This is pretty good, from Chait.
Last fall, Donald Trump claimed that, on September 11, 2001, thousands of Muslims cheered the fall of the World Trade Center. This vicious fiction drew the scorn of fact-checkers and social liberals but caused nary a ripple in the Republican field. But, on Saturday night, Trump said something else about 9/11, something so far beyond the pale that conservatives finally rose up in righteous indignation. He claimed that on 9/11 the president of the United States was George W. Bush.
Does anyone remember when CIA Director George Tenet and the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC) Cofer Black got so desperate that they insisted on coming to White House to try to warn the Bush administration that a 9/11-type event was imminent?
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.
Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.
They were hopeful that the administration got the message:
During the summer of 2001, Tenet, Black, and one of Black’s top assistants, “Rich B” (i.e. “Richard”), were active in advertising the dangers of al-Qaeda to the new Bush administration. At a meeting with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others on July 10, “Rich” predicted a “spectacular” terrorist attack against US interests “in the coming weeks or months” … “Multiple and simultaneous attacks are possible”. After the meeting, “Rich and Cofer congratulated each other”, feeling that at last the CIA had gotten the full attention of the administration.
They shouldn’t have been hopeful.
MEN’S JOURNAL: You and CIA Director George Tenet met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, to warn the administration of an impending Al Qaeda attack. What did you tell them?
COFER BLACK: Our assessment that morning was that “the ceiling was falling in,” an attack was imminent against U.S. interests and could very well be within the United States. There was no mystery; we fully expected to be struck, and struck hard. Director Tenet immediately recognized that things had taken a profound turn and there was a need for the upper levels of the U.S. government to appreciate this. It was lock ‘n’ load time. Tenet contacted the White House, but unfortunately the president was in Crawford, Texas; the senior officer in charge was Condi Rice. It was the most hard-hitting briefing I had ever participated in. Condi Rice asked, “Cofer, what do we do?” and I told her in dramatic and unequivocal terms, as is my way, I guess, that this country had to go on a war footing – now! We left that meeting thinking we had provided the alert to our leadership.
They soon realized that they needed to make some more noise if they wanted to get some action. That’s why they drafted a memo for their briefer to deliver to President Bush on August 6th. It had a title that wasn’t too ambiguous: Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. And, in case Bush didn’t get the title, it went into a little more detail.
The memo said that there were indications that bin Laden wanted to replicate something along the lines of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, that al Qeada members were in the country and could facilitate or carry out attacks, that they had intelligence that operatives in the country were planning an attack with explosives, and that they may want to carry out airplane hijacking.
Not perfect intelligence, certainly, but the rough outlines of what was to come.
But it didn’t move George W. Bush.
He told the briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
so bizarre he did nothing. was Bush just that dense? did someone assure him that something was being done? he sure totally freaked out when it happened- the look of paralysis, fear as he sat in that classroom
Richard Clarke’s memoir (one of the first out after 9/11) made clear that one tenet of Team Cheney was that nothing Clinton had done could be correct or sensible, and thus elevating terror on the national security radar screen(s) was profoundly wrong-headed—states were the concern, not the rag-tag bin Ladin. Since Clinton had taken these sorts of warnings seriously, that was per se the wrong approach. Adults were in charge now. And treating the CIA terror briefers with condescension and contempt was clearly part of the new “program” of downplaying and ignoring these threats.
No doubt Junya got a little sick to his stomach as the reading of My Pet Goat took a turn for the worse. He knew he had made a massive and catastrophic bone-up, and that blame would (properly) be attached to his minimalizing attitude. And thus was born the phrase “prezidentin’ is hard work–hard work!”
on this one. Bush wasn’t the President on 9/11, Cheney was, and he wanted it to happen. It provided the pretext for the oil grab on Iraq.
Second that. GWB was never really President in anything but name. From the day Cheney chose himself as VP, Dubya was little more than a sock puppet on his fist.
isn’t that letting President Bush off the hook then? I’m not comfortable with that
I wouldn’t call it letting him off the hook. I think it’s just recognizing the facts. GWB was never anything but a sock puppet for his masters. Before Cheney there was Rove. Then Cheney, Rumsfeld and that whole crowd of manipulators around him in the White House. If he hadn’t been GHWB’s son, I doubt we would have ever heard of him.
He was too engrossed in My Pet Goat.
Yes, all while Darth Cheney rapidly flew to an undisclosed bunker somewhere far far away (I’m not sure we’ve ever learned where the vampire’s coffin was secreted away at that time). Leaving Goatie Boy W exposed in that classroom. Did anyone else happen to catch that at the time??
Deliberate?? I report, you decide.
as I recall Bush was flying around the country in AF1 and Darth Cheney was in the gov underground bunker where ever it is in DC, also Cheney spouse was in the underground bunker as I recall from some photos circulated on the tubes a few months back
True. W flew around and around, but it seemed like W was sort of “out there” and exposed for a while, when Cheney was residing in coffin in a darkened place. I thought Cheney was somewhere out of DC, like Wyoming. But I could be wrong about that.
