Osama Bin Laden

Did Bush Let Bin Laden Escape?

Bob Fertik — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:23:47 -0400

One interesting aspect of Ron Suskind's revelations about former Iraq Intelligence Chief Tahir Jalil Habbush was the urgent need on the part of the Busheviks to keep Habbush quiet so no one would know that he told us before the invasion that Saddam had no WMD's.

Habbush did nothing wrong, and in fact cooperated completely with the U.S. But Bush kept him hidden in Jordan (even though the only person he had to fear, Saddam Hussein, was also in U.S. hands) and paid him $5 million in "hush money."

This week we also learned of another prisoner who cooperated fully with the U.S., but was also locked away - apparently for the sole purpose of keeping his story out of the media. His name is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, better known as Osama Bin Laden's driver.

Hamdan was acquitted on charges of actual terrorism (despite John McCain's lie) and convicted only on "material support" for terrorism. And even though he could have been sentenced to life in prison, a military jury gave him a light sentence of 6 years with credit for the 5.5 years he already served. Why such a light sentence?

sources familiar with secret testimony for the defense given July 31 said the information revealed in that testimony likely angered the jurors.

Two senior Army Special Forces officers told a closed session of the trial of an "opportunity" that Hamdan had offered them in Afghanistan in the first weeks after his Nov. 24, 2001, capture. That chance was "squandered" by the government, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, a defense lawyer, said in his closing argument before Wednesday's verdict.

Speculation has focused on a blown opportunity to capture bin Laden, as Hamdan might have known his whereabouts.

Holy crap - a "blown opportunity to capture bin Laden"??? Shouldn't this be the biggest news story of the year???

The New York Times gives more detail:

In testimony during public sessions of the two-week-old trial, it was clear that Mr. Hamdan had provided details about Mr. bin Laden’s possible whereabouts, even taking interrogators to some of Mr. bin Laden’s Afghan homes and training camps.

The testimony to which Commander Mizer referred was given Thursday by two Special Forces officers in a closed courtroom.

The public session information is plenty damning - we can only imagine what was said in the closed courtroom. But it's not hard to imagine how bin Laden's driver could have either led us directly to bin Laden, or helped us figure out how to find him.

Congress should demand to know what exactly the "opportunity" was - and how and why it was squandered!

Obviously the Busheviks don't want to tell the media, because they might be tried for treason. But why would Hamdam hesitate to tell the media what he willingly told U.S. interrogators?

The government case against Hamdan also was based almost entirely on information the defendant gave willingly in interviews with at least 40 U.S. government interrogators in the first two years of his captivity. Defense lawyer Charlie Swift said that information was of vital importance yet ultimately used against the cooperative captive.

In other words, Hamdam sounds very much like Habbush - someone with personal firsthand knowledge of our most hated enemy, who cooperated fully with U.S. interrogators. In both cases, there was no need to lock them up or punish them in any way.

But in both cases, Bush wants them hidden away so they won't tell the media what they told the U.S. government - because their stories would lead first to the impeachment of George W. Bush, and then to his indictment on war crimes and treason.

Update 1: Another interesting case is that of the Taliban's former Intelligence Minister, Mullah Mohammed Khaksar, who wanted to help us capture Mullah Omar but couldn't get any interest from the CIA.

The US is not interested in help from a high-level Taliban informant. Mullah Mohammed Khaksar was the Taliban’s intelligence minister and is currently their deputy interior minister. He is in charge of security in the Afghan capital of Kabul and regularly meets with other high ranking Taliban leaders. But since 1997, he has also been secretly providing a steady stream of intelligence to the Northern Alliance, the enemies of the Taliban. Further, he had offered to help the US defeat the Taliban, and several times before 9/11 CIA agents disguised as journalists visited him to solicit inside information (see April 1999). [Washington Post, 11/30/2001] However, in the weeks after 9/11, he passes letters to get in contact with US intelligence, but never hears back from them. Time magazine will later report, “Khaksar said he was ready to pass on information that might lead to the capture of the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and to some al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. But he waited days, weeks, months, and nobody contacted him.” [Time, 2/25/2002] Finally in late November 2001, he will publicly defect to the Northern Alliance, thus ending his ability to get real-time information on the movements of Omar and others. [Knight Ridder, 11/29/2001] The US will continue to remain uninterested in what Khaksar has to say (see February 25, 2002).

