Washington Times, April 2 - U. S. knew of Sept. 11 plans

Politics International Politics
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Leak: U.S. knew of Sept. 11 plans

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040402-064359-3845r.htm

WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) –

The U.S. administration
knew of al-Qaida plans to target buildings with planes
months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a former
FBI translator claims.

Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI with
top-secret security clearance says she spent three
hours giving testimony to the panel investigating the
attacks, and
told Britain’s Independent Friday
information was circulating within the FBI in the
spring and summer of 2001 an attack using aircraft was
months away and the terrorists were in place.

She rejected national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice’s claim there was no such knowledge as “an
outrageous lie.”

The newspaper said
the Bush administration has sought
to silence her and has obtained a gag order from a
court by citing the rarely used “state secrets
privilege.”

The 33-year-old a Turkish-American woman who speaks
Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English said she gave
her evidence in Washington Feb. 11.

"I gave (the commission) details of specific
investigation files, the specific dates, specific
target information, specific managers in charge of the
investigation.
I gave them everything so that they
could go back and follow up.

This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

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The claws are out for Condi Rice, Mr. Bush’s National Security Adviser. Time magazine asks, “Is Condi the problem?” If she is to blame for the failed intelligence on 9-11-01 and the missing WMDs, then it follows as the night the day that she is also to blame for the postwar bumps in Iraq, the violence in Fallujah, the Tyco mistrial, Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, and the outcome on American Idol. The feeding frenzy over the political carcass of this remarkable woman should keep conservative women out of public service, the probable goal.

A former Stanford grand poobah, classical pianist, and Ph.D. in everything international, Dr. Rice has an unassailable set of qualifications for her national security role. But, destruction awaits uppity women who don’t toe the feminist line. No matter how she tried to soar, she would be relegated to coach class. No matter what her skills and ability, she was destined to be but a sharecropper in the feminist estate. Condi has conservative cooties.

Political lines have always determined the efficacy of affirmative action programs in presidential cabinets. Clinton appointees Ron Brown, Mike Espy, and Janet Reno made diversity bean counters rejoice. Bush cabinet members Colin Powell, Rod Paige, Gale Norton, Ann Veneman, Elaine Chao, and Condi don’t.

Selective affirmative action also applies to U.S. Supreme Court justices. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan appointee, didn’t count until she started voting for abortion and began ranting about incorporating Euro kerfuffle into our judicial decisions. Clarence Thomas, a Bush Sr. appointee, has been treated as if he were the cousin who did time for a pyramid scheme involving really expensive lotion and bug spray.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown, of the California Supreme Court, enjoyed the same type of reception when she was nominated for the federal bench. A conservative black woman, who apparently didn’t get the memo on uniform views for powerful women, Justice Brown was pilloried for acts of treason such as interpreting, not making, the law.

The business world is more gracious, accepting women of all political persuasions, because its fear of the EEOC surpasses its worries about Maureen Dowd rants on hiring women who wear mascara and pearl earrings and have a strong desire to reproduce in a manner that involves a man in the room at the time of conception and ever thereafter. Business is an equal opportunity employer when it comes to conservative women. Not so in national politics. Competent women, who avoid dangling turquoise, flowing skirts and abortion clinics, do not have a place in the feminism’s monolithic tent. Feminist icons lack the graciousness to acknowledge the power and achievements of conservative women, the wenches. (I love the dangling turquoise earrings part. Recognize anyone?)

This irritating condescension toward women such as Dr. Rice and the awkward silence about her unjust treatment come on the heel of feminists’ childish outbursts on behalf of Martha Stewart, to wit, “They are only doing this to Martha because she is a powerful woman.” Actually, they were doing it because Martha lied to a gazillion federal officers and tried to alter phone records. Martha, however, leans left. It’s a cliquish thing.

