How Much Did the Bush Administration Know? Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and 9/11

[Karmadillo]

http://www.counterpunch.com/ridgeway01032006.html

By JAMES RIDGEWAY

In San Antonio over the weekend,Bush defended the NSA wiretap program,saying, "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again if they can," he said. "And we're going to do everything we can to stop them."

To be polite about it, this is an especially weird statement coming from a President whose administration repeatedly ignored one warning after another of an imminent terrorist attack before 9/11.

But in fact, it is clear the administration did know we could be attacked in any number of ways, including by turning a hijacked commercial airliner into a missile.

There were at least a dozen warnings from foreign intelligence services of terrorist plans to attack, including some citing the possibility of turning a hijacked plane into a suicide missile.

Explicit warnings came from British, German, Italian, Egyptian, and Jordanian intelligence, and even from Vladimir Putin. In July 2001, just two months before 9/11, there were intelligence warnings that the G-8 summit in Genoa might be attacked by "planes stuffed with explosives." Italian officials took these threats seriously enough to close the air space over Genoa and install anti-aircraft guns around the city. And Bush thought enough of them to chose to stay in a ship off the coast instead of in Genoa. Unfortunately, he thought less about the safety of ordinary Americans than he did about his own safety.

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