Extra! Dog Bites Man! Read All About It!

dlindorff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:23:00 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

In the category of yawn-inducing stories that we knew all about
before they happened, comes word that the jury of senior uniformed
officers sitting in judgement of Osama Bin Laden’s chauffeur in the
first Bush-league military tribunal to actually go to a hearing at
Guantanamo Naval Station found the prisoner, Salim Hamdan…

Drum roll please…

Guilty of supporting terrorism.

I pause here for gasps of astonishment.

It’s awfully silent…

Really, did anyone expect anything else? The officers, who all have
careers to think about that would surely be severely crimped if they
went off script and found the man innocent of the charges, heard
evidence that was obtained through torture. They heard reports of
confessions from a man who himself was subjected to torture, by the
admission of the military itself, and who was never afforded an
attorney during those interrogations.

Okay. So now we need to ask, do we all feel safer, knowing that a
car driver whose claim to fame is that he used to drive the Evil One
from house to house and wife to wife is going to be locked up for life?

Wait a minute. He is already being locked up for life. At least, he
was captured in November 2001, and shipped to Guantanamo in May 2002,
and he’s been held there ever since—for over six years—awaiting this
trial, er, I mean tribunal. There certainly was no prospect of his ever
being let go before the tribunal, so I’m not sure what the point of
this exercise was really.

So now we can move on to the next tribunal—this one involving Ahmed
Khadr, a Canadian boy picked up in Afghanistan at the age of 15, who’s
been held now for six years on the base. His “crime” is that he was
bombed by the US Air Force, and then shot up (in the back) by US
Special Forces, but he somehow managed, at least allegedly, to toss a
grenade at his attackers, killing one (actually there is some testimony
that he didn’t actually toss the grenade, but then, why quibble about
details, right?).

Does anyone want to guess about the outcome of his “trial”?

Back in journalism school, I remember being told that the classic
definition of a news story was “Man Bites Dog!” The notion was that if
something totally predictable happens, like a dog biting a man, it
ain’t really news. Only if it is unexpected does it have any real news
value. By that standard, Hamdan’s conviction should be relegated to a
one-sentence notice in the news briefs section, but I’m guessing it’ll
be page one tomorrow all over America: Terrorist Convicted!

What we really need to be asking is why taxpayer dollars are being
spent on this shameful farce, which makes a joke of American “justice”
around the world.

Salim Hamdan is one of three things:

* a vile terrorist, in which case he should be tried in a regular
court of law by a jury of citizens, with all the rights available under
our Constitution

* a prisoner of war, in which case he should be sent back to
Afghanistan, since that war is now technically over (he is not a member
of the Taliban).

* an innocent schmuck who was working for a living driving a rich
bearded guy around the Hindu Kush, and who got picked up instead of his
boss, who’s still plotting ways to blow us all up while the US
government wastes its time and its personnel prosecuting his driver.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Then again, maybe it is news after all: “US Attacked By Terrorist Gang, Mastermind’s Driver Gets Life Seven Years Later”
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in
Philadelphia. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St.
Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Democrats Push Legislation On Catching "Osama Been Forgotten"

Bob Geiger — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:54:09 -0500

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the entire Republican administration don’t seem to care about capturing Osama bin Laden but Democrats, led by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), continue to demand answers on the whereabouts of the man who claimed responsibility for the 2001 attacks on our country.

Dorgan has offered as an amendment to the 9/11 Commission recommendations, a simple bill that demands accountability from the Bush administration on bin Laden and mandates "a report to Congress on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the leadership of al Qaeda."

The North Dakota Senator pointed out that we just passed the 2,000-day mark since September 11, 2001 with Osama still at large, while listening to repeated assertions from the White House that they do not care about capturing the terrorist leader.

