Bush told of hijack warning weeks before 9/11 - April 9, 2004

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1188902,00.html

Rice says briefing contained no fresh information

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday April 9, 2004
The Guardian

President Bush was given an intelligence briefing, entitled Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States just weeks before the September 11 attacks, it emerged yesterday.

Details of the August 6 briefing in 2001, which warned of terrorist preparations being made for hijackings on American soil, surfaced in testimony given by the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to a commission of inquiry studying the September 11 attacks.

The existence of the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) had been publicly known for some time, but Ms Rice's confirmation of its title and some of its contents pushed it centre stage in the explosive political row over whether the al-Qaida attacks could have been prevented.

The emotive significance of the briefing - in the form of a memorandum sent to the president summarising potential threats to the US - is all the greater because at the time he received it, Mr Bush was on a month-long "working holiday" at his Texas ranch and spent much of the following days fishing and clearing undergrowth on his land. He did not cut short his vacation or apparently take dramatic steps in response to the briefing.

[HereSince1628]

1. Thanks, it never hurts to be reminded of the depraved indifference

manifest by the crazies let out of the basement in the days before "everything changed."

[AndyA]

2. Grounds for impeachment.

He failed to take action to protect the United States against a known threat. The result? 9/11.

IMPEACH.

[INdemo]

11. It was all Clinton's fault...Remember?

[indepat]

16. Even if proven beyond any doubt, faithful ideologues would reason it was in the country's overall

best interest, as is every policy, action, war, et al ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

[Ezlivin]

3. Bush - Incompetent President or Most Incompetent President ever?

I wonder how much of his ignorance is feigned to keep us ignorant of the greater motives?

When you look at who benefited the most from 9/11, it wasn't the American citizens, it wasn't bin Laden and it certainly wasn't al Queda: It was this administration and defense contractors.

We will have to face the fact that we have a government being run by criminals as a criminal enterprise. With that thought firmly in grasp, it's easy to see how they could allow or even orchestrate the deaths of Americans (a la Operation Northwoods) for political means.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. Wow!

[StarryNite]

21. I agree

He didn't do anything about the warning because he already knew and of course had no intentions of stopping the "New Pearl Harbor."

[formercia]

29. I just noticed something interesting

notice the roof bows inward as the tower begins to collapse. The structures on top of the tower disappear first like the inner columns were cut.

[Ezlivin]

30. Precisely

Many others have pointed to the "kink" in the penthouse just prior to collapse as excellent evidence of controlled demolition.

http://www.wtc7.net/

[formercia]

31. Notice how fast the penthouse disappears

in free fall from the first second, without hesitation. A controlled demolition is what happened.

I've had advanced demo training and participated in felling rigid steel structures with high explosives. It's not an easy thing to do and requires much study and precise charge placement. This was done by pros.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Lest we forget... nt

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. Their attitude had not changed since their briefings from the Clinton administration

They were warned of the dangers but made a conscious decision to just sit there saying, "Yea, yea, yea. Whatever. Talk to the hand."

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. WWCD? What would Clinton Do?

Now that we know that this report definitely gave the White House warning, and now that Clinton and Madelaine Albright don't have to play nice and protect the Bush Administration out of any courtesy or tradition, can someone tell me what would Bill Clinton or even Al Gore have done if the same report landed on their desk during their Administration?

[The Count]

7. Someone should take this to Rudy, who thinks W was tending to a "giant stack

of important memos" that day
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x732667

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. Bush 'turning a blind eye'

[Old and In the Way]

9. If this was such a minor thing...why did they fight tooth and nail to keep us from

learning about this briefing? Because it contradicts the lies they told immediately after the attack. They had very clear warnings and they chose to ignore. Why? Because they wanted a reason to get our troops into the ME, particularly Iraq? Why? Because Iraq had the #2 oil reserves in the world...and this administration represents the interests of Big Oil.

