything that happened on 9/11, the memo says "shit's going on and we have dozens of investigations looking into it."

But, again, the point that gets lost over this particular memo was its relation to a much larger mosaic of information that was, as put in the 9/11 Commission report, "flashing red".

[pnwmom]

3. He could have ended his vacation, for starters, and gone back to DC to confer

on an emergency basis with the military and State.

He could have ordered an immediate gathering of more information -- the kind of coordination between the FBI and other authorities that was only ordered AFTER the attacks.

He could have put the whole country in high alert.

He could have sent an order to the FAA instructing them to put security officials in high alert. There was a TSA employee who almost detained one of the terrorists; if such an alert had been in place he almost certainly would have.

He could have ordered that all cockpit doors be secured.

He could have stopped flights over the White House and the Pentagon.

He could have put the bin Laden family under surveillance (remember, he gave them special treatment when he helped them leave the country at a time when no airlines were allowed to fly).

[jberryhill]

14. Stop flights over the Pentagon?

What does that memo say about the Pentagon?

And how long should National Airport been shut down to all incoming or outgoing flights?



See where that runway points?

The memo says there has been surveillance of federal buildings in New York, and attacks are being planned using explosives. But you don't want to secure the parking garages near federal buildings with explosive detection dogs and systems? Why not?

[pnwmom]

17. Did I say I didn't want to? I just listed things I thought of -- not every thing

I didn't think of.

You're right -- stopping flights over the Pentagon wouldn't have been a good long term solution. But -- depending on the information that resulted when Bush ordered an immediate collaboration between the agencies -- it might have been necessary for a period of time.

[jberryhill]

21. It says there were 70 investigations already going on

Focus on this memo as an isolated piece of the larger picture is beside the point.

You mention a "TSA employee" above. There was no TSA. The federal government did not run airport security at that time.

You mention "order the cockpit doors hardened". That's not how government regulation works. "Okay, we need to order the airlines to do something that is going to cost them a buttload of money, and they'll just do so, despite the absence of a hi-jacking of a commercial airliner in 20 years (with the exception of a small plane in Texas). Because, after all, I have one of 365 daily memos that says they have ""We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft...".

Oh, and that 1987 hi-jacking:

January 11, 1987; A Continental Airlines DC-9 was hijacked in flight by Norwood Emanuel, a Muslim hijacker that wanted to crash into the White House on Jan. 11, 1987. The crew diverted a possible disaster 14 years before the 9-11 attack.

Someone actually tried a very similar attack in 1987. No cockpit doors hardened.

[pnwmom]

38. We did have airport security. It wasn't the Federal government's TSA program,

but airports had security which could have been sent stronger and more comprehensive alerts.

And IF the FAA had warned the existing security about the growing threat of an imminent terrorist attack, action could have been taken to collect information, increase security, and together this might have led to preventing the attacks.

And if Bush didn't feel he had the ability to order the cockpit doors to be hardened (as he did after the attacks), he could have called for a meeting with Congressional leaders and asked for them to pass a law.



http://nypost.com/2014/10/05/airport-security-ignored-pre-911-warnings-on-hijackers-court-docs/

At least three eyewitnesses spotted al Qaeda hijackers casing the security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan Airport months before the 9/11 attacks. They saw something and said something — but were ignored, newly unveiled court papers reveal.

One of the witnesses, an American Airlines official, actually confronted hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta after watching him videotape and test a security checkpoint in May 2001 — four months before he boarded the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.

The witness alerted security, but authorities never questioned the belligerent Egyptian national or flagged him as a threat.

“I’m convinced that had action been taken after the sighting of Atta, the 9/11 attacks, at least at Logan, could have been deterred,” said Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who at the time warned of holes in security at the airport.

SNIP

Theresa Spagnuolo, an American Airlines passenger screener, told federal agents after the attacks that she also observed a short Middle Eastern man — Atta — videotaping the main security checkpoint in May 2001.

“She was bothered by Atta’s filming, so she spoke to her supervisor about it” and he “informed her it was a public area and nothing could be done about it,” the agents said in their investigation.

