Pre-9/11 doings are coming to light

[1CAV]

Pre-9/11 doings are coming to light

James P. Pinkerton

April 9, 2004

If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor entitled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader?

Roosevelt received no such memo, of course, but President George W. Bush got a blunt warning five weeks before 9/11 and he did little or nothing. He even presided over a stand- down in preparations, concentrating on other concerns.

The Washington Post reported in May 2002 that Bush had received a President's Daily Brief on Aug. 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." But, of course, not everything that's reported becomes widely known, or is necessarily true. And so for most Americans, yesterday's 9/11 hearing provided their first occasion to learn, from the highest sources, just what was in that document.

Condoleezza Rice began her testimony with a statement in which she minimized the possibility that anyone could have known what was happening. All intelligence prior to 9/11 was "not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack," she said. But then 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste pressed her about that PDB memo, still rated as "classified" by the government. Ben-Veniste was legally prohibited from mentioning even the title of the document.

But he wasn't prohibited from asking Rice the title of the PDB. And she obliged: "I believe the title was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" Ouch. Just moments after she had said intelligence was "not specific" about the place of attack, here's a presidential-level document warning, specifically, that al-Qaida's target wasn't overseas somewhere, but rather the United States itself.

David Colton, Washington lawyer and veteran of the intelligence world, observes of this exchange: "Ben-Veniste hypnotized her." Colton adds, "She fell into the rhythm of a smart lawyer's questions, and so blurted out the single most ****ing admission of these hearings."

Seeming to realize she had said too much, Rice tried to bury the revelation by piling on words. She insisted that the document, the PDB's title notwithstanding, "did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting." Whereupon Ben-Veniste invited her to seek the declassification of the entire memo. Rice declined.

Rice's semi-admission - she was under oath, but that doesn't guarantee that every witness will tell whole truth - stirred up Bob Kerrey, another commissioner.

Kerrey was bound by the same strict rules of classification as Ben-Veniste, but he's a free-spirited war hero and so didn't care that he was breaking those rules. "In the spirit of further declassification," he announced, "this is what the August 6th memo said to the president: that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking. That's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of August."

Ouch again. "Hijacking" is pretty darn specific - which seems to contradict Rice's assertion that the intelligence was "frustratingly vague" as to the "manner of attack."

Plenty of people in Washington had their "hair on fire" about the terror threat in the summer of 2001. But not Bush, apparently. On Aug. 4, he went off on a working vacation to his ranch in Texas.

According to White House speechwriter turned memoirist David Frum, that summer Bush "did something I had never seen him do: he brooded." Yet the issue wasn't terror; it seems it was stem cell research. On Aug. 9, Bush gave his first primetime policy speech to the nation - on the topic of embryos. After that, according to Frum, Bush launched a "mini-political campaign" that took him out on the stump.

And we all know what happened the following month.

What we don't know is the precise sequence of events that led to the government's Pearl Harbor-like cluelessness on 9/11. But there's at least a chance now, as documents are revealed and as officials testify under oath, that we'll find out. In the meantime, here's a prediction, based on what we know already: Bush won't dare show more 9/11 images in his campaign ads.

James P. Pinkerton's e-mail ad- dress is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.

[1CAV]

I haven't really followed the whole 9/11 hearings closely. Basically everything I know comes from reading various articles. It was destined from day one to turn into a big blame game and most likely nothing really effective to be achieved from it. I've posted articles here slamming both sides. To me the simple view is the Clintonistas royally screwed up letting Bin Laden and the terrorists fester for so long and build up so much strenght. Bush screwed up coming into office and being warned this was a serious issue and putting it on the back burner so as to not ruffle feathers until the right time.

It's almost pointless to debate who is more at fault. For every slam against what Bush did, there is a counter blaming the Clintonista administration.

But I just had to post this article. Pinkerton is a pretty hard-core right-winger. To me this slam against Bush carries much weight considering who it's coming from.

[Snowden]

If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor entitled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader?

