Memo...and Rice - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

tecoyah · 02-12-2005, 12:37 PM

My only real issue here is the time span....It took 6 months for the administration to actually listen to the information that could have been used to prevent 9/11. Not that is indeed would have. I do find it unfortunate that the person who dropped the ball here, is now the Secratary of State an honestly hope she has better people working for her....than she was herself.

Memo warned of Al Qaeda
Clarke wrote to Rice of threat in January 2001

By JoAnne Allen, Reuters | February 12, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that Al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The newly released memo, dated Jan. 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks in New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive website yesterday.

The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser at the time, had been described during the hearings, but its full contents had not been disclosed.

Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating Al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.

''Al Qaeda affects centrally our policies on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa, and the [Gulf Arab states]. Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia see Al Qaeda as a direct threat to them," Clarke wrote.

''The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of US policies, including Iraq policy and the [Israeli-Palestinian] peace process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge Al Qaeda poses."

The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by Al Qaeda.

It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the Al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.

Rice has maintained that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist organization run by Osama bin Laden. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday the newly released document does not alter the administration's view that it had no specific information on a potential attack and that it was not offered a concrete plan to avert an attack.

The document was declassified April 7, 2004, a day before Rice's testimony before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive, a private library of declassified US documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The meeting on Al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until Sept. 4, 2001.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...d_of_al_qaeda/

host · 02-12-2005, 01:44 PM

President Bush and his administration blocked the release of this politically damaging information during the critical period before the 2004 presidential
election. Ironically, Bush's base is loyal and unquestioning. I doubt that he
needs to resort to the facist and possibly treasonous methods that are
eventually exposed, in his desperate effort to inhibit disclosure of the truth
about his competence and his integrity. No need, apparaently....he's "had
them from hello" !

Quote:

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/politics/10terror.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/politics/10terror.html</a>
9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: February 10, 2005
.......The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.

host · 02-12-2005, 01:48 PM

Members.....does it disturb you that the news reports influence some of us to conclude
that at the least. Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al engaged in attempts to first prevent
a 9/11 Commission type investigation of the 9/11 attacks ? That Bush first
refused to let Rice testify under oath to the 9/11 Commission, and relented
because of negative political feedback ? That Rice testified under oath before
the commission that the warnings from the CIA were of an "historical" nature,
and that the she and the administration could not have "imagined" that terrorists would stage attacks on buildings using hijacked airliners ?

How about the fact that, although Clinton was completely cooperative with
the 9/11 Commission and agreed to testify under oath, Bush's conditions to
appear before the Commission included requirments that Cheney appear with
him, that neither would testify under oath, and that the appearance be of
limited time, no recording or transcription of the meeting would be permitted,
and that the Commission members notebooks were to be confiscated at the end of the appearance and examined by the White House
officials before being returned ?
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30BUSH.html?ei=5007&en=143c20525a30a3d3&ex=1398657600&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=all&position=">http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30BUSH.html</a>

Why do some of you continue to almost reflexively appear to not only unquestioningly trust and defend Bush and his administration, but you do
not seem yet inclined to do your own research to confirm the accuracy of the information and opinions that you provide in your posts on these threads ?

Quote:

<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-01.htm">Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington</a>
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds [CBS]
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege"............

Quote:

<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=104&ItemID=7171">Privileged Torture by William Fisher February 04, 2005</a>

New York - The Justice Department has again asserted “state secrets privilege” in seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was detained in the United States in 2002 and sent against his will to Syria, where he says he was tortured until his release a year later.

The privilege was invoked “in order to protect the intelligence, foreign policy and national security interests of the United States,” wrote Acting Attorney-General James B. Comey in legal papers filed in the Eastern District of New York.

“Litigating... plaintiff's complaint would necessitate disclosure of classified information,” according to Comey, including disclosure of the basis for detaining him in the first place, the basis for refusing to deport him to Canada as he had requested, and the basis for sending him to Syria.

He was never charged with any crime.

Arar, who has been home in Ontario for more than a year, is being represented by the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based civil rights advocacy organisation

“Maher Arar's is a very significant case,” said his attorney, Barbara Olshansky, in a statement.

“It involves the torture and arbitrary detention of an innocent man seized and removed on the basis of uncorroborated and incorrect information, and puts to the test this administration's commitment to the eradication of torture.”

This is the third time the Department of Justice has invoked the “state secrets privilege” in recent years.

In 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) successfully used the statute to move for dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer who alleged that he was the victim of racial discrimination by the agency. That case is on appeal.

The state secrets privilege was invoked again in 2004 to block a lawsuit brought by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whistleblower Sibel Edmonds...........

................Last July, the court dismissed her case when outgoing Attorney-General John Ashcroft invoked the state secrets privilege. Her appeal will be heard in April.

The Justice Department's Inspector General conducted a classified investigation and concluded that Edmonds' allegations “were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a Washington-based human rights advocacy group that is defending Edmonds, has been sharply critical of the government. It said the district court “relied on the government's secret evidence but denied Edmonds the opportunity to prove her case based on non-sensitive evidence.” That approach, it added, “made a mockery of the adversarial process and denied Ms. Edmonds her constitutional right to a day in court.” The organisation said “the government has relied on the state secrets privilege to cover up its own negligence”, citing a 1948 Supreme Court case in which “the government claimed that disclosing a military flight accident report would jeopardise secret military equipment and harm national security.”

However, release of the accident report -- nearly 50 years later -- revealed that the cause of the crash was faulty maintenance of the B-29 fleet..............

