My Latest BIT is up. It discusses an angle on the 9/11 hearings that I’ll bet you’ve not considered…
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South Byron, NY—
I’m doing some railfanning outside South Byron NY, which is a bit west of Rochester. Because of the Easter holiday, rail traffic is light. Just as well; I’m getting a lot of reading done, from various news sources.
Well, the Democrats got what they wanted… they got the President to release the PDB from August 6th 2001, which had the title headlined, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.” But what did they get?
I expect they got exactly what they wanted; a smoke screen, to cover their own actions. Here’s the exact text of that PDB: (Bold is mine… you’ll see why in a minute)
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Osama bin Laden Determined To Strike in US
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Osama bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. bin Laden implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Centre bomber Ramzi Yousef and “bring the fighting to America”.
After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington according to a XXXXXX service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an XXXXXX service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.
Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al-Qaida members – including some who are US citizens – have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qaida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1900s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a XXXXXX service in 1998 saying that bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
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.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers bin Laden-related.
CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
Declassified and Approved for Release, 10 April 2004
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So, clearly, even based on the document the Democrats were clamoring for, the White House had nothing new to go on and certainly no actionable information.
Yes, it’s true, the Democrats are quick to wave the the paragraph about “The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Laden-related.” Trouble with that argument, however, is that even investigations to this day, have revealed no connections between the investigations mentioned in the PDB, and the 9/11 attacks.
Now, we know that DNC ‘attack poodle’ David BenVineste had seen this memo before it was declassified. Why would he then be pressing for this memo in open hearings? If the goal of the commission, is as stated, to find out how to prevent such attacks from happening again, and this was information the commission already had in hand, why would BenVineste have persisted in his ‘attack poodle District Attorney’ routine?
Political cover, that’s why.
Notice; I didn’t say political points, though admittedly, on the surface there’s much to commend the concept, and in fact such an argument will give a boost to the Democrats among the uninformed. But what I said was “Political cover.” Cover from what? Why, what the Democrats don’t want you to know, of course.
Which is, that President George W. Bush’s first major national security policy directive was in the words of Condi Rice: “not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of al-Qaeda.”
The fact is that the directive was issued a week before the attacks, on September 4, 2001. Now, Doctor Rice didn’t say as much, but the order took nigh on eight months to process. This was not due to a lack in the Bush administration. This is however directly connection to the Democrats who held up confirmations of key members of the new administration until less than two months before the 9/11 attacks.
Which in turn, explains why so many of the security positions at the highest levels, were still staffed by Clinton Mis-administration appointees…. such as Richard Clarke. As a result of this Democrat stonewalling, for example, Mr. Bush’s appointee for the top NSC special assistant for intelligence programs, Mary Sturtevant, had only been on the job for several weeks on 9/11. Do you suppose this would have any effect on how responsive the White House was to various threats?
To their credit, the White House has brought up none of this; Indeed, they need not do so, since as I’ve said they were already properly reacting to everything they knew about.
Clearly, were the general public to find out about this connection, they’d lose the desperately needed political points they’ve spent their entire time on the 9/11 commission trying to gain. Time they were supposed to be using for the purposes of fact finding.
Now ask yourself; will anyone bring what I’ve just told you into account in the 9/11 commission’s final report?
You know better, don’t you really?
Tags: BitsBlog
“Sony Pictures has optioned film rights to Richard Clarke’s nonfiction best seller ‘Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror’ for producer John Calley.”
Anyone want to bet this is to be released in October?
I smell Soros.
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Tom over at The Galvin Opinion has a fine bit on the failures of the Clinton administation as regars terrorism:
“Despite the fact that bin Laden had declared war on America in 1998 the Clinton Administration never countered that we were at war with terrorists. In a radio address on October 14, two days after the attacks, Bill Clinton said ‘even when America is not at war, the men and women of our military risk their lives every day.’ In an October 18 memorial service, Clinton only devoted one small paragraph to the terrorists. He never mentioned any grave threat by name, not even Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. In a ‘Meet the Press’ interview just 3 days after the attack, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger did not even bring up Al Qaeda or the risk it posed to Americans. His neglect to address the subject of our biggest enemy came just one month before the 2000 election. ”
RTWT
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Think Doctor Rice testifying beforethe attack poodles Bob Kerry and BenVineste was a big political deal for the Democrats? Think again, while reading CBS News report yesterday…. Notice this stuff never made it over Dan Rather’s desk…
“Condi’s Testimony Elicits Rapid Response: While rapid response is a fixture of presidential campaigns, it is much less common during Congressional testimony. That all changed Thursday, with the Thunder Road Group sending out a series of missives during the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Emph is mine-Bithead
Sent by former Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan, the rapid response actually began before the testimony, with Jordan providing reporters with a “Guide to Tomorrow’s Testimony” on Wednesday night. The “Guide” included a series of quotes to keep in mind, such as “I didn’t feel a sense of urgency,” which George W. Bush is quoted as saying to Bob Woodward in his book Bush at War.
