posted April 19, 2004 11:33 PM            

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House and a top Saudi official denied Monday a report of a deal to lower gasoline prices before the November presidential election.

The Bush administration did say it has received assurances from Saudi Arabia that oil prices will stay in the range of $22 to $28 per barrel, but said the recent discussions have nothing to do with presidential politics.

"There was no secret deal," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett told CNN.

And a top Saudi official denied his country is taking any action to affect oil prices for political purposes.

"The allegation that the kingdom is manipulating the price of oil for political purposes or to affect elections is erroneous and has no basis in fact," Saudi Foreign Policy Adviser Adel al-Jubeir said in a statement.

Record-high gasoline prices have become a hot issue in the presidential race.

Journalist Bob Woodward described a pact on oil prices between Bush and Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Woodward discussed the alleged deal during an interview Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes" where he talked about his new book on Bush.

The White House initially did not respond directly to the charges of an election deal, saying only that the administration had talked with Saudi officials about oil prices

In a morning briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Saudi Arabia recently "committed to making sure prices remained in a range of, I believe, $22 to $28" per barrel.

"They don't want to do anything that would harm our consumers or harm our economy," McClellan said.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, at a campaign stop in Florida, said the deal reported by Woodward -- if true -- is "outrageous and unacceptable to the American people."

Woodward, in the interview about his new book, said Bandar, a long-time Bush family friend, pledged that "over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

McClellan, grilled on the topic during the briefing with reporters Monday, said, "Prices should be determined by market forces, and we are always in close contact with producers around the world on these issues."

Al-Jubeir initially released a statement saying that for 30 years, his country's policy has been "to maintain balance in the oil markets to avoid disruptions or shortages."

He added, "The promise we make to consumers ... is that supply will be adequate, and prices will remain at moderate levels acceptable to both producers and consumers. And that promise is consistent, and independent of who is in power within consuming countries, including the U.S."

Later, al-Jubeir sent out a new version of the statement, adding the sentence directly denying the allegation.

Kerry, who has long attacked Bush for what he calls close ties to big oil and failure to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle East oil, pounced on Woodward's comments during a campaign stop in Florida.

"If, as Bob Woodward reports, it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, then tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people," he told voters in Lake Worth, Florida.

"It is fundamentally wrong," he added. "It's my prayer that Americans are not being held hostage to a secret deal."

Kerry said his plan to lower gasoline prices begins with pressuring Saudi Arabia to increase production, thereby lowering prices to Americans -- and not tying such a move to an election.

He touted his energy policy, saying, "Unlike George Bush and his friends at the big oil companies, I'm going to work for a real energy policy for this country that decreases America's dependence on foreign oil and helps lower the cost to American families."

Current gasoline prices, he said, "aren't Exxon gas prices. ... Those are Halliburton prices. And we deserve a break in this country."

Halliburton is the oil-services company that Vice President Dick Cheney headed before returning to public office, and the Texas-based company has received lucrative contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq.

Earlier this month, Bandar said publicly that his country wants to stabilize world oil prices because of the effect a price spike might have on economies around the world, including Saudi Arabia. He did not link the effort to the U.S. election.

posted April 19, 2004 11:55 PM            

"I was as committed as anyone else to seeing an end to this regime, the destruction of this regime that put people in mass graves," Powell told The Associated Press in an interview.

Disputing an account by Bob Woodward in a new book, "Plan of Attack," Powell said Bush and all his national security advisers had agreed in August 2002 to ask the U.N. Security Council to seek a peaceful resolution and to go to war if the effort failed.

Powell dismissed Woodward's suggestion that Bush already had made up his mind by Jan. 11 last year to go to war against Iraq and that Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, had been informed of the decision that day.


Asserting that the final decision did not come until March, Powell said he was "intimately familiar with the plan and I was aware that Prince Bandar was being briefed on the plan."

"I knew as much as anybody," Powell said.

Asked about Vice President Dick Cheney - Woodward wrote that the two were barely on speaking terms - Powell described the relationship as excellent.


On another subject, Powell said one or two countries may follow Spain's lead and withdraw its troops from Iraq. He said he expected the United Nations to approve a resolution on peacekeeping before the end of the U.S. occupation June 30.

And, on the Middle East, Powell said the Palestinians should seize the opportunity of a promised Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank. He said Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was being undercut by Yasser Arafat as predecessor Abu Mazzen had been before resigning.