Read the rest (click the link in the above quote box.).....and if you are still puzzled (outraged, angry with
me...) because I compare our government; this government....to facists,
do your own research, or rebut my referenced opinions with your own.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/0501/final.pdf">A Review of the FBI's Actions in Connection With Allegations Raised By Contract Linguist Sibel Edmonds (January 2005; Unclassified Summary) .pdf file...page - 36</a>
Edmonds also alleged that the FBI retaliated against her by terminating
her services as a CL. We concluded that Edmonds' allegations were at least a
contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services. We recognize that
the FBI Whistle blower regulations do not apply to Edmonds because she was a
contractor rather than an FBI employee. We also recognize that her varied and
insistent allegations of misconduct may have been frustrating, and that not all
of her allegations were true. However, many of her allegations had a basis in
fact, and the way the FBI responded to her allegations contributed to her
persistent claims. Moreover, we believe the FBI should not discourage
employees or contractors from raising good-faith allegations of misconduct or
mismanagement and the FBI's termination of Edmonds' services may
discourage others from raising such concerns.
With regard to Edmonds' other allegations of misconduct, most were not
supported by the evidence we reviewed. However, she did raise a valid concern
about unnecessary travel for certain linguists.

C4 Diesel · 02-12-2005, 02:27 PM

<--- thinks host reads a whole lot about politics.

guthmund · 02-12-2005, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Rice has maintained that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist organization run by Osama bin Laden.

This is just another example of the administration being very aware of what they're specifically saying. An excercise in semantics, if you will.

Of course, there was no specific warning of an attack. Did they expect Al Qaeda to send them their plans? Warn them beforehand of the particulars? Perhaps an itinerary of where the hi-jackers would be on September 11th?

Quote:

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday the newly released document does not alter the administration's view that it had no specific information on a potential attack and that it was not offered a concrete plan to avert an attack.

Again, of course you had no specific information as, by and large, terrorist organizations usually don't make their plans known to their enemies. And of course, it wasn't offered a concrete plan to avert attack. The outgoing administration made their concerns known and it was up to the incoming administration to devise their
strategy and implement their plan of prevention as they're in charge now. Once the current administration came in, America's protection became their responsibility.

I have to say, host, that although I don't always agree with your politics, you always present a rational argument for debate. You've put up an astounding amount of information concerning this and well....it is much appreciated, sir.

filtherton · 02-12-2005, 04:00 PM

........ but clinton...............

.........what about clinton............

.......FORTHELOVEOFGODBLAMEBILLCLINTON.....

Hardknock · 02-12-2005, 04:07 PM

everything Bush doesn is Clintons fault. One way or another.

According to his loyal base of followers.

tecoyah · 02-12-2005, 04:10 PM

Enough about Clinton.....I do not wish to see this thread degrade as others have

samcol · 02-12-2005, 05:29 PM

This administration's criminal involvement in 9/11 is disgusting, and yes Clinton is almost as guiltly except it didn't happen on his watch.

filtherton · 02-12-2005, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

Enough about Clinton.....I do not wish to see this thread degrade as others have

Sorry, i was just hoping to get the obligatory clinton scapegoating out of the way.

flstf · 02-12-2005, 07:23 PM

This reminds me of some of the things that came out after the attack on Pearl Harbor and why we didn't act on information gathered from intercepted Japanese radio messages, etc..

Hindsight is always 20/20 and it is not too difficult to look back and find things that seem obvious to us now that we should have acted on.

host · 02-13-2005, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flstf

This reminds me of some of the things that came out after the attack on Pearl Harbor and why we didn't act on information gathered from intercepted Japanese radio messages, etc..

Hindsight is always 20/20 and it is not too difficult to look back and find things that seem obvious to us now that we should have acted on.

Damn.... I am reluctant to do this because I can almost hear the demands
calling for this thread (or at least this post) to be moved to the "P" word
thread, but in view of what I posted previously here, coupled with the recent
revelation of the quiet, delayed archiving of the partially de-classified 9/11
Commission report by the Bush administration, and the release of Richard Clark's
<A HREF="http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=55647">Jan. 2001 memo</A> to the new Bush admin., along with all the other discrepancies,
stonewalling, uncooperativeness, and misleading testimony of the Bush admin., Sen. Barbara Boxer's recent detailed and scathing presentation during
Dr. Rice's senate confirmation hearing <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20795-2005Jan19.html">(Boxer concluded: "So here you are, first contradicting the president and then contradicting yourself.)</A>related to Rice's own history of
providing hyped and misleading info to the press and under oath in testimony
to the 9/11 commission.... I am going to....anyway..... because flstf's comments, quoted above, have helped me to overcome my reluctance, and
because it meshes well with the quote in my "sig", and because my belief
in what my nose detects about Bushco's behavior and reaction to 9/11......
a growing stench.......inspires me to share information and raise the curiosity
level in others who might have a well developed sense of smell:

Quote:

<a href="http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041028-021717-2314r.htm">http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041028-021717-2314r.htm</a>
Contradicting the 9/11 commission's report, two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center following the 9-11 attacks claim they helped federal agents find three of the four airliner "black box" flight recorders from the jetliners that struck the towers. Both the commission and federal authorities continue to insist that none of the four devices -- two cockpit voice recorders, or CVRs, and two flight data recorders, known as FDRs -- were ever found. But New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi wrote, in collaboration with several Ground Zero workers, a self-published book in 2003, which said DeMasi escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the four recording devices. Volunteer Mike Bellone supports DeMasi's account. Bellone said he assisted DeMasi and the agents and saw something resembling a "black box" in the back of the firefighter's ATV. Federal aviation officials said the World Trade Center attacks seem to be the only major jetliner crashes in which the black boxes were never located. National Transportation and Safety Board spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz noted, "It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back. I can't recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders." A footnote to the 9/11 commission report states, "The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175 were not found," a claim repeated by FBI officials and the New York City Fire Department earlier this week.