I do recall rumors about Cheney and a man-sized safe in the Veep’s place of residence.
8th & I.
I spent a few nights at 8th and I while our drill squad was performing with the silent drill team. Don’t remember seeing any dungeons, but maybe they were off-limits!
They were. I was stationed with Drum Corps for 18 months during ‘Nam.
Yes. The tunnel DOES exist.
was where he kept the records/data “stovepiped” up through his own, personal “Fourthbranch” “intelligence” op. Which is handy for bypassing the actual experts who could have said (and did! — even before the war crime of invading Iraq was launched!), “are you kidding me? That’s all bullshit!”
(OK, so they didn’t say so in exactly those words; more like, “Those aluminum ‘centrifuge’ tubes Saddam said were rocket bodies? Duh, THEY’RE ROCKET BODIES! And Curveball’s Salman Pak terrorist/hijacker-training fuselage? Curveball’s a completely non-credible liar! And Atta’s ‘meeting with an Iraqi agent in Prague'(?)? Never happened!” Etc.)
Which all boils down to “that’s bullshit” wrt the Cheney admin’s “case” for invasion.
Emphasizing (this is critical) all reported before the invasion was launched (which is why going ahead with it anyway qualifies as a war crime).
Which is why Cheney and at least a half-dozen fellow war criminals should long ago have lived a variant of that great Otis Redding song:
Thanks for the reminder. I do recall that when Cheney left the Veep’s mansion (or whatever it is), there was some chatter about him either removing this Intel and/or destroying it (and likely making sure it was seriously destroyed and not recoverable). All most believable.
Almost the whole caboodle of the W Admin should be doing hard time somewhere. Gitmo might finally have some empty cells. Wonder how they’d enjoy those hummous enemas?
I’m not sure who made the decision to ignore these warnings, which have been made public for quite some time now. Was it Darth Cheney? Was it Poppy Bush? Was it Condi Rice, known for her love of Ferragamo pumps? Who knows, and at this point, does it matter?
Fact: GW Bush was POTUS when all these warnings were provided, and GW Bush was POTUS when the attacks happened. And GW Bush was POTUS when the bin Laden family were hastily shooed away from the USA in the only plane allowed to fly on 9/11/01 after the attacks.
The fact that the dittoheads are upset because the Donald pointed out an inconvenient truth is unsurprising. Rightwingers of all stripes live in a fact free fictional fairytale land where their courtiers tell them what they want to hear – or at least, they are dictated to and have become so heavily brainwashed that they think Fox/Rush blatherings are what they want to hear.
Are people really upset that the Donald told the unvarnished truth at the debate? Seriously asking. I don’t watch tv.
Are people really upset that the Donald told the unvarnished truth at the debate?
Yes!! Establishment GOPers certainly are! So are some establishment Democrats. And certainly the corporate media was having the vapors as well, until Scalia kicked the bucket. That gave them a shiny new toy to chase.
Thanks for info. Well, yeah, “intelligent, charming, faaabulous” Scalia certainly, uh, sucked up all the oxygen, so to speak.
When I heard a clip of the Donald saying that, I almost spit out my bite of dinner. Then I laughed like a hyena. But I wondered if people would be “upset” about it. It’s factually true.
All I’ve seen is spurious nonsense about how terrible it was that, apparently, Trump called Cruz a liar. And “respectable politicians” never ever ever ever call someone a liar… Exception: Joe Wilson yelling “You Lie” at Barack H. Obama during Joint Session of Congress in 2009. IOW, IOKIYAR yelling at a Blah POTUS that he’s a liar.
Good to know, etc.
Establishment Democrats aren’t mad that Trump called out Bush for his disastrous decisions. Feel free to name one if you can; if one or more are out there, they’re outliers.
Spent discussing this is kryptonite to the aspirations of the Bush dynasty and their fellow-travellers. Those establishment Republicans deriding Trump and defending “the narrative” will regret their misplaced confidence.
○ The Out-of-Towner | Slate | by Fred Kaplan in April 2004
○ What Was Bush Thinking On 9/11? by BooMan on May 5, 2005
○ When the going gets tough, cowardly Bush clears brush by clammyc in July 2006
○ “You’ve covered your ass now” – GWB by colinski on July 17, 2010
○ CLASSIFIED: 28-page section titled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters” FactCheck - 20th hijacker Moussaoui
○ The 6 August 2001 President’s Daily Brief headlined “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”
It’s very short – just over one page.
I was shocked when I read it shortly after it was released. Why? Because it really doesn’t, it seems to me, match the status that has been built-up around it over the years.
It seems to me that the CIA and all the others should have been screaming much louder in the text of the memo if they really wanted to get his attention. As it stood, it reads to me like it was edited by half-a-dozen people who were concerned about seeming too unhinged about the threat.
Maybe they had to do that because W and his people were too stupid to understand anything but dumbed-down short memos.
But in the process they made it much too easy for Bush to ignore the warning, especially since it didn’t advocate that he do anything.
Condi was incompetent as NSA, but she was right that it didn’t say that a specific plan of attack had been detected, and she was right that they didn’t say what he should do.
