Current Quagmire *What did the US Govt know*

Ok, I don't start topics or post much anymore...please humor me.

I have been watching the latest news about what did the Bush Administration know about warnings that *could* have prevented September 11th, or at least given them a friggin clue...

I doubt anyone remembers, but I said a few days after the event that our spook agencies at the very least, should have been putting the pieces together. I am sort of amused it took the press 8 months to come to the same conclusion.

In the first few days after that tragic event, I was a news hound. I watched CNN, I listened to NPR. I surfed other news stations. I tracked it on the internet. It was a event that touched me deeply. I commented on something that happpened the first few days, information would pop up and die rather quickly. Stories would simply be dropped, if you blinked you missed them. But all of the stories had threads, that led to the information being there, but being overlooked.

What makes this a scandal is not that they didn't prevent September 11th. At least not for me. The scandal is that on repeated occasions the government stood in front of cameras and said outright, they had no information to lead them to the conclusion that zealots would hijack planes and fly them into buildings.

My brain is a bit fuzzy, but let me recall some of the stories at the time that were buried...

- Zach M. was in jail, for imigration violations. He wanted to fly planes, but wasn't interested in learning how to take off or land... hmmm, makes me, a ordinary citizen think...

- At the trial of one of the people who first bombed the WTC, he said pilots were learning to fly planes to fly into buildings.

- Argentina told us there were a number of Bin Laden people in the US.

- Israel's Mossad, a spook force without many of the messy rules the US forces have, told us that a *major* action was planned.

Those are just the things I remember, although Argentina and Israel info might be other way around.

In addition to that, there was the FBI memo. And a few other tidbits that are now coming out that I don't remember.

What really really gets me is the head of the FBI saying that they had no info, while Zachy was sitting in jail, put there by one of his men.

*IF* this doesn't become a scandal then it will become completely apparent that the Democratic party has no b@lls. Whitewater didn't affect the nation. Neither did who Clinton boffed in the Oval Office. But a major breakdown by our intelligence agencies, swept under the carpet to hide thier gaff...that did affect our nation in a profound way.

I fault them slightly for not reaching the conclusion before the actions, but for lying after the fact, it just illustrates how little we can trust anything coming from our government.

And that they have hog tied the press, the congress and the public under the guise of patriotism, is just plain sad and scary.

*steps off soapbox*

Thanks, gang, I needed to vent.

And Woo Hoo, Hostboard is back!

Being much more paranoid than you, Asis, I'm willing to go further.

Government needs an enemy to keep itself in power. The easiest way to unite a group of disparate people is to give them a common enemy. Russia fell, Hussein is laughable. Osama has potential. Osama, especially after 9/11 is scary.

Of course, if it were a conspiracy, and they were THAT good, we'd never see evidence of it, right? So it must be incompentence.

The question is, are you willing to believe that our government is willing to sacrifice THAT many people in order to maintain the status quo.

I'm not sure either way, but I'm afraid that I think the answer is yes, they are willing, yes, they are able.

Did they do it?

I'm afraid I can't answer that.

Sort of like FDR let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor...

I wouldn't say that our govt wouldn't be willing to sacrifice people to unite the country and obfuscate the current President's flaws, but I think even the most jaded, greedy politian wouldn't be willing to sacrifice that many people.

Did they let it happen on their watch. Yup. Did they know it would be that bad, that horrific? Nope. For one thing, if they did, they would have had a better plan in place once it happened. They could have grabbed much more power than they did, not for lack of effort tho.

I read an interview on an Italian newspaper time ago.
The journalist was interviewing Chomsky (wish the spelling is correct) during the Porto Alegre Forum. When asked about 11th Sep he answered that not only U.S. Gov was perfectly aware of what was going to happen, but that there was a POLITICAL will to use the tragedy to have a motive for a long desired war and to gain the approvement of public opinion.

When I read those words, I looked my girlfriend's eyes with a face like this [img]eek.gif[/img]
(her face was [img]rolleyes.gif[/img] ).

I told myself it was just an opinion, something to read but not to care about more than necessary.

Now I am reconsidering my position.
And my face goes [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img]

I think they (US intel.) knew that something big was going to happen, and may have known about suicidal plane hijackings being a possibility. They most certainly knew that bin Laden & Co. were training in Afghanistan.

