Failure of the Bush Administration?

[scrambler]

I meant to post this several days ago when I first read about it. Anyway...

 

High-Ranking Officials Admit 9/11 Could've Been Prevented

 

"This was not something that had to happen."

"They simply failed."

----— Thomas H. Kean, Chair of the independent commission investigating 9/11. Kean is a Republican appointed by Bush

 

"They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap, and they didn't do anything to prevent it."

---— Senator Richard Shelby, then ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee; member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11

 

"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots. I think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they didn't act on it."

---— Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11

 

"There were lots of warnings."

----— Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

 

"Should we have known? Yes, we should have. Could we have known? Yes, I believe we could have because of the hard targets [CIA operatives were tracking]."

----— Representative Porter Goss, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Republican co-chairman of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11

 

"I cannot say for sure that there wasn't a possibility we could have come across some lead that would have led us to the hijackers."

----— FBI Director Robert Mueller

 

"As of September 10th, each of us knew everything we needed to know to tell us there was a possibility of what happened on September 11th."

---— Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff (described by the Associated Press as "the Bush administration's top anti-terrorism prosecutor")

 

"Had one human being or a common group of human beings sat down with all that information, we could have gotten to the hijackers before they flew those four airplanes either into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the ground of Pennsylvania."

---— Senator Bob Graham, then Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Democratic co-chairman of the joint intelligence panel that investigated 9/11

 

"If you put all those pieces together, I don't say you could have prevented September 11th, but there might have been some warning, had it been handled properly."

---— Vice President Dick Cheney

 

This and much more are archived at The Memory Hole ( link)

________________________________________________________

December 17, 2003--9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

 

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

 

"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.

 

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."

 

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

 

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said

 

CBS News source--remainder of news article

_________________________________________________________

FYI, the bi-partisan 911 Commission consists of 10 people appointed by House and Senate leaders from both parties and by President Bush. The Commission is led by Republican and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. In addition to Kean, the commissioners are:

 

• Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor and Democratic counsel of the Senate Whitewater Committee

• Fred Fielding, former counsel to presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush

• Jamie Gorelick, Fannie Mae vice president and former deputy attorney general under Janet Reno

• Slade Gorton, former Republican U.S. senator from Washington

• John Lehman, former U.S. Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.

• Timothy Roemer, former Democratic congressman from Indiana

• James Thompson, former Republican governor of Illinois

• Lee Hamilton, former Democratic congressman from Indiana

• Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator

[catbirdseat]

I didn't know Gorton was on the commission. He's a pretty straight up guy. I'd tend to trust him.

[Rodchester]

I don't get it. Just because they say it should have and could have been prevented, how is that Bush's failure? There are systemic problems identified by the report that go way back. They are, as I stated systemic, not based on the administration. These have to do with systems that have been in place, many since WWII.

 

Not that I'm a Republican or anything, but this is being misintrepreted by most in the media.

 

Do you blame FDR for Pearl Harbor?

[Doug]

I heard Slade interviewed on the radio yesterday. He seemed to back track from any comments made by him alluding to this beig preventable. It was actually the 1st time I heard him say something I agree with him on.

[scrambler]

I don't get it. Just because they say it should have and could have been prevented, how is that Bush's failure? There are systemic problems identified by the report that go way back. They are, as I stated systemic, not based on the administration. These have to do with systems that have been in place, many since WWII.

 

Yes, this appears to transcend party affliation. 911 was the defining event that precipitated war with Afghanistan and Iraq leading simultaneously to domestic changes in civil liberties.

 

Sign of things to come...?

[Phil K]

Didn't Bush comment that 9/11 was like winning the Trifecta?

He could inflate the defense budget infinitely, slam through all sorts of envionnmental and civil liberty- busting legislation and call anyone who dared question his motives a traitor. Makes you wonder.....

[allthumbs]

You have a point there. It did open the window of opportunity for quick policymaking for a new pres.

[willstrickland]

Bush actually said that? Source please?

[allthumbs]

In his political speeches, Bush had been compulsively repeating his tasteless joke about "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta" because the 9-11 attacks gave him the justification he wanted to raid the Social Security fund. It's almost too weird to even contemplate.

[dudegnarly]

Just enter 'trifecta' at the whitehouse.gov site. You turn up plenty of examples--like

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020429-4.html

--or

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020614-8.html

--etc.

[catbirdseat]

In his political speeches, Bush had been compulsively repeating his tasteless joke about "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta" because the 9-11 attacks gave him the justification he wanted to raid the Social Security fund. It's almost too weird to even contemplate.

Trask, you misquote Bush. He didn't say it like it was a good thing, even though he sort of did make a joke about it. I feel just awful now. I thought I'd be the last person on earth to defend Bush.

[JoshK]

The Clinton administration HANDED the BushCo Inc. adminisration a complete report and plan for dealing with Osama Bin Laden just weeks before leaving office. BushCo Inc. chose to ignore this and what we were left with was a pile of rubble in NYC and a "war on terrorism" The republicans try to blame Clinton for the "security lapse" that led to 9/11, but the fact is BushCo was the one that completely dropped the ball which was handed right too him.

[Lars]

The Clinton administration HANDED the BushCo Inc. adminisration a complete report and plan for dealing with Osama Bin Laden

 

let me get this straight. you are saying that Clinton had all the info he needed to go after BinLaden, did nothing about it, and now Bush is responsible for 9/11???

[crazyjizzy]

A recent book dealing with this is "1000 years for revenge", by Peter Lance.

 

The Bush Admin (Part 1) handed info on WTC plots (Part 1) to the Clinton Admin.

 

The FBI was too concerned with interdepartmental fighting and turf wars with the NY JTTC, the CIA, DIA, Dept. of State, and DSA. This was clearly a preventable action, especially (in my view) of our actions in Afghanistan.

 

In 1985, while Gorb. was looking for a Soviet exit this mess, Bil Casey reportedly said "we will bleed those bastards dry". American aid then increased to upwards of $180 million from app. $34 million in '83; and the USSR ,

deprived of a exit with grace, increased their presence.

 

Lots of innocent people died in NYC, East Africa, and S. Asia because of this sequence of events.

 

On the other side of the coin, the question needs to be asked if these events where a worthy price to pay for the dissolution of the USSR, and the escalations of the cold war? I am undecided.

[JoshK]

The Clinton administration HANDED the BushCo Inc. adminisration a complete report and plan for dealing with Osama Bin Laden

 

let me get this straight. you are saying that Clinton had all the info he needed to go after BinLaden, did nothing about it, and now Bush is responsible for 9/11???

 

Yes, do a little reading. Cliton put Richard Clarke in charge of coming up with a plan to destory Al Queda. This was following the bombing of the USS Cole. Clarke developed a plan that outlined almost everything BushCo did *after* the NYC 9/11 attacks; attack their financial structure, bust up "charities" supporting them, help with aid to countries dealing with Al Qaeda. Furthermore, Clarke even recommended ground troops in Afgahnistan and the backing off the Nothern Alliance.

 

This paper was completed only days or weeks before Clinton was to leave office. Apprently the administration decided that handing a war over to an incoming administration wouldn't be a good idea, so they handed the entire plan to BushCo to implement it.

 

They figured they had bigger problems, like supporting their finacial backers and we were left with 9/11 a few months later.