A quote later found to be inaccurate
When the testimony got underway, Jordan began sending out emails at a rapid pace: five emails in the space of one hour alone. The response followed a pattern: a quote that Dr. Rice had uttered moments before followed by previous quotes from administration officials (often Richard Clarke) or newspaper stories or televisions appearances that seem to contradict Rice’s testimony. In one email, Jordan sent Rice’s quote about terrorism as a priority, “It was the very first major national security policy directive of the Bush Administration – not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq…” followed by a litany of quotes from Rice before September 11, 2001 that seem to suggest otherwise.
In another, Jordan followed Rice’s statement, “Yet, as your hearings have shown, there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks,” with a selection of headlines including a New York Times lead from March 5 that says, “Leaders of 9/11 Panel Say Attacks Were Probably Preventable.”
It’s not clear what marks Rice will get for her testimony. But with Jordan’s email firing on all cylinders, he clearly hopes to provide journalists with a very clear context for journalists to evaluate her comments. “
Well…….Clearly slanted, anyway.
It’s a wonder anyone trusts these slimeball Democats anymore….
Tags: BitsBlog
Jim in Stewart Florida asks why I’ve not written on the Howard Stern thing. I’d not been paying attention to it because frankly, I thought it an open and shut case; the guy should have been jailed years ago. But this response of his to Clear Channel’s canning him is beyond he pale:
“This is not a surprise. This is a follow up to the McCarthy type “witch hunt” of the administration and the activities of this group of presidential appointees in the FCC, led by “Colin Powell Jr.” and his band of players. They and others (a senator from Kansas City to a congresswoman from New Mexico) are expressing and imposing their opinions and rights to tell us all who and what we may listen to and watch and how we should think about our lives. So this is not a surprise. It is pretty shocking that governmental interference into our rights and free speech takes place in the U.S. It’s hard to reconcile this with the “land of the free” and the “home of the brave”. I’m sure what’s next is the removal of “dirty pictures” like the 20th century German exhibit in a New York City Museum and the erotic literature in our libraries; they too will fall into their category of “evil” as well.—Howard Stern, April 8th 2004
(Cue the flag wavers, cue “America the Beautiful”….Rah-rah, freakin’ rah.)
Stern old sod, this isn’t a free speech case. Should I sue Clear Channel because they won’t hire me, and that thereby they’re infinging on my right to free speech? If that argument won’t fly, how can yours?
Granted that free speech is in fact part of the constitution. That’s not the issue at hand here, however. What you’re looking for is not free speech, but a guaranteed audience, which the constitution does not provide for, particularly in a publicly owned venue, which the EM spectrum decidedly is.
You want to sell tapes of your show?
Great. Good luck to you.
Want to put it on satellite radio?
Yeah, that’ll work.
Cable TV?
That works, too.
Caberet shows?
Great.
If nobody’s stopping you from doing any of these… and they’re not… then your free speech isn’t being violated.
But radio, and it’s cousin, broadcast TV are a different matter, for several reasons, not least of which being they are owned by ALL the people, not just those seeking your show. You knew that going in, and to bitch about it now is utter nonsense.
You’re not the victim Howard, America was.
Quit making it out that you are. It doesn’t wash.
Your firing was long overdue.
I’d like to say nice knowing you, but it wasn’t.
Don’t let the door hit you in your fat ass on the way out.
Tags: BitsBlog
FOXNews has posted another Rice transcript. It’s a shade different than the one I posted, though it looks like formatics and spelling; I imagine the first one I posted was hurried in the extreme.
I’m still digesting it all, while I do other things here…
(My new server, for one thing, is up and running, and is requiring updates to the software and fine tuning on the scripting and so on… it’s a quad processor job I saved from the scrap heap… the kind you heat a small room with)…
…so I’ve not found anything that everyone else hasn’t found… but I am struck by one major point in the exchanges… one I’ve not heard anyone else comment on.
That major point being the number of words coming from the commissioners… nearly as many as those coming from Doctor Rice…. and in the word count, the Democrats on the panel seem to have a whopping 80% of the text depth. I think we can find this fairly well indicative that their bringing Doctor Rice was not about getting answers, but about making more acusations. I mean, wasn’t Doctor RIce supposed to be speaking? Take for example the whining of former Senator Bob Kerry:
RICE: It was a way of thinking about it strategically, not tactically. But if I may answer the question that you’ve asked me.
The issue of whether to respond — or how to respond to the Cole — I think Don Rumsfeld has also talked about this.
Yes, the Cole had happened. We received, I think on January 25th, the same assessment — or roughly the same assessment — of who was responsible for the Cole that Sandy Berger talked to you about.
