Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
Nah, we can continue it or have it split from this thread; It's 1 AM now, and I'm not in thePatrick Degan wrote: I see a thread hijack in progress. Shall I just link to our last discussion on this issue?
Failures to pass information up the ladder by the career bureaucracy in the FBI and CIA are hardly reason to fire newly appointed (remember he had been in office less than 8 months and some of the confirmations were still going through Congress) agency heads.If the case is that Bush was ill-served by his advisers, and they're the ones who didn't do their jobs, and they failed to pass along information or even held it back for whatever reason, and it's their failure which left the country wide open to attack on September 11, then why didn't Bush fire them?
Staff Statement #11 covers the performance of the Intelligence Community.Looking Ahead
Two-and-a-half years after 9/11, it is clear that the FBI is an institution in transition. We recognize Director Mueller’s genuine attempts to transform the FBI into an agency with the capacity to prevent terrorism. He has made progress. Important structural challenges remain to be addressed in order to improve the flow of information and to enhance the FBI’s counterterrorism effectiveness.
These challenges include:
-- The relationship between headquarters and field offices;
-- The relationship between the FBI, the JTTFs, and state and local law enforcement;
-- The place of the FBI in the overall Intelligence Community; and
-- The respective roles of the FBI, the new Department of Homeland Security, and the Terrorist Threat Integration Center.
Thousands of particular reports were circulated. A number of very good analytical papers were distributed on specific topics such as Bin Ladin’s political philosophy, his command of a global network, analysis of information from terrorists captured in Jordan in December 1999, al Qaeda’s operational style, and on the evolving goals of the international extremist movement. Hundreds of articles for morning briefings were prepared for the highest officials in the government with titles such as “Bin Ladin Threatening to Attack US Aircraft [with anti-aircraft
missiles]” (June 1998), “UBL Plans for Reprisals Against U.S. Targets, Possibly in U.S.,” (September 1998), “Strains Surface Between Taliban and Bin Ladin” (January 1999), “Terrorist Threat to US Interests in Caucasus” (June 1999), “Bin Ladin to Exploit Looser Security During
Holidays” (December 1999), “Bin Ladin Evading Sanctions” (March 2000), “Bin Ladin’s Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons” (February 2001), “Taliban Holding Firm on Bin Ladin for Now” (March 2001), “Terrorist Groups Said Cooperating on US Hostage Plot”
(May 2001), and “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US” (August 2001).
Despite such reports, and a 1999 paper on Bin Ladin’s command structure for al Qaeda, there were no complete authoritative portraits of his strategy and the extent of his organization’s involvement in past terrorist attacks. Nor had the community provided an authoritative depiction of his organization’s relationships with other governments, or the scale of the threat his organization posed to the United States.
This is interesting.A few analysts within the CTC were dedicated to working on Bin Ladin. One of them had developed a lengthy comprehensive paper on his organization by 1998. Her supervisor did not consider the paper publishable and broke the topic down into four papers assigned to four other available analysts. As an indicator of the scarcity of analysts and the press of current intelligence reporting work, it took more than two years for two of these papers to be published at all. The other two were not finished until after 9/11.
Looks like Clarke read Debt of Honor.Neither the Intelligence Community nor the NSC policy process analyzed systemic defenses of aircraft or against suicide aircraft. The many threat reports mentioning aircraft were passed to the FAA. We discussed the problems at that agency in Staff Statements 3 and 4.
Richard Clarke told us that he was concerned about this threat in the
context of protecting the Atlanta Olympics of 1996, the White House complex, and the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. But he attributed his awareness to novels more than any warnings from the Intelligence Community. He did not pursue the systemic issues of defending aircraft from suicide hijackers or bolstering wider air defenses.
By the late 1990s, the FBI recognized that certain limitations undermined a preventive counterterrorism strategy, and it initiated several significant reforms to address them. These broad efforts were focused on intelligence collection and analysis, counterterrorism expertise and training, information technology, and the counterterrorism capacity of field offices.
