setting the record straight / I won't let you rewrite history

[cling2reality]

This is the email I have been sending to my "friends" who want to rewrite the failures of the last administration.
It is simply a compilation of various incidents being cited on DU and other places but I have not seen them laid out in a comprehensive timeline comparison.

Feel free to copy and paste. (I put dates and President's names in bold in email but don't know how to do that in this post)

COMPARE THE WORDS:

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02

In July 2008, CNN's Larry King interviewed then-presidential candidate John McCain. The host asked the Republican senator, "If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?" Senator McCain said he would not. "Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation."

“What I have said is we're going encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our non-military aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants. And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out. We will kill Bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”
Candidate Barack Obama Oct. 7, 2008


COMPARE THE ACTIONS:

1996: President Clinton establishes a CIA task force with the aim of catching bin Laden and disbanding al Qaeda

October 15, 2001 President Bush rejects Taliban offer to surrender bin Laden
After a week of debilitating strikes at targets across Afghanistan, the Taliban repeated an offer to hand over Osama bin Laden, only to be rejected by President Bush.
The offer yesterday from Haji Abdul Kabir, the Taliban's deputy prime minister, to surrender Mr bin Laden if America would halt its bombing and provide evidence against the Saudi-born dissident was not new but it suggested the Taliban are increasingly weary of the air strikes, which have crippled much of their military and communications assets.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bush-rejects-taliban-offer-to-surrender-bin-laden-631436.html


2006 President Bush C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2006 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04intel.html

June 2 2009: President Obama signs a memo to Director Panetta stating “in order to ensure that we have expanded every effort, I direct you to provide me within 30 days a detailed operation plan for locating and bringing to justice Usama Bin Ladin…”

According to one senior administration official, the president convened at least nine meetings with his top national security leaders. Those advisers met formally another five times, in addition to countless briefings among the National Security Council, CIA, Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president was actively involved at all levels, the official said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/02/timeline-tip-leads-usama-bin-laden/

President Obama Pushed for ‘Fight Your Way Out’ Option in bin Laden Raid
A senior U.S. military official Monday credited President Obama for having a prominent role in pushing and shaping the plan to get Osama bin Laden. “In the final weeks and really months of this, his personal interest and direction and attention pushed the case to a new level that enabled real action,” the official told reporters. “And I think that role is quite important.”
On Tuesday, White House officials began to offer more details on exactly how Obama had shaped the final assault plan. In particular, the President, they said, urged the Pentagon to revisit the number of helicopters it planned to bring into Pakistani airspace on the mission. One of those extra helicopters later played a role in the mission. The president made his concerns known in a briefing about 10 days before the assault on the bin Laden compound. According to senior aides, Obama felt that the special operations COA, or course of action, was too risky. Under the COA at that time, only two helicopters would enter Pakistani airspace, leaving little backup if something went wrong. “I don’t want you to plan for an option that doesn’t allow you to fight your way out,” the President told operational planners at the meeting, according to the notes of one participant.
So the plan was revised. Ultimately, four helicopters flew into Pakistani airspace, including two refueling helicopters that carried additional personnel. In the end, the extra forces didn’t need to fight their way out of the compound, but a backup helicopter did play a key role in the operation. One of the two primary assault helicopters, an HH-60 Pave Hawk lost its lift, landed hard and had to be destroyed. The backup landed to lift its passengers to safety. “The President created the ‘fight your way out’ option,” explained an administration official.
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/obama-pushed-for-fight-your-way-out-option-in-bin-laden-raid/#ixzz1LL1MXRon

[Hissyspit]

1. You left out the August 2001 PDB.

Where Bush was told of the likelihood of the attacks. And that he let the attacks happen at all.

Piece of shit let the worst terrorist attack ever happen to U.S. and then let the guy responsible get away.

[scarletwoman]

2. Excellent. Well done! rec'd (nt)