"The perpetrators who boasted that they committed the terrorist acts against our country that murdered so many thousands of Americans remain, apparently, in a secure hideout in Pakistan and still taunt us. They send the television and the radio stations their videos and their voice tracks telling us their views of world events," said Dorgan. "I don't understand when the President says he is not concerned about him. The top intelligence chief said this is the greatest threat to our country. We better be concerned about him -- the President and the Congress and the American people. We ought to be concerned enough to decide this is a priority; it is a priority for us to bring to justice those who are the greatest threat to our country, the greatest terrorist threat."

The Dorgan amendment, which is cosponsored by Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), is so simple and easy to read, I'm going to print the key requirements verbatim:

(1) A statement whether or not the January 11, 2007, assessment provided by Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate that the top leadership of al Qaeda has a ``secure hideout in Pakistan'' was applicable during the reporting period and, if not, a description of the current whereabouts of that leadership.

(2) A statement identifying each country where Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the leadership of al Qaeda are or may be hiding, including an assessment whether or not the government of each country so identified has fully cooperated in the efforts to capture them, and, if not, a description of the actions, if any, being taken or to be taken to obtain the full cooperation of each country so identified in the efforts to capture them.

(3) A description of the additional resources required to promptly capture Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the leadership of al Qaeda.

Isn't it amazing that the Congress even has to ask for this? What's even more extraordinary is that Dorgan offered the same bill before the Republican, do-nothing Congress and it was dead on arrival.

In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Dorgan cited statements from Former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte that are at complete odds with how little Bush and Cheney care about bin Laden's whereabouts.

Mr. Negroponte was the Director of National Intelligence until about two weeks ago. He and the current leader of the intelligence service have said the same thing in open testimony before the Congress:

"Al-Qaida is the terrorist organization that poses the greatest threat to U.S. interests, including to the homeland."

He also said this:

"Al-Qaida continues to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties. And they continue to maintain active connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders from a secure hideout in Pakistan."

Again, it says from their secure hideout in Pakistan. On September 15, 2001, 4 days after 9/11, recognizing it was al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida leadership that attacked this country and boasted about it, the President said this:

"We will not only deal with those who dare attack Americans; we will deal with those who harbor them and feed them and house them."

Two months later he said:

"As a part of our offensive against terror, we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terrorists."

Two months following that he said:

"Osama bin Laden has no place to train his al-Qaida killers anymore. And if we find a training camp, we will take care of it."

Well, the head of intelligence for this country says he knows where the al-Qaida leadership is. We saw last week film clips on television of al-Qaida training camps. Yet somehow there is a giant yawn about all of this. In fact, the President later said, in 2003:

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It is not important, and it is not our priority."

He also said:

"I am not truly that concerned about him."

Dorgan blasted Bush on his lack of concern that bin Laden is still roaming free and podcasting threats against America.

"If the head of intelligence for this country says the greatest threat posed to this country by a terrorist organization is a threat that comes from al-Qaida, a threat to our homeland to inflict mass casualties, and they are in a secure hideout in Pakistan, and if, in fact, the President previously said as a part of our offensive against terror we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terrorists, and if Pakistan is our ally and al-Qaida is located there to train new terrorists, why on Earth are we not going after the leadership of al-Qaida?" asked Dorgan. "What explains that? It, frankly, escapes me."

Dorgan also made clear that the Bush-McCain Doctrine of escalating the pointless war in Iraq continues the trend of the United States being sucked further into that quagmire while ignoring the real and potential threats to our country.

"I have said before on the floor of the Senate in recent weeks, if we have 21,000 soldiers to surge somewhere, I would much prefer those 21,000 soldiers be surged to find the leadership and eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida," said Dorgan. "I don't understand why this administration says: We don't know where he is. I have no idea and really don't care. It is not that important. It is not our priority."

"What on Earth is that? I don't understand it."

Join the club, Senator Dorgan. Join the club.

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Senator Byron Dorgan: bin Laden is "Osama Been Forgotten"

Bob Geiger — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:58:59 -0500

In a speech on the Senate floor designed to counter Jon Kyl's (R-AZ) arguments in favor of the Bush-McCain Doctrine of escalating the Iraq war, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) turned his attention to the people who actually attacked our country on September 11 and charged the Bush administration with abandoning that mission.