We know what Cheney was doing in his Secret Energy Meetings in the Spring of 2001...he was divvying up Iraq's oil fields. Knowing that, how can we accept that this administration never anticipated that we'd be attacked? They needed a "New Pearl Harbor". I would suggest they were well aware that something was going to occur and they made sure that that they did nothing to keep it from happening. LIHOP, if you will.

[Robbien]

10. So. Bush was told the levies would break 24 hours before they did

Since he told no one and did nothing, he can claim it is all someone else's fault.

Standard procedure for BushCo.

[yardwork]

12. Thank you for this reminder. k&r

[Stephanie]

13. IMO, this PDB was precisely the REASON he spent a month on vacation.

They left DC because they wanted to get out of harm's way. If you recall, the month-long vacation was virtually unprecedented and it was politically unpopular. He took a lot of heat for it. It was hastily put together. The press corps was unaware that it was happening until they were practically on the road. Karen Hughes had to come up with that phony "Western White House" sign to try to spin the whole thing. The bottom line is, they got the briefing and high-tailed it out of DC to protect their own cowardly asses. Cheney also split town, and spent the month in Wyoming. "Fishing."

As soon as Bush was shamed into returning to DC a few days earlier than planned, he immediately took off for Camp David. Right after that, Florida. Where he had anti-aircraft missiles stationed on the roof of his hotel.

Bush Knew, Bush Flew. He's nothing but a coward.

[seemslikeadream]

25. LIHOP

[Stephanie]

27. you betcha

this is the deepest darkest secret of the Bush admin - who will finally tell the truth about it?

[formercia]

33. On 9/10 there was a report that Atta was within 1/2 mile

of where Junior was staying. Was he stalking Junior, or just coordinating the next day's attack?

Which brings up the subject of Junior's Autobiography. I have a suggestion for a title: We were Cowards.

[formercia]

34. On edit

the title of my previous comment might be misleading. It should have read: There was a report that on 9/10.....

Others have surely covered this before...

[BuyingThyme]

14. kcik

[petgoat]

15. Condi lied to the faces of the 9/11 widows

when she said the 8-6 PDB did not warn of new attacks.

[devilgrrl]

17. The look on his face in the classroom...

I don't know about the rest of you but to me that look on his face wasn't a look of concern but a look of "Holy shit! They're really going through with this!" He knew it was coming.

And that's what I'm saying.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

19. They?

[devilgrrl]

20. YEAH!!! THEY!!!!!

:nuke:

Let's hear your opinion oh wise one.

[irislake]

22. Yup

I agree. He sat there scared shitless waiting for the whole attack to go forward. Dick Cheney was running the show. Rummy and Meyers also did absolutely NOTHING but wait for all four planes to hit their targets. Had the fourth plane hit the Capitol Building, as planned, they could have declared martial law and the coup would have been complete --- rather than half-assed. I expect a dirty bomb will explode in the Capitol Building to finish the job before the 2008 election. Crazy? I don't think so.

[SpiralHawk]

23. Most Americans are sick of republicon lies about 9/11 and their gross failures

What did the republicons expect, with Commander AWOL and "Five Deferments" Cheney in charge of defending America?

Shame, incompetence, and dishonesty. Massive failures. Massive tragedy.

The republicons are too corrupt and incompetent to defend America and 9/11 is just one proof of it.

[Festivito]

24. Upon knowing he mistook it as historical, did anyone make changes for his future briefs?

Just heard he mistook it for an historical lesson. So, did the writers ever try to find out how they could write to the president such that they would be properly understood the next time they tried to warn him that our nation was under impending attack?

[UpInArms]

26. and he treated the hurricane that hit NOLA just the same

[frogcycle]

28. and yet Kerry could not mop the floor with him

that is not a slam against Kerry - it is a commentary on how much our supposed democratic process has been perverted

[Lochloosa]

32. I know for a fact that people were moved out of the Pentagon

before 9/11.

Can't say who but someone very high in DIA was moved to his house and given around the clock protection.