Like practically every thing else from the right, a smear, a phony made-up smear created to attack the left
In the past week, conservative media — including two New York Post columnists and two Post editorials — have falsely suggested that information obtained by military intelligence purportedly identifying lead 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta may have been withheld from law enforcement officials because of a 1995 memo written by then-Clinton deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick. But the Gorelick memo and ensuing guidelines, which conservatives claim created a “wall” between intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials, had nothing to do with military intelligence — those documents addressed communications only among divisions within the Department of Justice.
My response to this is usually along the following lines:
* George Bush was the President, and thus, in charge on 9/11
* More Americans have died as a result of terrorism under George W. Bush than any other President in the history of the United States
I believe it is the assertion of the members of Able Danger that they were prevented from sharing the information by DOD lawyers, who were presumably not yet under President Bush’s control.
Let’s just leave the proverbial wall, which Mary Jo White seemed to find quite objectionable, out of this discussion entirely. Why was the information from Able Danger not acted on? Why was it ignored by the 9-11 Commission ?
Since you appear to be quite willing to go off on a tangent, then I would like to know what specific actions President Clinton took as a result of his “virtual obsession” with Osama bin Laden, and what he would have done had he known that Osama was behind the attacks on the USS Cole.
That’s a whole other question entirely, and I’d like to know. I’d also like to know why the Bush admin stonewalled the commision so much that he had to be shamed by John Kerry into appearing and had to have Dick Cheney hold his hand (Pres. Clinton and VP Gore appeared at the commision’s behest, separately and without delay).
We sent FBI and CIA assets into the mideast in order to find Bin Laden. Since you want to get into it – please advise how the imminent threat of Bin Laden attacking the U.S. turned into a month-long vacation for W.
That is such a childish BS argument that any sitting President is ever on vacation. Apparently President Clinton forgot that practically the entire world knew that OBL was behind the Cole while he was in office. Yet we are now to believe that he had a “virtual obsession” with OBL? If he was obsessed, maybe he should have been more active when the Sudanese approached us, and which he later regretted not doing.
JD,
The “Sudan Offered Clinton Bin Laden” story has long been disproven. It was originally based on the say so of Fatih Erwa, a Sudanese diplomat, disgruntled over Clinton’s refusal to allow him to be Sudan’s ambassador to the US. He was denied because of his involvement in human rights abuses in Southern Sudan including the murders of two aid workers.
Even Erwa has recanted his story. But don’t let that stop ya … when it comes to Clinton the word of a murderous human rights abuser is accepted over the under-oath testimony of every American official involved who testified that no such offer was made. In fact, the only offer made was to rturn OBL over to Saudi Arabia conditioned on a grant of amnesty.
As to the Cole, the actual finding of Al Qaeda culpability came after Clinton left office. If he had acted during his lame duck period, you conservatives would have fried him.
The Sudan offer was never serious, and maybe if your side hadn’t screamed “wag the dog” whenever he tried to act militarily — things would be different. And simply the perception of the president mugging it for the cameras when our soldiers are getting blown up is disgusting.
Frankly, it should not matter if it was his lame duck period or not, whether it was good for him politically or not. He should have done what was right for the country, politics be damned.
If he knew OBL was in Sudan, or there was any type of offer to send him to any country friendly to us, he should have done everything in his power to make it happen, and then got him into our custody.
You accuse me of the wag the dog crap, but since you do not know me, you have no idea how happy I was that my Commander in Chief actually acted for a bit like he was interested in these folks.
As for the Cole, it was well known practically right away, but substantive concrete proof came later.
I really did not intend this to go off on a Clinton tangent, but his recent remarks of his “virtual obsession” with OBL really rankled me.
JD, if it was “well known” that bin Laden was behind the Cole bombing, it wasn’t publicly known. The first articles connecting bin Laden started appearing in early December of 2000, after the election, and just about five weeks before Bush would take office.
Oliver’s correct. If the Clinton administration had saddled the incoming Bush administration with a shooting war, the GOP would still be screaming about it today.
He should have done what was right for the country, politics be damned.
Do Bush supporters not *get* irony?
Leave it to Media Matters to distract and deflect.
Simple question: Why was there no action taken on Atta and three other hijackers when they were identified as members of Al Qaeda in mid-2000?
Other simple questions:
- Why did the Justice Department, under John Ashcroft, immediately upon taking office turn the focus away from international terrorism and toward things like pornography and drugs?
- Why did Bush respond to the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB (”Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) with a yawn and a shrug and continue on his month-long vacation?
- Why did Bush spirit members of the Bin Laden family and other Saudis out of the country after 9/11 before the authorities could question them?
- Why did Bush let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora?
- Why did Bush turn his attention away from Bin Laden (”I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care.”) and start obsessing over Iraq?