Yet the FBI’s leadership confronted two fundamental challenges in countering terrorism. First, the FBI had to reconcile this new priority with its existing agenda. This immediately required choices about whether to divert experienced agents or scarce resources from criminal or other intelligence work to terrorism. As the terrorism danger grew, Director Freeh faced the choice of whether to lower the priority the FBI attached to work on general crime, including the war on drugs, and allocate these resources to terrorism.
The Department of Justice Inspector General found that when the FBI designated “national and economic security” as its top priority in 1998, it did not shift its human resources accordingly. Although the FBI’s counterterrorism budget tripled during the mid-1990s, FBI counterterrorism spending remained fairly constant between fiscal years
1998 and 2001. The Inspector General’s 2003 report stated that prior to 9/11, “the Bureau devoted significantly more special agent resources to traditional law enforcement activities such as white collar crime, organized crime, drug, and violent crime investigations than to domestic and international terrorism issues.” According to another external review of the FBI, by 2000 there were twice as many agents devoted to drug enforcement matters as to counterterrorism. On September 11, 2001, only about 1,300 agents, or six percent of the FBI’s total personnel, worked on counterterrorism.
Former FBI officials told us that prior to 9/11, there was not sufficient national commitment or political will to dedicate the necessary resources to counterterrorism. Specifically, they believed that neither Congress nor the Office of Management and Budget fully understood the FBI’s counterterrorism resource needs. Nor did the FBI receive all it requested from the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Janet Reno. Reno told us that the Bureau never seemed to have sufficient resources given the broad scope of its responsibilities. She said in light of the appropriations FBI received, it needed to prioritize and put counterterrorism first. She also said that Director Freeh seemed unwilling to shift resources to terrorism from other areas such as violent crime.
Freeh said that it was difficult to tell field executives that they needed to do additional counterterrorism work without additional resources.
Finally, even though the number of agents devoted to counterterrorism was limited, they were not always fully utilized in the field offices. We learned through our interviews that prior to 9/11, field agents often were diverted from counterterrorism or other intelligence work in order to cover major criminal cases.
The second core challenge was a legal issue that became a management challenge as well. Certain provisions of federal law had been interpreted to limit communication between agents conducting intelligence investigations and the criminal prosecution units of the Department of Justice. This was done so that the broad powers for gathering
intelligence would not be seized upon by prosecutors trying to make a criminal case. The separation of intelligence from criminal investigations became known as the “wall.” New procedures issued by Attorney General Reno in 1995 required the FBI to notify prosecutors when “facts and circumstances are developed” in a foreign intelligence or foreign counterintelligence investigation that “reasonably indicate a significant federal crime has been, is being, or may be committed.” The procedures, however, prohibited the prosecutors from “directing or controlling” the intelligence investigation. Over time, the wall requirement came to be interpreted by the Justice Department, and particularly the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as imposing an increasingly stringent barrier to communications between FBI intelligence agents and criminal prosecutors. Despite additional guidance on information sharing issued by Attorney General Reno in February 2000 and by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson in August 2001, the wall remained a source of considerable frustration and concern within the Justice Department. Justice Department prosecutors and FBI criminal agents were
responsible for large criminal cases, like the Embassy bombings. The intelligence side of the FBI, though, had the legal tools that were essential for domestic intelligence work, such as FISA surveillance. In this environment, domestic counterterrorism efforts were
impaired.
But you still haven't proven that 'Team Bush' were aware of all the warnings. Sure, low level career bureaucrats knew pieces of the puzzle, but the 9/11 Commission's investigation found out that there weren't very many people whose job it was to put the puzzle together.Riiight... Team Bush are more competent simply because they allowed only one attack which erased two buildings from the New York skyline and lost 2800+ people in a single day —after ignoring eight months of warnings from six foreign intelligence sources that something BIG was brewing
add 'deupties' at the end of that sentence.Failures to pass information up the ladder by the career bureaucracy in the FBI and CIA are hardly reason to fire newly appointed (remember he had been in office less than 8 months and some of the confirmations were still going through Congress) agency heads.