Well, there was a strong rumor during FDR's time in office to the effect that he received, not a letter, but a Japanese member of the Embassy staff in D.C. with some information about the planned attack (which was one of our Navy procedures in a training manual; also a rumor). It was said that Roosevelt left the man cooling his heels until after the attack.

Some things never change. I was a kid of 11, but I do remember Pearl Harbor being attacked and FDR's stirring speech the next day declaring war on Japan. It was somewhat later that we heard about the training manual and the Japanese man waiting in the parlor.

[Joker]

There's also a strong rumour that Churchill had previous knowledge of Pearl Harbour, and chose not to relay it to the Americans because he felt the attack would bring America into the European conflict.

But FDR was only brought up as a comparison, Snowden. Do you have a view about the rest of the article? 1CAV was pretty evenhanded about the blame for 911. Guess that means that the posters who love to paint 'Bush bashers' as selectively in their reading will select other threads to reply to.

[JohnRN]

Originally Posted by Joker

There's also a strong rumour that Churchill had previous knowledge of Pearl Harbour, and chose not to relay it to the Americans because he felt the attack would bring America into the European conflict.

I've seen that sort of information circulated only on websites of the repute of the IHR and the JHR, not exactly level-headed people.

I find it interesting whenever the topic of Pres. Bush inaction regards 9/11 is brought up, people pounce on the Clinton administration and say that "well, Clinton did nothing for 8 years, you expect Bush to do anything in 8 weeks?"

But that's exactly the rub, ain't it? That nothing was done...?

[Woodmonkey]

1CAV was pretty evenhanded about the blame for 911. Guess that means that the posters who love to paint 'Bush bashers' as selectively in their reading will select other threads to reply to.

There are some good points in this article. I've got to say that I'm a Bush supporter and will vote for him again, but I don't think he's perfect. I also hold Clinton more responsible and feel that he should have been more concerned with our security than with, ah, err, ummm, other matters.

[Snowden]

By Joker:

But FDR was only brought up as a comparison, Snowden. Do you have a view about the rest of the article? 1CAV was pretty evenhanded about the blame for 911. Guess that means that the posters who love to paint 'Bush bashers' as selectively in their reading will select other threads to reply to.

Joker, no matter who is President of these United States, he will be bashed by somebody. I try not to bash a sitting president - but I bashed Clinton. I didn't like him from the moment he announced his intention to run. Something about him repelled me. However, he did have a running battle from that time and it hasn't stopped yet, although he's out of office.

Bush has had the same problem, plus not having a press remotely friendly to him. At least they pretended to be friendly to Clinton, but they reported every shortcoming in headlines - which helped neither the man nor the country.

By 1Cav:

I haven't really followed the whole 9/11 hearings closely. Basically everything I know comes from reading various articles. It was destined from day one to turn into a big blame game and most likely nothing really effective to be achieved from it. I've posted articles here slamming both sides. To me the simple view is the Clintonistas royally screwed up letting Bin Laden and the terrorists fester for so long and build up so much strenght. Bush screwed up coming into office and being warned this was a serious issue and putting it on the back burner so as to not ruffle feathers until the right time.

It's almost pointless to debate who is more at fault. For every slam against what Bush did, there is a counter blaming the Clintonista administration.

But I just had to post this article. Pinkerton is a pretty hard-core right-winger. To me this slam against Bush carries much weight considering who it's coming from.

Like Cav, I haven't been following this all that closely. There was an article which I put in here somewhere stating that Clinton's efforts to take action against bin Laden were blocked by Republicans in Congress. If so, that needs to be explained if blame must be "proved" against an American. To me it seems quite obvious that there was no foreknowledge that bin Laden had planned to hijack domestic airlines and ram them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon - and apparently the White House or Capital Building. It would take an extreme case of stupidity for a president or anyone else to sit on that information unless they were part of the plot.

What is happening is simply that we are playing into the hands of a group of fanatics who mean to run our government and our lives. As in Spain, we are running hither and yon like chickens with their heads cut off.