04/19/04 16:35 EDT

--------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON, April 18 — For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured Iraq.

But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive.

Mr. Powell has not acknowledged that he cooperated with Mr. Woodward, but the book presents the secretary's reservations in such detail that it leaves little doubt. A spokesman for Mr. Powell said again Sunday that he would not comment on the book, "Plan of Attack."

Critics of Mr. Powell in the hawkish wing of the administration said they were startled by what they saw as his self-serving decision to help fill out a portrait that enhances his reputation as a farsighted analyst, perhaps at the expense of Mr. Bush. Several said the book guaranteed what they expected anyway, that Mr. Powell will not stay as secretary if Mr. Bush is re-elected.

The view expressed Sunday by people in the administration that Mr. Bush comes across as sober-minded and resolute in the book, asking for contingency plans for a war early on but not deciding to wage one until the last minute, saves Mr. Powell from any immediate difficulties that might grow from seeming to betray his confidential relationship to a president who prizes loyalty, several officials said.


"Look, a lot of people have been struck by the degree to which Secretary Powell is using this book as an opportunity — to be fair — to clarify his position on the issues," said an official. "But what this book does is muddy the water internally, which is very unfortunate and unhelpful."

Another official, who like others declined to be identified because of the political sensitivity of their criticism, accused Mr. Powell of having a habit of distancing himself from policies when they go wrong. "It's such a soap opera with him," this official said.

Democrats seized on Mr. Powell's portrayal, saying it would give them ammunition to criticize the administration for going to war without broad international backing or adequate planning for an occupation.

Throughout the day Sunday, Senator John Kerry brought up the Woodward book, mentioning it twice in his interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC and once at an outdoor rally at the University of Miami.

"Here we have a book by a reputable writer," Mr. Kerry told several thousand students at the afternoon campus rally. "We learn that the president even misled members of his own administration."


Asked if material in Mr. Woodward's book would be grist for his party, Jano Cabrera, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview: "Absolutely. It's one thing for us to assert it. It's another thing for it to be stated as fact by his secretary of state."

And Steve Murphy, who managed the presidential campaign of Representative Richard A. Gephardt, said: "The strongest criticism of Bush is that he did not have a plan for the aftermath of the war. And that was exactly what Powell was pointing out to him. He is a credible source. This intensifies the backdrop between Bush and Kerry."

People close to Mr. Powell said Sunday that they had no doubt he would weather any criticism from within over his apparent cooperation with Mr. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post. Polls show that he is one of the most popular and best-known figures in government. The people close to him note that most people following the situation closely knew that he had misgivings about the war.

"Is the secretary going to be undercut for having been right?" asked an official close to Mr. Powell. "I don't think so. Undercut compared to who? Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? These are people who have some real problems right now. They're not reading Bob Woodward's book. They're reading the dispatches from the field."

Other officials close to Mr. Powell say his strained relations with Mr. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, and Vice President Cheney are common currency among Washington insiders, though they say the suggestion that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are barely on speaking terms is highly exaggerated.

"I don't think there will be much change in his dealings with Cheney and Rumsfeld," said one person close to Mr. Powell. "People already thought it was this bad. It doesn't change things for them to find out that it really was. They know how to deal with each other, and they've been through quite a bit together."

When asked on "Fox News Sunday" about Mr. Woodward's contention that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are so distant on policy matters that they do not talk, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, described the men's relationship as "friendly."

"I can tell you," she said, "I've had lunch on a number of occasions with Vice President Cheney and with Colin Powell, and they are more than on speaking terms. They're friendly."

But another official said Mr. Powell's dealings internally with Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld especially had made life difficult for people inside the administration.

"The day-to-day nattering of the Defense Department trying to take over the business of diplomacy at every level, it's just difficult to be on the inside," said an administration official who defends Mr. Powell's actions. "Every day is difficult. The byplay at the meetings is difficult."

Mr. Powell's standing around the world was less easy to measure this weekend. But a European diplomat said he thought the secretary's standing in Europe especially would only be enhanced because he would be seen as sharing the view of many there that the administration had been overly optimistic about subduing dissidents in Iraq.

For the people long familiar with Mr. Powell's thinking, his misgivings about an American occupation of Iraq, and his insistence on getting full international backing for American actions, goes back many years. So, they note, does his fighting with Mr. Cheney.