I find it hard to believe that they knew exactly when and where the attacks of 9/11 were going to take place. Am I being incredibly naive?

I don't know about Republican power grabs, but how many laws have been scribbled up since the attacks? How many "War against terrorism" stuff have we been hearing as justification for restriction of our rights?

Nah, I don't think you are naive Jace. If anything, they might have had intell that suggested these terrorists would attack military installations, not civilian ones. But if they had really really done thier homework on terrorism they would have been better prepared for civilian terrorism. Look at Israel, last I looked Pizza places and supermarkets were civilian, it wasn't a great leap of faith that they would go after high body counts.

Re: power grab, yeah, in the name of patriotism the Dems fell asleep at the wheel and we have lost a lot of rights. Blame the press a bit on this as well and credit the far right with being shameless and using tragedy to further a agenda.

But power, real power, they missed out on. They had a chance to really, really unite a world. The tragedy itself was enough to do that for several months. But our dubious leadership has missed the boat on making it stick. Now many countries just go yeah, yeah and do what they want anyway.

We chose bombing the hell out of Afganistan for peace in the Middle East. There was a excellent chance to achieve that for two weeks after the tragedy. I am not a pacifist, but if we had chosen peace over war, we could have made a real difference in that region. But war boosts a President's popularity more than anything else.

Terrorism is not by definition a war. In this country at least Congress must declare war, the President doesn't have that power. Uh, unless something so horrific happens that the country enmass let's him declare war. *sigh*

But that aside, terrorism is very different than war. War is about the taking of lands. Terrorism is about ideology and the taking of souls. War, you go after strategic targets, terrorism, you go after the highest body counts. These are all generalities, but I believe one of the biggest problems we have in this country is that we really don't understand terrorism.

We are just starting to understand terrorism. Homegrown and foreign born. In a very real sense, the school shootings and office shootings we are seeing are closely linked to terrorism, but the difference is that is individual terrorism vs. organized terrorism. Both have similar effects. Schools, workplaces are no longer safe.

But still, our instances of terrorism, 9/11 aside pale in comparison with the Middle East. We don't know what it feels like to take our lives in our hands getting on a bus, going for pizza, standing on the street. It is close to a daily occurance that someone sets off a bomb in that tiny country. We take for granted the relative safety we have here. We still do. We are arrogant enough to think we can defeat terrorism and win a shadow war.

We could defeat terrorism, the same way we could eliminate homelessness. Drastically reduce drug abuse and teen pregnancies. But all would take social responsibility and compassion, something we don't really have in abundance. *I work for my money, why can't that bum!* *My girls arn't even allowed to look at boys!*

You can't fix a problem by saying it should be fixed. You can't fix a problem by treating it's symptoms. You have to fix the underlying causes to fix problems. Take away desparation and hopelessness and you can fix most of these problems, but that takes giving something of what you have. And that goes against captialism.

We are reaching the end of the viability of capitalism and that is very damn scary. The problem with the rich having most of the money is that it takes that money out of circulation. Depressing the economy on which capitalism is based. As the gap between have and have-not's grows, we will look less to the middle east for violence and see it more on our homesoil, homegrown. To be honest that scares me more that Al-Queda...

Except that it was Al Quaida that declared this war (in 1996, no less!), and waged it; technically with the Tanzania bombings and the attack on the USS Cole (I admit I didn't see it as War at the time, but even then I knew an alive Osama bin Laden was too dangerous in this world), but in its most blatant form on 9/11.

I put the blame for the 9/11 snafu squarely on the intellegence agencies. I think it's wrong for the left to blame Bush, and just as wrong for the right to blame Clinton. The Dems showing cahones would be in their willingness to criticize Bush on lrgitimate stuff like ruining the environment (just like with school vouchers, I was thrilled to see the Alaska digging idea voted down in Congress). And the GOP DID exploit 9/11 for fundraising with that picture, and they should be ashamed. If Clinton tried that sort of thing, the republicans would run him out of town on a rail.