Quote:

<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050213030209/http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/evidence/tomflocco_Lawyers_blackboxs.htm">9/11 Lawyers Seek Black-Box Data on Saudi Hijackers</a>
Link to a site with much info on unusual secrecy relating to black boxes found at other 9/11 airliner crash sites.

Quote:

<a href="http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&ARTICLE_ID=133237&VERSION_NUM=1">http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&ARTICLE_ID=133237&VERSION_NUM=1</a>
( Bill Manning Fire Engineering January, 2002)

Fire Engineering magazine, the 125-year old journal of record among America’s fire engineers and firefighters, recently blasted the investigation being conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the collapsed World Trade Center as a “a half-baked farce.”

Fire Engineering’s editor, William Manning, issued a “call to action” to America’s firefighters and fire engineers in the January issue asking them to contact their representatives in Congress and officials in Washington to demand a blue ribbon panel to thoroughly investigate the collapse of the World Trade Center structures.

Quote:

<a href="http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Archi&Subsection=Display&P=25&ARTICLE_ID=215236&KEYWORD=wtc">http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Archi&Subsection=Display&P=25&ARTICLE_ID=215236&KEYWORD=wtc</a>
(Fire Engineering October, 2004)

Was 9/11 Commission "aggressive enough" in its study?

The Skyscraper Safety Campaign (SSC), a Project of Parents and Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims, is deeply concerned that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (The 9/11 Commission) failed to take an aggressive look at what happened to New York City (NYC) and its emergency personnel on 9/11/01.

<h2>The NIST Investigators so far, cannot find the reason why either WTC Tower collapsed !</h2>

Quote:

<a href="http://wtc.nist.gov/media/gallery.htm#recover">http://wtc.nist.gov/media/gallery.htm#recover Gallery of Recovered World Trade Center Steel at NIST</a>

<a href="http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/ncstmin_oct19-20.htm">The National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee
National Institute of Standards and Technology (WTC INVESTIGATION)
Minutes of October 19 - 20, 2004, Meeting - Gaithersburg, Maryland</a>

(Following is from the first Q&A...near the top of the web page)

Q: Referring to the column shortening in WTC 1, is the elastic strain reported at room temperature?
A: No. The values reported are for elevated temperature. The history is traced, including degradation of properties.

Q: For test 1 of the fire resistance tests of the floor systems at Underwriters Laboratories, you show unrestrained rating of one hour. Was that an analytical conclusion or a tested result?
A: We show in each case an unrestrained rating when we actually did a restrained test. What we are showing there is not the result of an actual unrestrained test, but the temperature criteria in the standard for a restrained test.
C: Right, one of the major significances of the series of these tests is that test 2 was an unrestrained test and showed superior performance.

Q: I want to ask about the floor performance. The way I understood your description of the collapse scenario, the behavior of the floor systems was not a central issue. Can you connect the floor results with that?
A: The results reinforce each other. The results of the fire test versus the load test support the finding that the floors were not a driving force in the collapse.

(Following Q&A is from the middle of the web page.....)
Q: In the absence of impact, fire only, burnout would have been achieved and the building would not have collapsed? Am I interpreting that correctly?
A: Yes. For the fires we have analyzed to date for floor systems with ¾ inch fireproofing in place, even with gaps observed in photographs, the floors would have deformed, but would not have initiated collapse.
A: We have looked at credible fires in an undamaged tower. Remember, for this scenario, there would not be broken windows to supply oxygen to fuel the fire. This is a working hypothesis and analyses remain to be completed.

Q: Regarding the findings for global analysis with impact damage, I want to make sure I’m interpreting the information correctly for floor 96 in WTC 1. At 600 seconds, there’s 23 inches of deflection on the trusses. When the fires move away, the trusses restore to 6 inches of deflection?
A: Yes. The 23 inches is next to the impact area.

C (NIST): Referring to the slide on global analysis without impact damage. You have a statement that burnout was likely prior to collapse. This infers that collapse would occur. You may want to change your wording to say burnout without collapse.
A: Agree.

Q: Do you have a complete run for the entire buildup of the tower?
A: We have completed the realistic case for WTC 1. The realistic case for WTC 2 is running and may be completed later today. We’ve also done the component analyses.

Q: Can you envision another set of conditions that gives the same observed failure mechanism?
A: We had to remove four to five floors to get global instability.
A: We looked at this very carefully. We could not find a way to make the building come down.

(The following Q&A is located near the bottom of the web page
Read the bold print paragraph. Recycling the steel was premature)

The last areas covered were a review of the findings from Project 3 and a description of the Investigation issue associated with Project 3. The issue deals with the use of "fire-resistant" steel in the United States, especially the appropriate measurement methods to characterize properties, and the codes in the United States, Japan, and Europe, which tend to encourage or discourage the use of such steels.

Q: I have a problem with the statement that the steel collected for the investigation is adequate. If I were doing an accident reconstruction, I would’ve been looking for core columns that were hit by the aircraft. It may be okay from a research perspective. It should not be stated that it is adequate from an investigation point of view.
A: It would have been nice to have, but may have been very hard to find. There is an issue of how the pieces hit would have survived and how they could be identified.
Q: If you go to the site, you look for pieces of the right size, etc. NIST never had the opportunity to do this type of search.
A: The Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) started collecting steel in October of 2001. NIST was a member of that team. That team had a list of steel to look for. Some steel had disappeared and was recycled. NIST took over 8 months before the investigation began. We did not have reconstruction in mind. That would have been extremely expensive for us to do. We tried to get all grades of steel. We tried to get pieces from the impact zone, fire affected pieces, etc. If we had the authority, we would have been more aggressive.
Q: That’s what I’m saying. Looking down the road to future incidents, NIST should have the authority to preserve evidence useful for an investigation.
A: We’ll qualify that statement.