But Condoleeza Rice was already in place. So was Louis Freeh. So was Donald Rumsfeld. So was John Ashcroft. And this still doesn't answer why Georgie was so uncurious after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." and didn't pull himself away from the fishin' hole.Glocksman wrote:Failures to pass information up the ladder by the career bureaucracy in the FBI and CIA are hardly reason to fire newly appointed (remember he had been in office less than 8 months and some of the confirmations were still going through Congress) agency heads.If the case is that Bush was ill-served by his advisers, and they're the ones who didn't do their jobs, and they failed to pass along information or even held it back for whatever reason, and it's their failure which left the country wide open to attack on September 11, then why didn't Bush fire them?
Because he could not be bothered to know.There were obvious faults in the FBI and CIA's handling of intelligence matters, but there still was nothing known to the President at the time that justified an EXCOMM style committee.
And again, it comes down to one administration which bothered to follow-up and one which didn't. This just continues to elude you.It's interesting to note that the staff reports do mention the formation of Millenium bomb plot team as a result of information supplied by Ressam. If one of the 9/11 hijackers had been captured and was spilling the beans, the two situations would compare. As it is, using the formation of the MBP team to crucify Bush for not forming one prior to 9/11 is comparing apples to watermelons, as the lucky break of Ressam's capture and cooperation didn't happen with 9/11.
Nice Burden of Proof fallacy. Just how much effort would have been involved in making a couple of phone calls and asking "what else do you have on threats from Al-Qaeda" after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."? Surely it would have been worth letting the bass wait at least one dayBut you still haven't proven that 'Team Bush' were aware of all the warnings. Sure, low level career bureaucrats knew pieces of the puzzle, but the 9/11 Commission's investigation found out that there weren't very many people whose job it was to put the puzzle together.Riiight... Team Bush are more competent simply because they allowed only one attack which erased two buildings from the New York skyline and lost 2800+ people in a single day —after ignoring eight months of warnings from six foreign intelligence sources that something BIG was brewing
False Dilemma fallacy. The alternative to doing nothing is not rushing a multiyear restructuring of the entire NS apparatus.You're blaming Bush for failing to carry out a complete restructuring of the entire national security apparatus in less than eight months.
No it is not a Red Herring. The challenge was to get a working strike force up and running in the minimum time in a crisis situation, instead of waiting for a three year buildup of a large warfleet before doing anything. In that case, the national government improvised and used the tools it had at hand in the best manner possible and achieved far more than they should otherwise have.And your mention of Pearl Harbor is a red herring, as we were at war in 1942. Roosevelt was a wartime president with wartime powers that a peacetime president simply doesn't have and the Navy was a military branch with military discipline and rules. Peacetime civilian agency rules and procedures are a little more restrictive.
We weren't at war with anybody in December 1999 either, yet somehow that doesn't prevent one administration from doing the necessary tasks to stop multiple bombing attacks on U.S. soil. You just keep missing the point.We weren't at war with anyone on 9/10.
And it continues to elude you that the situations aren't comparable because of the intelligence that Ressam provided of specific times and specific places and specific people involved in the bomb plot are what led to the formation of the 'team'.And again, it comes down to one administration which bothered to follow-up and one which didn't. This just continues to elude you.
And *which* investigative agency does Rice head?But Condoleeza Rice was already in place. So was Louis Freeh. So was Donald Rumsfeld. So was John Ashcroft. And this still doesn't answer why Georgie was so uncurious after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." and didn't pull himself away from the fishin' hole.
Guesswork on your part, as he reportedly meets with CIA Director Tenet every day.Because he could not be bothered to know.
Staff Statement #9 wrote:The FBI’s inability or unwillingness to share information reportedly frustrated White House national security officials. According to former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke, the National Security Council never received anything in writing from the FBI whatsoever. Former Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg stated that the only time that the FBI provided the National Security Council with relevant information was during the Millennium crisis. Clarke told us that Attorney General Reno was notified that the National Security Council could not run an effective counterterrorism program without access to FBI information.
