Keystone Kounter-Terror by Matt Bivins

Keystone Kounter-Terror by Matt Bivins

http://www.thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?bid=6&pid=1372

Only George W. Bush could study a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US", and then blithely assert that it "said nothing about an attack on America."

Note to the President: "US" is a common abbreviation for "the United States of America", the country we live in and of which you are the highest elected official, a country also often referred to in shorthand as "America." Good luck with that whole national security thing from hereon out.

The "Bin Laden Determined to Strike" memo, reluctantly released this weekend, was first presented as an intelligence briefing for the President on Aug. 6, 2001 -- while he was in Texas enjoying a near-record-setting month-long siesta. Ever since -- and outrageously, even to the present day, when the actual document is out there contradicting them -- Bush and Condoleeza Rice have slyly characterized it as a brief history lesson about al-Qaida, when it is actually a reasonably specific warning.



In fact, this "Bin Laden to Strike" memo is a truly damning piece of evidence. If the President and his team had acted appropriately on it -- by which I mean, if he'd simply ordered his top people to get together to discuss how serious it was -- 9/11 might well have been prevented.