2001: National Security Adviser Rice Rejects Resuming Use of Surveillance Drone to Track Bin Laden
When exactly was that you might ask?
"January 10-25, 2001
National Security Adviser Rice Rejects Resuming Use of Surveillance Drone to Track Bin Laden
Even before President Bush’s official inauguration, Clinton holdover counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke pushes National Security Adviser Rice and other incoming Bush officials to resume Predator drone flights over Afghanistan (originally carried out in September and October 2000) in an attempt to find and assassinate bin Laden.
On January 10, Rice is shown a video clip of bin Laden filmed by a Predator drone the year before. Aware of an Air Force plan to arm the Predator, when Clarke outlines a series of steps to take against al-Qaeda on January 25 (see January 25, 2001), one suggestion is to go forward with new Predator drone reconnaissance missions in the spring and use an armed version when it is ready.
The original Air Force development plan calls for three years of Predator testing, but Clarke pushes so hard that a Hellfire missile is successfully test fired from a Predator on February 16, 2001. The armed Predator will be fully ready by early June 2001 (see Early June-September 10, 2001).
However, Rice apparently approves the use of the Predator but only as part of a broader strategy against al-Qaeda. Since that strategy will still not be ready before 9/11, the Predator will not be put into use before 9/11. "
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&complete_911_timeline__war_on_terrorism__outside_iraq=complete_911_timeline_pakistan___afghanistan_drone_stikes
= new reply since forum marked as read
The OP just goes to show how little attention Team Shrub was paying to Osama bin Laden, a man whose organization had declared war on the US, killed hundreds of people in attacks on two US embassies, and attacked a US warship and killed US sailors. Had the Shrub been willing to take out Osama bin Laden back in 2001, he might well have thrown a monkey-wrench in some of the plans al Qaeda had regarding New York and Washington.
It doesn't surprise me that the man who the Republi-clowns and Tea-baggers attack for his "Chicago gangster" politics decided to take the action that the Bushies bungled or shirked and took out the smirking Saudi. If part of his determination was due to the fact that Barack Obama remembered it was not only Americans who died when al Qaeda attacked the US embassy in Nairobi, but also hundreds of his father's countrymen, that proves that Barack Obama was more in touch with what constituted a REAL threat to Americans and American interests than Buckaroo Bush showed himself to be.
