WH April 2001: It's a "mistake" to focus "so much energy on Osama"

[TruthIsAll]

Another Smoking gun..

http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df03262004.html

March 26, 2004 | Daily Mislead Archive
White House, 4/01: Focus on Bin Laden "A Mistake"

A previously forgotten report from April 2001 (four months before 9/11) shows that the Bush Administration officially declared it "a mistake" to focus "so much energy on Osama bin Laden." The report directly contradicts the White House's continued assertion that fighting terrorism was its "top priority" before the 9/11 attacks1.

Specifically, on April 30, 2001, CNN reported that the Bush Administration's release of the government's annual terrorism report contained a serious change: "there was no extensive mention of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden" as there had been in previous years. When asked why the Administration had reduced the focus, "a senior Bush State Department official told CNN the U.S. government made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden."2.

more..

[leftchick]

1. but, but... I thought condi said they were all....

"at battle stations!" ... :eyes:

[buycitgo]

2. man, I gotta start reading those daily misleads

did you read the isikoff link?

unbelievable!

http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorismfoi/whatwentwrong.html

There were, in fact, failures at every level that summer: from the shortcomings in the law-enforcement trenches—the FBI’s poor record at domestic surveillance, the CIA’s poor record at infiltrating Islamic groups and the lack of cooperation between the two agencies—to the fixed strategic mind-set of the Bush administration. Between the claims by the FBI and CIA that they didn’t get enough information and the White House’s insistence that it didn’t receive any reports—”He doesn’t recall seeing anything,” Rice said when asked if Bush had read the Phoenix memo—the buck seems to be stopping nowhere. “If I were an average citizen, I’d be pissed at the whole American government,” says a senior official who has worked on counterterrorism.

The question is not so much what the president knew and when he knew it. The question is whether the administration was really paying much attention.

Terrorism is by nature stealthy and hard to crack, even in the face of the most zealous efforts to thwart it. What Americans should be asking is why the Bush administration in its first eight months, like the Clinton administration for much of its eight years, did not demand the intelligence cooperation that was needed. At issue is not whom to blame for the past, but how to learn from it to safeguard our future.

this article is SO infuriating, and I wonder why Isikoff isn't touting it in his very frequent appearances on the tube.

more:

John Ashcroft seemed particularly eager to set a new agenda. In the spring of 2001, the attorney general had an extraordinary confrontation with the then FBI Director Louis Freeh at an annual meeting of special agents in charge in Quantico, Va. The two talked before appearing, and Ashcroft laid out his priorities for Freeh, another Clinton holdover (though no friend of the ex-president’s), “basically violent crime and drugs,” recalls one participant. Freeh replied bluntly that those were not his priorities, and began to talk about terror and counterterrorism. “Ashcroft didn’t want to hear about it,” says a former senior law-enforcement official. (A Justice Department spokeswoman hotly disputed this, saying that in May Ashcroft told a Senate committee terrorism was his “highest priority.”)

more:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who with Republican Sen. Jon Kyl had sent a copy of draft legislation on counterterrorism and homeland defense to Cheney’s office on July 20, also heard some news that day. Feinstein was told by the veep’s top aide, “Scooter” Libby, as Feinstein described it to NEWSWEEK, “that it might be another six months before he would be able to review the material.”

pretty hard to stomach, and it's worse than this....lots of stuff in the article is old news, but it's interesting that there's so much of it in one place, and written less than a year after the event

again, as always, it brings this respnse:

WTC, WTF?

[PretzelWarrior]

3. it's too tragic to be funny....

but imagine--a continuing line of former officials under Bush keep saying the same damning evidence. To wit: the Bushies had a single-minded policy issue to address which was "finish what daddy started in Babylon". OUt of all the news reports of jumping out of ABM treaty, developing missile defense, military incidents with China, etc. there was never a WORD about anything the Bushies were seriously focusing re: Osama and terrorism until 9/12.

Praise be to all who recognize and loudly blare these facts.

[Rageneau]

4. Those Fraidy Cat FReepers

Check out what the Freepers are saying among themselves about 9/11 these days. They're saying it's time to "move on."

They no longer want to KNOW how 9/11 happened -- now that it's obvious that 9/11 was a Bush screw-up of red giant magnitude. They would rather protect Smirk than see justice done. Hypocrites!

Freepers fancy themselves to be patriotic, honest and moral. That's cr*p, of course, as their recent behavior clearly shows.

Bush, the Freepers, and other right-wing loudmouths no longer care about bringing bin Laden to justice. They no longer want the deaths of 3000 Americans avenged. Now that Clinton is gone, they no longer insist on getting to the bottom of government 'misconduct'. To these goofs, the murder of 3000 Americans isn't NEARLY as serious as Clinton getting a BJ, so of course it doesn't need to be investigated NEARLY as much.

For Freepers, getting a BJ disqualifies a man to be Prez., but fiddling while the WTC burns evokes nothing but a couple of toungue clucks. Their loyalty is not to their country but to their political bedfellows. Freepers will ignore their country, the truth, and the common good in the blink of an eye, rather than admit that someone on their side had been wrong about something. They do it all the time.
That isn't patriotism; it is mindless fanaticism.

Already, by wanting to sweep the entire investigation under the rug, by adamantly resisting the exposition of the truth about 9/11, and by attacking everyone who s trying to reveal that truth, right-wingers have broken faith with all of America and especially with the families of the 9/11 victims.

Perhaps the Freepers should join MoveOn.com.