Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Dumbfucksville!
Posts: 12164

The following is a redacted text of the presidential daily briefing from August 6, 2001:

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Ladin 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 Ladin'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 Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin 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 Ladin 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-Qa'ida 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-Qa'ida 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-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin 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 [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-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 Ladin-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.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: In a Blue, Blue State
Posts: 13332

August 6, 2001: Bush gets briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US."

August 7, 2001: Bush begins month long vacation in Crawford, TX.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35763

I don't understand the Whitehouse reaction to all this stuff. They look to me to be so defensive that it increases the perception that they somehow dropped the ball, wheras I would say this needn't have come such a big issue (the issue of 'did the Bush administration ignore the signs').

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9466

According to Clarke, the WTC bombing was Al Qaeda as well, we just didn't realize it. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.

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Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:

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Originally posted by Nutrimentia
According to Clarke, the WTC bombing was Al Qaeda as well, we just didn't realize it. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25268

This is as foolish as the canards thrown about regarding pre-knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The obscure always becomes obvious through the luxury of hindsight. This amounts to nothing more than the Left's election year pronouncement of "We're gonna give you a fair trial before we hang you."

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Registered: Dec 2002
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all this letter really should have done was inform the whitehouse that attacks at home were possible, that we should take serious note of al qaeda operatives we knew of, and perhaps we should have beefed up the security in airports and federal buildings.

But it was a warning.

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