The Justice Department representative on Clarke’s interagency group, the Counterterrorism and Security Group, has told us, however, that—to his knowledge—neither Clarke nor anyone else at the NSC raised any systemic issue of FBI information sharing as a policy issue or a matter to be considered by the Attorney General.
.Nice Burden of Proof fallacy. Just how much effort would have been involved in making a couple of phone calls and asking "what else do you have on threats from Al-Qaeda" after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."? Surely it would have been worth letting the bass wait at least one day
Staff Statement #7 wrote:Meanwhile, the Intelligence Community began to receive its greatest volume of threat reporting since the Millennium plot. By late July, there were indications of multiple, possibly catastrophic, terrorist attacks being planned against American interests overseas. The CTC identified 30 possible overseas targets and launched disruption operations around the world.
So we have the CIA stating that the focus of the threat was overseas and that whatever had been planned had been delayed. The FBI was conducting 70 investigations. A new policy on AQ and Afganistan was nearing the end of the development process.Two veteran CTC officers who were deeply involved in UBL issues were so worried about an impending disaster that one of them told us that they considered resigning and going public with their concerns. DCI Tenet, who was briefing the President and his top advisers daily, told us that his sense was that officials at the White House had grasped the sense of urgency he was communicating to them. By early August, DCI Tenet said that intelligence suggested that whatever terrorist activity might have been originally planned had been delayed. At the same time, the Deputies Committee reached a consensus on a new Afghan policy, paving the way for Northern Alliance aid. NSC principals apparently endorsed the new presidential directive on al Qaeda at their meeting on September 4.
And that 'crisis situation' happened to be a declared war.The challenge was to get a working strike force up and running in the minimum time in a crisis situation, instead of waiting for a three year buildup of a large warfleet before doing anything. In that case, the national government improvised and used the tools it had at hand in the best manner possible and achieved far more than they should otherwise have.
No, you keep missing the point about the events that led to the formation of the MBP team.We weren't at war with anybody in December 1999 either, yet somehow that doesn't prevent one administration from doing the necessary tasks to stop multiple bombing attacks on U.S. soil. You just keep missing the point.
That's not the point, numbskull. The nature of the situation is not what I was pointing out but the fact that decisions were made to reorder the navy structure as needed by improvising where needed. A different president and a different group of navy commanders may well have failed to realise the necessity to take things in hand during the same crisis situation by not thinking practically and laterally.Glocksman wrote:And that 'crisis situation' happened to be a declared war.The challenge was to get a working strike force up and running in the minimum time in a crisis situation, instead of waiting for a three year buildup of a large warfleet before doing anything. In that case, the national government improvised and used the tools it had at hand in the best manner possible and achieved far more than they should otherwise have.
Of course they'd try to rebuild the fleet as fast as they could and abandon the peacetime implemented three year plan.
Which again isn't the point.As a wartime president, FDR had powers that Bush doesn't have. And frankly, I don't want *any* president to have those kind of powers without a declaration of war.
Which again isn't the point.Absent the sneak attack and a declaration of war, however FDR and King would have been waiting the three years.
The "difference in situations" is not the fucking point —which seems to be cruising at a rather high altitude over your head.It's an example, but it's not a good comparison because of the differing situations.
And your basis for any of these surmises is...?Beowulf wrote:To those who think that it would have been possible to shoot down a civilian airliner:
You must be high.
The pilot would likely consider it to be an illegal order and refuse to obey. He'd probably have compunctions about killing 200 or so civilians. The shoot down would mostly likely have occured over a fairly crowded area, with predictable results. And I'm sure there are more reasons...
In light of the need to defend Bush from a possible attack by hijacked airliners used as missiles and eight months of intel warnings from six allies, there is enough to warrant far more serious attention and to start coordination action and investigation. You still obsess on the "lucky break" angle to the exclusion of all else.Glocksman wrote:And it continues to elude you that the situations aren't comparable because of the intelligence that Ressam provided of specific times and specific places and specific people involved in the bomb plot are what led to the formation of the 'team'.And again, it comes down to one administration which bothered to follow-up and one which didn't. This just continues to elude you.