For example, Mr. Powell's memoir, "My American Journey," published in 1995 after he retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he had opposed a final push to oust Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf war on the ground that an occupation would provoke a counterinsurgency and criticism among Americans.

In addition, many accounts of the planning for the first gulf war say that Mr. Cheney, then secretary of defense, opposed going to the United Nations or Congress for backing to remove Iraq from Kuwait, fearing that failure would weaken the first President Bush's administration's ability to go to war.

In 2002, Mr. Cheney was openly disdainful of Mr. Powell's insistence on getting approval of the United Nations Security Council before going to war, spreading consternation at the State Department. Mr. Powell won that argument, and President Bush authorized a bid to get a Security Council resolution supporting war.

Mr. Powell's memoir also recalls an exchange in the early 1990's, in which Mr. Powell accused Mr. Cheney — jokingly, he insisted — of being surrounded by "right-wing nuts like you." In the last year, the Woodward book says, Mr. Powell referred privately to the civilian conservatives in the Pentagon loyal to Mr. Cheney as the Gestapo.

The Woodward book also attributes to Mr. Powell the belief that although he had misgivings about going to war, it was his obligation to support the president once Mr. Bush decided to do so.

Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that he did not ask the secretary's opinion on whether to go to war because he thought he knew what that opinion would be: "no."

But a senior aide to Mr. Powell asserted this weekend that the secretary was not as opposed to war as some people presume, no matter what the implications in the book.

"The portrait of Powell in the Woodward book is pretty consistent with what everybody knows," the official said. "We were with the president if we had to do this. We set up an exit ramp for Saddam, and he didn't take it. Powell in the end was very comfortable knowing that."

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Jodi Wilgoren from Miami.

AP-NY-04-18-04 2217EDT

--------------------------------------------

Oh,but there's more

posted April 20, 2004 12:29 AM            

The exercise run by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was under consideration in April 2001. It was meant to help national military leaders respond in a crisis if the Pentagon's operations centers were somehow taken out of action, either in an accident or an attack, said Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Defense Department spokesman.

Officers at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) suggested the scenario, one of several proposals rejected by the exercise planners, military officials said. They did not know what final scenario was used.

Military officials acknowledged the proposed exercise after the Project On Government Oversight circulated an e-mail that it said was from a former NORAD officer to some of his colleagues. The writer said that the Joint Chiefs rejected the hijacking scenario as unrealistic.

The exercise planning is apparently one of a few places, including a Tom Clancy thriller, where people proposed the idea of airliners being used as weapons. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the threat was never considered by U.S. security agencies as among the most likely scenarios for terrorists to strike the United States.

04/14/04 17:07 EDT

--------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. military rejected a scenario in which a hijacked airliner flew into the Pentagon as it planned a training exercise months before an airliner was slammed into the building by hijackers in September 2001, defense officials said on Wednesday.

The proposed scenario was rejected by the Pentagon's elite Joint Staff as not in keeping with the April 2001 exercise, which dealt largely with how U.S. forces would be commanded in a confrontation with North Korea if defense headquarters somehow became incapacitated.

Defense officials said several scenarios under which military command had to be moved from the Pentagon were rejected and that the suggestion involving a possible foreign commercial airliner strike not only appeared unrealistic but could have taken over the whole exercise.

"They (planners) needed a scenario under which the Pentagon became inoperable. But the focus of the exercise was command continuity and it was decided that there was enough (cause) already built in," Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said.

He spoke as an independent commission continued hearings into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center in New York using hijacked airliners and whether the government could have done more to prevent the strikes that killed about 3,000 people.

The Pentagon incident, reported on Wednesday in the Washington Post and New York Times, came to light after a 2-1/2-year-old email message was made public on Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit watchdog group.

WEEK AFTER SEPTEMBER ATTACKS

The message was written a week after airliners commandeered by terrorists were flown into the buildings. It began: "In defense of my last unit, NORAD."

NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S.-Canadian effort designed to protect skies over the two countries.

The brief mail was addressed to several friends of the author, a retired Army officer who was not identified, and said the hijacking scenario was suggested by a NORAD planner and rejected by Joint Staff action officers as too unrealistic.

"It was made available to us by those who felt it should be, by those who wanted to examine timelines for scrambling fighter jets and other protective aircraft," POGO investigator Peter Stockton told Reuters.