Condi is under fire unjustifiably. [b]Shouldn’t George Tenet, director of the CIA, be in the eye of the “Get Bush” storm? Tenet’s agency missed twice, in failing to discover the 9-11-01 plot and on WMDs. Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, but appropriately feminist, has not only been given a free pass on not seeing 9-11 coming, but has joined in the critical melee vis-

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It’s a sad day for conservatism when conservatives stoop to playing the race card.

Is there nothing sacred left?

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Nice sob story. :cry:

Rice’s current problems are in large part due to her hiding behind the cloak of “executive privilege.” Richard Clarke worked under her and has alleged that he provided Rice with a steady stream of warnings about al qaeda and possible terrorist attacks before 9/11. Clarke further alleges that Rice continuously ignored his attempts to direct her attention to this threat.

The American public wants to hear Rice respond to Clarke’s claims. 9/11 is a highly emotional issue for most Americans, and rightly so. If Rice can refute Clarke’s claims, great. But, for her to refuse to publicly testify before the American people in this case was a political disaster. Common sense tells you that the American people do not want to hear BS about “executive privilege” from the National Security Advisor when it comes to 9/11. Rice and the Bush Administration blew this one big-time.

Despite your highly impassioned plea, I’ll wait to shed my tears for Rice until after she testifies.

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in 1999 clarke refused to testify in front of a committee discussing the y2k problem citing the exact same reasons that condi gave for not wanting to testify in front of the 9/11 panel.

“Last night, into the evening, we were notified that the legal staff of the National Security Council had determined that it would be inappropriate for Mr. Clarke to appear. I have just spoken to him on the telephone. The rule apparently is that any member of the White House staff who has not been confirmed is not to be allowed to testify before the Congress. They can perform briefings, but they are not to give testimony. And that in response to that rule, Mr. Clarke will not be coming.”

  • sen. robert bennet, chairman of the congressional y2k committee
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Clarke did not refuse to testify, nor did Rice, for that matter. It was the Administration that did not allow them to testify. If you’re citing this to somehow impugn Clarke’s credibility or motives then you are off base.

Executive privilege is something that has been established by practice, not by law. The President can waive it if he deems it to be of critical national interest – Y2K hardly compares to 9/11 in importance.

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i’m pointing that out to show that bush initially not wanting condi to testify was not some evil plot to decieve the american people. it’s what presidents have always done. the fact that people like smerf would use this to attack bush’s administration shows his lack of knowledge about history and politics.

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Practically everyone outside the Administration, including many prominent Republicans, were calling for Rice to testify before the commission. I’m sure many of them know much more about history and politics than me or you.

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in a rare break from tradition, bush allowed rice to give her testimony before the panel today. i guess everyone’s happy now, right?

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Neocon paranoia at work here, Flipper? Where in my post do I attack the Bush Administration? I simply describe a feeling that is common among many Americans - which is that many of us want to know what information was available to the Bush Administration before 9/11. Please be intellectually honest and do not read things into my posts that are clearly not there.

Contrary to Mr. Smith’s claims of a double standard, the White House’s position on Rice’s testimony and her repeated calls of “executive privilege” have been the cause of her recent PR problems.

Clarke has directed most of his criticism towards Rice. I, and many others, wanted to hear her respond in public to Clarke’s testimony. Comparing the failure of Clarke to appear before a Y2K committee to the present case is ridiculous and demonstrates that you are more concerned about protecting Bush’s image than knowing the truth about 9/11.

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[quote=“smerf”]

Clarke has directed most of his criticism towards Rice. I, and many others, wanted to hear her respond in public to Clarke’s testimony. Comparing the failure of Clarke to appear before a Y2K committee to the present case is ridiculous and demonstrates that you are more concerned about protecting Bush’s image than knowing the truth about 9/11.[/quote]

clarke did not appear before the committee for the same reason bush did not want rice to appear. they were both appointed without having to be confirmed by congress. except in rare cases, presidents have refused to have such appointtees appear in these panels. when clinton does it, it’s ok, but when bush does it, it’s indicative about how he only wants to protect his image, right? :unamused:

oh, so she appeared. are you happy? was it everything you thought it would be? shrug

