George Bush Knew all along

[WitchBoy]

May 16 — In the first 10 days of August last year, intelligence was presented to President Bush and his top advisers that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden had discussed the possibility of hijacking airplanes, reliable sources said.
THE INFORMATION was given to Bush as part of his daily intelligence report but lacked specific details about the way the terrorist plans would be carried out, the sources said. The White House said last night that law enforcement agencies were placed on alert as a result of the intelligence.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Bush had been told about the possibility of hijackings but he declined to say what had been revealed during his intelligence briefings.
“There was . . . an awareness by the government, including the president, of Osama bin Laden and the threat he posed in the United States and around the world,” Fleischer said.  
“That included long-standing speculation about hijacking in the traditional sense, but not involving suicide bombers using airplanes as missiles.”
     
OFFICIAL VERSION
The revelation that Bush was briefed about potential al Qaeda-led hijackings on at least one occasion before Sept. 11, first reported last night by CBS News, marks a shift in the official version of events surrounding the attacks on New York and Washington. Bush and other administration officials have generally characterized the events of Sept. 11 as a sneak attack that could not have been foreseen by U.S. intelligence.
“It’s hard to envision a plot so devious as the one that they pulled off on 9/11,” Bush said in a January interview with NBC’s Tom Brokaw. “Never did we realize that the enemy was so well organized.”
The new information suggests there may have been less of an intelligence failure before Sept. 11 than some lawmakers have alleged — though it also raises new questions of whether more could have been done to halt the terror attacks. Congress is escalating its inquiry into possible intelligence failures before the attacks, including two incidents involving the FBI.
In one of the cases, an FBI agent in Phoenix made a “strong connection” between a group of Middle Eastern aviation students and bin Laden’s al Qaeda two months before the attacks, said a senior U.S. official who has read a memorandum written by the agent.
The agent was so concerned that he mentioned bin Laden in the first sentence of a five-page classified memorandum submitted to FBI headquarters. The memo suggested that terrorists from al Qaeda or other groups might be using flight schools to prepare for a hijacking or bombing plot, several officials said.
The new details heightened a controversy that developed two weeks ago, when the outline of the agent’s July 10, 2001, memo were first reported by the Associated Press.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told a Senate committee last week that he wished the agency had been more aggressive in following up on the memo.
The Phoenix office’s concerns were not relayed to FBI agents in Minnesota, who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui at a Minnesota flight school in August and were trying to determine his intentions. It was only later that the FBI concluded that Moussaoui, now under indictment, was part of the hijacking conspiracy.
FBI officials have repeatedly declined to release the entire memorandum, citing its classified status, and have provided only a one-paragraph portion that describes the agent’s suggestion that flight schools nationwide be canvassed for Middle Easterners. It remained unclear yesterday exactly what led the agent to make a link between al Qaeda and the students he was investigating at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. But one source said the memo was “thorough” in outlining his concerns.
     

[WitchBoy]

ASLEEP, OR INEPT’
As details emerged, criticism of the FBI intensified on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking minority member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, yesterday said the Phoenix agent’s memo “was a very important warning and it was not heeded.”
“That in itself is a damning piece of evidence of the FBI losing an opportunity,” Shelby said. “When you tie that together with the events in Minnesota five weeks later, it’s more than damning. Why didn’t the FBI link them? They were either asleep, or inept, or both. What more is it going to take to wake up the FBI?”
Shelby is a leader of a joint investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees into the attacks and the performance of the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. He said the agent’s memo is part of a “mosaic” that is still being assembled.
Three of the hijackers received training at U.S. flight schools, although none was enrolled at the time of the July 10 memo, officials said. None received training at Embry-Riddle in Prescott, although Hani Hanjour, believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, may have practiced on a flight simulator at a school in Phoenix.
During his Senate appearance last week, Mueller stressed that none of those under investigation in Arizona have since been connected to the attacks.  
That point was reinforced yesterday by Fleischer, who said that Bush agreed with Mueller that the memo “in and of itself would not have led to the prevention of the September 11th attacks.”
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a member of the Senate intelligence committee who has read the memo “several times,” said yesterday it “was very explicit in terms of connecting suspected terrorists in the United States with aviation training schools. That should have been a red flag.”
Durbin also said there is growing sentiment in Congress for the Bush administration to release the memo, or at least hold classified briefings on it.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to Mueller yesterday demanding public release of the memo “to demonstrate that the FBI has nothing to hide and that from this point forward, candor and straight talk will be the FBI’s mode of operation.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has reviewed the memo as an intelligence committee member, said, “It raises questions about whether the U.S. government was properly organized to combat terrorism prior to September 11 and, more importantly, whether it is properly organized today.”
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), an intelligence committee member, said the FBI should have reacted to the memorandum more quickly and ensured that its contents were distributed to the appropriate offices. But he cautioned that it is too early to make any conclusions about inadequate follow-up.
“There are two reactions that have already occurred that are inappropriate,” Kyl said, contending that FBI critics should not be saying “gotcha’ ” and that the FBI should not be taking a defensive posture.