Citing testimony given to the Senate last week by John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Dorgan spelled out how the preoccupation with a pointless war in Iraq has taken all focus off actually neutralizing the biggest threats to our nation. Here's an except from Dorgan's floor speech on Monday:

Let me read something that Mr. John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence said last week. He testified before the Select Committee on Intelligence, and here is what he said:

Al Qaeda is the terrorist organization that poses the greatest threat to U.S. interests, including to the homeland.

Al Qaeda is what poses the greatest threat to our interests, including our homeland. Then he went on to say this. This is again John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence.

Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties. And they continue to maintain active connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan.

Dorgan then questioned why al Qaeda has been allowed to run around unchecked everywhere but inside Iraq, why their influence and presence has been permitted to spread throughout the world and asked the question millions of Americans have been asking for over five years -- where's Osama?

"Osama bin Laden, do we know him? Yes. He is the person who ordered -- claimed and boasted -- he ordered the attacks against this country, killing thousands of innocent Americans," said Dorgan. "He still lives, apparently, in a secure hideout, according to the top intelligence chief in this country, in Pakistan. It seems to me the elimination of the leadership of al Qaeda, the organization that attacked this country, that murdered thousands of innocent Americans, ought to be the primary interest of this country."

"Does anybody hear anybody talking about Osama bin Laden anymore? Or perhaps better described as 'Osama been forgotten' these days? Nobody wants to talk about it."

The North Dakota Democrat went on to talk about Bush's plan to ship 22,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq, how overstretched the American military really is and the extent to which the Iraq quagmire has taken away from truly mitigating terrorist threats against the United States.

"The most significant terrorist threat to this country is al Qaeda, and it operates from a secure hideout in Pakistan. If that is true, what are we doing, deciding to find 20,000 troops by pulling some of them out of Afghanistan and moving them to Iraq?" said Dorgan. "If those troops are available, they ought to be dedicated to dealing with al Qaeda and bringing to justice those who committed the attacks against this country. I will have more to say about that at some point, but I did want to make note of what the Director of Intelligence said last week that seems to be almost ignored in this debate about Iraq."

"They are fighting hard to destabilize the Government of Afghanistan. That was our first battle, to go into Afghanistan and kick the Taliban out," he continued. "We need more troops in Afghanistan now, not less, and yet my understanding is the President's plan would divert troops we have in Afghanistan to go to Iraq."

Finally, Dorgan went after Kyl, who had just given a speech in favor of Bush's Iraq escalation plan, while also repeating the same old Republican spin about Democrats having no plan for Iraq.

"My colleague suggested this was a circumstance where some were simply willing to criticize the President but offer no plan of their own," he said in response to Kyl's babbling. "Then he subsequently said the resolution that some of my colleagues will offer in the Senate will advocate a different course of action. That is a plan, I guess, isn't it? If one advocates a different course of action than the President is advocating, it seems to me that is a plan."

I'm pretty sure that Senator Kyl didn’t take the floor again to respond to that question… He was probably on the phone to Karl Rove or the Republican National Committee asking what talking point he should use next.

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Notes and Quotes From Gates Hearings

Bob Geiger — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 10:21:28 -0500

Robert Gates received approval from the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on his nomination to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and will proceed to a full Senate confirmation vote. This will likely happen as soon as Wednesday's Senate session.

Here's some interesting notes from Tuesday's Senate hearings…

The closest thing to a bombshell came when Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) asked the nominee point-blank "Mr. Gates, do you believe that we are currently winning in Iraq?"

"No, sir," came the blunt response from Gates, thus totally contradicting everything that's come out of George W. Bush's mouth on the subject in 2006.

In case anyone was unclear on what Gates meant -- which White House Spokesman Tony Snow clearly was when he tried to talk around the Defense nominee later in the day -- John McCain (R-AZ) picked up the question during his time with Gates.

McCain: I'd like to follow on what Senator Levin said. We are not winning the war in Iraq; is that correct?

Gates: That is my view -- yes, sir.

McCain: And, therefore, status quo is not acceptable?

Gates: That is correct, sir.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) got another useful piece of information when he asked Gates "Is Iraq the central battlefront in the war on terror?"