SNIP

_____________________________

And the threat to aviation wasn't unforeseen. For example:

But an attack similar to this month's, if not on the same horrific scale, was not entirely unforeseen. On May 7, Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent at Logan International Airport in Boston, expressed his concerns in a letter to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

"What protection is there against a rogue terrorist? And with the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? . . . With our current screening system, this is more than possible, almost likely."

_____________________________________

And cockpit attacks had been growing more frequent:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/23/news/mn-48940/2

Commercial aircraft design offered almost no protection from cockpit takeovers. Such attempts, in fact, have been growing more frequent in recent years.

[zinnisking]

44. Apparenlty there was a threat assessment involving airlcraft the cheney admin took seriously when it

came to their own safety.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027182072#post12

[ChisolmTrailDem]

23. How long was it shut down AFTER the attack? nt

[jberryhill]

50. All civilian flights were shut down after the attack

National remained shut for 23 days after the attack, and there was a heck of an outcry over that.

One can hardly imagine the wailing over shutting National on the basis of a report saying there was threat to federal buildings in New York using "explosives".

[jberryhill]

4. It's more than just one memo

I agree with your point that going on about "that memo" as if it were an isolated island, means much. The memo said that Bin Laden was determined to attack, that assets were likely positioned, and that there were 70 investigations going on. There is nothing actionable in that memo which would have specifically prevented this attack.

But the larger issue is appropriately symbolized over that memo. Believe it or not, there was a 9/11 Commission, and as flawed as that process was, it came to some damning conclusions about the Bush Administration's overall inattention to the fact, as one chapter is entitled, "The System Was Flashing Red".

Now, of course will come along in this thread the types of "The 9/11 Commission was a whitewash" commentary. There are times that I believe part of that discussion actually is intended to draw attention away from the fact that the report is a damning indictment of a thoroughly incompetent and criminally negligent administration.

To put the question as "What should have been done over that memo?" to suggest the Bush administration - OVERALL AND SYSTEMICALLY - was not doing its job.

[Stuart G]

6. That stupid ass look in George Bushes face as the attack was taking place..is

in my opinion..and my opinion only.. that Bush knew he was warned and did nothing.

Stupefied by his own incompetence and lack of taking precautions, he sits and looks exactly like the person he is.

[wildbilln864]

70. I've always wondered...

how he knew there wasn't a hijacked plane targeting him from the nearby Sarasota airport since his location on that day was publicly revealed across the US at least a week in advance of the attacks. : Yet he remained at that school for at least another 30-40 minutes(photo op & meeting) IIRC.

[Human101948]

5. There were many memos warning of imminent attack...

The point is that they did not even make the slightest effort to respond to frantic warnings by people with credible intelligence!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13809524-evidence-piles-up-that-bush-administration-got-many-pre-911-warnings

And former US intelligence officials say there were even more warnings, pointing to a little noticed section of George Tenet’s memoir, “At the Center of the Storm.”

In it, Tenet describes a July 10, 2001, meeting at the White House in the office of Condoleezza Rice, then President George W. Bush’s national security adviser. The meeting was not discussed in the 9-11 Commission’s final report on the attacks, although Tenet wrote that he provided information on it to the commission.


http://www.businessinsider.com/new-report-shows-how-many-warnings-about-bin-laden-were-ignored-by-the-bush-white-house-2012-9

On May 1 the CIA said that a terrorist group in the U.S. was planning an attack.

On June 22 it warned that this attack was "imminent."

On June 29 the brief warned of near-term attacks with "dramatic consequences" including major casualties.

On July 1, the briefing said that the terrorist attack had been delayed but "will occur soon."

On July 24, the president was told again that the attack had been delayed but would occur within months.

These and other similar warnings were ignored by the White House. The Neocons in charge insisted that the threat was instead a coordinated diversion meant to distract attention from Saddam Hussein, according to Eichenwald. This opinion frustrated the intelligence community, who saw the theory as totally illogical.

[randys1]

31. Not only didnt take it seriously, the little prick murdering asshole says "you can say you did your

job now" to the person handing him the info.

