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Showing Original Post only (View all)NEW DETAILS: "CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming" [View all]
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353THE FRIDAY COVER
The Attacks Will Be Spectacular
An exclusive look at how the Bush administration ignored this warning from the CIA months before 9/11, along with others that were far more detailed than previously revealed.
By CHRIS WHIPPLE November 12, 2015
Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. The CIAs famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.
By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIAs counterterrorism center, it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die. There were real plots being manifested, Cofers former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing (as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack). Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise. The crisis came to a head on July 10. The critical meeting that took place that day was first reported by Bob Woodward in 2006. Tenet also wrote about it in general terms in his 2007 memoir At the Center of the Storm.
But neither he nor Black has spoken about it publicly in such detail until nowor been so emphatic about how specific and pressing their warnings really were. Over the past eight months, in more than a hundred hours of interviews, my partners Jules and Gedeon Naudet and I talked with Tenet and the 11 other living former CIA directors for The Spymasters, a documentary set to air this month on Showtime.
The drama of failed warnings began when Tenet and Black pitched a plan, in the spring of 2001, called the Blue Sky paper to Bushs new national security team. It called for a covert CIA and military campaign to end the Al Qaeda threatgetting into the Afghan sanctuary, launching a paramilitary operation, creating a bridge with Uzbekistan. And the word back, says Tenet, was were not quite ready to consider this. We dont want the clock to start ticking. (Translation: they did not want a paper trail to show that theyd been warned.) Black, a charismatic ex-operative who had helped the French arrest the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, says the Bush team just didnt get the new threat: I think they were mentally stuck back eight years (before). They were used to terrorists being Euro-leftiesthey drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.
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NEW DETAILS: "CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming" [View all]
Hissyspit
Nov 2015
OP
I predict that we will regret forgoing an investigation on the Bush Administration.
Baitball Blogger
Nov 2015
#1
Great point. What we dont know about The Bush cabal, 911, and so on, would floor us all.
randys1
Nov 2015
#78
our entire system of government would collapse under the weight of a real investigation.
AlbertCat
Nov 2015
#121
I would hope what would collapse would be the entire system of corruption
mountain grammy
Nov 2015
#146
As always, they leave out more we already know than the new tidbits they let us have
leveymg
Nov 2015
#101
What are you blabbering about. No one has said that. It's called a STRAWMAN.
rhett o rick
Nov 2015
#129
What the fuck would you know about the conversations I've had on here with other posters?
Rex
Nov 2015
#134
Weak try at deflection. You said, "Some here really like to defend republican regimes."
rhett o rick
Nov 2015
#145
it was LIHOP at minimum and if they knew it was coming, it would be dumb for them not to steer it in
Fast Walker 52
Nov 2015
#48
it's been 14 years already: they can outright admit it and it'd just make a little ripple
MisterP
Nov 2015
#111
Along with the dozens of other known omissions in the public version of the Commission Report.
leveymg
Nov 2015
#63
OMG, I honestly had the same reaction... Said what is Bush up to? (in my head).
glowing
Nov 2015
#141
Interesting how erstwhile Dungeon material keeps showing up in GD these days
Fumesucker
Nov 2015
#12
Drip, drip2, drip3, ... drip52, ... drip(#?). I lost count after 52nd revealed warning before 911.
Festivito
Nov 2015
#13
And what about the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, which wasn't even hit?
colorado_ufo
Nov 2015
#60
Once again, am I the ONLY person in the entire world who was watching TV when they ANNOUNCED...
ieoeja
Nov 2015
#99
Connie Rice the European Cold War so-called expert thought it was smoke from the Clinton...
Historic NY
Nov 2015
#15
actually, they were so drunk with power that they misspoke. What he really meant was
ChairmanAgnostic
Nov 2015
#22
Even if you dismiss LIHOP and MIHOP, what remains is invading Iraq even though you have
randys1
Nov 2015
#80
"Any impeachment of President Bush is OFF THE TABLE" FUCK YOU PELOSI! ANd I VOTED FOR YOU!
vkkv
Nov 2015
#38
She had no choice since it wasn't possible to get Republicans to go along with it.
randome
Nov 2015
#41
It's impossible to say that. Pelosi just let it the whole thing go... UNFORGIVABLE
vkkv
Nov 2015
#149
how awesome would it be to get a real investigaiton into 9/11 and a real trial of the perpetraitors?
Fast Walker 52
Nov 2015
#51
We should ask both Bernie and Hillary if they support investigating the Bush administration
Android3.14
Nov 2015
#50
I was wondering why, after so many years, Bush Sr. was suddenly rushing to defend his son,
colorado_ufo
Nov 2015
#58
I don't think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it
avaistheone1
Nov 2015
#59
Funny how Condo RICE's "I thought we were doing what needed to be done" ain't so important as Bengha
UTUSN
Nov 2015
#70
Bill Maher and Chris Matthews Tear Into Jeb: "How Can He Get Away with Saying Dubya Kept Us Safe?!"
napkinz
Nov 2015
#87
I've never had any doubt that the Bush cabal knew what was in the works. That
WestSeattle2
Nov 2015
#88
Wasn't that the theme of the book Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies?"
HereSince1628
Nov 2015
#108
Clarke must be shaking his head. 'I've been saying this for years!'
FailureToCommunicate
Nov 2015
#137
This doesn't square with my belief that the bushies had a hand in the attacks
Maraya1969
Nov 2015
#132