I sort of feel weird to defend Bush here, but none of these stories have ever raised any suggestion of what Bush should have done. That these intelligence briefings happened suggests that the CIA and FBI had some idea of what was going on. It's not like they needed the president's OK to step in.
I obviously don't know, but I would imagine daily briefings are full of such warnings on a daily basis. This threat here, this rumor of a threat there. The president can't just say, "Stop everything and focus on this daily threat." Those briefings are a summary of the known threats that the agencies are already working on.
Maybe Bush was "deaf" (the NYT headline term) to the warnings, or maybe he heard them and lots of others and trusted that the agencies were doing their job. Either way, I'm just not seeing what action he could have reasonably taken in response to the info he was being given.
I sort of feel weird to defend Bush here, but none of these stories have ever raised any suggestion of what Bush should have done. That these intelligence briefings happened suggests that the CIA and FBI had some idea of what was going on. It's not like they needed the president's OK to step in.
I obviously don't know, but I would imagine daily briefings are full of such warnings on a daily basis. This threat here, this rumor of a threat there. The president can't just say, "Stop everything and focus on this daily threat." Those briefings are a summary of the known threats that the agencies are already working on.
Maybe Bush was "deaf" (the NYT headline term) to the warnings, or maybe he heard them and lots of others and trusted that the agencies were doing their job. Either way, I'm just not seeing what action he could have reasonably taken in response to the info he was being given.
Consider the source of the article anyway. It's a biased article. There were significant failures of communication in a variety of areas from a lot of groups all of the people involved are incredibly disapointed and gutted that they did not read the tea leaves better than they did. Arrest a bunch of muslims prior to 9-11 and the beef is nationally that you're racist and insensitive anyway. No one put the information together in the way that it needed to be. No matter who the president is it's going to be a lose lose situation in hindsight because someone hates you.
No one in the intelligence community intentionally ignored anything that they expected to be a major terrorist attack. You're only as good as the information you have on that day. That article is written in hindsight not that it really matters.
If it's a republican rag, they blame Clinton and etc etc. If it's a liberal rag they put it on Bush of course.
It's no one individuals fault. It was a systemic problem of communication and believing this kind of attrocity could happen. Everyone in the community knew Bin Laden was a threat for a long time, they just didn't know how much.
I sort of feel weird to defend Bush here, but none of these stories have ever raised any suggestion of what Bush should have done. That these intelligence briefings happened suggests that the CIA and FBI had some idea of what was going on. It's not like they needed the president's OK to step in.
I obviously don't know, but I would imagine daily briefings are full of such warnings on a daily basis. This threat here, this rumor of a threat there. The president can't just say, "Stop everything and focus on this daily threat." Those briefings are a summary of the known threats that the agencies are already working on.
Maybe Bush was "deaf" (the NYT headline term) to the warnings, or maybe he heard them and lots of others and trusted that the agencies were doing their job. Either way, I'm just not seeing what action he could have reasonably taken in response to the info he was being given.
What angered me the most was that he took these briefings and the initial reaction was "this is a misinformation campaign to distract us from Saddam Hussein, which is the real threat". It was that obsession that caused the blindness to what was really going on. Maybe there wasn't enough information to prevent the attacks, that we'll never know. But when the reaction is to focus on Saddam Hussein when A), there are fundamental difference between him and bin Laden that make collaboration highly unlikely, and B), the briefings on bin Laden include language like "imminent near term attack" and "by people already in the U.S." (those quotes are paraphrased), it really makes you wonder just how incompetent that administration was and what the human cost of that incompetence was.
_________________ It takes a big man to make a threat on the internet.
I sort of feel weird to defend Bush here, but none of these stories have ever raised any suggestion of what Bush should have done. That these intelligence briefings happened suggests that the CIA and FBI had some idea of what was going on. It's not like they needed the president's OK to step in.
I obviously don't know, but I would imagine daily briefings are full of such warnings on a daily basis. This threat here, this rumor of a threat there. The president can't just say, "Stop everything and focus on this daily threat." Those briefings are a summary of the known threats that the agencies are already working on.
Maybe Bush was "deaf" (the NYT headline term) to the warnings, or maybe he heard them and lots of others and trusted that the agencies were doing their job. Either way, I'm just not seeing what action he could have reasonably taken in response to the info he was being given.
What angered me the most was that he took these briefings and the initial reaction was "this is a misinformation campaign to distract us from Saddam Hussein, which is the real threat". It was that obsession that caused the blindness to what was really going on. Maybe there wasn't enough information to prevent the attacks, that we'll never know. But when the reaction is to focus on Saddam Hussein when A), there are fundamental difference between him and bin Laden that make collaboration highly unlikely, and B), the briefings on bin Laden include language like "imminent near term attack" and "by people already in the U.S." (those quotes are paraphrased), it really makes you wonder just how incompetent that administration was and what the human cost of that incompetence was.
and on top of suspicious Muslims already being arrested in the county for such suspicious activity. Its total blindness cause Bush was dead set on going after Saddam.
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