He did not care, at all.

And then, when it happened, the little chickenshit found out what terror really is and ran and hid like a piece of shit

Then proceeded to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents including Americans

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Human101948]

37. LIHOP is the relevant acronym here...

They let it happen on purpose!

"Was it the terrorists?"


Which terrorists are you referring to, Mr. Pretzeldent? The ones that you knew where coming?

[randys1]

39. I thought you were asking me, i had to read my comment LOL

Honest to god I dont think they let it happen on purpose.

Dont misunderstand, I consider him and Cheney to be mass murdering war criminals, but I dont think they let it happen.

I do think they were intentionally incompetent because they had to demean the Clinton administration by purposely not following their lead with Bin Laden and others.

Just like right now the teaparty will oppose our president no matter what, no you say?

Remember this?



http://www.mediaite.com/tv/are-conservatives-really-going-after-michelle-obama-for-promoting-water/

Are Conservatives Really Going After Michelle Obama for Promoting Water?

[world wide wally]

7. Actually, we have thwarted several attempted terrorist attacks under Obama through

Good police work.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

45. Remember how good police work used to be (and still is) vilified now by Republicans

To them, they just want to go over to the ME with our military and just blow them up.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

8. Ok, so let's say there was no way to stop the attack before it began...

But once the hijackings started, where was our Air Force to shoot the planes down before they could be used as bombs at the WTC and Pentagon?

[leftynyc]

19. While I agree our air force

should have been engaged, bringing a plane down that's flying over Manhattan is probably not a great idea. Even more people would have died.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

22. There was plenty of opportunity to shoot down all planes while over rural areas...

My point is, they weren't even in the picture at all. Where were they?

[leftynyc]

47. Excellent question

that I have never heard asked or answered. Though in all honest, even looking at that map, the two jets heading for NY were really never over rural areas (especially UA #175). Suburban areas, yes.

[jeff47]

52. They were over the Atlantic.

The assumption had been that the Air Force only needed to worry about aircraft flying into US airspace, not aircraft already within US airspace. So the armed jets were flying out of Cape Cod. They flew out over the Atlantic to check on planes flying to the US.

Air Force jets within US airspace were generally not armed for safety - you can't accidentally fire missiles that aren't attached to your plane.

This "outside-only focus" even extended to our RADAR systems. We could detect aircraft that were flying to the US, but once within US airspace we relied on transponders to locate aircraft. When the hijackers turned off the transponders, the Air Force could not "see" the planes easily.

So, after the first two planes hit, the AF tried to scramble F-15s from that base on Cape Cod. The planes that were already in the air were pretty far away. The scrambled planes got in the air about when the Pentagon was hit, and were directed to search for flight 93. It crashed before the F-15s got there.

[hack89]

88. Accutally it would have been very hard to locate and shoot down those planes

it is some of the most crowded airspace in the world and they had turned off their IFF.

The interceptors (and there were only 4 ready to go in the region) were over the Atlantic - that was the SOP when they didn't know where their targets were. By the time they were send to NY it was too late.

[Reter]

26. No they would not have

The only people that would have died were the ones on the plane, and the 100 per-plane at best on the ground. So at least 2,000 lives would have been saved, not to mention billions saved on tower cleanups and construction of a new one.

[leftynyc]

48. Uh - no

United #175 heading for the towers were only over suburban areas, not rural. Shooting down a plane would have been disastrous for UA 175 - it even flew right over Indian Point nuclear plant. The other 3 planes we can quibble about but that one was never over a rural area.

[Reter]

80. You're wrong

A fallen jumbo jet will not kill 2,500ish unless it were to hit a packed stadium. Even if it falls in the crowded city street the death toll from the two planes if they were shot down would certainly not hit 2,500.

[leftynyc]

82. I never said it would

kill 2500. I said it would be disastrous. I didn't realize it had to kill exactly the same number that got killed in order to qualify for disastrous. If you think blowing a jumbo jet out of the sky - when you would have big chunks of plane coming down with absolutely no control over where they fall - when there is a nuclear power plant in the neighborhood would have been a good idea, I'm afraid we're going to have to disagree.

