'Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.' Pt. 2
Everyone remembers that on Aug. 6, 2001, while President George W. Bush was clearing brush in Texas, he received an intelligence brief warning about Al Qaeda's strategic intent to attack the U.S. homeland. After three years of denying this occurred, the 9/11 Commission's Richard Ben Veniste treated us to this dramatic moment with Condoleezza Rice:
BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB [President's Daily Brief]?
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."
Today we have a second round of the PDB. It's a General Accountability Office report titled "The United States Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas." (pdf) Via Max Bergmann at Democracy Arsenal, take a look at this system-blinking-red passage, drawing off an assessment from the director of national intelligence:
al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America “designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population."
This is what Iraq stops us from dealing with. If, God forbid, something happens, the blood will be bin Laden's fault, but it will be on the Bush administration's hands.
Comments:
Posted 04/17/2008 05:43pm with
Spencer,
The guy tries to listen in on their calls and you guys says its breaching civil liberties and then you complain that he’s not doing enough to stop the attacks.
You really can’t have it both ways.
By the way, are you proposing an invasion of Pakistan?
Posted 04/18/2008 03:20am with
markeichenlaub: It is not necessary to obtain a warrant to listen in on a call from outside the US, an hasn’t been since before 911. FISA, passed in the 70’s provides for that quite clearly.
Nor is it necessary to obtain a warrant to listen in on a call from inside the US to outside the US, if neither of the parties is a US citizen. So, for example, what Attorney General Mukasey cited—the case of a call from Afganistan to the US between 911 conspirators—was, shall we say, a fairy tale. And even if it had happened, the FBI (or whichever alpha-soup) could have listened in and simply obtained their warrant withing 72 hours, something they do all the time and have only been denied a number of times in the single digits per year. I believe there are some kind of provisions for one caller being a citizen and the other not, but I’m not completely sure.
The point is, though, that all this fearmongering of OMG! we can’t listen to the terrarists plotting to kill us!!!1!!eleven!! is just that—fearmongering.
Posted 04/18/2008 07:52am with
Mark, is it really necessary to invent a position for me and then say I’m inconsistent or hypocritical for holding this imaginary position? Really now. Also, are you aware how you’ve conceived my position as existing at its extreme? If I were to do that to you, would you consider that fair or sensible?
Posted 04/18/2008 10:58am with
Mark: I fail to see how listening in on every phone call between American citizens in the US is going to help the government get together a plan to fight al Quada in Pakistan. Perhaps the government expects random American citizens to come up with brilliant foreign policy, and then call up their friends and tell them about it, but not pass their ideas on to anyone with power?
Posted 04/18/2008 04:19pm with
I don’t think that the problem with the first report was that it went unread, or that the warning went unheeded, it was probably something more like Bush couldn’t understand it. The title was a bit confusing, after all.You know that saying in Tennessee, “You fool me once, shame on you. You fool me twice, shame on me.” Well I guess Texas has a similar saying to the effect of “Fool me once…shame on…shame on you. Fool me; can’t get fooled again.”