"We believe the 9/11 Commission should ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff why they prevented NORAD from training to respond to the possibility that terrorists might hijack commercial airliners and use them as missiles," Stockton added in a posting on the organization's Web site.

Pentagon officials countered that the main exercise, a major annual look at command and control, was not designed to protect sprawling Defense Department headquarters on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington from airliners used as missiles. It was not designed for counterterrorism or air defense, they said.

Lt. Cmdr. Dan Hetlage, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters that the U.S. Pacific Command -- which has oversight over American forces in the sprawling Asia-Pacific region -- had objected to the idea "because it would have taken attention away from the exercise objectives."

"It was focused on North Korea and that (a crash into the Pentagon) would have become a whole exercise in itself. It would have consumed the exercise," Hetlage said.

04/14/04 15:33 ET

posted April 20, 2004 12:43 AM            

QUESTION: Mr. President, good evening. I'd like to ask you about the August 6th PDB.
.
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BUSH: Sure.
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QUESTION: You've mentioned it at Fort Hood on Sunday. You pointed out that it did not warn of a hijacking of airplanes to crash into buildings, but that it warned of hijacking to obviously take hostages and to secure the release of extremists that are being held by the U.S.
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Did that trigger some specific actions on your part in the administration, since it dealt with potentially hundreds of lives and a blackmail attempt on the United States government?
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BUSH: And I asked for the briefing. And the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And so, I -- part of it had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference that I was going to attend. And I asked at that point in time, let's make sure we are paying attention here at home, as well. And that's what triggered the report.
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The report itself, I've characterized it as mainly history. And I think when you look at it, you'll see that it was talking about a '97 and '98 and '99.
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It was also an indication, as you mentioned, that bin Laden might want to hijack an airplane but, as you said, not to fly into a building, but perhaps to release a person in jail. In other words, he would serve it as a blackmail.
.
And of course that concerns me. All those reports concern me. As a matter of fact, I was dealing with terrorism a lot as the president when George Tenet came in to brief me. I mean, that's where I got my information.
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I changed the way that the relationship between the president and the CIA director. And I wanted Tenet in the Oval Office all the time. And we had briefings about terrorist threats. This was a summary.
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Now, in the -- what's called the PDB, there was a warning about bin Laden's desires on America. But, frankly, I didn't think there was anything new. I mean, major newspapers had talked about bin Laden's desires on hurting America.
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What was interesting in there was that there was a report that the FBI was conducting field investigations. And that was good news, that they were doing their job.
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The way my administration worked, Ed, was that I met with Tenet all the time. I obviously met with my principals a lot. We talked about threats that had emerged. We have a counterterrorism group meeting on a regular basis to analyze the threats that came in. Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it.
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BUSH: In other words, had they come up and said, this is where we see something happening, you can rest assured that the people of this government would have responded and responded in a forceful way.
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I mean, one of the things about Elizabeth's question was, I stepped back and I've asked myself a lot, is there anything we could have done to stop the attacks? Of course I've asked that question, as have many people in my government. Nobody wants this to happen to America.
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And the answer is that had I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country, just like we're working hard to prevent a further attack.
--------------------------------------------
"LIER!"

Here's a site of the people that could of stop 9/11 from happening!

posted April 20, 2004 02:39 PM              

certain government instutions are actually doing their jobs!

who knew?

(regardless of how well, or how poorly, or....)

posted April 20, 2004 02:43 PM            

"President Clinton asked us to keep the prices down in the year 2000," Bin Sultan told CNN's "Larry King Live," responding to a claim by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that the Bush administration made a similar request this year.

Bin Sultan said President Carter also made a request for lower oil prices to save his reelection bid in 1979, explaining that he did so "to avoid the [US's economic] malaise."

"We always want any president who is in office to be reelected," Bin Sultan explained, while stressing that his hope for lower oil prices was not a direct effort to influence the outcome of the U.S. election. "This not our call. This is the American people's call," he insisted.

"We hoped that the oil prices will stay low, because that's good for America's economy, but more important, it's good for our economy and the international economy," Prince Bandar told CNN. "And this is nothing unusual."

On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry decried Bush's "secret deal" with the Saudis for low oil prices, based on a claim in Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack.""If, as Bob Woodward reports, it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable," Kerry complained in Florida.