[hack89]

81. You have to find the planes before you can shoot them down

In the most crowded airspace in the world it would be like finding a needle in a hay stack.

[blm]

10. Treat us as ADULTS and arm us with factual INFORMATION as Clinton did

in 1999. The nation was on alert in the months before 2000.

Had Bush administration chosen to treat citizens as adults instead of as targets to manipulate sentiment towards war, then, even if the first attack HAD gone through, the second tower would have evacuated immediately and many more people would be alive today.

The attacks could also have been stopped AT THE AIRPORTS.

I think it is absurd for anyone to fall for the weak mewlings of the right that there wasn't anything that could be done.

You really think that the DoJ/FBI's top ten priority list couldn't have been altered by the time that Aug6 memo surfaced? BTW - We also now know that Bush had received those warnings at least a DOZEN times beyond that Aug memo.

What 'could' Bush do? Sorry, but, hard for me to believe that anyone here at DU could still wonder after what we all (SHOULD) know by now.

[treestar]

89. I've always been appalled that people were told to go back to work

in the South Tower. Though they didn't know there was going to be a plane hitting it, too, it seems like the nearby building being on fire in such a huge way should have been enough to evacuate it. Especially the higher floors.

[blm]

95. Had citizens been alerted to potential terror attacks they wouldn't hesitate to

evacuate immediately after the 1st tower was hit.

Bush WH killed them and few want to acknowledge that.

[jeff47]

11. Compare it to the response of the Clinton administration to the Millennium bomb plot

There was some intelligence showing planning for a large bombing was taking place. They did not know where the bombers would strike.

So the Clinton administration made the FBI, CIA, and a bunch of other agencies meet every day to discuss what they had uncovered. This group also briefed Clinton every week.

The result was they put all the pieces together and arrested the bombers when they drove the truck bomb across the Canadian border. As a result, there was not a massive explosion at Los Angeles International Airport.

Thanks to after-the-fact investigations, we know that all the information necessary to prevent 9/11 was known by the government. It was not known by the same people in the government, so the pieces were not put together. If Bush had done what Clinton did, the pieces would have been put together, and 9/11 would not have happened.

[tabasco]

18. Exactly. It's a matter of allocating and focusing resources.

It's the type of leadership that George AWOL Bush and his incompetent appointees were completely incapable of.

[Octafish]

12. WARN THE PUBLIC. Attorney General Ashcroft was informed...

John Aschcroft stopped flying commercial airliners in July 2001 based on a 'threat assessment.'

Ashcroft Flying High

CBS News
WASHINGTON, July 26, 2001

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."

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ashcroft-flying-high/

Johnny Ashcan knew. And DU remembers.

[sketchy]

33. +1

[Octafish]

98. Mark Lombardi drew the picture in 1999...

Among the "social networks" NYC artist Mark Lombardi studied was the Bush Family. Lombardi literally drew the connections between the players, events and times. One work connected George W Bush and James Bath to Salem and Osama bin Laden in 2000.


"George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens."

He made dozens of these "Social Network Diagrams," connecting the dots between Bushes and bin Ladens and BCCI and the Mafia and CIA and so on.



Above is a detail from "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens." Note the Bin Laden -- James R. Bath -- George W. Bush linkage. It was made in 1999. Lombardi was found hanged in his loft in 2000. After 9-11, one NYC gallery reported FBI types came in and inspected his works.

Obsessive—Generous: Toward a Diagram of Mark Lombardi

http://www.whale.to/c/mark_lombard3.html

[Proud Liberal Dem]

46. I may not be remembering correctly

but didn't they also post anti-aircraft guns at an economic summit that Bush attended in Italy that summer as well?

[Octafish]

56. Bush was warned OBL hijacked jet threat at Genoa G-8 summit in July 2001.

So Bush avoided the hotel and slept aboard a missile destroyer in the harbor.

Here's the story from July 2001:

Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?

