Seven Years Ago Today

[Hissyspit]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/06/flashback-seven-years-ago-today-bush-receives-bin-laden-determined-to-strike-in-us-memo

No one could have predicted this."
-President George W. Bush on 9/11/01

SEVEN YEARS AGO TODAY, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH RECEIVED THE 'BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN U.S.' MEMO:

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day President Bush received a President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX; he stayed on vacation for the rest of August 2001. According to the 9/11 Commission report, Bush "did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General" and there was "no indication" that there was "any further discussion before Sept. 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States" after Bush received the memo. The day after he received the memo, "Bush seemed carefree as he spoke about the books he was reading, the work he was doing on his nearby ranch, his love of hot-weather jogging, his golf game and his 55th birthday," the Washington Post noted. The President has since admitted that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling" in the months before 9/11. Today -- 2,557 days later -- bin Laden still remains free and "determined to strike in U.S."

THE MEMO:

The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.

"Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. 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 U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a service.An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in , Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed 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 Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden 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 service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-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 U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives."

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. He was cutting down scrub brush in crawford texas & talking up

missile defense and tax cuts, the important stuff.

[johnnie]

2. .

[cliffordu]

3. After the recent revelations about Cheney's idea to kill Navy Seals dressed up

as Iranian naval forces as a pretext to war with Iran, I now believe 9/11 was allowed to occur.

I have resisted that particular conspiracy until now.

This whole faked CIA report about the 9/11 attackers and Saddam is icing on that particular cake.

What the fuck happened to my country???

[QueenOfCalifornia]

4. Move along people

... there's nothing to see here... The economy is booming, no blowjobs in the oval office, the world is safe from terrrr-errrrrrr. Who the fuck is Bin Laden? Take off your tin-foil hats you dumb hippies, this is AM-AIR-UH-CUH.

oh... and read this from 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR2006090901105_pf.html

[Hissyspit]

5. .