Q: The hypothesis is that core columns got above 600 ºC. It would be nice to have pieces of steel to support that hypothesis. You do have trusses from above the floors of impact?
A: None of the trusses could be identified as to location, only the truss seats that were considered part of the panels.

Q: Have you analyzed the truss seats?
A: Yes, but the steel for the truss seats was from various sources, so there was no baseline material for comparison purposes for metallography.

C: As John Barsom said, the statement is not accurate. The validity of the model question from yesterday speaks to this issue. I do not believe that we have enough forensic evidence. It may be okay to establish steel quality. There was no effort by the Building Performance Study team to systematically look at the steel.
C: The use of the term “adequate” needs to be revisited. There is no core column test to support the hypothesis. The floors came down, the slabs were pulverized. This was unprecedented. Exterior columns and core remained. The floors group will attack this finding.

C: With the low data points for the yield strength as shown on the slides, it does not appear to indicate that the steel meets the specifications. You need to flag the reasons for these outliers. Compression is a factor. Properties can change due to compression even if there is no deformation. This needs to be stated. Fire resistant steel claims by Japan are false. There is hardly any difference. The difference is in the modeling done in Japan. These steels would not perform better than U.S. materials. You need to concentrate on the performance of steel as it is tested—look at weldability, high-temperature chrome steels. Also, the cost of such steel may be a factor.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6/14643">http://www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6/14643</a>

WTC Rescue Hero Sues Bush and Others under RICO Statute

By: Philip J. Berg, Margaret Atheling Rowe
Published: Oct 23, 2004

Attorney Berg acknowledges that Rodriguez’s action will shock and offend many Americans. But he urges critics to read the detailed complaint, posted on the internet at <a href="www.911forthetruth.com">www.911forthetruth.com</a>Attorney Berg acknowledges that Rodriguez’s action will shock and offend many Americans. But he urges critics to read the detailed complaint, posted on the internet at www.911forthetruth.com, before forming conclusions. “The ‘Official Story’ of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie,” Berg flatly maintains. “We do not pretend to have put together a full and definitive account of how, and by whom, the attacks were carried out. But information reported in mainstream media, and viewed in the light of common sense and the laws of physics, demonstrate that the ‘Official Story,’ examined closely, is not credible. The ‘Official Story’ contains an alarming number of inconsistencies and implausibilities. The major media have reported many of the raw facts, but have studiously avoided analysis, because doing so would reveal that the government is lying to us. The 9-11 Commission, a suspect collection of government and intelligence insiders, restated without question or examination all essential elements of the ‘Official Story’ of the actual events of 9-11. It failed almost completely to refute, or even to mention, the great body of evidence that suggests the ‘Official Story’ cannot be true, and it failed completely to hold anyone accountable. From the foregoing facts, it ought to be obvious that a cover-up, or a “limited hang-out” admitting only bureaucratic mistakes for which no one is to be held accountable, has taken place and is continuing.”</a>, before forming conclusions. “The ‘Official Story’ of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie,” Berg flatly maintains. “We do not pretend to have put together a full and definitive account of how, and by whom, the attacks were carried out. But information reported in mainstream media, and viewed in the light of common sense and the laws of physics, demonstrate that the ‘Official Story,’ examined closely, is not credible. The ‘Official Story’ contains an alarming number of inconsistencies and implausibilities. The major media have reported many of the raw facts, but have studiously avoided analysis, because doing so would reveal that the government is lying to us. The 9-11 Commission, a suspect collection of government and intelligence insiders, restated without question or examination all essential elements of the ‘Official Story’ of the actual events of 9-11. It failed almost completely to refute, or even to mention, the great body of evidence that suggests the ‘Official Story’ cannot be true, and it failed completely to hold anyone accountable. From the foregoing facts, it ought to be obvious that a cover-up, or a “limited hang-out” admitting only bureaucratic mistakes for which no one is to be held accountable, has taken place and is continuing.”

Quote:

Karl W. B. Schwarz lives in Little Rock, AR and is the author of <A HREF="http://www.karlschwarz.com/"> One-Way Ticket to Crawford, Texas, a Conservative Republican Speaks </A> He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC and I-nets Security Systems, a designer of intelligence and communications UAV systems.
<A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120404Schwarz/120404schwarz.html">
Part 1: The 9-11 Commission</A>
<A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/121004Schwarz/121004schwarz.html">
Part 2: 9/11 Commission and Bridas</A>

<A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/121704Schwarz/121704schwarz.html"> Part 3: 9-11 served a multitude of purposes</A> <A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/011405Schwarz/011405schwarz.html"> Part 4: More reasons to not investigate 9-11</A>
<A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/020205Schwarz/020205schwarz.html"> Part 5: Exploding the myth of the Bushes as an all-American family</A>
<A HREF="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/021205Schwarz/021205schwarz.html">
Part 6: Pop goes the Bush Mythology Bubble - February 12, 2005</A>

flstf · 02-13-2005, 05:42 AM

Host, I'm not sure how to respond to your last post. The original post starting this thread was regarding the memo warning about possible terrorists attacks and our not acting on it. You used my analogy of 20/20 hindsight and Pearl Harbor to post more 9/11 references. I agree that some 9/11 events are controversial and I also think the analogy with Pearl Harbor and 20/20 hindsight is still valid.

irateplatypus · 02-13-2005, 12:36 PM

the actual memo can be found here.

the text of the memo simply states that al qaeda is an effectively run terrorist organization motivated by a fundamental islamic agenda.