By James Hatfield

Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:

July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.

A plot by Saudi master terrorist, Osama bin Laden, to assassinate Dubya during the July 20 economic summit of world leaders, was uncovered after dozens of suspected Islamic militants linked to bin Laden's international terror network were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and Milan, Italy, in April.

German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.

According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.

Why would Osama bi Laden want to kill, Dubya, his former business partner?

CONTINUED...

http://web.archive.org/web/20060906150015/http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html

FTR: The guy died a few days after this was published. A suicide.

Yours is a great memory, Proud Liberal Dem.

Missing history. Heh heh heh.

[grasswire]

63. didn't the mayor of SF know too?

His name escapes me. IIRC, he was warned not to fly commercial.

[Octafish]

67. Willie Brown got low-key early warning about air travel

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
San Francisco Gate, Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 12, 2001

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."

CONTINUED...

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Willie-Brown-got-low-key-early-warning-about-air-3314754.php

[reddread]

84. as i remember it, clarifications and denials followed

maybe im mistaken, but some speculationfollowing suggestions that his security people were more like condi rice.
then it seems years later it was denied altogether?

[Octafish]

90. Condescenda

Last edited Sat Sep 19, 2015, 12:12 PM - Edit history (1)

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
-- Condoleeza Rice, May 16, 2002 press conference

"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."
-- CIA report for President Bush, July 2001

SOURCE: http://www.oilempire.us/warnings.html

You are not mistaken, reddread. Background from more than a decade after the facts supports your great memory: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13809524-evidence-piles-up-that-bush-administration-got-many-pre-911-warnings

[PufPuf23]

13. PNAC wanted a "New Pearl Harbor"

I don't think your question can be answered because we still do not know what actually went on 9-11-01 nor what hard events brought the attack into fruition.

I am clueless about the events myself but IMHO the 9-11 Commission Report is a historical novel that fogs rather than reveals.

GWB should never have been POTUS. GWB did not "keep us safe". That was evidently not his charge.

[sketchy]

34. +1

[tabasco]

16. It's not just ignoring that daily briefing.

It's an entire cascading disaster of incompetence and inattention, starting with the appointment of Condaleeza Rice as National Security Advisor.

[lonestarnot]

20. Why do you leave out the *? That is the answer. Without *, and with "just a president," we got

exactly the outcome that a stooge that stole the office of President provided. Fucking nothing but my pet goat. Plenty could have and should have been done.

[hamsterjill]

25. If the threat was known to be from Bin Laden

Then, since Bin Laden had tried to strike the World Trade Center in 1993, and didn't get the full impact that he was after, if there was a legitimate perceived threat from Bin Laden again in 2001, I think it would have been prudent for an intelligent president to put extra security into place at the WTC based on past history. Now, would that have stopped the planes from flying into the buildings? I don't know.

Perhaps there wasn't anything that Bush could actually have done. But my gut tells me that Bin Laden picked his strike time based on the fact that we had an idiot in the White House, and for JEB to insist that his brother kept us safe is utterly absurd and untrue. I think Bush's ineptitude MADE us a target.

[pa28]

28. I remember President Clinton warning of terror attacks in '98-'99

Airport security was increased for a time and there were vehicle checkpoints set up before you could drive to a the pickup area of a terminal. (This was at Sea-Tac)

Bush did nothing as a result of the Bin-Laden memo and was never called to account.

[randys1]

29. Day One of the stolen presidency with W the word went out that terrorism

is not important and Russians are.

The day of the attacks Bush got on AF1 and ran and hid for how many hours?

Biggest chickenshit prick of all time.

It isnt what they could have done THAT DAY of the briefing, it is if they had taken advice from Clinton instead of having the attitude that Bin Laden wasnt important.

The ongoing investigations at the time werent coordinated, and that was a failure that I guess cant be blamed on the asshole.

(pats his pockets, looks around, "what website am I at again?&quot

[YoungDemCA]

32. Not much, honestly

And I realize that will make me unpopular here.

The intelligence wasn't very specific or actionable.

