Cheney Thought al Qaeda was Bluffing [View all]

[applegrove]

Cheney Thought al Qaeda was Bluffing

By Jon Schwarz at the Intercept

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/19/cia-tell-bush-cheney-al-qaeda-threats-real/

"SNIP...............


When presented with an actual terror threat — the one that turned into the 9/11 attacks — Cheney thought al Qaeda was bluffing.

No kidding. This is from The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, a new book by former acting CIA director Mike Morell:


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

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



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