- Why did (does) Bush stonewall every effort undertaken to investigate 9/11? If 9/11 had truly been Clinton’s fault, you can bet Bush would have moved heaven and earth to get to the bottom of it and get the facts out to the public.
I wonder how George Bush’s “OJ Simpson” strategy of looking for Osama bin Laden on Golf Courses is working out.
And JD we know Clinton was very dilligent about Al Qaeda from people such as Richard Clarke. We also know that Bush wasn’t. Instead we see the right trying to ease their consciences by focussing on one piece of missed intelligence after more currnet and urgent intelligence had no place to go in the lead up to 9-11. Here’s a more pertinent question, how come that mid-summer 2000 intelligence didn’t move up the ladder to decision makers in the face of the unprecedented level of chatter in the summer of 2001? We know how Clinton would have handled that chatter, the CIA director would be putting pressure on the CIA to dig up any Al Qaeda relevant information that he could share in his weekly meetings where the president would be demanding responsibility from him and the department of Justice and the National Security Advisor etc. Then that information would be shared between the participants and examined by the counter terrorism czar and anyone else deemed to need to know. But alas, that info, as well as terrorists needing to learn to fly jumbo jets but not needing to know how to land them might have come to light as well.
Simple question: Why was there no action taken on Atta and three other hijackers when they were identified as members of Al Qaeda in mid-2000?
Hmmm…Maybe it was the same reason nothing had been done about them (or the Cole) in mid 2001…just guessing…
Had Atta committed a crime by mid-2000? If not, maybe the intelligence services had no premise to pick him up. I seriously doubt anyone up high in the Clinton administration knew his name at this point.
Only in hindsight do we know how dangerous he was. Has anyone ever heard that story about Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers were being tailed by the Mossad, to the point where they lived 2 blocks away? The warnings received by foreign governments were allegedly through these Mossad intelligence operations.
Other simple questions:
Answering a question with a question is a logical fallacy.
Hmmm& Maybe it was the same reason nothing had been done about them (or the Cole) in mid 2001& just guessing&
Another non-answer.
I’ll ask again: Why was there no action taken on Atta and three other hijackers when they were identified as members of Al Qaeda in mid-2000?
Before anybody starts getting hung up on trying to accuse me of blaming the Clinton administration for 9/11, I’m not. However, the Clinton administrator and its’ supporters have created this image of them doing all that they could to combat terrorism. They were at “battle stations” and they worked long into the night trying to figure out ways to combat Al Qaeda and bring down OBL. They worked tirelessly to do this and then handed it all off to the Bush administration who dropped the ball. All that imagery was clearly nonsense, including the phantom ‘plan’ that Sandy Berger admits never existed.
Instead we see the right trying to ease their consciences by focussing on one piece of missed intelligence
One piece of crucial intelligence that identified four men living in the country as members of Al Qaeda including the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks! How could this have been missed if the administration was working so diligently as they claimed?
Why was nothing done about it? Why were no actions taken?
Why can’t anyone come up with a copy of that memorable chart that has Atta’s name on it?
The Able Danger story is fascinating. However, there are some gaping holes in the story being told by some of the main players. The claim is that Atta was identified in mid-2000. Yet there seems to be nothing to confirm that allegation.
Count me as one who doesn’t care that much whether Atta was on the list or not. If your goal is to “gotcha” Clinton or Bush, without knowing how the system really works, have at it. You first have to understand the big picture; have a feel for the number of false warnings; the number of “plans” that never come to reality; the empty bluster; and then consider there was no historical precedent to go by. We have a precedent now and have had no further attacks. Nobody -NOBOBY- predicted seriously the events of 9/11 or even anything close. We could go out now and probably arrest ten thousand Atta-wannabes that will never carry out jacksh*t. I have little patience with the excellent hind-sighters who just knew Clinton or Bush could have done so and so to prevent the big one. Bullsh*t!
Dugger
Simple question: Why was there no action taken on Atta and three other hijackers when they were identified as members of Al Qaeda in mid-2000?
Let’s entertain this question for a moment. Let us suppose Jay C. is absolutely correct–our last democratically-elected President was told Atta and three of his cronies were positively identified as card-carrying members of Al Qaeda and was told of their whereabouts in the US and our last democratically-elected President did nothing.
This raises a number of questions. Why didn’t AWOL George do anything upon taking office? After all, several things aren’t in dispute: 1. Berger told Condiliar that Al Qaeda would be her primary focus; 2. AWOL George received the famous 6 Aug PDB which stated OBL was determined to launch attacks in the US; 3. one of the people LCOL Shaffer allegedly told, in 1999, was GEN Peter Schoomaker. GEN Schoomaker was named by AWOL George to be the Army’s Chief of Staff.
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