A Will Pitt blast from the past: The Terrorists Flew and Bush Knew

A review to prepare DUers for the Richard Clarke interview on 60 Minutes tonight.



http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/05.17A.WRP.Bush.NU.htm

The Terrorists Flew and Bush Knew
By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | 16 May, 2002

When Andrew Card interrupted the 298th reading of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by whispering words of fire and death into the ear of George W. Bush as he sat with schoolchildren on September 11th, 2001, Mr. Bush's face betrayed not a hint of surprise and shock.

Now, we know why.

Governor Jeb Bush of Florida signed Executive Order No. 01-261 on September 7th, 2001, renewing an order signed six months earlier that allowed the National Guard to be called out in case of emergency. On September 11th, he used this order to command members of the National Guard into active service and essentially declared martial law in Florida. When informed of the attacks in New York and Washington, Governor Bush responded, "Was it the terrorists?"

Now, we know why.

On the eve of his first State of the Union speech, George W. Bush along with Vice President Cheney contacted Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and asked him to soft-pedal any Congressional investigations into the September 11th attacks. The requests were little more than thinly veiled threats.

Now, we know why.

Virtually every news outlet is buzzing today with the newest revelation: Bush had been warned in the months before 9/11 of Al Qaida terrorist plans to hijack airplanes. The White House response to this thunderclap has been predictably muted: "The administration, based on hijackings, notified the appropriate agencies," said Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. He did not deign to reveal which agencies were alerted, nor did he specify the content of the warning.

Jose Juves, spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, the state agency responsible for security at Boston's Logan Airport, stated in today's Boston Globe, "The Federal government never handed down any intelligence regarding hijackings." The two airplanes that destroyed the World Trade Center towers came from Logan.

Someone is lying.

more..

I thought, being older and more experienced in the ways of the world, that he was seeing goblins where they did not lurk.

After all, no government of ours would be so dishonest, so vicious, so unconcerned about the wellbeing of its own people, so flat-out, hell-bent on moving its own twisted agenda that it would allow the 21st century version of Pearl Harbor to occur...no way!

Nobody could be that bad.

Will, I take it all back!

Here I am, tilting into the LIHOP camp too...

speaking TRUTH to POWER for a long time. i wonder where he gets it from ;->

:hi:

peace

Which means more and more people are going to get really really mad at Shrub and Co. And every one of them will vote and get others to vote. Keep your voter's registration cards handy to sign them up.

They're going to try to claim that Bush was no worse than Clinton in being unwilling or unable to fight Al Qaeda. We need to be prepared to fight back on that score.

I, for one, plan simply to say, "Clinton isn't running for President, so I don't have to worry about what kind of job he did."

Any other ideas?

Whereas Clinton fought Al Q'aida, Bush fought the family obsession: Saddam.

hadn't been so busy trying to impeach Clinton and taking up his precious time...he would have been able to spend more time chasing bin Laden. However, since Clinton's every move was called, "Wag the Dog"...how could he have acted? That is also the Republican's fault.
They have their nerve saying Clinton should have done more.,,as they never would have let him.

By the way...I remember when Will Pitt wrote that article...I think it was published on "The Smirking Chimp" and I remember agreeing with everything he had to say. I mentioned it to my family for the first time and they thought I was a conspiracy nut. All the things that are coming true today...I believed 1-3 years ago. It's nice to be vindicated as many here at DU are too. Do I hear a cheer for Will?

This is a stain on the GOP, that if it comes fully out and is widely recognized, will cause the perception of their credibility to fall to zero. The GOP will fall from dominance for at least a decade in the aftermath.

They view this as a life and death issue for their party.

Funny, I view it as life and death issue for the country I love, not blind trust in a party name.

If this sticks, the whole lot of them are in deep, deep, deep doo-doo. I wonder if we're going to start hearing "I was fooled by *!" from a bunch of Repugs.

Natch

...but here goes. Am I the *only* one who remembers seeing Bush say, within a week or two of the 9/11 attacks, something about "Al, uh, Kayeeda" -- sounding for all the world like he had never heard the word before?

Because if someone had that clip, and played it, alongside the raft of *documented* and *verified* reports that he and his administration were warned repeatedly before 9/11 about that very organization... well, it would be very damning indeed to a "war time" president.

And of course: let's use some of that Booker video too.

And let's get that very disturbing question out there, why could jets be scrambled when Payne Stewart's Lear jet went off course and out of communication, but they couldn't be scrambled when there were four known hijackings occurring on 9/11.

Yes. Kerry, I hope one of your crew is listening. We need to take the fight to these bastards. Only when the time is right -- but the time is looking closer now.