Sen. Kerry has yet to issue a similar denunciation of the secret oil price deals sought from the Saudis by Presidents Clinton and Carter.

posted April 20, 2004 02:45 PM            

Joan Swirsky
Monday, Apr. 19, 2004

This month, Americans got an inside look at the shabby characters of two women who – disparate as their roles were – shared the illuminating and none-too-flattering glare of the media spotlight.

Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, “The Apprentice” wannabe and former political appointee in the Clinton White House, and Jamie Gorelick, a panelist on the 9/11 Commission and former deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Department of Defense for the Clinton administration, also shared the lessons they learned from their former boss: manipulation, deception, lying – and then lying about their lies!

The deficiencies and excesses of Manigault-Stallworth were relatively benign and more self-destructive than harmful to our nation, although her preposterous self-importance and shameless dishonesty were no doubt a huge embarrassment to thousands if not millions of honest young black women who could and would have benefited from a worthier role model.

Lasting for only nine of the 13 episodes of the hit TV show before being fired, Manigault-Stallworth managed to establish rock-bottom standards of social, professional and ethical behavior, alienating not only the 15 other aspirants but also her flamboyant host, Donald Trump, as well as his most trusted advisers.

In addition to patronizing her fellow contestants, she claimed a migraine to avoid participating in a team challenge (which didn’t prevent her from playing basketball), played Sarah Heartburn after a small piece of plaster fell on her head, huffily hung up on a teammate, lost her team’s money, acted the diva in insisting on a leisurely lunch when time was most urgent, engaged in nonstop braggadocio, repeatedly violated an agreement she made not to lowball the price of a product, savaged another teammate with gratuitous insults and accused yet another of racism and using the “N” word (an accusation that was completely disproved when the producers played back the tape of the so-called incident).

Recalled to participate in the last episode, as were the other fired contestants, Manigault-Stallworth lied to and deceived her team leader (who was one of the two finalists) and refused to respond to his pages, effectively sabotaging his chance to be chosen for the plum $250,000 job.

After witnessing her behavior first-hand, Mr. Trump could not restrain himself from asking the loser, “Why didn’t you fire her?”

It’s one thing to be played for an April fool, quite another to prove – as Manigault-Stallworth did – that there is such a thing!

But all of her egregious behavior pales in comparison with that of the other April fool, Jamie Gorelick, whose sins of both commission and omission have far more serious consequences than simply looking bad.

An accomplished attorney with Harvard undergraduate and law degrees and a long and impressive resume, Gorelick has sat on the supposedly nonpartisan panel since its inception, none-too-successfully concealing her political biases, which invariably are skewed to favor testifiers of the Democratic persuasion and particularly those from the Clinton administration who supported, encouraged, applauded and were complicit in her behavior before, during and after the Waco years.
And what was that behavior?

In 1995, she issued a memo of rules (that subsequently became policy) that separated criminal investigations from intelligence-gathering, in essence creating a “wall” between the law enforcement officials at the FBI and the intelligence officials at the CIA that prohibited them from sharing information about terrorist suspects in the United States. Her memo also stated – brazenly – that these rules went “beyond what is legally required.”

That is why the FBI could not tell the CIA (and other intelligence agencies) the identity of two known al-Qaida terrorists after they were already in the U.S. and planning the disaster of 9/11! Nor could they get a warrant to search the computer of the “20th highjacker,” Zacarias Moussaoui, who was captured before he had the thrill of spending eternity with 72 virgins!

And how do we know this shocking and depressing information? Through Ms. Gorelick? Through the lengthy testimony (read “spin”) of President Clinton; his vice president, Al Gore; his attorney general, Janet Reno; his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright; or his secretary of defense, William Cohen?

None of the above!

Instead, this thunderbolt of newly declassified information was delivered to the Commission by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who confirmed for a large portion of the American public what it has always suspected: that the Clinton administration, in ignoring or acting feebly against numerous terrorist attacks against our nation, both on our own soil and abroad, paved the way – in fact, rolled out the red carpet – for an emboldened al-Qaida to murder 3,000 of our and other nations’ citizens.

That famous question “What did you know and when did you know it?” can now be answered. Ms. Gorelick and virtually all high-level people in the Clinton White House knew of the disastrous effect the “wall” policy was having on the effort to find and bring terrorists to justice.

When did they know it? Every minute, every hour, every week, every month, every year they held office! And during every second of the 9/11 Commission hearings, when none of them thought our country’s security might be enhanced by admitting to their misguided – indeed, terrorist-friendly – policy!

