DOCUMENTS SHOW BERGER NIXED ATTACKS ON BIN LADEN

[indigobusiness]

Drudge goes where the stink is...again:

Reports the 9-11 Commission: 'In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, 'no''...

snip

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.

It really doesn’t matter now what was in the documents from the National Archives that Mr. Berger says he inadvertently misplaced. The evidence in the commission’s report yesterday is more than enough to embarrass him thoroughly.He is a hardworking, warm man with a wonderful family, but his background as a trade lawyer and his dovish, legalistic and political instincts made him, in retrospect,the tragically wrong man to be making national security decisions for America in wartime.That Senator Kerry had Mr. Berger as a campaign foreign policy adviser even before the archives scandal is enough to raise doubts about the senator’s judgment.

snip

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/23&ID=Ar01000

FBI BERGER PROBE FOCUS ON 'SINGLE DOCUMENT'...

http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm

---

Insight into what has the RW's knickers in a twist. Smear central.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. So?

:shrug:

[fearnobush]

3. Yes if this is such a big deal then why did Bush never attack

AL Qaeda camps? Obviously they were just as worried. I mean, If the Repukes really want to get in to a Blame game war... Then, BRING IT ON!!!

[rooboy]

2. What I'd like to know...

was what Condi wrote in the margin of the August 6 PDB. "Go Fishing"???

[candy]

4. Everyone dropped the ball on this one. Let's move forward,not backward.

[papau]

5. ATTACKS ON BIN LADEN? - or rather attacks on a field?-great story!

The Boldness of the President

<snip>In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger’s “handwritten notes on the meeting paper” referring to “the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties.”According to the Berger notes, “if he responds, we’re blamed.”

On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: “In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ‘no.’ ”

In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a “Predator” drone. Reports the commission: “In the memo’s margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, ‘I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.’ ” <snip>

The commission’s report contains plenty of other valuable information. Many of the recommendations — to move operations functions to the Department of Defense from the CIA, to speed the transition between administrations so that key defense positions are not left vacant, to stress “widespread political participation”in the Arab and Muslim world,to declassify the intelligence budget, to provide a written national security transition handover memo when administrations change — make sense. <snip>

One can blame the special prosecutor law or Mr. Clinton for agreeing to name a special prosecutor, or one can blame the underlying reckless behavior by Mr. Clinton that got him into the “difficult domestic political circumstances.” Or one can blame the Republican Congress. No matter what one’s view of the underlying merits, it is hard to deny that one of the costs to the country was a preoccupied president.There’s no guarantee that, in the absence of the scandal and the prosecutor, Mr. Clinton would have acted against Mr. bin Laden. But the chances would have been at least somewhat increased, and it would have been Mr. Clinton rather than Mr. Berger making the call. <snip>

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/23&ID=Ar01000

[Old and In the Way]

8. I'll choose blaming a Republican Congress.

Can you imagine how quick the Republican's would have called for an investigation into why Clinton was taking pre-emotive action? They'd be moaning about a opportunistic President looking to deflect from the orchestrated media humiliation that was underway.

We had 8 years of organized Republican investigations into that terrorist hiding in Big Dog's pants. That was the only terrorist worth pursuing to these hypocrits back then.

Bush and the Republican's did nothing about Al Qaeda in 9 months. The word was never mentioned but once in all this time. They wanted the boondoggle extrodinaire Missle Defense Shield as our #1 priority....a speech for Congress was planned for later in September to push this. Bush was on vacation 43% of the time prior to 9/11....his lack of preperation was evident in that classroom. Those are the facts, media/commission bullshit, notwithstanding.

[papau]

11. Yep - the report is in error & coverup mode - no wonder Bush likes it

Besides - the GOP Congress does not have time to vote up or down on the Terror Center and The Intel Chief to have hire/fire/budget over all of the 20 odd (or 15 odd if we go small group) intel community.

And our media says nothing.

[indigobusiness]

6. They are trying so hard to pump smoke up this tailpipe...

They do everything in reverse it seems.

Imagine this kind of dedication directed at achieving peace? War would be obsolete in no time.

[pbg]

7. No Good targets?

What amazes me is that they're spending all this energy on irrelevant targets.

Sandy Berger?

Joe Wilson?

Attacking Berger doesn't change the commission report--attacking Wilson won't change anything in the Plame case.

Is it just that they're firing at anything that's within range?

[Jack Rabbit]

9. So Berger said no

One might like to read David Corn's excellent summary of the report, discussed on another thread. Says Corn:

it is true that the report does point to screw-ups and negligent policymaking committed during both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. But George W. Bush is the incumbent president who has to face the voters in November. Although Republicans in recent days have been highlighting the mistakes of the Clinton years, it is not inappropriate for voters to focus on what report tells us about Bush and his administration.

It may be true that Clinton and his people didn't give the al Qaida threat the urgency it deserved. However, that does not change the fact that Bush did even less. Threats from terrorists armed with box cutters fancy high-tech missile systems built by Mr. Bush's favorite defense contractors and campaign contributors.

Bush doesn't have a leg on which to stand. The same Richard Clarke who was turned down by Sandy Berger was there to sound the alarm to Mr. Bush and Dr. Rice. They weren't listening, either. They still aren't.

[Fridays Child]

10. The neocons spend years trying to castrate one of the most...

...effective and dynamic presidents in American history, and, boy, does it piss them off that the man's privates are STILL intact and working better than ever.