EDIT: There's a difference between what SHOULD have been done and what COULD have been done. I was responding to the latter question, actually. Sorry for any confusion.

[Octafish]

43. ''All right, you've covered your ass.'' -- George W Bush to CIA briefer, August 2001.

From WaPo's review of Suskind's book:

Tenet and his loyalists also settle a few scores with the White House here. The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Three months later, with bin Laden holed up in the Afghan mountain redoubt of Tora Bora, the CIA official managing the Afghanistan campaign, Henry A. Crumpton (now the State Department's counterterrorism chief), brought a detailed map to Bush and Cheney. White House accounts have long insisted that Bush had every reason to believe that Pakistan's army and pro-U.S. Afghan militias had bin Laden cornered and that there was no reason to commit large numbers of U.S. troops to get him. But Crumpton's message in the Oval Office, as told through Suskind, was blunt: The surrogate forces were "definitely not" up to the job, and "we're going to lose our prey if we're not careful."

SOURCE: The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light

Interesting that you don't find fault with Bush on 9-11. Got to keep your creds, YoungDemCA?

[Rex]

72. Well you know some here actually support the BFEE, have no idea why they do.

No idea about YDCA, but you KNOW the small group I am talking about. They always minimize the damage done by the BFEE. Sad folks really.

I chalk it up to them living in another country and having no clue what it is like living in America. Ever.

[Octafish]

87. For some reason, that ''young Dem'' prefers the Bush explanation to mine.

What is this thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6171077


"This is a story that I don't see mentioned very often"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026226003#post61


That's not a smoking gun for "LIHOP" at all

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026706185#post43


The poster in question is (in)famous for this kind of thing

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026057449#post159

Lots more examples that demonstrate the pattern.

[treestar]

91. It is not "preferring Bush"

These links merely show YDCA not immediately falling for CTs.

Questioning CT material is not supporting or preferring, Bush, in any way.

[Octafish]

93. Maybe I take it personally.

JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023981591#post96

Guy's a friend of mine - plus he's a DUer.

[Rex]

96. Well there is one of them.

Gee what a surprise one of them would answer you, always watching these threads.

[sketchy]

35. At the very least, notify the airlines

As Octafish said, Ashcroft was warned, so why wasn't anybody else?

[mainstreetonce]

36. Lock cockpit doors

I believe candidate Gore had made that suggestion.

Stronger airport screenings

Inform officials at the WTC which had been a previous target.

There would have been many less deaths especially in tower two if NY officials were properly warned.

[jberryhill]

65. Which, thus far, has resulted in 150 fatalities

[kelliekat44]

40. It may very well be that Bush could have done nothing to stop this well conceived bin Laden plan BUT

there still is that nagging question or questions about those guys taking flying lessons learning to take off but ignoring landing. A lot of the prevention possibilities center around those air fields where the hijackers were taking flying lessons. Paying cash, how and where the lessons were taking place had to raise some suspicions from those involved.

But the one big factor that few in the US want to talk about was the very reason for the attack in the first place. bin Laden himself told us and the rest of the world what he wanted...US soldiers out of what he and other Muslims believed to be their holy lands...period! But, sucking up once again to the Saudis, we totally disregarded the boiling tension beneath the surface of the Suadi regime. After Desert Storm we left a mass of soldiers within the fiefdom of the Saudis. We were warned several times to get our military off their holy lands...well we all know the rest. bin Laden had written about this over and over again. We could have just simply re-deployed outside those sites to a nearby location.

[Stardust]

49. Agreed. It all could have been prevented. nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

61. And IIRC we knew where those schools were on Sept 12.

It was asked then how they tracked it down so fast and the answer was "we got lucky."

[Proud Liberal Dem]

42. It's impossible to be sure

that 9/11 would have been preventable in any event but it seems possible that, had the Bush (mis-)Administration maybe been a little more aggressive in talking to the FBI, CIA, issuing alerts to airports, maybe it could have been foiled? It seems like the Bush (mis-)Administration was sort of lackadaisical about national security in general during the first few months in office compared to the much more aggressive apparatus that Clinton had during his final years in office, which outgoing members of his Administration urged the Bush (mis-)Administration to adopt, apparently unsuccessfully.