It was preliminary. It was not clear. But that was not the reason that we felt that we did not want to, quote, “respond to the Cole.”
We knew that the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options. The president had — meaning missile strikes or perhaps bombers would have been possible, long-range bombers. Although getting in place the apparatus to use long-range bombers is even a matter of whether you have basing in the region.
RICE: We knew that Usama Bin Laden had been, in something that was provided to me, bragging that he was going to withstand any response and then he was going to emerge and come out stronger.
KERREY: But you’re figuring this out. You’ve got to give a very long answer.
RICE: We simply believed that the best approach was to put in place a plan that was going to eliminate this threat, not respond to an attack.
KERREY: Let me say, I think you would have come in there if you said, “We screwed up. We made a lot of mistakes.” You obviously don’t want to use the M-word in here. And I would say fine, it’s game, set, match. I understand that.
But this strategic and tactical, I mean, I just — it sounds like something from a seminar. It doesn’t…
RICE: I do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole, given the kinds of options that we were going to have.
And with all due respect to Dick Clarke, if you’re speaking about the Delenda plan, my understanding is that it was, A, never adopted, and that Dick Clarke himself has said that the military portion of this was not taken up by the Clinton administration.
KERREY: Let me move into another area.
RICE: So we were not presented — I just want to be very clear on this, because it’s been a source of controversy — we were not presented with a plan.
KERREY: Well, that’s not true. It is not…
RICE: We were not presented. We were presented with…
KERREY: I’ve heard you say that, Dr. Clarke, that 25 January, 2001, memo was declassified, I don’t believe…
RICE: That January 25 memo has a series of actionable items having to do with Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance.
KERREY: Let me move to another area.
RICE: May I finish answering your question, though, because this is an important…
KERREY: I know it’s important. Everything that’s going on here is important. But I get 10 minutes.
RICE: But since we have a point of disagreement, I’d like to have a chance to address it.
KERREY: Well, no, no, actually, we have many points of disagreement, Dr. Clarke, but we’ll have a chance to do in closed session. Please don’t filibuster me. It’s not fair. It is not fair. I have been polite. I have been courteous. It is not fair to me.
(APPLAUSE)
I understand that we have a disagreement.
RICE: Commissioner, I am here to answer questions. And you’ve asked me a question, and I’d like to have an opportunity to answer it.
The fact is that what we were presented on January the 25th was a set of ideas and a paper, most of which was about what the Clinton administration had done and something called the Delenda plan which had been considered in 1998 and never adopted. We decided to take a different track.
RICE: We decided to put together a strategic approach to this that would get the regional powers — the problem wasn’t that you didn’t have a good counterterrorism person.
The problem was you didn’t have an approach against Al Qaeda because you didn’t have an approach against Afghanistan. And you didn’t have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn’t have an approach against Pakistan. And until we could get that right, we didn’t have a policy.
KERREY: Thank you for answering my question.
RICE: You’re welcome.
Doctor Rice is under oath and not only has the right to fuily answer questions, she is obligated by that oath to do so. So what’s with Kerry? Other than he feels slighted because he can’t get another zinger in, I mean. And what’s with the cheering section? Do they want to hear the answers, or do they simply want to have their own views forced on the commission, regardless how those views mesh or not mesh with the truth?
And as for the memo the White House is supposedly ‘hiding’… the PDB… we’ll be seeing that by this time tommorrow. So, what will the Democrats do THEN I wonder, when this one comes up a dry hole, as well??
Tags: BitsBlog
HobbsOnline points out we have oil reserves:
“Last month, a Kentucky company hit oil on a farm in Pickett County. The pressure of oil naturally bubbling to the surface has been so great that the producers have been unable to remove the drill for the past 25 days”
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Newsday has a report posted that says:
“GALLUP, N.M. — Two explosions followed by fire rocked a gasoline refinery Thursday, injuring four people, at least three of them seriously, officials said.
Smoke billowed from the east side of the Giant Industries refinery about 15 miles east of Gallup as rescue crews converged on the scene.
The cause of the explosions was not immediately known, said Yearly. “
Oh, good. We were already short on refiing capacity.
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“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless aid dropped sharply last week to the lowest in more than three years, the government said on Thursday in a further sign of a reviving employment market. “
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THIS?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A 26-year-old Los Angeles man who prosecutors say shot at two thieves stealing his car, killing one of them, was charged on Wednesday with murder.
Why is this guy not being hailed as a hero?
No wonder LA has a crime problem.
They deserve what they get with choices like this being made.
Idiots.
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Comments as I read them
Updte1: The desperation of the Democrats is palpable, particularly that of the slimeball Ben-Vineste.
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FOXNews.com Search Results: vets+against+Kerry – FOX News
I’ve made it, I guess. Fox News’ website is listing me.
I know, I know… but it was still kind of a shock to see them as a referral page.
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