Contrast that information to the 8/6 PDB and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable.
We're not talking about the Delenda plan, so you can put that Red Herring where it belongs.Shit, even Dick Clarke didn't think the situation was *that* urgent, as the plan he kept trying to meet with Bush to discuss was the Delenda plan that had a total timeframe of 3 to 5 years.
You're right. After all, why should the president's National Security Advisor be expected to make herself aware of anything which might pertain to her duties of office?And *which* investigative agency does Rice head?But Condoleeza Rice was already in place. So was Louis Freeh. So was Donald Rumsfeld. So was John Ashcroft. And this still doesn't answer why Georgie was so uncurious after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." and didn't pull himself away from the fishin' hole.
Holdover from two administrations, but I'll concede the timing.Louis Freeh was a Clinton holdover who resigned in the summer.
Yes he is a monomaniacal idiot. However, his overall incompetence plays only a relatively minor part in the 9-11 debacle. It is however indicative of this White House that Bush not only picked this imbecile but continues to retain him.Ashcroft's reported statement to the interim FBI director about how he 'doesn't want to hear any more about terrorism' is damning if it resulted in policy changes. However, nothing in the Commission staff statements indicate that it did.
I'll freely admit Ashcroft is a monomanical idiot, but I've thought that for years for reasons that have nothing to do with 9/11.
"Guesswork" backed by the fact that his reaction to that August 6 brief was to go out to see if the bass were biting.Guesswork on your part, as he reportedly meets with CIA Director Tenet every day.Because he could not be bothered to know.
"Elects not to share information" with the president? Surely it's not Tenet's choice which information Bush gets to hear and which he does not.And again, it's hard to know something when the agency responsible for telling elects to not share the information.
Except none of this about the standing defects with the FBI or the bureaucratic structure (Rice's excuse) has anything to do with the point I am arguing here.Staff Statement #9 wrote:The FBI’s inability or unwillingness to share information reportedly frustrated White House national security officials. According to former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke, the National Security Council never received anything in writing from the FBI whatsoever. Former Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg stated that the only time that the FBI provided the National Security Council with relevant information was during the Millennium crisis. Clarke told us that Attorney General Reno was notified that the National Security Council could not run an effective counterterrorism program without access to FBI information.
The Justice Department representative on Clarke’s interagency group, the Counterterrorism and Security Group, has told us, however, that—to his knowledge—neither Clarke nor anyone else at the NSC raised any systemic issue of FBI information sharing as a policy issue or a matter to be considered by the Attorney General.
Because it's a Red Flag? And even if we take the contents at face-value, you'd think any man with half a brain in his head would immediately say "there has to be more than this" in reaction —unless he is an uncurious moron who needs to wait on a staff report to do all his thinking for him..Nice Burden of Proof fallacy. Just how much effort would have been involved in making a couple of phone calls and asking "what else do you have on threats from Al-Qaeda" after reading something titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."? Surely it would have been worth letting the bass wait at least one day
Again, why the focus on the title? The contents didn't have any sense of urgency in them nor any recommendations of additional action to be taken.
Only because you wish not to see how Uncurious George can't be bothered to put the intel together with statements that "patterns of suspicious activity connected with hijack preparations" just might be related. Before he hits the fishin' hole, of course.What he presumably was being told by Tenet was something along these lines.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence Community began to receive its greatest volume of threat reporting since the Millennium plot. By late July, there were indications of multiple, possibly catastrophic, terrorist attacks being planned against American interests overseas. The CTC identified 30 possible overseas targets and launched disruption operations around the world.
Two veteran CTC officers who were deeply involved in UBL issues were so worried about an impending disaster that one of them told us that they considered resigning and going public with their concerns. DCI Tenet, who was briefing the President and his top advisers daily, told us that his sense was that officials at the White House had grasped the sense of urgency he was communicating to them. By early August, DCI Tenet said that intelligence suggested that whatever terrorist activity might have been originally planned had been delayed. At the same time, the Deputies Committee reached a consensus on a new Afghan policy, paving the way for Northern Alliance aid. NSC principals apparently endorsed the new presidential directive on al Qaeda at their meeting on September 4.