wow. how very insightful mr. clarke.

seriously, i was a furniture delivery guy at the time and i could have written the memo. al qaeda is a threat? uhh, yeah. they've attacked our country MULTIPLE times on mr. clarke's watch. khobar towers, african embassies or the USS Cole ring a bell? i'm certain his memo did not reveal anything that ms. rice was not already aware of.

the role of this memo in the political realm is simply a way to leverage opposition to the president by way of presenting the story without context to a public who loves scandal. al-qaeda as a threat was a long-established fact... we have absolutely no reason to believe that the attacks could have been prevented had this memo been treated differently.

host · 02-13-2005, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

the actual memo can be found here.

the text of the memo simply states that al qaeda is an effectively run terrorist organization motivated by a fundamental islamic agenda.

wow. how very insightful mr. clarke.

seriously, i was a furniture delivery guy at the time and i could have written the memo. al qaeda is a threat? uhh, yeah. they've attacked our country MULTIPLE times on mr. clarke's watch. khobar towers, african embassies or the USS Cole ring a bell? i'm certain his memo did not reveal anything that ms. rice was not already aware of.

the role of this memo in the political realm is simply a way to leverage opposition to the president by way of presenting the story without context to a public who loves scandal. al-qaeda as a threat was a long-established fact... we have absolutely no reason to believe that the attacks could have been prevented had this memo been treated differently.

What motivates you to continually cover Bush's back ?
What has he done to deserve your unswerving loyalty ?
You linked the Clarke memo and then launched a spirited defense
that implies that Bush is being unfairly covered by the media.
What is your explanation of why this memo's release to the public,
as well as the release of a slightly unclassified
version of the 9/11 Commisiion report were delayed until now?

Is there any plausible explanation for Bush discouraging callls for
the creation of a 9/11 Commission, and when one was created,
his refusal not only to testify under oath before it's members,
who he had great influence in choosing in the first place,
but also requiring that Cheney appear with him, that no transcript
or recording of the meeting could be created and that Commission
members notebooks had to be turned over to Bush's staff for examination,
before they could leave the white house after the meeting, or why
Bush placed such unreasonable and delaying restricitions on who
could view the Presidential daily intelligence briefing archive.

Why would the President of the US insist that no record of his meeting
with 9/11 Commission members be made, unless he was putting a higher
priority on protecting himself, then he was on cooperating with the
investigation and acting in the best interest of all Americans, especially
the 9/11 victims' families ?

Seaver · 02-13-2005, 03:27 PM

Wow, so you completely ignore the findings of the 9/11 commission in which states that it was EVERYBODY's fault?

If someone tells you that you are in danger, but doesnt state what it is... then 3 weeks later you trip on a curb and break your ankle... was it your fault because you were forwarned?

This is exactly like Pearl. We had the information, we knew something was going down, just no one put it together. There is no vast conspiracy, Bush did not have a letter saying they will fly planes into the WTC towers. He was told that sometime in the next couple years we would be in danger... you dont get much more ambiguous than that.

Lebell · 02-13-2005, 03:30 PM

I find it very amusing that this thread and another on Evolution/Creation are occurring simultaneously and that individuals who are dedicated to refuting shotty science in one are proposing them in the other.

irateplatypus · 02-13-2005, 03:57 PM

host,

as flstf alluded to earlier, you have a habit of dismissing the core issues of a thread and instead taking it where you want to go. a mod owns this one... so we'll see how long that lasts. even so, i'll address the questions you posed as an aside to the discussion.

firstly, it was something of a bonus for the 9-11 commission to have access to the President to begin with. originally the President advocated a similar study of the events leading to 9-11 yet proposed that it be kept within the senate intelligence committee in order to best remove it from political motivations and security leaks. however, there was widespread support for the commission idea so he assented that he and his staff would contribute.

what you fail to understand is that, traditionally, it is VERY uncommon for a President to even come before congressional boards in order to preserve a separation of powers. in fact, there have been just a handful of instances where this has taken place since the civil war. what you assume to be road-blocking on the part of the executive branch is in fact an almost unprecedented reaching across governmental lines of power. it's is true that the terms agreed upon dictated that the President not be in sworn public testimony... but familiarity with the process shows that in itself is an incredible compromise. i do not think you are not sufficiently acquainted with the machinations of our government to comment on this.

the most complete single source of information i can find on these events can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/
you'll find that the commission members were pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place.

now... back on topic. read the text and tell us all why you think the clarke memo has any real value other than in a political maneuver.

NCB · 02-13-2005, 04:33 PM

OK, so the Clinton Admin sends a memo to the transition committee. They warn of this, the need to do that, ect....

Has anyone stopped and asked themselves, "Well, if the Clinton Admin knew this and that and claim to have had a plan, why didn't they act?"

Look, I know it's part of the Clinton legacy to make him look like he was tough on terror, but he still has that 8 year track record of doing nothing about it! Issuing memos does not absolve the Clinton Admin of whatever responsibility they may have. Are they criminally negligent? No, and neither is the Bush Admin.

host · 02-13-2005, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

host,

as flstf alluded to earlier, you have a habit of dismissing the core issues of a thread and instead taking it where you want to go. a mod owns this one... so we'll see how long that lasts. even so, i'll address the questions you posed as an aside to the discussion.

firstly, it was something of a bonus for the 9-11 commission to have access to the President to begin with. originally the President advocated a similar study of the events leading to 9-11 yet proposed that it be kept within the senate intelligence committee in order to best remove it from political motivations and security leaks. however, there was widespread support for the commission idea so he assented that he and his staff would contribute.

what you fail to understand is that, traditionally, it is VERY uncommon for a President to even come before congressional boards in order to preserve a separation of powers. in fact, there have been just a handful of instances where this has taken place since the civil war. what you assume to be road-blocking on the part of the executive branch is in fact an almost unprecedented reaching across governmental lines of power. it's is true that the terms agreed upon dictated that the President not be in sworn public testimony... but familiarity with the process shows that in itself is an incredible compromise. i do not think you are not sufficiently acquainted with the machinations of our government to comment on this.

the most complete single source of information i can find on these events can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/
you'll find that the commission members were pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place.

now... back on topic. read the text and tell us all why you think the clarke memo has any real value other than in a political maneuver.

