Posted on Nov 14, 2015
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OK, so the article was published in Politico - but is it accurate?
BTW, it was the National Inquirer that "scooped" Watergate so accuracy can't always be measured by source.
“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.
By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, “it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” “There were real plots being manifested,” Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. “The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.” The crisis came to a head on July 10. The critical meeting that took place that day was first reported by Bob Woodward in 2006. Tenet also wrote about it in general terms in his 2007 memoir At the Center of the Storm.
But neither he nor Black has spoken about it publicly in such detail until now—or been so emphatic about how specific and pressing their warnings really were. Over the past eight months, in more than a hundred hours of interviews, my partners Jules and Gedeon Naudet and I talked with Tenet and the 11 other living former CIA directors for The Spymasters, a documentary set to air this month on Showtime.
The drama of failed warnings began when Tenet and Black pitched a plan, in the spring of 2001, called “the Blue Sky paper” to Bush’s new national security team. It called for a covert CIA and military campaign to end the Al Qaeda threat—“getting into the Afghan sanctuary, launching a paramilitary operation, creating a bridge with Uzbekistan.” “And the word back,” says Tenet, “‘was ‘we’re not quite ready to consider this. We don’t want the clock to start ticking.’” (Translation: they did not want a paper trail to show that they’d been warned.) Black, a charismatic ex-operative who had helped the French arrest the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, says the Bush team just didn’t get the new threat: “I think they were mentally stuck back eight years [before]. They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties—they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.”
That morning of July 10, the head of the agency’s Al Qaeda unit, Richard Blee, burst into Black’s office. “And he says, ‘Chief, this is ...
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353
BTW, it was the National Inquirer that "scooped" Watergate so accuracy can't always be measured by source.
“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.
By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, “it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” “There were real plots being manifested,” Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. “The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.” The crisis came to a head on July 10. The critical meeting that took place that day was first reported by Bob Woodward in 2006. Tenet also wrote about it in general terms in his 2007 memoir At the Center of the Storm.
But neither he nor Black has spoken about it publicly in such detail until now—or been so emphatic about how specific and pressing their warnings really were. Over the past eight months, in more than a hundred hours of interviews, my partners Jules and Gedeon Naudet and I talked with Tenet and the 11 other living former CIA directors for The Spymasters, a documentary set to air this month on Showtime.
The drama of failed warnings began when Tenet and Black pitched a plan, in the spring of 2001, called “the Blue Sky paper” to Bush’s new national security team. It called for a covert CIA and military campaign to end the Al Qaeda threat—“getting into the Afghan sanctuary, launching a paramilitary operation, creating a bridge with Uzbekistan.” “And the word back,” says Tenet, “‘was ‘we’re not quite ready to consider this. We don’t want the clock to start ticking.’” (Translation: they did not want a paper trail to show that they’d been warned.) Black, a charismatic ex-operative who had helped the French arrest the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, says the Bush team just didn’t get the new threat: “I think they were mentally stuck back eight years [before]. They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties—they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.”
That morning of July 10, the head of the agency’s Al Qaeda unit, Richard Blee, burst into Black’s office. “And he says, ‘Chief, this is ...
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353
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Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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Capt Seid Waddell
COL Ted Mc, define the truth. Dan Rather's "truth" based upon a forgery is not my definition of objective truth. The point is of course that the objectivity of those making the observations is critical. If they are prone to lie to support their own ideology they are not worth the trouble of a hearing.
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COL Ted Mc
Capt Seid Waddell - Captain; In the instant case, "truth" is an accurate account of what did they know and when did they know it.
I can appreciate your view that possibly the people who want to discredit Mr. Bush unjustly would like people to think that he had much earlier and more detailed warnings of what was going to happen than he admitted to having.
Equally, you can also appreciate that possibly the people who want to exalt Mr. Bush unjustly would like people to think that he had much later and more generalized warnings of what was going to happen than he actually had.
The simplest way of resolving the issue is for Mr. Bush to waive Presidential Privilege and allow the release of the full text of the briefings to be releases (I wouldn't even have any difficulty with some redaction to eliminate names just as long as the dates and times and places were all left in place). Face it this is 15+ year old information so keeping it secret is hardly enhancing national security at this late date.
All that keeping the information secret does is exacerbate the conflict over what "the truth" actually was.
If your objection to this information being released is really that "the truth" might possibly harm Mr. Bush's "legacy", please come right out and say so. If your objection to this information being released is really that "the truth" might enhance someone else's reputation, please come right out and say so. If your objection to this information being released is something else, please specify what it is (and I don't mean "I don't like the motivations of the people who are trying to get this information released and that means that I don't want 'the truth' to come out no matter what 'the truth' is.".)
I can appreciate your view that possibly the people who want to discredit Mr. Bush unjustly would like people to think that he had much earlier and more detailed warnings of what was going to happen than he admitted to having.
Equally, you can also appreciate that possibly the people who want to exalt Mr. Bush unjustly would like people to think that he had much later and more generalized warnings of what was going to happen than he actually had.
The simplest way of resolving the issue is for Mr. Bush to waive Presidential Privilege and allow the release of the full text of the briefings to be releases (I wouldn't even have any difficulty with some redaction to eliminate names just as long as the dates and times and places were all left in place). Face it this is 15+ year old information so keeping it secret is hardly enhancing national security at this late date.
All that keeping the information secret does is exacerbate the conflict over what "the truth" actually was.
