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• Thursday, January 8, 2009 10:09 AM

  Also more on WHY the PDB did warn of attacks

  The memo includes intelligence on al Qaeda threats as recent as three months before the attacks.

  Highlights of the report include:

  • An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating that al Qaeda was trying to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. That information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

  (GOSH, May 2001, who would have been president then, hmmm. . . George W. Bush. So let me see this is a historical document issued on Augst 6, 2001 using information from just FOUR MONTHS PRIOR detailing that intelligence indicated an attack from Bin Laden in the U.S. Nothing to see there. TECHINICALLY it is historical. Practically anyone but an idiot would treat this as relatively fresh intelligence. Especially after you've REQUESTED the report and the memo is entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S." At some point you really have to be able to put two and two together.)

  • An allegation that al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999.

  (Can't argue the Bush Administration wasn't made aware of THIS one then. It also leads one to think, as the 9/11 Commission charged, that perhaps Secretary Rice should have spent just a little bit MORE time dealing with this particular memo. And maybe it was a tad bit MORE important than she realized at the time. Sure seems to have a lot of information in it.)

  • An allegation that bin Laden was set on striking the United States as early as 1997 and through early 2001.

  • Intelligence suggesting that suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the country.

  (Wow. One might think, if they were president or national security advisor, this would be indicative of an attack.

  • A report that at least 70 FBI investigations were under way in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the United States.

  (So can't really pin THAT one on the FBI either. They GAVE then-National Security Advisor Rice the info on that one. Now what would MOST people do if they were the National Security Advisor with a memo like this?)

  I'm not asking Condoleezza Rice to be psychic. I'm asking her to do some basic-level analysis. Why am I asking her and not others? Well as the president's National Security Advisor, unlike say your average CIA agent, she has a great deal of access to ALL of the intelligence as well as unprecedented access TO the president.

  She should have been able to put this together. And, had she been doing her job, she would have. Now, technically, can she sit there and argue this is outside of her job purview and there is no way she could have know. Sure she COULD. But to do so is grossly irresponsible and shows the same laxness with intelligence and threat assessments (i.e. Saddam is a bigger threat to us than Iran or Pakistan) that has plagued the Bush Administration throughout. Bush and Condi failed on this one, big time. And everyone INSIDE the intelligence community knows it.

  —libertyson Read libertyson's other letters
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