"I think that it is one of the central fronts in the war on terror," said Gates, sounding more like Russ Feingold (D-WI) than Bush.

Feingold has been talking for years about all the other trouble spots we should be watching, while Bush and his team tell anyone who will listen that Iraq is the focus of the entire effort.

* * * * *

Levin gave a good introductory statement to his questions for Gates:

"If confirmed as secretary of defense, Robert Gates will face the monumental challenge of picking up the pieces from broken policies and mistaken priorities in the past few years.

"First and foremost, this means addressing the ongoing crisis in Iraq. The situation in Iraq has been getting steadily worse, not better. Before the invasion of Iraq, we failed to plan to provide an adequate force for the occupation of the country, or to plan for the aftermath of major combat operations.

"After we toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, we thoughtlessly disbanded the Iraqi army and also disqualified tens of thousands of low-level Baath Party members from future government employment.

"These actions contributed to the chaos and violence that followed, and to alienating substantial portions of the Iraqi population.

"We have failed, so far, to secure the country and defeat the insurgency. And we have failed to disarm the militias and create a viable Iraqi military or police force. And we have failed to rebuild the economic infrastructure of the country and provide employment for the majority of Iraqis.

"The next secretary of defense will have to deal with the consequences of those failures."

* * * * *

Here's a comforting bit of clarification, based on a question from Robert Byrd (D-WV), showing some acknowledgement from Gates that Bush's authority has limits:

Byrd: Do you believe the president has the authority, under either the 9/11 war resolution or the Iraq war resolution, to attack Iran or to attack Syria?

Gates: To the best of my knowledge of both of those authorizations, I don't believe so.

Byrd: Would you say that an attack on either Iran or Syria would worsen the violence in Iraq and lead to greater American casualties?

Gates: Yes, sir, I think that's very likely.

* * * * *

Ted Kennedy (D-MA) gave a good opening statement -- here's an excerpt:

"We know, since you have been nominated now -- 59 Americans have been killed just in the 27 days since you've been nominated.

"In the 27 days just prior to that, 92 Americans were killed. And in the 27 days prior to that, 81 Americans were killed.

"We don't know in the 27 days prior to the first of the year, when we're going to have these, evidently, decisions and judgments and a new policy, how many more Americans are killed.

"And the people, the families, in my state want to know whether you're going to be that figure that Senator Warner talked about, that fearless champion of the service men and women that is going to be consistent with our national security."

* * * * *

Bill Nelson (D-FL) broached the touchy subject of renewing a military draft:

Nelson: Now, you say, then, that we can meet our recruiting goals without a draft. Explain that to the committee.

Gates: Well, sir, I think that the first encouraging aspect statistically, based on the limited exposure I've had, is the great success we've had in retention in the services. So we don't have a hole in the bottom of the bucket of much consequence.

My impression is that the Army was authorized to add an additional 30,000 troops and that they have recruited, I think, 23,000, or thereabouts, of that 30,000.

I would tell you, my candid opinion is that I think once -- one of the military officers that I was talking to told me that one of the concerns that he had about recruitment was that first we'd lost the moms and now we were starting to lose the dads in terms of encouraging young people to join the services.

Obvious statement of the day by Gates on meeting recruiting goals: "In all honesty, I think that when people perceive that joining the services is not a direct ticket to Iraq, our opportunities for increasing the numbers are going to be significant."

* * * * *

Levin and many of the Senators thanked Gates for his forthrightness and candor during the hearings. Here's Levin:

"Your acknowledgement that we're not winning in Iraq, frankly, is a necessary, refreshing breath of reality that is so needed if we're going to look at ways of changing course in Iraq to maximize the chances of success. I thank you for that and the other candid responses that you've given here."

And I'll let my own Senator, Hillary Clinton (D-NY), wrap up with her comments on candor before the committee:

"Your candor to this committee, to the American people, and especially to our men and women in uniform, is crucial to our success. We need a strong secretary of defense -- but that doesn't mean strong- headed.

"And I appreciate your openness and willingness to engage with this committee today.

