Where’s the Intelligence Failure?

By Alex Hamilton

OpEdNews.com

Nowadays, the RNC and Karl Rove want you to believe that George W. Bush is a superhero who can simply flex his muscles, spout off a few catch phrases, thereby protecting you from any harm. However, when the subject of thwarting 9-11 comes up, we are to believe that there was nothing the administration could possibly have done. In fact it is unpatriotic, pessimistic, and unfair to even ask if 9-11 was preventable. “Super W.” could not even protect us from a few young men with box cutters. How then are we to expect him to protect us against the surely more sophisticated terrorist attacks that are to come from the recent rise in global anti-American sentiment? To maintain this superhero image, the administration must make the public believe that the 9-11 failure stemmed from an intelligence failure.

It seems like blaming the intelligence community is the easiest thing for them to do. When lack of foresight or lack of curiosity may be the real culprit, why not use a scapegoat? Nobody likes to be accused of missing obvious signs of an impending attack or cooking the books to make a predetermined war look justifiable. But what is the truth on this matter?

9-11 and the Summer of Threat – What They Knew

Immediately prior to 9-11, an enormous amount of evidence was pointing towards an impending attack by Al-Qaeda on foreign or homeland interests. According to George Tenet, the “system was blinking red.” However, the press and the current administration have attempted to pin the problems on the FBI and CIA’s failure to collaborate and share information properly. I don’t intend to question the fact that there should be intimate sharing between the two agencies; that is a given. But, it is important to look at the information that was given, even by these flawed agencies, and ask whether or not this was truly an intelligence failure.

First, let’s take a look at some of the evidence that was emerging in the summer of 2001 using excerpts from the 9-11 Commission Report. Emphasis has been added by the author. Name spellings have been left intact as they are seen in the commission’s report.

"There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDBs from January 20 to September 10, 2001 , that related to Bin Ladin."
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 254

"On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the past six weeks ‘had reached a crescendo.’ ‘A series of new reports continue to convince me and analysts at State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is likely in July,’ he noted. One al Qaeda intelligence report warned that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin’s network was reportedly anticipating the attack."
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 257

"During the spring and summer of 2001, President Bush had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States . Reflecting on these questions, the CIA decided to write a briefing article summarizing its understanding of this danger. Two CIA analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious. The result was an article in the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief titled ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.’ "
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 260

"Late in the month, a foreign service reported that Abu Zubaydah was considering mounting terrorist attacks in the United States , after postponing possible operations in Europe . No targets, timing, or method of attack were provided."
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 262
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This information by itself should have been setting off red buzzers in the Oval Office or its counterpart in Crawford Texas . But, when taken in conjunction with the declassified PDB from Aug. 6th 2001 entitled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S. ” the “intelligence failure” starts to look more like an intelligence failure in the administration.

“We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting such as that from a _________ service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shayk” Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists”
- Declassified Presidential Daily Brief, Aug. 6^th 2001

“Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York .”
- Declassified Presidential Daily Brief, Aug. 6^th 2001

According to the 9-11 Commission there were more than 40 PDB’s that related information about Bin Ladin between January and September 2001. By only analyzing this single released PDB, and 2 of the paragraphs within it, it is possible in hindsight to see the plot coming together. We can arrive at a possible means of attack, hijacked aircraft; and a possible location, New York . This all should have led to an announced government warning, and a “shaking of the intelligence trees”.

9-11 and the Summer of Threat – What they Were Doing

With that in mind, we are to blindly accept the fact that these attacks were a force of nature; not something that could have been avoided. The fact is that even the slightest break in this case could have made the difference, and deep down everyone knows that. Had any of the agencies alerted the FAA to the possibility of hijackings in a specific time range(late summer), precautions could have been taken. Flyers, aware of the danger, could have made an informed decision whether or not to fly during these months of threat. The government owed the American people at least a warning. It is clear that the administration had an idea hijackings were quite possible. John Ashcroft himself quit flying in commercial aircraft shortly before 9-11 as can be seen in the following article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml

Of course he would quit flying, and likely the same course would have been followed by many Americans. Sure that would have been bad for the airlines, but it would have only been fair to allow Joe Sixpack from New York the same opportunity to survive a terrorist hijacking as John Ashcroft.

Given the information about imminent threats to the country, where was George W. Bush? He was in the middle of a month long vacation during the entire month of August of 2001 in Crawford , Texas . All of this was going on as the president received the ominous PDB quoted above. White house senior correspondent John King was asked about the “agenda” for the Bush vacation on August 6^th 2001 :
“CNN: Thank you for joining us today, John King, and welcome.

JOHN KING: Hello and good morning.

CNN: What does President George W. Bush have planned for his vacation?

KING: Most of all some rest and time on the ranch, but there is also a fair amount of work to be done. He has to make his decision on stem cell funding and the White House is debating a fall agenda: not just strategy in dealing with Congress on the patients' bill of rights and spending issues, but also more presidential travel to promote other issues like education.”
-CNN Interview with John King http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/08/06/king.otsc/
Even with all the intelligence agencies and their systems “blinking red”, the president remained in Crawford , Texas for the entire month. This extended vacation was in fact the longest vacation by a sitting president since Richard Nixon took a one month vacation in 1969. Below are several more links to stories detailing Mr. Bush’s extreme vacation.
http://www.golfweb.com/u/ce/multi/0%2C1977%2C4221586%2C00.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0829-03.htm

Simply returning to Washington to “shake the intelligence trees” would have at least left open the possibility of thwarting this plot at the last moment. Isn’t that the kind of thing a real president does? Instead Mr. Bush decided to remain in Crawford, and nobody has called him on it.

I am calling the president on it right here, right now.

This is hubris and arrogance at its worst. Thousands of people in the WTC were killed, and our foreign policy hijacked because of it. It is time for us all to demand more from our leaders.

Of course, it is much easier to sleep at night believing that the President will simply walk into a telephone booth and emerge in bright red superhero spandex to sort out the mess he has created. This is not the case America . The President has assumed the form of a superhero only to project the image, not to actually deal with the real threats confronting us today. When the pressure has been on, the information has been there, and the president has failed us all. He failed us by not informing the public so that every American could have been looking out for the terrorists. He failed by not having the vision, or the attention span to face down the terrorist threat, and eventual attack, in the summer of 2001. Most importantly of all, he has failed to come clean with the public, and has grotesquely even attempted to benefit from what was the failed pre 9-11 terrorism policy of his own administration. It is time for all of us to dispel the image of George W. Bush as a superhero sent by God to save us all, and realize that he is in fact a president who has failed us all time and time again.

What Can You Do?
Recently I have received several letters from concerned citizens asking what they can do. With each article, I will include a section entitled “What Can You Do?” which will be action that readers can take to help the cause described in my latest writings.
1) Forward the link to this article, or the text of it, to 5-10 of your closest friends. Together we can call the president on his lack of action before 9-11. It is imperative that voters know the truth before November 2^nd.
2) Write a letter to your favorite local newspaper asking them to run a story investigating President Bush’s August 2001 vacation in Crawford Texas or John Ashcroft’s sudden use of private aircraft in the summer of 2001. Feel free to use quotes from this article.


Alex Hamilton is co-administrator and founder of a website devoted to educating the populace to the ongoing lies of President George W. Bush, seeking his removal from office and creating a progressive organization to push the agenda in the coming years.
Email Alex: alex@ibtp.org

Links:
Declassified Presidential Daily Brief: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb1.html
PDF copy of the 9-11 Commission Report

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