And I strongly criticize Ashcroft (and Bush by extention) for going against liberties in 9/11's wake. And Cheney recently sounding like Vietnam-era Nixon/Agnew was uncalled for. For the flag-shaking right as well as the peacenik left (the latter I'm usually with), this is NOT Vietnam.

The repressive mood in the air during those (and these, I think) days is something that still makes me feel very uneasy (or upset, choose the term that fits you).

I mean: where did Bin Laden take money to do what he did?

We are paying his war day after day. This consideration doesn't make B.L. a saint, but what about us? What about our Governments?

I've grown to dislike capitalism. However, I don't see socialism or communism as any better. If capitalism can be taken over, as it were, by liberals (not socialists, as conservatives call them), THEN we'd have something. No more Reagan-like crap, no more commercials taking over our lives like the brainwashing does in communist regimes. And all the help-the-underprivileged, anti-greed stuff that, as above posts suggest, may help defeat terror, etc.

We have to discard old notions of war and terrorism as applied to this situation. This is a new kind of War. It'd terrorists waging War. Terrorists playing the "game" usually played by nations, but doing it for different goals. All the enemy says whenever we hear their propaganda is how they'll kill us and destroy the United States. They're up front about wanting to turn us (and all the reletively civilised world) into a divided, 3rd-world type "Islamic" dictatorship, not inlike the Taliban. Terrorism and war have merged. It's like that general on the West Wing (which I finally started watching. Drew Carey's escalating silliness and the show's terror storyline lead to my switch), in our world today, you can no longer tell when war and peace are anymore. No clear dividing line in time or place anymore. I find that reality unsettling, but recent years find it all harder to define anymore.

Well, I for one am disappointed. I've refrained from commenting hoping that cooler heads would prevail. While things have cooled down, it's more like a side-issue than a rise to the challenge AsIs has laid out.

Bush? Responsible for 9/11? Garbage!

First off, he was only in power for 9 months. Clinton had 8 years of this.
Second: Clinton had most of the warnings you mention during his administration, yet he did nothing.
Third: while the US government has shown a willingness to sacrifice Armed Forces personnel (Pearl Harbor & etc) to further their causes, civilians have remained unviolated (except for y'all using us Canadians, but that's another rant)

So my serious qurestion, which I expect an answer to, is this: What exactly should George W have done differently? Arrested ALL Aribic or Muslem persons in the USA? Suspended ALL flights from August 2001 onwards? What?
It annoys me that the very same people who are quick to accuse the "right" of infringing on personal liberty are the very same who accuse the "right" of not infringing enough. (Not directed at specific Strangers, just a general comment) Their emotion-based arguement has no merit whatsoever, yet it gets parroted in the media endlessly! It occures to me that had Bush arrested every Aribic person attending flight training in the USA before 9/10/01, (for example) Golem, AsIs, Jadian and others would have been UP IN ARMS calling for his removal/arrest.

My question: What exactly should the Bush administration have done differently.
Answers please.

How about saying something along the lines of...

"Well folks... we THOUGHT they wouldn't do what it looked like they were going to do, but they did, and people got hurt, and quite frankly, that's our responsibility, cause we had the information to connect all the dots, but we just couldn't believe the picture we were getting that way."

See, now THAT would take some guts from Bush. More than sending a bunch of our folks over to Afghanistan to kill and be killed for him.

5Cats, I am not even going to reread my posts above to know that I did not directly blame Bush for 9/11.

What I do blame Bush and this administration for is lying. They got on National TV, hell, international TV and said we had *NO* clues pointing to this disaster.

And get this, they said this after I had already read at least three clues in News Stories of events *PRIOR* to 9/11.

They (The FBI) had a man in custody wanting to fly a plane, not land it, or take off. THAT IS NOT A BIG ASS CLUE?

In the trial of one of the WTC bombers, they said they were training to fly planes. THAT IS NOT A CLUE?

Israel and Argentina told us Al-Queda was building up to something big. MORE SUBTLE, BUT STILL A CLUE.

A FBI agent sent a memo saying we should check out flight schools for AQ men wanting to fly planes. YUP, BIG ASS CLUE...

