July 25, 2004
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THE 9/11 REPORT
The 9/11 commission has issued its final report and I think dispelled a lot of myths about the background and nature of the attacks.
It seems Osama isn't the moneybags we first thought, rather he seems to be the head planner and conduit for a lot of Saudi money. The hi-jackers didn't enter the country taking advantage of our lax laws, rather at least some of them got and stayed in because of sloppy counter-intelligence and enforcement of laws which at least someone knew they had violated. It looks as if there was no contribution or evolvement of Iraq in the attack. Perhaps one of the most interesting findings had to do with the dissimulation about the administrations knowledge of or warnings about the impending attacks; here's a quote from today's New York times:"In testimony this April to the Sept. 11 commission, before it was made public, Ms. Rice insisted that the report was "historical."
"It did not, in fact, warn of attacks inside the United States," she testified. "It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information.''
But there were gasps in the audience in the hearing room when she disclosed the name of the two-page briefing paper: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S."
I think that about sums up how effective Bush has been in combating terrorists.
While his heart seems to be in the right place, his decision to use the 9/11 attack as an excuse to attack Iraq is questionable at best. While Saddam was certainly a ruthless dictator and no doubt the world is better off without him in power, there are lots of ruthless dictators around. Those of Saudi Arabia and North Korea come to mind immediately and according to this report, the Saudi's (not necessarily the Saudi govt) had more to do with 9-11 than Iraq did.
Comments (1)
Pshaw...the PDB was indeed historical. Bin Laden attacked the U.S. in 1993 when the WTC was targeted by terrorists who exploded a rental van in its parking garage. Throught the in-between years, Bin Laden attacked other American interests not located in North America- the Khobar Towers, African embassies and the U.S.S Cole. American citizens and servants died in all of these incidents.
This report was not a news flash to anyone- it was clear that OBL, in his own words, was "determined to attack in the U.S." Our intelligence community was apparently unable to find more specific information regarding these threats in a timely manner and then Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton was too distracted by his adultery to do anything about the clear threat posed (globally) by Osama and Al Qaeda.
Regards,
jaa