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Blogs by Alex Drinkwater, Jr.
And now for some truth . . . 4/14/2004 11:48:28 AM
What the media would have us believe about the "intelligence failure" and President Bush's response (or lack thereof) to it is a bunch of CRAP FROM THE EDITORIAL PAGE OF A MAJOR US NEWSPAPER:
"President Bush has now confirmed, in his own words, that he was as ineffectual in responding to the threat from Al-Qaida prior to Sept. 11 as his harshest critics assert. Asked Sunday about the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief, Bush said it gave 'no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack.' That is an unbelievable statement. In essence, he's saying that because there was no information available about terrorists hijacking a jetliner in city X for use as a bomb in city Y on such and such a date, there was nothing he could do. And nothing is precisely what he did."
FURTHER ON:
"Bush asks the CIA for a briefing paper on the domestic threat posed by Al-Qaida. It comes to him on Aug. 6 with the alarming headline, 'Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.' The body of the memo says Bin Laden is going to exploit an Egyptian operative's access to the United States 'to mount a terrorist attack.' It says 'Bin Laden prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.' Most ominously it warns that "FBI information since (1998) indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations of hijackings . . . ."
FURTHER ON:
"Intelligence is almost always fragmentary and frequently inconclusive. You find the end of a string, and if it looks promising (and especially if your superiors take great interest in it), you pull hard. If you are skillful, you gather more string, and your effort widens. More string pullers use the clues you've developed to look for similar string in new places. If they, too, are skillful, you begin to gather enough string to draw some tentative conclusions, and perhaps to take action. That's what Bush failed to do during the summer of 2001."
NONSENSE! As a retired member of the Intelligence Community, i can tell you that the type of "warning" mentioned above is totally insufficient to come to any kind of a conclusion with respect to imminent attack. Consider this from the first paragraph above: "That is an unbelievable statement. In essence, he's saying that because there was no information available about terrorists hijacking a jetliner in city X for use as a bomb in city Y on such and such a date, there was nothing he could do." Under the circumstances, what COULD he do? Stop all air traffic? When? And for how long? Place AA artillery and SAMs on top of important buildings? Which ones? And, again, for how long? And then what, shoot down any stray airliners that come near you?
Amazing. The liberal media always accused Bush of being a "cowboy" who "shoots from the hip." And now they're criticizing him for NOT doing that. How is he handling the War on Terrorism? Well, let's see: he accomplished in 2 months what the Soviets could not do in ten years in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein's in jail, Col. Qadaffi is "coming clean," and the rest of the Middle Eastern potentates are shaking in their boots. Would a President Gore have done as much? Or (God forbid) a "President Kerry?" Think about it.