"Part of that candor was evident when you responded to Senator Levin's question about whether we are winning the war in Iraq, contrary to what your predecessor told us from that very chair and what the president has told the American people."

We'll end with Clinton's parting slap at Donald Rumsfeld that she gave when thanking Gates: "Dr. Gates, thank you for your candor. That's something that has been sorely lacking from the current occupant in the position that you seek to hold."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Kennedy, Leahy Blast Bush's Iraq Wake-Up Call

Bob Geiger — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:01:17 -0400

In the wake of a press conference today that had George W. Bush babbling such inanities as "my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done" and asserting that "Al Qaeda is on the run" despite the unknown whereabouts of the guy who attacked us on September 11 -- you know, that dude named bin Laden? -- Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was quick to call Bush on his contrived, newly-discovered flexibility on Iraq.

“It’s deeply disturbing that it takes a close election – not in Iraq, but in America – to get this White House to even talk about flexibility and changing course," said Kennedy. "American and Iraqi deaths didn’t do it. The growing insurgency and increasing sectarian violence didn’t do it. The conclusion in April by our intelligence community that the Iraq war is a rallying cry for anti-American extremism didn’t do it. Only the prospect of losing his rubber stamp Congress and the President’s own low polls seem to penetrate the wall of denial around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

Kennedy also rebutted Bush's recent claim that his longstanding stay-the-course mantra has been a figment of 300 million Americans' imaginations.

"Sadly, the bottom line is that it's still a stay-the-course strategy from the White House. The President may have abandoned the label but he has not abandoned the failed strategy," said the Massachusetts Senator.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) also responded quickly, saying that Bush's mild admission that things may not be going just peachy in Iraq and his replacement of the notion of a troop-withdrawal timeline with the word "benchmark," are clearly a function of the looming midterm elections.

“For years the President has said his policy in Iraq is to ‘stay the course’ and he ridiculed anyone who urged him to change course," said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Now, as the crisis worsens and November nears, he declares that ‘stay the course’ is no longer operative. He has conveniently changed his words, but not his policies."

Leahy's strongest response was for Bush's claim that the midterm elections should be decided on the economy and on "who will best protect this country."

“It is appalling that after spending hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars and sacrificing 2,700 American lives, our country is less secure today," said Leahy. "The Bush-Cheney Administration’s bad decisions and poor planning have squandered our resources and our opportunities to make America safer."

"Imagine how different today’s world would be if the Bush-Cheney Administration had not diverted our forces to Iraq and if we had put muscle into capturing Osama bin Laden and rebuilding Afghanistan."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Update: Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) just issued this statement on Bush's press conference today:

"The President’s head-in-the-sand approach to the worsening situation in Iraq is undermining our national security. While his rhetoric may have changed, the President gave no indication that he would change his failed policy in Iraq. The President says he doesn’t want Iraq to become a terrorist haven like Afghanistan was under the Taliban, but his failed Iraq-centric approach has resulted in a recent resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. We need a new policy for Iraq that includes a timetable for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq so we can focus on the threats to our national security around the world."

What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:49:08 -0400

The questions I asked in the first year after 9/11 have still not been answered. (WARNING: Many of the links are no longer valid, but a surprising number still are. There’s enough information associated with each excerpt for those who have Lexis-Nexis to be able to find the articles with bad links.)

From MakeThemAccountable.com:

What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?

What did George Bush himself know, prior to the attacks?

What Bush Knew Before Sept. 11, CBS News, May 16, 2002:
“President Bush was told in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack U.S. passenger planes - information which prompted the administration to issue an alert to federal agencies - but not the American public.”

Click here for more articles.

MORE MORE MORE

Why were certain people warned not to fly on or about September 11 (or even earlier), and not the rest of us?

Willie Brown got low-key early warning about air travel, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 2001:
“For Mayor Willie Brown, the first signs that something was amiss came late Monday when he got a call from what he described as his airport security - - a full eight hours before yesterday's string of terrorist attacks -- advising him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel.”

Click here for more articles.

Did the U.S. know that the attacks were going to happen?