The White House declares that Clarke's memo "doesn't contradict the Bush administration's position", you agree with that, I don't agree, Clarke doesn't
either, and it's up to the rest of informed adults to make up their mind.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ahGqbmVbo0og&refer=us">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ahGqbmVbo0og&refer=us</a>
.......Rice, now secretary of State, testified last year before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. She has said that she and other administration officials received only general warnings, including one in a daily intelligence briefing on Aug. 6, 2001.

Clarke's memo doesn't contradict the Bush administration's position that it lacked specific warnings prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the White House said today.

The issue of whether Bush received warnings before Sept. 11 and failed to act played a big part in last year's commission hearings and a role in the 2004 presidential election. The Clarke memo was described at the hearings, though its full contents weren't released until now.

The memo, posted by the National Security Archive on its Internet site, doesn't change the administration's assessment of the situation, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

``There were some ideas put forward, but they did not constitute a plan,'' he said.

Limited Access

Clarke testified before the Sept. 11 commission that he and his colleagues had only limited access to top Bush officials and was under orders to report to deputies of Cabinet officials.

``So does this slow the process down, to go to the deputies rather than to the principals?'' commission member Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, asked Clarke.

``It slowed it down enormously, by months,'' Clarke responded.

In her April 8 testimony to the panel, Rice said the administration gave top priority to thwarting al-Qaeda yet lacked a ``silver bullet'' to prevent the Sept. 11 strikes.

She said the administration, while not on a ``war footing,'' was on alert for terrorism. Hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon near Washington and a fourth in a field in Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people.

Testifying on March 24, Clarke said, ``I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terror an important issue but not an urgent issue.''...........

irate, the "commission members may have been pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place." But....I detail below,
what it took to get to the April 30, 2004 "interview" with Bush and Cheney that you cite.

As I've stated before, my research persuades me that Bush & Co's actions and statements do not pass the "smell" test. I'll admit that I don't know what
all of the references I've provided in this thread will ultimately add up to ,
but my research convinces me that Bush should have been turned out of office by the voters last November, and that you have to ignore a huge
amount of damning information that is reported and then can be verified,
if you choose to do that, but for some reason, you refuse to,
concerning Bush and his administration, in order to remain a loyal defender.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=340_0_1_0_C">http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=340_0_1_0_C</a>
Who Knew? The unanswered questions of 9/11

By Seth Ackerman | 9.3.03

On July 24, Congress’ joint intelligence panel finally released a declassified version of its inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. Described variously in the next day’s press reports as “scathing,” “damning,” “harshly critical,” and an “indictment” of White House secrecy, the report detailed a stunning series of failures by the CIA and FBI that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

No one in the early post-9/11 months, when the panel was born, could have predicted how damaging its findings would eventually prove. Although the committee was established in defiance of the White House—President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney each personally asked Tom Daschle to limit any investigation to the regular intelligence committees—its work got off to an uninspiring start. Its first staff director, Britt Snider, resigned in April 2002 as committee members squabbled over the scope of the investigation. Expectations for the probe were low.

But the investigation was transformed a month before its first hearings were set to begin. In May 2002, a string of explosive leaks ignited a public debate over the government’s handling of the 9/11 attacks and made the performance of the intelligence agencies a political issue. 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.

The disclosures rocked the administration. “BUSH KNEW,” blared the May 16, 2002 cover of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. A front-page headline in the Washington Post warned, “An Image of Invincibility Is Shaken by Disclosures.” Even worse for Bush, the news set off an interagency war of press leaks over who was to blame for the mishaps, with each embarrassing leak from the CIA provoking a defensive counter-leak from the FBI. The result of the battle, which wore on through the summer, was political misery for the White House.

By September 2002, Bush was forced to accept the one thing he had been desperately hoping to avoid: an independent blue-ribbon commission into the 9/11 attacks. The commission, as Newsweek put it, may turn out to be “the most far-reaching and explosive government inquiry in decades.” Bush agreed to it only after a series of contentious White House meetings with families of 9/11 victims who were outraged over the summer’s disclosures. Faced with this powerful new political force, the administration saw no way out. “There was a freight train coming down the tracks,” one White House official said. The resulting National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, formally established in late 2002, will not release its final report until May 27, 2004.

Quote:

<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4091EFD39590C7A8CDDAE0894DB404482">9/11 Commission Says U.S. Agencies Slow Its Inquiry
by Philip Shenon
New York Times
July 8, 2003</a>

WASHINGTON, July 8 - The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony.

The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, with the commission's chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.