[larkrake]

54. both the CIA and FBI knew about and were watching the perps

Which is why there was that infamous briefing. I think Cheneys visits to the CIA offices was to silence them and let it happen so he could start a war or two or three. He is still trying. Bush was just a dumb-bunny and conveniently gone from DC that day. Norad was told to stand down while training exercises were being conducted. People have selective memories. Threats of using planes was well established and documented.

[Politicalboi]

55. NOTHING was going to prevent 9/11

Bush/Cheney were going to attack us no matter what. Bin Laden and his magic planes that leave ZERO debris on the ground at impact. How'd he do that? The world doesn't care, they just want to believe what they were told even though logic and evidence says different.

[EX500rider]

79. "magic planes that leave ZERO debris on the ground at impact."

You mean this debris?

[polly7]

58. I just can't get over why they wouldn't at least warn the airports,

secure the cockpit doors and possibly even have an armed officer on each plane. What would that have cost and how much trouble could it have been to do??

[jberryhill]

64. "an armed officer on each plane"

Just out of curiosity, what is your estimate of the number of flights that take off and/or land in the US each day.

Ballpark figure. What would you guess?

(hint: more than twice the combined total of officers in the LAPD and NYC police forces. If you combined the LAPD, NYPD and FBI, you'd have just enough. "An armed officer on each flight" would be the largest police force in the country by far. And you would have to do it without a single accidental discharge every single day, or else you will have increased the danger of flying.)

[polly7]

66. I have no idea.

Couldn't they train the number of people needed?

I'm against guns, period ....... but what those people on the planes went through was so horrible that I'm just trying to think of some way they could have been protected. These warnings shouldn't have been ignored and any possible step to ensure safety could have at least been considered, imho.

[jberryhill]

68. "Couldn't they train the number of people needed?"

Train the largest police force ever assembled in the US in a couple of weeks?

The memo was in August, you know.

[polly7]

69. Desperate times call for quick action.

Anyone clearly taking the threat as real could have done something, whether it was training armed guards or not. You have a huge military, could they not have gotten people from there? I'm just thinking out loud ...... actually, it's something I've wondered since it happened. Warn the airports, Secure the cockpits and the planes - they could have done that if they had taken those threats seriously. And yes, I know when the memo was .... eta: and all the ones before it.

[Lee-Lee]

85. No

You can't just run down to the temp agency and hire some Air Marshalls. 2 weeks isn't even enough time to say you need peoe, get applications and make hiring selections for a force that size- much less train and equip them. You don't just buy tens of thousands of handguns in 2 weeks either.

And none of that even accounts for the background checks that for a job like that can take 2-6 months when things are not backed up. Rush a program like that and you will create a 1-2 year delay overwhelming the system.

The military? In 2 weeks you may have the selected ones trained on the laws- but not trained to shoot on a plane. Heck, most servicemembers never use pistols and the military training is nowhere near what's needed for that job. Even if you could eliminate all logistical obstacles and by some miracle had 100% availability on weapons, personnel, ranges, ammo, training aids and had a training program fully developed with a full hired and in place training cadre yor still looking at a minimum of 8-10 weeks to graduate your first trained personnel.

Securing cabin doors- could you engineer and make and install the new stronger doors in 2 weeks?

[polly7]

86. Yeah .............. you're right.

It's all just too hard. Don't even try.

You're right - everything is impossible.

Despite all the warnings prior to the August memo and certain people being warned not to fly commercial ......... there was absolutely nothing that could have been done. Just no way at all to even try to secure those planes - it was a hopeless cause.

It's too bad all those people couldn't have at least been warned though. "When you fly, there is a possibility you could be sharing a flight, according to intelligence, with terrorists determined to bring down airplanes to attack the U.S. - but nothing, nada, zilch, fuck-all that we can do about it. We're helpless when it comes to securing airplanes."

[cherokeeprogressive]

60. Short of racial profiling, not a whole lot.

Because we know how most people feel about that.

