Something few people seem to think about:

Over at Salon, Sydney Bloomenthal writes about Bush and 9/11: (emp add)

Five years later, the Day of Remembrance for Sept. 11 should properly begin on Aug. 6 to recall the Presidential Daily Briefing that Bush received in 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," which he ignored, dismissing his CIA briefer: "Well, you've covered your ass now." Before then, the administration had shunted aside the terrorist issue as something tainted by association with Bill Clinton. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was ignored and demoted, pushed off the National Security Council Principals Committee. Despite Clarke's urgent entreaties the Principals Committee discussed terrorism only once, deciding at Rumsfeld's behest not to fly Predator drones for surveillance over Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Bush's final dismissal of the threat warning on Aug. 6 meant that the CIA and FBI and other agencies were under no pressure from above to coordinate or even to be on the alert for terrorist plots.

In the aftermath of the derelict approach before 9/11, incompetent bungling has been compounded. By now the history is all too sadly familiar: allowing bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora by failing to commit U.S. troops; draining personnel and resources from Afghanistan in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq ...

Bush's ability to use 9/11 to his advantage is one of the more stunning political events of this century.


posted by Quiddity at 8/31/2006 01:19:00 AM