And why the criticism at all? To 'distract' from the reality that Bush/Cheney didn't care what occurred that would prompt war? Bush did dearly little than Clinton when in fact he had more knowledge about the invasive nature of the enemy. Who is the master propagandist? Who is in control?
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S. (click here)
The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," (click here) and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.
The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.
Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.
New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.
In earlier comments this week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States, indicating that he and his aides were concerned about the risks.
The new reports came amid continued demands for an independent investigation on Capitol Hill, along with more revelations about possible intelligence missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said.
The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass for Middle Eastern aviation students. The CIA's discovery of an al Qaeda link was first reported by ABC News.
Sources cautioned that CIA officials are not sure that they could have linked the two names to al Qaeda had they been given the memo last summer.
Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers received flight training in the United States, although all had ended their classes by the time the memo was written. The document was never shared in August with FBI investigators in Minnesota, who were scrambling to ascertain whether French national Zacarias Moussaoui was part of an al Qaeda plot. He since has been charged as a Sept. 11 conspirator.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday that criticism of the administration's intelligence actions before Sept. 11 is unfair.
Unfair. Judging the lack of protection of the USA was unfair. I see.
From the Houston Chronicle (click link on title of entry):
Review of Bush early record on terrorism revealing
...Bush's engagement with terrorism in the first eight months of his term, described in interviews with advisers and contemporary records, tells a story of burgeoning ambition without commitment of comparably ambitious means. In deliberations and successive drafts of a National Security Presidential Directive approved by Bush's second-ranking advisers on Aug. 13, the declared objective evolved from "rolling back" to "permanently eroding" and eventually to "eliminating" bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.
Cabinet-rank policy-makers, or principals, took up the new strategy for the first time on Sept. 4. It called for phased escalation of pressure against Taliban leaders to present them with an unavoidable choice -- disgorge al-Qaida or face removal from power....
In the face of the CIA and FBI reports in August of 6th, Bush did dearly little regarding that tracks with steps in protecting the citizens of the USA in regard to the airline industry. He focused on clandestine international operations. He, Cheney and Rumsfeld never protected the USA Pre-911 based on the intelligence presented to him.