So we have the CIA stating that the focus of the threat was overseas and that whatever had been planned had been delayed. The FBI was conducting 70 investigations. A new policy on AQ and Afganistan was nearing the end of the development process.
Looks to me like they were doing more than catching catfish.
Just read Paul O'Neill's and Richard Clarke's books on how this White House has performed, recall Bush's own public statement about how he "doesn't read newspapers", and treat yourself to a rerun of that stirling performance he gave at his recent press conference.And it's not a 'Burden of Proof fallacy'. You are alleging incompetence and negligence on the part of specific people. Proof needs to be provided of said allegations. You haven't provided any.
The fact that he failed to carry out assigned responsibilities which were well within his capacity to carry out would get that employee the pink-slip, no matter how you think otherwise. Failure to perform is a valid ground for termination.To use an analogy, if this was a ALJ hearing over the termination of an employee for negligence and/or incompetence, the arbitrator would laugh you out of the hearing room and order the 'employee' reinstated because you've made no case.
No, my argument has been that he didn't know anything because he could not be bothered to know anything.What you've done is string together a bunch of warnings of attacks on US interests both at home and overseas and saying 'Bush should have done something', yet you haven't even proven the base assumption that he *knew* about the warnings.
Except none of that touches upon the central point of this discussion. Again, we're not talking about the institutional defects of the FBI or CIA (defects which were as firmly in place when the Millenium Plot was foiled) or the "bureaucratic culture" (Rice's lame excuse) but how a man supposedly charged with the protection of the country as one of his primary responsibilities of office could not be bothered to follow-up on warnings which were available, on the necessity to defend against one such possible attack, and didn't ask questions in the light of these conditions after receiving a document with a title like "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."The 9/11 Commission's staff reports go into great detail about the barriers budgetary, legal, and institutional that the FBI and CIA either faced or created among themselves to the effective sharing and analysis of information and by inference make a good case that he couldn't have known the information because it wasn't passed up the bureaucracy because of the aforementioned agency shortcomings.
If you're looking for a 9/11 scapegoat, from where I'm sitting the FBI is looking better and better given the investigators' findings so far.
And you keep missing the point that the "lucky break" you keep pointing to wouldn't have meant dick without follow-up.Glocksman wrote:No, you keep missing the point about the events that led to the formation of the MBP team.We weren't at war with anybody in December 1999 either, yet somehow that doesn't prevent one administration from doing the necessary tasks to stop multiple bombing attacks on U.S. soil. You just keep missing the point.
The MBP team was created after Ressam's capture as a result of information about specific attacks, targets, and people involved that Ressam provided.
Oh for fuck's sake! There was more than enough information and in sufficent detail that somebody who was competent enough to ask the right questions or indeed any questions at all would have picked up on the very possible threat of a terrorist attack involving hijacked aircraft against high-profile targets somewhere in the U.S. It wouldn't have required a gigantic intellect to figure out that New York is one of the highest profile targets you can imagine after that point.information with those specifics simply didn't exist in the case of 9/11.
Unless it comes out that one of the 9/11 plotters had been cooperating with the government pre-9/11, the situations aren't comparable.
For someone who claims he "doesn't like Bush", I must say you're playing the role of Court Apologist to the hilt. Exactly what standard of incompetence and lack of initiative is considered inexcusable by you?Glocksman wrote:What 'point'?
He's alleging incompetence and as such, blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblah...
I'm not alleging that the government was blameless, I *am* alleging (and it's backed up by the Commission staff statements) that the blame belongs at a level far below that of the President blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblah....
The whole 9/11 debacle was marked by institutional rivalries, lack of communication blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblah...
Does this make the president personally responsible for the FBI's failure to pass information blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblablah....
As far as false analogies go, comparing what FDR and the government were able to do in the aftermath of a sneak attack and declaration of war with what Degan apparently expected Bush to do minus both enablers of power is a classic false analogy blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblah...
