Under Trump fire, Jeb Bush Focuses On 9/11 even as Hijackers got Florida Licenses under his watch. [View all]

[seafan]

Talk about some explaining to do for Jeb Bush, the International Business Times reports:

October 19, 2015

Defending his brother’s presidency, Jeb Bush has repeatedly declared that George W. Bush “kept us safe.” Focusing on the 9/11 attacks carries unique risks for Jeb Bush as he navigates the politics of national security and immigration -- and not simply because, as Donald Trump pointed out, the attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were able to obtain Florida driver’s licenses or identification cards -- and train freely in the state -- while Jeb Bush was governor.

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While Jeb Bush has called Trump’s criticism “pathetic,” the immigration policies of Bush’s gubernatorial administration were under the microscope in 2001 when law enforcement officials acknowledged that Florida had issued driver’s licenses or state identification cards to 12 of the hijackers, all of whom had come to the United States on visas. The St. Petersburg Times reported that at the time of the attack there was a warrant in Florida to apprehend one of the lead hijackers, Mohammed Atta, but “the warrant for Atta's arrest was ignored.” A national conservative organization pushing tougher immigration laws soon criticized Bush for his unwillingness to support what the group said was legislation necessary to stop terrorism.

Bush’s campaign did not respond to International Business Times’ questions about the Florida licenses issued to the hijackers while he was governor.

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His communications director tweeted that Trump’s criticism was fodder only for “liberal bloggers.” So far on the campaign trail, the debate over the responsibility for the attacks has revolved around George W. Bush. But in the aftermath of 9/11, Jeb Bush himself was also under fire.

In the days after the 2001 attacks, news broke that most of the 9/11 hijackers carried driver’s licenses or identification cards issued by Florida’s department of motor vehicles -- an agency controlled by Bush and the other statewide elected officials who comprise the Florida Cabinet. Some of the licenses and ID cards were issued by the state while Bush was governor. Some of the hijackers trained for the attacks at Flight Safety International in Vero Beach, Florida. Local newspapers said the Florida licenses played a pivotal role in helping the hijackers conduct business in the United States.

“Terrorists known to have Florida licenses or identification cards made more than a dozen trips total to driver's license offices in the state,” the St. Petersburg Times reported. “That's how often the terrorists willingly called themselves to the attention of the state, either to acquire a license or to update their address, both of which might have helped them rent cars or board planes without arousing suspicion.”

Mohammed Atta lived in Delray Beach and rented an airplane. He had been stopped a few months before 9/11 by Florida law enforcement officials, and was told to appear in court the next month. However, he was not arrested and, the Times wrote, “deputies never learned that Atta reportedly was on a U.S. government ‘watch list’ of people tied to terrorist activity.” The newspaper also noted that while Atta tried and failed to get a driver’s license at one Florida facility, he was able to get one later at another facility.

Another hijacker, one of several aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon, was stopped for a traffic violation in Arlington, Virginia, days before the attack and had a Florida driver’s license, according to CNN.

Others bided their time in Florida; the Palm Beach Post reported that “at least seven and possibly nine of the hijackers lived in Delray Beach in the months leading up to the attack” and “three others lived in Boynton Beach.” Several also looked into renting crop duster planes -- officials believed they may have been aiming to use them to drop chemicals, according to news station WPBF.

“Gov. Jeb Bush has ordered a ‘top-to-bottom’ review of all state security measures, including Florida's licensing laws,” the St. Petersburg Times wrote in an editorial just after the attacks. “That so many of the terrorists obtained IDs and flight instruction here was not a coincidence.” Noting that the majority of hijackers “were able to obtain state driver's licenses and identification that enabled them to nestle within the fabric of society,” the newspaper declared: “Alarm bells should have gone off but never did. We can no longer afford these kind of security lapses.”

(emphasis added)


Requests for Florida license raised no flags, December 14, 2001


For YEARS, the GOP has harangued Democrats for being "soft on national security", when we have hard evidence that those who point fingers are, themselves, guilty.


Reuters/Brian Snyder, via IBT


My hat is off to Donald Trump for FINALLY yanking back the lid on September 11. These things have not been publicly discussed because there are armies of political operatives and allied media who have maintained a tight lid on this gargantuan, oozing toxic mass, fed by horrendous neglect by the George W. Bush administration. This Bush failure directly led to the international chaos we witness today in the Middle East, the refugee crises, the rise of ISIS, the theft of civil liberties, illegal domestic spying and the militarization of domestic law enforcement. Because of Bush's militaristic foreign policy blunders, our country's economic, social structure, and infrastructure systems are now crumbling.

As a country, we can no longer look away from the now-metastasizing catastrophes for which George W. Bush is responsible.

So, absolutely, yes, we need to have this conversation. Thank you, Donald Trump, for forging into it.