<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B1EFE3B550C758EDDA90994DB404482">Oct. 25 2003 - Thomas H Kean, chairman of federal commission investigating Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks, says White House continues to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from panel and that he is prepared to subpoena documents if they are not turned over within weeks;</a>

Oct 27,'03: The White House refuses to yield the PDBs. A mere two years after 9/11, the greater concern has become not wanting to establish a precedent. Claiming executive privilege, Bush thus holds that finding everything known leading to the attacks on American soil that killed 3,000 is insufficient to merit this precedent. (For that matter, when could this precedent be cited in some future claim other than in the event of an equal catastrophe?)
Nov 12, ’03: The White House agrees to make portions of the PDBs available to the commission, but only two members of the 10-member commission are to have access, and two others allowed to see only their notes. Documents and notes will be kept in the White House. The other commission members will thus see nothing. The White House had even demanded the right to choose which commissioners could see the PDBs and notes.
Jan 27, 04: The commission seeks an extension from Congress beyond the May 27 deadline. Its work has progressed slowly because of the stall the administration has staged in providing documents. No one in the White House has even agreed to testify before the commission. Congress, reflecting White House fears that an embarrassing report may burst forth in the heat of the President’s reelection campaign, resists stoutly, accusing the commission of playing politics. Kean and Hamilton, gentlemen of unassailable rectitude, hardly fit that profile.
Feb 4, ’04: The White House accepts an extension to July 26.
Feb 9, ’04: Those members of the commission disallowed from seeing the intelligence briefings threaten to subpoena the documents, maintaining that denied access hobbles their ability to arrive at correct findings. The White House is effectively saying that its inhabitants can be trusted with secrecy, but citizens on the commission cannot. Bush has maintained that the intelligence reports are “very sensitive”, that very few see the briefings. Yet, in a New York Times op-ed piece, Richard Allen, national security adviser under Reagan, says that a number of cabinet members received the briefings and “staff members everywhere sneak a peek if they can”. Even Bob Woodward was shown a trove of National Security Council documents for his hagiographic book, “Bush at War”.
Feb 12, ’04: The White House relents, to the extent of allowing all 10 members to review a summary of the documents. The commission announces it will seek testimony from Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft.
Feb 25, ’04: Battling the commission to the last, President Bush and Vice President Cheney set strict limits on their cooperation, agreeing only to private testimony and only before only the two heads of the commission. The President will allow just a one-hour interview.
Mar 31, ’04: With the public’s sense of cover-up mounting, the White House finally relents, allowing Rice to testify, but only on condition that neither she nor any further White House official can be called by the Commission for public hearings.
Apr 1, ’04: The Bush administration blocked from the 9/11 panel thousands of pages of foreign policy and counter-terrorism documents in the Clinton administration archives. This only became known when the general counsel of the Clinton presidential foundation complained. The White House agreed to let its lawyers review the documents, which is not the same as turning them over. Former aides said the files contain classified documents concerning that administration's efforts against Al Qaeda.

host · 02-13-2005, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NCB

OK, so the Clinton Admin sends a memo to the transition committee. They warn of this, the need to do that, ect....

Has anyone stopped and asked themselves, "Well, if the Clinton Admin knew this and that and claim to have had a plan, why didn't they act?"

Look, I know it's part of the Clinton legacy to make him look like he was tough on terror, but he still has that 8 year track record of doing nothing about it! Issuing memos does not absolve the Clinton Admin of whatever responsibility they may have. Are they criminally negligent? No, and neither is the Bush Admin.

NCB, how do your comments and question match the facts,
referenced below? Does your belief system limit your ability
to look deeper and longer at all of this ?

The facts are that Clarke was kept on after the transition from Clinton to
Bush. He still held a position of authority high enough on 9/11 to go to
the white house and take control of coordinating the response to the 9/11
attacks.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22231-2004Mar24.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22231-2004Mar24.html</a>
Clarke told the commission in testimony yesterday afternoon that whereas the Clinton administration treated terrorism as its highest priority, the Bush administration did not consider it to be an urgent issue before the attacks.

"I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent issue," Clarke told the 10-member panel. ". . . There was a process underway to address al Qaeda. But although I continued to say it was an urgent problem, I don't think it was ever treated that way."

Quote:

<a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=44811">Against All Enemies Excerpts From The First Chapter by Richard A. Clarke</a>

I realized then that until today I had not ever briefed the President on terrorism, only Cheney, Rice, and Powell. We had finally had our first Principals meeting on terrorism only a week earlier. The next step was to have been a briefing to walk the President through our proposed National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD). The Washington Post later reported (January 20, 2002) that the NSPD had as its goal to "eliminate al Qaeda." The plan called for arming the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to go on the offensive against the Taliban, pressing CIA to use the lethal authorities it had been given to go after bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership. Bush had never seen the plan, the pieces of which had first been briefed to Cheney, Rice, Powell, and others on his team in January. I had not been allowed to brief the President on terrorism in January or since, not until today, September 11. It had taken since January to get the Cabinet-level meeting that I had requested "urgently" within days of the inauguration to approve an aggressive plan to go after al Qaeda. The meeting had finally happened exactly one week earlier, on September 4.

02-12-2005, 12:37 PM	#1 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	Memo...and Rice My only real issue here is the time span....It took 6 months for the administration to actually listen to the information that could have been used to prevent 9/11. Not that is indeed would have. I do find it unfortunate that the person who dropped the ball here, is now the Secratary of State an honestly hope she has better people working for her....than she was herself. Memo warned of Al Qaeda Clarke wrote to Rice of threat in January 2001 By JoAnne Allen, Reuters \| February 12, 2005 WASHINGTON -- A memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that Al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The newly released memo, dated Jan. 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks in New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive website yesterday. The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser at the time, had been described during the hearings, but its full contents had not been disclosed. Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating Al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach. ''Al Qaeda affects centrally our policies on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa, and the [Gulf Arab states]. Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia see Al Qaeda as a direct threat to them," Clarke wrote. ''The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of US policies, including Iraq policy and the [Israeli-Palestinian] peace process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge Al Qaeda poses." The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by Al Qaeda. It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the Al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it. Rice has maintained that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist organization run by Osama bin Laden. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday the newly released document does not alter the administration's view that it had no specific information on a potential attack and that it was not offered a concrete plan to avert an attack. The document was declassified April 7, 2004, a day before Rice's testimony before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive, a private library of declassified US documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The meeting on Al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until Sept. 4, 2001. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...d_of_al_qaeda/ __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

02-12-2005, 02:27 PM	#4 (permalink)
C4 Diesel Crazy Location: Troy, NY	<--- thinks host reads a whole lot about politics. __________________ C4 to your door, no beef no more...