Now separately, maybe the worlds greatist intelligence agency *tries hard not to giggle at that statement* might not have been able to put it all together. But I question why the FBI couldn't put Zach and the memo saying, "hey these guys want to fly planes and there's a lot of them" together and have their own damn clue! So on that level, yes, I think the FBI was deserving of some blame in this mess.

But since Bush leads this country and administration, I hold him directly accountable for the lies that were told post 9/11.

For the record, Muller was new heading the FBI, he may not have know about Moussauwi or the memo, but then he shouldn't have gone on TV speaking for agency saying they had no clue if he wasn't fully briefed.

And for the last time, 5 Cats, stop putting words in my mouth. I didn't say Bush was responsible for 9/11. Eris proposed the conspiracy and I said it might be possible and didn't dismiss it out of hand. Get a grip.

So the terrorists exploited a weakness in airline security. What I find interesting is the media, which feels the need to point out other areas that could be exploited. (i.e. "Are our nuclear facilities safe from terrorism?") Headlines like that must be great for terrorists in training. If I were a terrorist looking for new targets I'd just watch the news teams conduct these wonderful exposes. :)

Given all the information that you've pointed out AsIs the "intelligence community" could have done a better job of tracking potential candidates. Even if they had it would have been hard to predict exactly when and which airlines were going to be hijacked. I'm not trying to make excuses for them, but I don't think they should be singled out for blame. Their competency is what should be questioned. Are they given enough power to "spy" on certain individuals? Should they have this power?

Agreed Jacesan, my only real complaint is that they said they had no information, when they cleared did.

In reality, you can't stop terrorism. In a ideal world you could, but the world just plain isn't ideal and neither is the nature of mankind sort of precludes the possibilities of it ever being ideal. Not ment as a insult, as human beings we are imperfect, it is our nature. Idealality would be a bit boring as well. But back to point, you can't stop terrorism without plugging up every single hole. The hole is called individuality. By having individual freedoms, we have holes, holes that can be exploited. The only way to prevent terrorism is to have a police state. Without freedoms, going against the authority is easier to stop and prevent. But we are not a police state, neither is Israel, tho some may argue that. Start a new topic if you want to aruge that, I'd rather not go into it here. Back to holes... I won't even go into the many possibilities of killing large quantities of people that there are. Good thing I am not a terrorist or bad that I am not part of the news media. They have behaved disgracefully in their disclosure of holes. But then again, every hole they bring up is one less to target, because when they do bring them up, security goes up three notches and makes them less likely targets. But still...

The main issue of this topic and really of the uproar is what the government knew, when did they know it, and why did they lie about what they knew.

To reiterate, they had clues, they should have been more aware of what was going on, but I doubt that they would have been able to stop it.

ON the praising the goverment side, they did probably prevent two plane/missles from taking off due to their quick action, which also leads me to believe they were a bit more aware of what was going on at the time than they are saying.

Planes got shut down quick, they had a plan in place. We got caught with one shoe off and pants halfway down, but by no means naked.

And as for ME and MY conspiracy theories... read the following link and tell me that the people in power gained nothing by the 9/11 attack.

(please note, that when I say the people in charge, I'm not really referring to EITHER Bush or Clinton) http://wire.ap.org/?SLUG=ATTACKS%2dSPENDING

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 24, 2002 05:55 PM: Message edited by: erisesoteric ]</font>

eris, the link doesn't work for me at least - do you have the story copied somewhere?

Well AsIs, I certainly didn't intend to put words in your mouth. As you'll recall, that's something I get really upset over myself.

However, most folks use the terms "President Adminstration" "Preseident's Office" And "President" interchangeably. Not super accurate, but realistic. Since the President rarely acts alone, is usually advised by several of his staff on any give topic and depends on his underlings to carry out all his instructions. The reverse is true also, since his advisors and underlings are supposed to do what he tells them, if they do something, it's usually in 'the name of the President'. You dig?

What's that famous Presidential saying? "The Buck Stops Here". He (Bush) is held responsible for the actions of his administration, thus Bush's Administration includes George W.
Further explainations can be carried out via E-Mail if you (or anyone else) like. (This whole message isn't "aimed" at anyone unless I specifically name him/her, ok?)

The "clues" AsIs mentions; one dates back to 1996. FIVE YEARS is a long time to hold one's breath waiting for something to happen.