Of course, maybe there were other memos and briefings to W that had more details and more recommendations. There certainly should have been. But they weren’t in this PDB.
My $0.02, FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
You only read a redacted transcript.
You didn’t read ALL bush was presented on Aug 6th 2001.
Nor ANY of the PDB’s or other Warnings Bush got;
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0
○ Who’s Afraid of the PDB? | Slate – March 2004 | by Thomas Blanton, Director of National Archices
○ President’s Daily Brief from 6 August 2001, excerpt “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” released [full report of 27 pages remains CLASSIFIED]
The White House briefing on 16 May 2002 by Dr. Rice. Dr. Rice did not mention that the title of the PDB section was “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” and described the PDB as “very non-specific,” “nothing really new here,” “an analytic piece about methods that they had available to them,” “an analytic piece that tried to bring together several threads – in 1997, they talked about this; in 1998- they talked about that; it’s been known that maybe they want to try and release the blind Sheikh…”
Commission members Bob Kerrey, Richard Ben-Veniste and Timothy Roemer each asked national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to declassify the document, and each time she ducked the direct question, telling Mr. Roemer that “I think you know the sensitivity of presidential decision memoranda.”
○ White House Briefing on Release of the August 6, 2001
President’s Daily Brief Excerpt
“Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.” April 10, 2004
[Source: SourceWatch.org]
Nothing I’ve read at the National Security Archive says that that particular PDB memo (“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) was longer than 2 pages. It says they only did a short redaction (the 5 black lines) – as I read it anyway.
I have no doubt that Bush and Rice got lots of briefings about bin Laden and the rest over the months. My only point was that the BLDtSiUS PDB didn’t seem (to me) to rise to the level of “hair on fire” screaming that it seems to have the inherited the reputation for now.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Funny because Richard Clarke and George Tenet seem to disagree with your claims.
This is the memo from Richard Clarke to Condi Rice, the Bush Admin ignored … until AFTER 9-11;
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf
This is how the Bush Admin responded;
This is the plan they had detailed,
http://www.boomantribune.com/comments/2016/2/16/14240/0923/35/post#here
The plan Bushco didn’t look into until AFTER 9-11.
The Aug 6th PDB is built on all that. the bush admin was ignoring …. thus their claims “nobody could have know” because it seems they didn’t want to know.
Now who do I believe?
Some anonymous poster on an internet blog, or the two individuals most responsible for trying to get gwb off his dead ass, cut his vacation short, and do his gawd dammned job.
Try to remember what the corporate owned MSM talking heads were bloviating about;
The missing intern of Gary Condit, while totally ignoring the fact of Lori Klausutis, the intern who was found dead in Joe Scarborough’s office.
Bush et al were worried about stem cell research and re-hyping the star wars program for their MIC friends
This is the plan they had detailed,
nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm
need edit function.
you found my old piece that I thought was lost with a dead hard drive years ago.
“what was bush thinking” guess I missed that first time. his continuing to read my pet goat allowed all 4 planes to do their work. btw, Oui, on a timeline you published some years back on a sep 11 anniversary. it tells that some uncredentialed journalists came to the club where Bush was staying in FL the night before pet goat reading wanting to interview him; but the owner of the club turned them away. since other uncredentialed journalists had been active that week elsewhere, that event listing drew my attention.
” … this country had to go on a war footing – now!”
A “war footing” to prevent Bin Laden from striking? What does that mean?
Maybe he just meant a war footing in terms of the gathering of intelligence. OK, that would make sense.
We did go on a war footing, if you remember, just a little late, and against the wrong people.
Of course, there’s the intelligence CIA, where these guys were from, and then there’s the operational CIA. (As has been remarked many times and by many people since the Eisenhower days, the CIA runs its own foreign policy.
For further particulars, I recommend J. Michael Springmann’s Visas for Al-Qaeda (2014)
the degree to which the wingnuts (in fact, this is what justifies the “nuts” part of that) attempt (or pretend) to simply ignore plain, simple, established facts out of existence and into oblivion.
In essence, they’re declaring continuously: “Yes, motherfuckers, we ARE entitled to our own facts, NOT just to our own opinions!”
I’ve said it before, the most fundamental and salient divide explaining the dysfunction that ails us isn’t political/ideological, it’s the divide separating the Reality-Based Community (RBC) from the Reality-Denial Community (RDC). (Though I’ve also noted that the overlap between right wing and RDC is Trumpianly YUUUUGE.)
Here comes that sick feeling again that I thought had gone away. I remember feeling that way for years and years and I thought it had gone away. it hasn’t gone away.
I truly believe that at some point there will be an accounting for the crimes of the Cheney coup. just hope I live long enough to see it.
Political malpractice again (from the News and Observer):
How the expectations set by PVI become self-fulfilling.
It’s no wonder more people consider it a rigged game.
What’s with the state and local parties down there? They can’t find one warm body to put on a ballot?
How many times can you observe it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck before you become a duck truther?
Another great read booman. What has always bothered me is the link below. AG Ashcroft knew something was wrong and he knew not to take commercial flights.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ashcroft-flying-high/