[Rex]

71. Have the CIA and other agencies go after OBL and his group pre-9/11.

Not ignore the problem and hope it goes away - that GOP mainstay never works.

[Nevernose]

73. He immediately stopped hunting Al Qaeda

Upon taking office. Discounted the threat and demoted the guy responsible for terrorism intelligence. AQ was something Bill Clinton was interested in, and by 2001 the Republican Party had completely stopped thinking rationally at all: if Bill Clinton was for it, it must have been terrible. Bush spent his first hundred days "reversing" everything he could, for no other reason than because he could.

They've just kept it up with Obama.

[lpbk2713]

74. They had a chance to get OBL at Tora Bora but they called off the hunt.

Because BushCo and their co-conspirators were still making money by the carload.

[PufPuf23]

92. Recall the phoney graphics of the underground facility at Tora Bora

that Powell presented to the UN and were run ad infinitum on MSM prior to the invasion of Iraq?

Recall Iraq was blamed for 9-11 to justify the invasion.

Why has there been no personal responsibility for the manipulative lies?

Our civilian government, intelligence agencies, and military have no credibility.

There were neoliberals as well as neocons that lock-stepped to the show.

I will never forget.

[zinnisking]

75. Highest level of reported threats since the millennium alert.

I've been reading the Sept.11 commission report. You should start here. It'll give you an idea of why the neocons didn't respond (even after months of monumental threats, they weren't buying it). And the report gives examples of ways this might have been stopped if we had an executive branch that wasn't careless.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch8.htm

In the spring of 2001, the level of reporting on terrorist threats and planned attacks increased dramatically to its highest level since the millennium alert.

Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet said, it could not "get any worse."

Threat reports surged in June and July, reaching an even higher peak of urgency.

Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented.
......................

The neo-cons weren't buying it. Ashcroft did. Given specific warnings about aircraft he took actions to protect himself. More from the report:

Clarke wrote that this was all too sophisticated to be merely a psychological operation to keep the United States on edge, and the CIA agreed. The intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil and that they would consist of possible multiple-but not necessarily simultaneous-attacks.

More:

Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet said, it could not "get any worse."30 Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department's questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns.


...................

So far after monumental warnings, scary titled memos, and counter terrorist officials running around with their hair on fire trying to get their superiors to listen, the only person taking action is John Ashcroft, heeding advice to protect himself by staying away from commercial aircraft. If only the rest of Americans were as privileged as him. Maybe things would have been different if those counter terrorist officials had gone public. We couldn't count on the neo-cons to respond when they acted like the threats weren't real.

[oberliner]

77. Thanks for the link and the info

Much appreciated!

Lots of great responses to this thread and lots to think about.

[JoePhilly]

97. Read Richard Clarke's book: Against All Enemies.

Bush did not fail to prevent 9/11 just because he ignored the PDB of Aug 6th 2001.

Bush's failure to stop 9/11 began on almost his first day in office.

The Clinton administration had a very high level focus on Al Qaeda. And Clinton was briefed on it personally on a regular basis. Bush ended those direct briefings.

Ultimately, Bush ignored the PDB of Aug 6th because he's been ignoring / unaware of all of the info coming out of Clarke's group. I suppose you could blame Condi for keeping that info from him. But he approved of how she prioritized the threats.

If he'd have been paying attention prior to receiving that PDB, he would have understood what it actually meant.

Read Clarke's book.

[arcane1]

76. Clearly, a month-long vacation is the only rational response n/t

[Cleita]

78. The Clinton administration actually stopped a couple of previous attempts, one on the WTC.

They did pay attention to warnings. That's what should have happened. Not only that the Bush administration completely ignored the Hart-Rudman report that outlined how vulnerable we were to terrorist attacks.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-107shrg77095/pdf/CHRG-107shrg77095.pdf

[reddread]

83. he didnt need a briefing.

except as cover.

[dumbcat]

94. Nuke Mecca?

That would have generated some discussion.

[killbotfactory]

99. #1. Taking the briefing seriously. nt