02-12-2005, 04:10 PM	#8 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	Enough about Clinton.....I do not wish to see this thread degrade as others have __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

02-13-2005, 12:36 PM	#14 (permalink)
irateplatypus can't help but laugh Location: dar al-harb	the actual memo can be found here. the text of the memo simply states that al qaeda is an effectively run terrorist organization motivated by a fundamental islamic agenda. wow. how very insightful mr. clarke. seriously, i was a furniture delivery guy at the time and i could have written the memo. al qaeda is a threat? uhh, yeah. they've attacked our country MULTIPLE times on mr. clarke's watch. khobar towers, african embassies or the USS Cole ring a bell? i'm certain his memo did not reveal anything that ms. rice was not already aware of. the role of this memo in the political realm is simply a way to leverage opposition to the president by way of presenting the story without context to a public who loves scandal. al-qaeda as a threat was a long-established fact... we have absolutely no reason to believe that the attacks could have been prevented had this memo been treated differently. __________________ If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ~ Winston Churchill

02-13-2005, 03:30 PM	#17 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	I find it very amusing that this thread and another on Evolution/Creation are occurring simultaneously and that individuals who are dedicated to refuting shotty science in one are proposing them in the other. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate! Last edited by Lebell; 02-13-2005 at 03:59 PM..

02-12-2005, 04:00 PM	#6 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	........ but clinton............... .........what about clinton............ .......FORTHELOVEOFGODBLAMEBILLCLINTON.....

02-12-2005, 04:07 PM	#7 (permalink)
Hardknock Republican slayer Location: WA	everything Bush doesn is Clintons fault. One way or another. According to his loyal base of followers.

02-12-2005, 05:29 PM	#9 (permalink)
samcol Junkie Location: Indiana	This administration's criminal involvement in 9/11 is disgusting, and yes Clinton is almost as guiltly except it didn't happen on his watch.

02-12-2005, 07:23 PM	#11 (permalink)
flstf Easy Rider Location: Moscow on the Ohio	This reminds me of some of the things that came out after the attack on Pearl Harbor and why we didn't act on information gathered from intercepted Japanese radio messages, etc.. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it is not too difficult to look back and find things that seem obvious to us now that we should have acted on.

02-13-2005, 05:42 AM	#13 (permalink)
flstf Easy Rider Location: Moscow on the Ohio	Host, I'm not sure how to respond to your last post. The original post starting this thread was regarding the memo warning about possible terrorists attacks and our not acting on it. You used my analogy of 20/20 hindsight and Pearl Harbor to post more 9/11 references. I agree that some 9/11 events are controversial and I also think the analogy with Pearl Harbor and 20/20 hindsight is still valid.

02-13-2005, 03:27 PM	#16 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Wow, so you completely ignore the findings of the 9/11 commission in which states that it was EVERYBODY's fault? If someone tells you that you are in danger, but doesnt state what it is... then 3 weeks later you trip on a curb and break your ankle... was it your fault because you were forwarned? This is exactly like Pearl. We had the information, we knew something was going down, just no one put it together. There is no vast conspiracy, Bush did not have a letter saying they will fly planes into the WTC towers. He was told that sometime in the next couple years we would be in danger... you dont get much more ambiguous than that.

02-13-2005, 03:57 PM	#18 (permalink)
irateplatypus can't help but laugh Location: dar al-harb	host, as flstf alluded to earlier, you have a habit of dismissing the core issues of a thread and instead taking it where you want to go. a mod owns this one... so we'll see how long that lasts. even so, i'll address the questions you posed as an aside to the discussion. firstly, it was something of a bonus for the 9-11 commission to have access to the President to begin with. originally the President advocated a similar study of the events leading to 9-11 yet proposed that it be kept within the senate intelligence committee in order to best remove it from political motivations and security leaks. however, there was widespread support for the commission idea so he assented that he and his staff would contribute. what you fail to understand is that, traditionally, it is VERY uncommon for a President to even come before congressional boards in order to preserve a separation of powers. in fact, there have been just a handful of instances where this has taken place since the civil war. what you assume to be road-blocking on the part of the executive branch is in fact an almost unprecedented reaching across governmental lines of power. it's is true that the terms agreed upon dictated that the President not be in sworn public testimony... but familiarity with the process shows that in itself is an incredible compromise. i do not think you are not sufficiently acquainted with the machinations of our government to comment on this. the most complete single source of information i can find on these events can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/ you'll find that the commission members were pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place. now... back on topic. read the text and tell us all why you think the clarke memo has any real value other than in a political maneuver. __________________ If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ~ Winston Churchill

02-13-2005, 04:33 PM	#19 (permalink)
NCB Junkie Location: Tobacco Road	OK, so the Clinton Admin sends a memo to the transition committee. They warn of this, the need to do that, ect.... Has anyone stopped and asked themselves, "Well, if the Clinton Admin knew this and that and claim to have had a plan, why didn't they act?" Look, I know it's part of the Clinton legacy to make him look like he was tough on terror, but he still has that 8 year track record of doing nothing about it! Issuing memos does not absolve the Clinton Admin of whatever responsibility they may have. Are they criminally negligent? No, and neither is the Bush Admin.