And my question (unanswered) is: what should have been done? The mass arrest of people taking flying lessons? Security measures at airports such as were installed after 9/11? What? Does anyone think either of those things would have been possible before 9/11?

So, if there was a mistake, there MUST be a 'correct' answer, a 'right' thing to have been done. If I don't have a clue what the 'right' answer is, I often stop and re-consider if the other person's answer is indeed a mistake or not. But that's just me. My motto: don't complain about a problem unless you know at least one possible solution. (doesn't have to be perfect of course, eh?)

In terms of "lies", let me put it this way:

9/11 was an attack using 4 civilian aircraft, full of passengers, to hit the WTC, Pentagon and probably the White House. Ok so far?

Did anyone know that civilian aircraft would be used? NO.
Did anyone know there would be suicide bombers, hiding amoung innocent civilians? No.
Did anyone know the WTC, Pentagon or any other specific target was involved? No.
Ok, they'd heard the WTC would be attacked again, but that was 5 years old. And they for sure did not know how or when or who, did they?
So: Did anyone in the Bush Administration KNOW FOR SURE the events of 9/11 before anyone esle did? No no no.
They are not lieing when they say they had no information about the 9/11 attack. They did have information about some possible attack sometime somewhere, and that is what they are revealing now.
To present those clues as "proof" of anything else is both slanderous and deliberatly misleading. IMO.

As for Nuclear stuff, I'll start another thread!

They gained a ton in power. Perhaps it would have been better if I had said that they did not use their power wisely. And internationally they have lost a lot of the power they had post 9/11 due to that.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by 5Cats:
Well, I for one am disappointed. I've refrained from commenting hoping that cooler heads would prevail. While things have cooled down, it's more like a side-issue than a rise to the challenge AsIs has laid out.

Bush? Responsible for 9/11? Garbage!

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>


In case you need a refresher course, that is what you said. This topic started actually as a condemnation of the media taking so long to notice what I had noticed by day two after the tragedy. There were clues. I *never* said that Bush was responsible for the events of 9/11. Period. Yet you said I did. Please stop doing that.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by 5Cats:

The "clues" AsIs mentions; one dates back to 1996. FIVE YEARS is a long time to hold one's breath waiting for something to happen.

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you ignore history, you are condemned to repeat it. You know, it didn't happen on 9/11 because it is the number for emergency. It was a anniversary, if I remember correctly of the Camp David accords, probably the signing of a agreement they did not like. Noone should hold their breath for five years. But, and this is a BIG but, the agencies were created to gather intelligence. That is their job, what they are paid for. Some of the rules they followed were outdated and that hamstrung them in *some* regards. But the gee, didn't seem important at the time, does not wash. You put a few of the pieces of info together and things fall into place. With the 20th hijacker in custody, they couldn't put the pieces together. Something is VERY very wrong with that.

You can't defeat terrorism when you expect them to think like us. Five years isn't long to wait for vengence. History is very very important to them, as is religion. A bastardized version of religion, but it is real to them. Generally they pick days of historical importance to the middle east, but since it is not important to us, pffft. We don't acknowlage it. I'm not even sure we do now. I hope our intelligence agencies do.

The State Department does. Maybe the State Department should be contacted more on info like this, they deal with the regions outside our country and have a better grasp of them then our intelligence agencies seem too. I trust State Department advisories more than Homeguard alerts. They go by what is happening in that region and what is importent to them, rather than our views of what's important.

As for what should have been done, I'll make it simple, the President and people who work for them, should not say things like, "We had no intelligence that anything like this would happen..." ie, lie, when they will get caught at it. The first rule of politics is don't get caught. Pretty simple.

What about THIS scenario: Putin and Bush are now shaking hands swearing they will fight terrorism WHEREVER it grows.

A good reason to help Russian attack in Cecenia.

When you play the victim role you are allowed to be aggressive.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by 5Cats:
And my question (unanswered) is: what should have been done?</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

1) I answered your question to the best of my ability as to what Bush should have done after the attacks.

2) Please don't DEMAND answers from the board. Let's please keep the didactic and abrasive language to an absolute minimum. Thank you.

Good point 3peanuts.