That is why they are all quaking at the prospect that the still-classified report on the Millennium Bomb Plot will be declassified, further implicating Ms. Gorelick and her memo in a near intelligence disaster, as well as highlighting the culpability of the eight-year Clinton regime in enhancing the odds that Sept. 11 would happen.

The melodrama queen from “The Apprentice” was appropriately fired before she could wreak more harm. But when outraged critics pointed out that Ms. Gorelick had clear conflicts of interest, demanded her resignation from the Commission and suggested that she should be testifying instead of judging the testimony of others, Chairman Thomas Kean responded with a curt: “People ought to stay out of our business.”

“Our business?” I thought the 9/11 Commission was my business and the business of every citizen in our country. So much for Kean’s and the rest of the commissioners’ “search for truth.”

At this point, it is crystal clear that all of them have violated their mandate to “prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks … [and] to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.”

Now comes the damage control and cover-up.

posted April 20, 2004 02:58 PM              

sounds like an 18th century novel farce!

posted April 20, 2004 04:48 PM            

The text of a declassified presidential daily intelligence briefing from Aug. 6, 2001 made public on Saturday by the White House. Portions marked "x" were blacked out before release.

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to xxxxxxxxxxx service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.

Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members _ including some who are US citizens _ have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a xxxxxxxxxx service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related.

posted April 22, 2004 09:13 AM            

How 9-11 Happened

We don't need a "commission" to find out how 9-11 happened. The truth is in the timeline:

PRESIDENT CARTER, DEMOCRAT

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah of Iran to be deposed by a mob of Islamic fanatics. A few months later, Muslims stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran and took American Embassy staff hostage.

Carter retaliated by canceling Iranian visas. He eventually ordered a disastrous and humiliating rescue attempt, crashing helicopters in the desert.

PRESIDENT REAGAN, REPUBLICAN

The day of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were released.
In 1982, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed by Muslim extremists.
President Reagan sent U.S. Marines to Beirut.
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were blown up by Muslim extremists.

Reagan said the U.S. would not surrender, but Democrats threw a hissy fit, introducing a resolution demanding that our troops be withdrawn. Reagan caved in to Democrat caterwauling in an election year and withdrew our troops – bombing Syrian-controlled areas on the way out. Democrats complained about that, too.

In 1985, an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, was seized and a 69-year-old American was shot and thrown overboard by Muslim extremists.
Reagan ordered a heart-stopping mission to capture the hijackers after "the allies" promised them safe passage. In a daring operation, American fighter pilots captured the hijackers and turned them over to the Italians – who then released them to safe harbor in Iraq
.
On April 5, 1986, a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen was bombed by Muslim extremists from the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin, killing an American.

Ten days later, Reagan bombed Libya, despite our dear ally France refusing the use of their airspace. Americans bombed Gadhafi's residence, killing his daughter, and dropped a bomb on the French Embassy "by mistake."

Reagan also stoked a long, bloody war between heinous regimes in Iran and Iraq. All this was while winning a final victory over Soviet totalitarianism

PRESIDENT BUSH I, MODERATE REPUBLICAN

In December 1988, a passenger jet, Pan Am Flight 103, was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Muslim extremists.

President-elect George Bush claimed he would continue Reagan's policy of retaliating against terrorism, but did not. Without Reagan to gin her up, even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went wobbly, saying there would be no revenge for the bombing.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
In early 1991, Bush went to war with Iraq. A majority of Democrats opposed the war, and later complained that Bush didn't "finish off the job" with Saddam.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, DEMOCRAT

In February 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by Muslim fanatics, killing five people and injuring hundreds.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

In October 1993, 18 American troops were killed in a savage firefight in Somalia. The body of one American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu as the Somalian hordes cheered.

Clinton responded by calling off the hunt for Mohammed Farrah Aidid and ordering our troops home. Osama bin Laden later told ABC News: "The youth ... realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat."

In November 1995, five Americans were killed and 30 wounded by a car bomb in Saudi Arabia set by Muslim extremists.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

In June 1996, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia was bombed by Muslim extremists.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

Months later, Saddam attacked the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, lobbed some bombs into Iraq hundreds of miles from Saddam's forces.

In November 1997, Iraq refused to allow U.N. weapons inspections to do their jobs and threatened to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

In February 1998, Clinton threatened to bomb Iraq, but called it off when the United Nations said no.

On Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim extremists.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

On Aug. 20, Monica Lewinsky appeared for the second time to testify before the grand jury.

Clinton responded by bombing Afghanistan and Sudan, severely damaging a camel and an aspirin factory.

On Dec. 16, the House of Representatives prepared to impeach Clinton the next day.
Clinton retaliated by ordering major air strikes against Iraq, described by the New York Times as "by far the largest military action in Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991."

The only time Clinton decided to go to war with anyone in the vicinity of Muslim fanatics was in 1999 – when Clinton attacked Serbians who were fighting Islamic fanatics.

In October 2000, our warship, the USS Cole, was attacked by Muslim extremists.

Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.

PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, REPUBLICAN

Bush came into office telling his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, he was "tired of swatting flies" – he wanted to eliminate al-Qaida.

On Sept. 11, 2001, when Bush had been in office for barely seven months, 3,000 Americans were murdered in a savage terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Muslim extremists.

Since then, Bush has won two wars against countries that harbored Muslim fanatics, captured Saddam Hussein, immobilized Osama bin Laden, destroyed al-Qaida's base, and begun to create the only functioning democracy in the Middle East other than Israel. Democrats opposed it all – except their phony support for war with Afghanistan, which they immediately complained about and said would be a Vietnam quagmire. And now they claim to be outraged that in the months before 9-11, Bush did not do everything Democrats opposed doing after 9-11.

What a surprise.

posted April 22, 2004 01:43 PM            

I mean, c'mon...you truly believe that? You aren't one of those people that doesn't like to cloud the issue w/ facts, are you?

Jwhop: I posted that same Ann Coulter article in another thread, and the only comments I could get were questions about my birthchart. :-\

posted April 22, 2004 02:58 PM            

I stopped posting for a while because it seemed that only one perspective could be posted here or else numerous attacks would be made again and again. It got to the point where I could actually hear the shrill cry from the far left responding to me with such venom....."How can you defend the conservatives.....hissssss....they kill women....they hate minorities....hissss" LOL...It was comical for a while (because I am a female and a minority) but then it just got OLD...

Personally, I do like to see all sides represented - even though I am conservative.

posted April 22, 2004 04:36 PM              

{{{(O.o)*}}}

quote:

"so what about the original stories? it (still) smells like an evasion tactic here..."

x = bad

y = bad

therefore x = good and we don't have to make excuses for its badness? spock would say "does not compute..." it seems a matter of degree...

ann coulter??? pul-eeeze! talk about attacks! she never attacks, of course, but those "other" conservatives are just so...so...so attackworthy. some of us object when "they kill women....they hate minorities..." they do want us to revert to the middle ages where women "were indeed killed" (emphasis without shouting...) with back-alley abortions, in spite of conservatives who promise to be there; well, they are there all right, but only to judge and condemn

and pidaua, do you really think minorities
are not mocked and ridiculed behind your backs? i hate to break the news, but that is one of the reasons i left the "right" side of things. it's called duplicity and i have a hard time abiding it. i have witnessed it firsthand [and i am not a minority, unless you include blue-eyed, blonde german/finns]

padaua, i really feel bad about how you might react to that, but it is the truth. don't be mad at the messenger. there is a lot that goes on behind your back--i have had access to it, and it made me sick, condoleezza rice notwithstanding. faustian deals are still made

hey, i have a really, really important non-political question that might just clarify things a bit...

i have seen italics on posts, but have not figured out how to create them. some folks have used capital letters for emphasis, but that apparently comes across like shouting. if we could learn how to use italics, then we could soften the emphases without volume

then maybe we could transfer that whole concept over to our everyday communications and we could all have more global unity, which is, after all, what this site is about

posted April 22, 2004 05:06 PM            

I do not need affirmative action to get me a job - my qualifications are a testament to what I can and cannot do.

I do not need extra points given to me on a test or entrance exam because being a minority does not mean I am stupid and need help from the white man...LOL I got into and graduated from a private Lutheran university because of my grades and abilities. They didn't need to fit a quota as the uni didn't accept government funding.

I work hard and I do not need some patronizing liberal agenda to tell me that I am so stupid they know what is better for me regarding retirement, taxes, social programs and so I should allow them to take care of me through social security.