If your objection to this information being released is really that "the truth" might possibly harm Mr. Bush's "legacy", please come right out and say so. If your objection to this information being released is really that "the truth" might enhance someone else's reputation, please come right out and say so. If your objection to this information being released is something else, please specify what it is (and I don't mean "I don't like the motivations of the people who are trying to get this information released and that means that I don't want 'the truth' to come out no matter what 'the truth' is.".)
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Capt Seid Waddell
COL Ted Mc, my only concern is that what is released is the actual truth and not a cherry-picked and distorted version to support an ideological position. The media starts out with a soiled reputation in this regard, as do political operatives.
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COL Ted Mc
Capt Seid Waddell - Captain; Fair enough and all that it is going to take for that to happen is for Mr. Bush to authorize the release of those records. Anyone else (say Mr. Obama) who attempts to prevent them being released will immediately end up on the short end of the same stick that is now being used to pummel Mr. Bush.
If what is released ISN'T complete, then Mr. Bush can tell everyone what wasn't included and give them access to his "Presidential Papers" to prove it.
Of course, if Mr. Bush DOESN'T authorize the release of the information, then people are going to come to the (fairly) logical conclusion that the information that isn't being released is information that proves that the allegations that Mr. Bush (and his administration) had much more detailed knowledge of the impending plot and that they had it much sooner than they admitted to having what they admitted to having.
This, of course, wouldn't do Mr. Bush's "legacy" any good at all.
So, as I see it, Mr. Bush has a choice between releasing the information and taking any lumps/kudos that come from that release or refusing to release the information and being forever branded "suspect" in the eyes of anyone who had enough intelligence to be able to spell the candidates name and not just the big "D" or the big "R" after their name on the ballot.
If what is released ISN'T complete, then Mr. Bush can tell everyone what wasn't included and give them access to his "Presidential Papers" to prove it.
Of course, if Mr. Bush DOESN'T authorize the release of the information, then people are going to come to the (fairly) logical conclusion that the information that isn't being released is information that proves that the allegations that Mr. Bush (and his administration) had much more detailed knowledge of the impending plot and that they had it much sooner than they admitted to having what they admitted to having.
This, of course, wouldn't do Mr. Bush's "legacy" any good at all.
So, as I see it, Mr. Bush has a choice between releasing the information and taking any lumps/kudos that come from that release or refusing to release the information and being forever branded "suspect" in the eyes of anyone who had enough intelligence to be able to spell the candidates name and not just the big "D" or the big "R" after their name on the ballot.
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If you're going to use that logic we were warned prior to President Bush taking office under the leadership of President Clinton that this was also possible so Clintonwood bear ultimate responsibility if you're going to use that logic.
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COL Ted Mc
SSgt Alex Robinson - staff; That would depend on what the actual warning was - wouldn't it?
If the warning was only "Osama bin Laden would like to attack a target inside the US." that is one thing. If the warning was that "Osama bin Laden is actively planning an attack inside the US." that would be another. If the warning was "Osama bin Laden has finalized his plans for an attack inside the US and it is likely to occur within __[fill in the blank]__ days." that would be yet another.
The only way that the American people are ever going to know what the actual warnings were is if the Executive Branch(s) and the President(s) involved actually "come clean" and allow the warnings received to be made public.
I still want to know "What did they know and when did they know it?" - after all, it isn't as if anyone is currently attempting to prevent the WTC/Pentagon mass murders so there really isn't any VALID "national security" purpose being served by refusing to release the information.
If the warning was only "Osama bin Laden would like to attack a target inside the US." that is one thing. If the warning was that "Osama bin Laden is actively planning an attack inside the US." that would be another. If the warning was "Osama bin Laden has finalized his plans for an attack inside the US and it is likely to occur within __[fill in the blank]__ days." that would be yet another.
The only way that the American people are ever going to know what the actual warnings were is if the Executive Branch(s) and the President(s) involved actually "come clean" and allow the warnings received to be made public.
I still want to know "What did they know and when did they know it?" - after all, it isn't as if anyone is currently attempting to prevent the WTC/Pentagon mass murders so there really isn't any VALID "national security" purpose being served by refusing to release the information.
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I think "ignored" is a strong mischaracterization. Maybe they underestimated the potential impact, or maybe they weren't confident enough in their intel to be able effectively counteract any threat. The use of the term "ignored" implies they didn't really care.
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COL Ted Mc
LTC Kevin B. - Colonel; "Ignored" is one of those "I - You - He" words (as in "I am detail oriented, you are nitpicky, he is anal retentive.").
I think that the real issue is "What did they know and when did they know it?".
When the actual threat materializes in mid September, there is a big difference between first learning about it in mid August and first learning about it in mid May.
I suspect that this will continue to play out for years.
The important thing is NOT "Who is to blame?" but "What went wrong, whey did it go wrong, and how can we stop if from going wrong in the future?". Considering that a whole bunch of people will get tarred with the second brush, you can count on the attention remaining on "Who is to blame?" with next to no attention being paid to "What went wrong, whey did it go wrong, and how can we stop if from going wrong in the future?".
I think that the real issue is "What did they know and when did they know it?".
When the actual threat materializes in mid September, there is a big difference between first learning about it in mid August and first learning about it in mid May.
I suspect that this will continue to play out for years.
The important thing is NOT "Who is to blame?" but "What went wrong, whey did it go wrong, and how can we stop if from going wrong in the future?". Considering that a whole bunch of people will get tarred with the second brush, you can count on the attention remaining on "Who is to blame?" with next to no attention being paid to "What went wrong, whey did it go wrong, and how can we stop if from going wrong in the future?".
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