Why didn't Bush wage war on Al Qaeda before 9/11?

[Onlooker]

What I don't get is that assuming Clinton had the information and means to do more about OBL, why didn't Bush use that same information and means during his first 240 days of office? It's not like Bush came into office unaware of the terrorist threat. He had a transition team; Al Qaeda had been in the news; Clinton had personally warned him; and there had already been several terrorist attacks. It seems to me that using the logic that the right uses, Bush should have gone after OBL and Al Qaeda immediately after getting into office.

[jaxx]

1. It was something about not wanting to go swatting flies.

[liberaldemocrat7]

9. Actually Bush had plans but the Taliban Al qaeda struck first.

Bush foreign policy provoked these attacks.

[Virginia Dare]

2. Yep...

that was always my standard reply to the meme that Clinton didn't take out OBL, therefore 9/11 was somehow his fault.

Bush had NINE FRICKIN MONTHS to do something. Didn't he have the same information Clinton did? Wasn't he privy to the same intelligence?

[applegrove]

3. Exactly. There was even more information on al Qaeda and bin Laden

once Bush was in office. Good point!:hi:

If Clinton did nothing to stop bin Laden before they had the results of the "Cole" bombing.. George Bush is even more guilty. Cause he had a bigger file on bin Laden and ignored him for the better part of a year. The report on the Cole came out around the time of the Presidential election in that fall. Clinton was a lame duck then. He did come up with the battle plan on Afghanistan ... the one that Bush used.

Read Al Franken for more on this.

[ThingsGottaChange]

4. I believe

he started his 8 year vacation right after he was sworn in.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. UBL was Saudi & they didn't want to offend any Saudis.

They were more interested in pushing missile defense & somehow ending sanctions in Iraq.

[WhiteTara]

6. they were busy paying them to bomb

the twin towers. $43,000,000,000 paid to the "Taliban" in May of 2001...obstensibly because of poppy eradication.

[treestar]

7. Blaming 911 on Clinton has always struck me as insane

Exactly, as you say, it wasn't as if Bush was prevented from changing things. And if he was the great leader they claim he was, he would have.

I barely even see how the concept even helps the Rethugs. All you need to say it well why didn't His Majesty King George step in during those nine months and set things right?

[walldude]

8. Because the Clinton administration told them they should.

That's the real reason the ignored it. Because they are fucking 3rd graders and weren't going to do anything that popular Billy kid told them to. Billy said keep an eye on Osama and Georgie said fuck you I'm preznit now...

[underpants]

10. DING!

Everything that Clinton supported, promoted, or signed HAD to be rejected, ignored, and overturned.

Because as we all know things were just terrible for the whole 8 years.

[underpants]

11. 233 days

He had only been in office for 233 days.

We were in office 233 days. And the kinds of structural changes that have been needed by this country for some time did not get made in that period of time.

---

RICE: I would ask the following. We were there for 233 days. There had been recognition for a number of years before -- after the '93 bombing, and certainly after the millennium -- that there were challenges, if I could say it that way, inside the United States, and that there were challenges concerning our domestic agencies and the challenges concerning the FBI and the CIA.

We were in office 233 days. It's absolutely the case that we did not begin structural reform of the FBI.

RICE: I would ask the following. We were there for 233 days. There had been recognition for a number of years before -- after the '93 bombing, and certainly after the millennium -- that there were challenges, if I could say it that way, inside the United States, and that there were challenges concerning our domestic agencies and the challenges concerning the FBI and the CIA.
----
We were in office 233 days. It's absolutely the case that we did not begin structural reform of the FBI.

----

RICE: Well, I think that when I made the comment that the country was not on war footing, that didn't just mean the executive branch was not on war footing.

The fact is that many of the big changes, quite frankly, again, we were not going to be able to make in 233 days. Some of those big changes do require congressional action.

----

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/

[ComerPerro]

12. According to RWers, its because Clinton didn't offer to share info

of course, they also say that the Clintons defaced the White House and ripped all the "W"s off the keyboards.

But that has long since been debunked, many times over.

But they still believe it