I came from a family that worked in the fields to put food on the table - no liberal organization helped them - but the conservative populace saw them as being as sufficient and hard working as any other race. All of my fathers family went from being migrant workers (because Spanish / American Indians were seen as lowly) to college educated, tax paying conservatives.

posted April 22, 2004 06:27 PM            

Glad to see you're back. Let's rock and roll.

Hi Isis, cool nick! Think I may have dated some of your temple dancers from time to time.

Sorry about stepping on your Ann Coulter post. I'm not surprised no one responded directly. When liberals can't refute the arguments being put forth, they always change the subject---suddenly. After all, it isn't whether the argument is factual and true, it's how the subject matter makes them feeeeeeeel that's important.

OK, so how about that birthchart?

jwhop

posted April 22, 2004 06:42 PM              

you are to be congratulated upon your achievements. now you can run with the big boys; but not everyone can run like jesse owens, and the slower runners of every race remain the concern of liberals

i know who is laughing at whom and why, having been both a conservative and a liberal, hopefully retaining the best of both worlds. yes, there is a lot of good on both sides (surprise, surprise)

the ol' cherokee grandmother, eh? on her mother's side, no doubt

i am reminded of the story my father used to tell about two of his patients. they both began working at the same time he began his chiropractic practice. they did the same work for the same pay and were of equal intelligence and aptitude. one grew with the company; the other lost his job when the company folded

the second man got another job. that company, too, did not succeed (for whatever reasons, but not because of the employee) so did a third

meanwhile, the first man accrued benefits and seniority and a very comfortable place in society, while the unemployed man and his family had no health insurance, much less the many benefits money could buy for his family

posted April 22, 2004 07:01 PM              

funny how you skipped right over my comment about evading issues, though, in your haste to avoid the issue

i guess that's how conservatives avoid feeeeeeling anything remotely like compassion for your fellow planetarians who do not enjoy the privileges you do

so sad...i suppose that's why all the heart bleeding is left to the liberals, because a compassionate conservative...

oh, i take that back--there has been quite the outpouring of sympathy for rush limbaugh

too bad it doesn't extend to all victims of problems too big to manage with ordinary means...and if he had stolen money to get his fix, other than making his living stealing the dignity from others, would he be forgiven as long as he kept saying "others" needed to be tossed in jail with the key thrown away?

but i digress...someone has to care about those whose very existence is denied or exploited by the "haves" who "have" so very much to complain about, like paying their fair share of taxes for example

how "do" you do that, just manage not to see anyone? i guess the same way used in ancient times, just use the other side of the road

posted April 22, 2004 07:25 PM            

He wasn't evading the question. He was posting contradictory information, which is very relevant to your allegations and is a response, not an evasion.

Once again, I find you as the quintessential pot calling the kettle black.

And join the club, most people were liberals when they were younger and grew into conservatism with age. Most of us can make the same claim, "having been both a conservative and a liberal".

Typical of many liberals, you will take one view or statement and somehow extrapolate that to mean a whole schlew of views and opinions, and then proceed to criticize and ridicule the individual. Lots of "compassion" there.

I'd be willing to bet money too, that if you go back through numerous posts regarding political issues where you have a left and a right side represented, you will find far more name calling and mean spirited behavior from those on the left than the right.

As for how to change the text, there's a link to the left of the post box "UBB Code in ON", click on that and it will tell you how to place the tags and

quote:

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such

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posted April 22, 2004 09:12 PM              

now that is a step toward peace on the planet...thank you for telling me how that UBB thing works...and you aren't even a liberal! you have gone a long way toward demonstrating compassionate conservatism

but note how you went ahead and did what you were saying i was doing...and on it goes...and as i scanned the posts, it is funny how i found just the opposite--i found mean-spirited snipes more from the conservatives--and considering that someone said the conservatives only represent a small part of the total, that is impressive

but i did like your post about true debate. do you think it's possible? if we can achieve that, then there is hope for global peace, eh?

and it seems that liberals and conservatives both see things in black and white...it comes with the hats we wear...we are...er...the good guys

wish they had a hat icon...or two, a black one for you conservatives...just kidding

posted April 22, 2004 10:00 PM            

Once again, instead of responding directly to what was said, you changed the subject and accused me of avoiding the issue. Is that because you can't respond logically and factually to what I posted?

If you have an issue with what I posted or a question please address it directly and I'll see if I can clear it up for you.

quote:

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funny how you skipped right over my comment about evading issues, though, in your haste to avoid the issue.

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