Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Asleep at the switch

Bushists and neocons might have given their best efforts and still not prevented 9/11. But they didn't even try, despite many warnings:

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous.
Unconscionable.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup...Condi Rice was a blundering idiot and a disgrace as National Security Advisor and Bush 43 should have gladly accepted her resignation as it was Rice that was the filter between the intelligence agencies and the White House. Any attempt to deflect responsibility for the blunder is just smoke and mirrors.

I can't believe I finally found something true posted in this Liberal cesspool.

lovable liberal said...

Condi? She gets blame like all the rest of the ineffectual neocons. Duhbya was too dumb to make any decision that Darth Cheney didn't spoonfeed him. Darth and his staff, along with Perle, Wolfowitz, and the rest had a hard-on to go into Iraq, and they thought Clinton was naive to be concerned about al Qaeda.

We found out brutally that the neocons were hard-headed in exactly the wrong way - nothing penetrated. They were idiots, yet the country rallied behind them in a way the GOP made sure the country never rallied behind President Obama (notwithstanding yet another saccharine made-up bullshit memory from Mitt Rmoney).

In fact, Darth Cheney is still an charlatan, railing against Obama reading intelligence assessments, rather than listening to them. Of course, Darth had enough brains (although he's a sociopath) to also read them, where Duhbya had to have someone read them to him. Darth has so little ability to hold himself to the behavior he expects of others that he claims it's a failing of Obama that's he's not so dense and averse to reading as Duhbya.

Condi though? Condi was a minor player. Weak but minor.