The Millenium Bomb Plot team comparison is another false analogy blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblah....
Unless the White House is hiding a lot more than even Degan thinks, blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblah...
In my opinion, based on the 9/11 Commission reports on the failures of the intelligence community, I believe that even if Bush had convened an ad hoc committee like the Clinton Bomb Plot one, it would have failed because the pertinent information was either buried in the bureaucracy blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblah...
The most blatant threat warnings were in the PDB on which the president did not react, and I really wouldn't try and argue that the president didn't know what was in the PDB if I were you. Not reacting to that kind of warnings is incompetence, and has been demonstrated.Glocksman wrote:What 'point'?
He's alleging incompetence and as such, the burden of proof is on him.
He hasn't proven incompetence. Listing threat warnings isn't the same as proving the President knew them.
There's a lot of blame to go around, it's not all just Bush's fault, but he is far from blameless as you imply.Glocksman wrote:I'm not alleging that the government was blameless, I *am* alleging (and it's backed up by the Commission staff statements) that the blame belongs at a level far below that of the President.
Your analogy would be accurate if we were talking about something like e.g. me getting rude service from the desk clerk at the US Helsinki embassy, in which case it would be the blame of that clerk and whoeevr made the decision to hire him or her.Glocksman wrote:To use an analogy, is the CEO of GM personally responsible for the shitty service that you get from a dealer mechanic out in Podunk, Iowa?
Yet there was mention of 70 ongoing investigations in the PDB and a specific warning about hijacking preparations. That alone shows that enough information to warrant a serious reaction by the president was being passed upward.Glocksman wrote:The whole 9/11 debacle was marked by institutional rivalries, lack of communication between FBI field offices and headquarters, lack of analysis of information at hand, and vital information not being passed up to the decision makers.
If he'd bothered to follow up on the brief and state in no uncertain terms that there was to be a concerted, priority effort to pursue this and that he wanted to know of any new developments immediately, it certainly would have shaken up the bureaucracy and gotten things moving. Nobody wants to be the one identified as the one who fucked up if the president has focused efforts on the task he is doing, but if the president is ignoring everything, there is no motivation to do a better job at all.Glocksman wrote:Does this make the president personally responsible for the FBI's failure to pass information up the ladder or the CIA and FBI's inability to analyze the information they did have? Don't forget Freeh resigned (probably just ahead of being sacked, IMHO) in the summer and his permanent replacement had been in office for a few weeks prior to 9/11.
There was enough information to know that hijacking preparations were in progress and that there were 70 different investigations into AQ in the US, so there was enough info to focus more resources at the threat and to react, an actual conspirator was not an absolute requirement for action. Concession accepted.Glocksman wrote:The Millenium Bomb Plot team comparison is another false analogy. As I repeatedly pointed out, the 'team' wasn't even formed until after one of the conspirators was captured at the border and started singing like a canary.
You're claiming that having a conspirator in custody was an absolute requirement for action. Where the fuck is your evidence that this was the case, especially in the light of the PDB's contents?Glocksman wrote:Unless the White House is hiding a lot more than even Degan thinks, there was no such cooperating conspirator in federal custory before 9/11.
This might have happened, but bureaucrats tend to pay a lot more attention to what their subordinates are telling them if their jobs are on the line (which is a given if they are told to pay attention to specific stuff and something bad happens because they don't), and when it's the president telling them to pay attention to stuff consistent with airline hijacking preparations, the complacency and pigheadedness tends to disappear quicklike. Doesn't mean that they would have uncovered the plot, but as it was, there was no reaction at all to specifc threats.Glocksman wrote:In my opinion, based on the 9/11 Commission reports on the failures of the intelligence community, I believe that even if Bush had convened an ad hoc committee like the Clinton Bomb Plot one, it would have failed because the pertinent information was either buried in the bureaucracy, lost altogether, or would have been unacted on because of the FBI's pigheadedness about coordinating investigations, disdain for intelligence work, and institutional culture.