THE COUNTER-TERRORIST, Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, Issue of January 14, 2002:
“[I]intelligence had been streaming in concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack. ‘It all came together in the third week in June [2001],’ Clarke said. ‘The C.I.A.'s view was that a major terrorist attack was coming in the next several weeks.’ On July 5th, Clarke summoned all the domestic security agencies—the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.—and told them to increase their security in light of an impending attack.”

Click here for more articles.

Why didn't the Air Force scramble fighters before the third attack plane hit the Pentagon?

My Country Right Or Wrong: Questioning September 11th, Mark Elsis, AttackOnAmerica.net, undated:
“1. The North American Aerospace Defense Command ( NORAD ) had almost an hour and a half to scramble F-16 jets from Langley Air Force Base ( AFB ) to protect Washington D.C. and the Pentagon. How could they incredibly fail to do so? For this most impossible error, the United States government and military only give the lame excuse, we didn't have enough time to respond.”

Click here for much, much more.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Five-Year 9/11 Anniversary Check Of The Osama Clock

Bob Geiger — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:08:31 -0400

Well, it has now been five years since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001 and exactly 1,820 days since George W. Bush (The Resolute One) said that he would get Osama bin Laden dead or alive.

Five years, and our nation is mired in a civil war in a country that did not attack us and that posed no threat to America. Five years and Al Qaeda now operates in more countries than it did when they attacked us, and their leader, the man that our Cowboy-in-Chief swore he would bring to justice, is still roaming free and podcasting threats to America.

So, as we ask every week -- but never more so than today -- Mr. Bush: Where's Osama?

You can always find an updated version of the Osama Clock at BobGeiger.com

Day 1,800 on the Osama Clock

Bob Geiger — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 13:23:52 -0400

Of all the things that George W. Bush has done to exploit our nation's tragedy on September 11, 2001, none brought him more political capital than his macho posturing in the weeks and months following the attacks. He stood on the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center and declared that the terrorists who attacked us would "hear all of us soon." A few days later, he invoked imagery of the Old West and, with steely resolve, said that he was committed to getting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

And here we sit, exactly 1,800 days later with a civil war in Iraq, the Taliban still killing American troops in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden very much alive and running free to podcast threats against our country from a Dick Cheney-like undisclosed location.

President Bush seems to have missed one of the central tenets of being a real tough guy: That you're able to back up your words with action and, once you boast that you're about to open a can of whoop-ass on someone, that it actually happen.

But here's what the Resolute One said just six months later, in March of 2002 when asked by a reporter if he had a sense of whether capturing bin Laden was imminent and if Bush knew where the Al Qaeda leader was.

"I don't know where he is," said Bush. "You know, I just don't spend that much time on him to be honest with you."

And the results have certainly mirrored that tenuous resolve.

Instead of continuing to go after Al Qaeda -- you know, the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 -- Bush created a war with Iraq that even Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) now says is "an absolute replay of Vietnam."

"Iraq is not the center of the war on terror," said John Kerry (D-MA) over the weekend. "The president keeps saying it is. The president keeps trying to push it down America's throat. It's wrong, it's a mistake and it's losing us the ability to do what we need to do in the region."

Which for the majority of Americans would have been to spend our time, money and military going after the bad guys, instead of pumping money into the wallets of Cheney's buddies at Halliburton with a war against a country that did not attack us, had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to our people.

And where are we now ? Well, in addition to not having Osama bin Laden, we're presiding over a civil war in the country we did attack, we've mortgaged our childrens' future to pay for Bush's quagmire, we are despised throughout the world and, in one of the biggest threats to our national security, our intelligence services operate with zero global credibility.

Oh, and as of yesterday, Bush says of Iraq that "we're not leaving, so long as I'm the president."

Even worse, the most encouraging estimates have Al Qaeda operating in exactly the same number of countries that they were in when they attacked us in 2001, with most analysts thinking they have footholds in even more places now.

"We must move away from the Iraq-centric policies that are draining our resources and focus on Al Qaeda and its affiliates who are reportedly operating in some 60 to 80 countries around the world,” Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in June. "I find it jarring that we spend so much time on the floor of the Senate and throughout the Congress talking almost incessantly about the situation in Iraq as if on 9/11 the situation involved Iraq, as if the attack had come from Iraq."