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[quote=“Flipper”][quote=“smerf”]

Clarke has directed most of his criticism towards Rice. I, and many others, wanted to hear her respond in public to Clarke’s testimony. Comparing the failure of Clarke to appear before a Y2K committee to the present case is ridiculous and demonstrates that you are more concerned about protecting Bush’s image than knowing the truth about 9/11.[/quote]

clarke did not appear before the committee for the same reason bush did not want rice to appear. they were both appointed without having to be confirmed by congress. except in rare cases, presidents have refused to have such appointtees appear in these panels. when Clinton does it, it’s ok, but when bush does it, it’s indicative about how he only wants to protect his image, right? :unamused:

oh, so she appeared. are you happy? was it everything you thought it would be? shrug[/quote]

Yes, I am happy that she appeared.

You make very silly comparisons. This is not a Clinton v. Bush thing, this is a 9/11 thing. Stop being paranoid.

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I think the larger problem - the political problem - for Bush is the timeline of late 2001, coupled with an open disdain of Clinton’s anti-terror activities.

That is, all through the summer of 2001 there were (apparently) lots of intelligence spikes indicating increased al Qaeda activity worldwide, and lots of rumors, too. In addition, Clarke was all over Rice to reinstate the Shake the Tree (intelligence heads actively gather known information about terrorist activities that day, report to Clarke for collation, report to Clinton on action taken) tactics - tactics which were disemployed because Rice and Bush disdained Everything Clinton Did (and because they were focusing on strategies to defeat state-sponsored terrorism, including ways to depose Saddam Hussein).

Then Bush gets a P.D.B. titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack” on August 6, 2001 - and leaves for a one month vacation the next day, August 7, 2001.

On Sept. 4, 2001 more information is obtained by Bush indicating even more al Qaeda activity, and then Sept. 11.

Not a good idea to disparage Clinton’s anti-terror tactics, then take a month off only to sit through 9/11 like, a week after you get back.

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flike,

First, I doubt very much that the president’s vacations are similar to the vacations some of us take… where many of us leave for vacation and don’t check in with the office until we return. Hell, even I can’t go on vacation without my firm or some of the other entities that I do work for calling me and e-mailing me work. I’m fairly certain that Bush was not completely out of touch while on vacation.

Secondly… yes, there are always threats of terror being received or uncovered by the US Government. But unless the same are credible and specific, what would you have the authorities do? I mean, on the one hand Bushwackers moan and groan about the “heavy-handed” policies of the Patriot Act, enacted after 911, and on the other hand these same people complain that not enough was done prior to 911. To me, that simply doesn’t make any sense at all.

I think its unfair to criticize the Bush administration for failure to prevent the 911 attacks based on unspecific terror alerts.

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That is because those “heavy-handed” policies seem focused on crushing domestic dissent rather than on protecting the nation, and all of them are unnecessary. As we saw in the time prior to Sept 11, the nation’s intelligence services nailed what was going to happen. Yet the White House failed to respond with timely measures to protect the nation. The issue, then, is not the myth that intelligence-gathering is hamstrung by civil rights, but that this Adminstration is more interested in protecting and extending its power and the wealth of its cronies than it is in protecting the American people. Both the obnoxiously named Patriot Act and the Iraq War and the intel ignored prior to 9/11 are all manifestations of that same basic lust for domination that is the decaying core of Neofacist…er…NeoCon thinking.

Vorkosigan

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Where is the concrete information about where and when the terrorist attack would take place? Did someone say how, when and where it would occur or was it “increased chatter?”

Second, what rights have been lost under the Patriot Act? Prove it. You cannot so stop repeating this old canard. Prove it or shut up about it.

Signed
The Resident Neofascist, er conservative

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[quote=“fred smith”]Where is the concrete information about where and when the terrorist attack would take place? Did someone say how, when and where it would occur or was it “increased chatter?”

