LEtter to an Illinois paper
By STAN WAGGONER, Mattoon

This month in remembrance of 9/11, ABC ran a fictional movie called Path to 9/11. Do I really have to remind everyone who was actually president on 9/11/01? Here are just a few of the things that President Bush's administration did, and did not do that allowed the attacks to be successful.

Major events of 2001

Jan. 10 -- Attack on Cole the prior October was determined to have been sponsored by al Qaeda.

Jan. 20 -- Bush 43 inaugurated.

February -- John Ashcroft spends first two weeks as attorney general covering the breasts of Lady Liberty at the Justice department.

March -- President Bush withdraws funding for the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. These people were actually shooting at bin Laden, and his al Qaeda, but were unable to kill bin Laden prior to 9/11, mostly because President Bush refused to help them.

March -- Richard Clark demoted, and denied direct access to President Bush about terrorist activities. Clark must now report to an under-secretary of state rather than the president as he did under President Clinton.

March --Vice President Dick Cheney forms special anti-terrorist task force replacing Richard Clark's position.

June -- An FBI agent in Minn., reports suspicious Arabs learning to fly, but not take off or land jumbo jets.

June -- An FBI agent in Florida reports more Arabs learning to fly, but not land or take off.

July -- John Ashcroft tells the FBI that the administration wants the FBI to stop bothering them about al Qaeda.

August -- Special agent of the CIA goes to Crawford Texas during President Bush's vacation to deliver PDB "bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the United States."

August -- President Bush tells the CIA they have "covered their ass."

Sept. 11 -- We are attacked by al Qaeda.

Sept. 12 -- Vice President Cheney has first meeting of his anti-terrorist task force.

I do not see how anyone could think that had the Bush administration had its priorities right we might have been able to stop the attacks of 9/11. But no, President Bush was busy getting the likes of the Waltons a multimillion dollar tax cut.

One last thing. The Republicans like to brag we have not been attacked since 9/11/01 and that is five years! Need I remind them that we did not get attacked after February 1993 until September 2001, and that was eight years!