"We were attacked by Al Qaeda, operating out of Afghanistan on 9/11," continued Feingold, who voted against the resolution giving Bush the authority to start the Iraq war. "Yet our focus and our resources and our troops and our intelligence are very heavily focused only on this Iraq situation. Now I think this is just plain tragic five years after 9/11."

While we do appear to be killing a fair number of newly-minted enemy combatants in Iraq, we haven't really put a serious dent in the people who actually attacked us in 2001. And today, Osama bin Laden will celebrate day 1,800 of freedom since our tough-talking president vowed to get him “dead or alive.”

But he sure sounded like John Wayne for a second there, didn’t he?

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

After Almost Five years, Team Bush Nails an al Qaeda Minor-Leaguer

Bob Geiger — Fri, 05 May 2006 08:39:53 -0400

How is the Bush administration going to follow-up on their underwhelming takedown of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was just sentenced to six consecutive life terms for his kinda, sorta, maybe involvement in the attacks of September 11? I would suggest that Bush send his Justice Department team to my town and track down the cowardly thugs who toilet-papered my house two Halloweens ago -- that seems the logical next step.

Now before any of you right-wing types send me the usual barrage of hate e-mail -- I'm guessing the operative phrases will be "soft on terrorism" for the reasonably smart and "Osama lover" for the other 99 percent -- let me stipulate for the record that Moussaoui is clearly not a good guy and taking him permanently off the al Qaeda roster is a smart move.

As he left the courtroom after being formally sentenced on six conspiracy counts, Moussaoui said "…God curse America and save Osama bin Laden. You will never get him." Now, if I read between the lines, this means he doesn’t wish us well and it's clear that Moussaoui did not come to the U.S. to settle down and raise a family.

But, after nearly five years, billions of dollars spent, civil liberties curtailed and the entire nation thrown into a red-scare type environment complete with a seemingly-arbitrary, color-coded threat meter, the best we can do is Zacarias Moussaoui?

This guy's a bit player in the terrorist neighborhood. A third-stringer. A pug. A hack. He was the guy the other evildoers would make fun of in terrorist school, smirking behind his back and saying "Hey, Zacarias, let's see your technique for strapping on an explosive belt again" as they rolled on the cave floor in laughter.

In short, this guy is the Shemp of this outfit when, after all this time and trouble, we should have captured Moe, Larry and Curly.

Senator Russ Feingold has been front and center in challenging the Iraq war and the general ineptitude shown by Bush in what the White House very loosely calls the "global war on terror." The Wisconsin Democrat has been the leader in reminding Americans that, in addition to Osama bin Laden still running free and podcasting threats, al Qaeda remains in 60 countries almost five years since Bush pledged to "smoke them out."

“Al Qaeda remains active in 60 countries around the world and continues to recruit, train, and develop new strategies to inflict harm on the United States,” said Feingold in a recent interview. “Extremist organizations are present in another 20 countries and are developing new threats to the United States and our allies. The President needs to realize that his misguided, Iraq-centric policies are draining our military and intelligence capabilities and are undermining our efforts to combat al Qaeda and its allies.”

On May 14, bin Laden will celebrate day 1700 of freedom since our tough-talking president vowed to get him “dead or alive.” And, while we do appear to be killing a fair number of newly-minted enemy combatants in Iraq, we really haven't done squat to get the people who actually attacked us in 2001.

Said Feingold in an Air America interview in December:

"The problem here is that he is so focused on Iraq as if it is the be-all and end-all of all of our national security that he doesn't really understand the challenge before this country. The fight here is against those who attacked us on 9/11 and the president keeps talking about the Iraq situation as if it's the only issue out there. There's some 60 plus countries where Al Qaeda is operating according to our administration and he's so focused on Iraq as if it's the be-all and end-all of our national security that he almost can't see straight."

And so here we sit, four years and eight months after being attacked, $300 billion poorer, over 2,400 military dead and many more wounded for life, the blood of tens of thousands of Iraqis on our hands a world that loved us on September 12, 2001 now hating our guts -- but we nailed the towel boy of the al Qaeda locker room.

Heck of a job, Bushie.

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com