Second, what rights have been lost under the Patriot Act? Prove it. You cannot so stop repeating this old canard. Prove it or shut up about it.

Signed
The Resident Neofascist, er conservative[/quote]

Oh, so you’re self-proclaimed now? You’ve finally come out! Ta da…

I like this bit you wrote:Where is the concrete information about where and when the terrorist attack would take place? Did someone say how, when and where it would occur or was it “increased chatter?”

Where was the concrete information about where and when wmds would be used by iraq? Did somoen say how, when and where they would occur, or was it “increased chatter”?

Second what rights have been lost ?
Locking up innocents. The government’s methods

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Let’s see…for starters…the intelligence services correctly understood that any such attack may involve commercial aircraft crashing into large vulnerable buildings. Hmmmm…that suggests a number of possible options that doing not require knowing the time or place. For example, tightening security at all airports. That’s a duh, and we don’t need the Riechstag Fire Act – sorry, Patriot Act – to enforce it. We could also have increased domestic fighter aircraft. Another move might be to prevent individuals from the Middle East from apply to flight schools in the US. Or to restrict their entry or movement, or tighten up surveillance. Or put more marshalls aboard aircraft. Or put out a nationwide alert, explaining the intelligence, so everyone is aware and can help. Numerous measures suggest themselves…but they all demand that the White House have taken positive action. But the White House was obsessed with Iraq from the get-go, and paid no heed to the nation’s intelligence services. And so terrorism killed a couple of thousand people in an entirely preventable act.

The other poster has effectively dealt with this childish and ill-informed outburst, so I will not.

Conservatism is not facism. Neoconservatism is facism. Big difference.

Vorkosigan

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Lost liberties? Lost rights? The Roundups.

merip.org/mero/mero031403.html

“In real honest-to-God police work, where you want to catch bad guys, you better have intelligence coming from the streets-people informing you about what’s going on,” says law professor David Harris, author of Profiles in Injustice. “Like other forms of racial profiling, the Registration program is creating the type of distrust that stops people from coming forward to the police with information.”

“The government really hurt its relationship with the American Muslim community,” says CAIR’s Khan. “We’re telling the world that we’re friendly with Muslims and we want to work with Muslim countries to fight terrorism. But when people are jailed, that sends a much louder message.”

For Muslim immigrants, Special Registration is a kind of Catch-22: They- risk possible detention and deportation if they come forward. And they face criminal penalties if they don’t.

“If your goal is to make tens of thousands of Muslim males easily deportable, then you may be accomplishing that,” says Butterfield. “You don’t have to round everyone up and put them in internment camps if you can deport them all or if you can set up policies so onerous that people vote with their feet and stay away.”

thirdworldtraveler.com/Civil … undup.html

It’s all so frighteningly retro-familiar:

  1. How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler’sErm
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This is why no one takes you people seriously. One person has lost their rights under the Patriot Act this Padilla character who is at the very least very dodgy and we are comparing this with Hitler? Give me a f***ing break.

Yes, there could have been “concrete” info on crashing airliners into buildings but which ones and where and how could the security have been stepped up? By profiling Muslim males. That would have been a pretty good start but lookee lookee. This one best way to have screened this people was unacceptable because it was like Hitler’s actions in 1930 Germany? Can you people smell what you are shoveling. Also, this was not the only information that Rice was getting, there were credible threats against ports, bio attacks, dirty bombs, hijackings, assassinations, blowing up buidings, bridges, etc. So with 1,000 threats being presented, she should be blamed for letting one get through especially since most people recognize that a pretty damned effective way to have stopped them was to sit back and profile going gee nuns? doctors? Arab males aged 20 to 35? Which one do you think we should spend more time looking at? But in reality, what would have happened had this taken place prior to 911. Read your own idiotic postings and be surprised that given the level of stupidity and mindlessness evident that we were not attacked even more!