Sharon in Israel.
Vajpayee in India.

Of course the conflict between Pakistan and India could get complicated considering the US has had Pakistan's help while attacking Afghanistan.

3Peanuts, just a aside, but I love you picture! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

It is a really cute picture 3peanuts! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Oh ... well... thanks a lot people! [img]smile.gif[/img]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by JaceSan:
Given all the information that you've pointed out AsIs the "intelligence community" could have done a better job of tracking potential candidates. Even if they had it would have been hard to predict exactly when and which airlines were going to be hijacked. I'm not trying to make excuses for them, but I don't think they should be singled out for blame. Their competency is what should be questioned. Are they given enough power to "spy" on certain individuals? Should they have this power?</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...tack_fbi_dc_21

Is this going to help prevent further acts of terrorism? Is this a violation of privacy?

this is an intresting thread, although my views on 9/11 are very different than most, i would like to just say that.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by AsIs:
I wouldn't say that our govt wouldn't be willing to sacrifice people to unite the country and obfuscate the current President's flaws, but I think even the most jaded, greedy politian wouldn't be willing to sacrifice that many people.

They could have grabbed much more power than they did, not for lack of effort tho.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think JaceSan's link pretty much shows that they're grabbing quite enough power as it is.

The one thing I get out of this,is the fact that it`s very easy to point out the facts AFTER it happens.


...http://www.smilies.nl/imu2.gif

Hey Thanos, your viewpoint is most certainly welcome. I started reading your thread over on the Spawn board and think that you're wrong. The events of 9/11 have changed you whether you realize it or not...or should I say, they've changed the world you live in, and that affects you whether you realize it or not?

Jace,

I dissagree, honestly the only thing that 9/11 has done to me, is annoy me. All the new security measures, and all that, hasnt fazed me any. But I get annoyed with all the pro-america, anti afghan crud floating around, but then again ignorance has always annoyed me.

I find the current reports about the CIA not sharing info. with the FBI easy to believe. The bureaucratic bullshit that goes on between intelligence agencies is probably one of the biggest problems. Hopefully they've learned their lesson about not playing well with others.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 04, 2002 11:29 AM: Message edited by: JaceSan ]</font>

Oh I can't believe CIA and FBI didn't discover that such a BIG thing was going to happen just because they where writing their papers and stamping their letters!

I think we will never know exactly what was happening inside the intelligence agencies of half world in those days.

But I don't think that the Men on the Chessboard are naive like that:"They are going to destroy our nation!", "Wait! I have a lot paper work to do!".

Just a note, one of my complaints was that Mueller went on National TV, days after the 11th and said the FBI had no indicators that this was going to happen. He has since said that when he went on, he wasn't aware they had info and he was incorrect.

To be fair, he had been in office for about a week. It is unfair to think he would be up to speed by then.

But that leads back to the second half of my complaint on that issue. If he wasn't up to speed, he shouldn't have spoken for his agency. Head of it, or not.

That's a good point AsIs. I think what we're seeing now is the FBI trying to cover their ass by saying, "Well if the CIA had provided us with this information we could have followed up on it." etc. etc.

It's all Monday morning quarterbacking. Hindsight speculation if you ask me. People knew things, they just weren't sure of implications.

Also about the "yeah we know know, but how could they have known then..."

That is the nature of intelligence. That is the job. To find things out before they happen and stop them.

Will they stop everything? Nope.

Could they have imagined anything this horriffic. Maybe, but tough call on that one.

Should they have been able to put the pieces together enough to have limited the damage done more. Yup.

This was too damn big. Too many people involved. Too much coordination to have been completely hidden.

In truth, it looks like the not only dropped the ball, but fumbled to the other team. Whoever it was, at whatever level, several key things were missed, ignored, whatever. It does need to be accounted for. People screwed up and the system is broken. What happened then, ONLY MATTERS, to prevent it from happening again.

Hindsight, yeah. But these agencies are set up to gather intelligence to prevent things like this. So saying they screwed up and should have done better, isn't below the belt, it was/is their job.

Yes, and the FBI whistleblower should be commended for pointing out the bereaucratic problems within the organization. I'm not sure how creating another organization, Dept. of Homeland Security, is going to make things any better.