The most blatant threat warnings were in the PDB on which the president did not react, and I really wouldn't try and argue that the president didn't know what was in the PDB if I were you. Not reacting to that kind of warnings is incompetence, and has been demonstrated.
Which was immediately followed by this:We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (edited)... service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel 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.
I just don't see trusting the FBI and CIA to do their jobs as evidence of incompetence.The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Laden-related.
The CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
I'm not saying it was an absolute requirement. What I am saying is that the only ad-hoc 'terror committee' was called together based on exactly that event. It set the predecent. Even though precedent isn't a hard and fast rule, it still set the unofficial standard.You're claiming that having a conspirator in custody was an absolute requirement for action. Where the fuck is your evidence that this was the case, especially in the light of the PDB's contents?
And again, is it incompetence to trust the FBI and CIA?Yet there was mention of 70 ongoing investigations in the PDB and a specific warning about hijacking preparations. That alone shows that enough information to warrant a serious reaction by the president was being passed upward.
Would the CEO still be incompetent if he did ask about the plans and was reassured that the divisions responsible were investigating the extent of the competitor's planning?However, we're talking about something like a major competitor's plans leaking to some extent and the CEO not reacting to them at all but instead pursuing other goals in completely unrelated fields where there are no profits to be made, with the result being the company losing a lot of market share. In that kind of instance the CEO typically gets the boot, especially if incompetence like that shown by the Bush administration is demonstrated.
Very possible. But on the other hand, as I posted earlier, the FBI is still ignoring a Presidential order to participate in the TTIC.If he'd bothered to follow up on the brief and state in no uncertain terms that there was to be a concerted, priority effort to pursue this and that he wanted to know of any new developments immediately, it certainly would have shaken up the bureaucracy and gotten things moving.
Rice recalled that in May 2001, as threats of possible terrorist attacks came up again and again in DCI Tenet’s morning discussions with President Bush, the President expressed impatience with “swatting flies” and pushed his advisers to do more.
Again, what we have is more FBI failures to pass along information. This despite the high level attention being given the issue and the FBI's own threat advisory. The Commission blames this on the FBI's institutional mindset of building court cases and considering it inappropriate to share information that would be presented to a grand jury rather than disruption of terrorist activites.On July 2, the FBI issued a national threat advisory. Rice recalls asking Clarke on July 5 to bring additional law enforcement and domestic agencies into the CSG threat discussions. That afternoon, officials from a number of these agencies met at the White House, following up with alerts of their own, including FBI and FAA warnings. The next day, the CIA told CSG participants that al Qaeda members “believe the upcoming attack will be a ‘spectacular,’ qualitatively different from anything they have done to date.” On July 27 Clarke reported to Rice and Hadley that the spike in intelligence indicating a near-term attack appeared to have ceased, but he urged them to keep readiness high; intelligence indicated that an attack had been postponed for a few months.
In early August, the CIA prepared an article for the president’s daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists might attack the United States. Neither the White House nor the CSG received specific, credible information about any threatened attacks in the United States. Neither Clarke nor the CSG were informed about the August 2001 investigations that produced the discovery of suspected al Qaeda operatives in the United States. Nor did the group learn about the arrest or FBI investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota.
Don't forget that the administration was working on a long term plan to deal with AQ. The 9/4 meeting of the 'Principals Committee' approved a plan for submission to the President, but as the staff statement puts it 'Then came the attacks on September 11.'Quote:
However, we're talking about something like a major competitor's plans leaking to some extent and the CEO not reacting to them at all but instead pursuing other goals in completely unrelated fields where there are no profits to be made, with the result being the company losing a lot of market share. In that kind of instance the CEO typically gets the boot, especially if incompetence like that shown by the Bush administration is demonstrated.
Would the CEO still be incompetent if he did ask about the plans and was reassured that the divisions responsible were investigating the extent of the competitor's planning?
One higher than you've 'demonstrated' thus far.For someone who claims he "doesn't like Bush", I must say you're playing the role of Court Apologist to the hilt. Exactly what standard of incompetence and lack of initiative is considered inexcusable by you?
