BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 04:06 PM

George Bush contradicted himself at the Press conference,
by saying no one could have predicted hijacked planes crashing into buildings, but in fact George had attended the Genoa G8 conference in July 2001 and was specifically warned about that very threat.
(I remember hearing on the news at the time that they were setting up antiaircraft defense systems)
can read it all at misleader.org

Bush Contradicts Self At His Own Press Conference


During last night's prime time press conference, President Bush once again claimed that "there was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings"1. But just minutes later at the same press conference the president proved he was not telling the truth.

Specifically, Bush said the reason he supposedly requested intelligence briefings before 9/11 "had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference I was going to attend" in 2001. Bush was referring to the fact that, prior to that conference, he was warned that "Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill him and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the summit" meetings2.

His statement that "the prior government" had not taken precautions against terrorists using planes as weapons is also contradicted by the facts. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that under President Clinton, "the federal government had on several earlier occasions taken elaborate, secret measures to protect special events from just such an attack"3 after receiving intelligence warnings4.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 04:31 PM

Clarke says the US set up point defenses against air attack for 5-6 events starting with the Atlanta Olympics. These involved things like a guy or two with a Stinger missle on a tall building near the specific site being protected and an increased level of air defense alert. It was expensive (notice they quit flying jets over NY after a few weeks?) and hardly fool proof and was never carried out too long or to protect more than a few buildings within a city. Clarke had suggested setting up protection for the White House and Congress. He admits that wouldn't have helped the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. Too many buildings in the US for that kind of point defense to protect everything.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: el ted
Date: 22 Apr 04 - 10:32 AM

Boring.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Apr 04 - 07:03 PM

Well don't fucking read it then

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 01:22 AM

"For instance, in the case of the Millenium bomb plot it only took one attentive border guard. No special intelligence work was required, just one low level civil servant being curious enough to search the guy's car. That guy deserves a promotion, a raise and a reward (though knowing my luck, the guy who replaces him at the check point won't be as curious)."

Foiling millennium attack was mostly luck

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 01:32 AM

... and 9/11 was just 'bad luck'?

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 09:25 AM

Good heavens, no, but you couldn't count too heavily on good luck to prevent it either. What isn't true is that any of the Clinton administration "actions" lead directly to preventing the Millennium attack. Clarke likes to portray what happened is that the administration was in Washington "shaking the trees" to get vital intel and the attack was prevented. What seems clear is that the administration was busy shaking trees and not finding anything while this lady was out doing her job and saving their bacon.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 10:37 AM

Of course 9/11 could have been prevented.
Pearl Harbor could also have been prevented
Hitler could also have been prevented

Hindsight is 20/20.    The question is how to prevent further terrorism.

One thing I have learned in life is that it can always get worse.   After the World Trade Center attack in 1993 we said that was the worst.   Than we had Oklahoma city.   That was the worst.   Than we had 9/11.   Will we look back one day after a terrorist sets off a dirty bomb and kills millions and say that 9/11 wasn't the worst?

To say that we are not effective in fighting terrorism is not correct.    Here are the facts from the US State Department.

2001    346 terrorists attacks world wide
2002    198 terrorists attacks world wide
2003    190 terrorists attacks world wide
This is the fewist terrorist attacks in 20 years.

To go to the UN is a joke.   With the oil for food scandals we now know why France, Russia and the UN were supporting Sadaam.   Read the Dick Morris column this week.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 02:10 PM

Strick, I would have thought WTC in New York because it was tried before and the terrorists are out to cause as much death and destruction as well as hitting our "monuments" to ourselves and a center of agreat deal of world wide monitary action.

Because they tried using a truck bomb before I would have thought that they would most likely try something else (while also making sure the precautions in place to prevent that from happening again were still functioning.

Would I have thought they'd crash a jet liner into the building?
The G-8 conference and the eiffel tower plot both pointed in that direction and it had been envisioned by Tom Clancy some years ago as well in one of his books. Standing on Bolling AFB across the Potomac River from the Ronald Reagan International Airport I remarked to my friend (some twenty years ago after the air florida disaster) that it could happen again and hit anything in DC and could be done intentionally without anybody being able to prevent it (of course I don't have anyone to verify that).

I think that if they had connected the dots that someone would have been bright enough to think "hey, they're gonna crash one into somethin'.

Actually on the morning of Sept. 11th when our watchstander told us about the incident my immediate thought was that it was a terorist attack because after the crash of the bomber into the Empire State Building, it has been illegal to fly planes over New York City.

Yeah, the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA have all been playing their cards very close to their chests for quite along time. I didn't mean to say that they hadn't been, but rather that with the way that the administration seems to have slammed the door on the "public's right to know" that it didn't engender any reason to stop playing that way. Of course if they didn't protect their own turf someone might have further cut their budgets. After all why do we need so many intelligence agencies? The military is very much like this as well (with the Air Force leading the way).

No I don't know what went on that day at the morning brief, just applying my own experiences.

Not "blaming" Bush. Just applying an old military maxim that says if it happens on your watch, you're responsible. It also does seem that the incoming administration threw out anything from the old administration.

Bin Laden is to blame for 9/11 of course. But there is a long line of American involvement that presages 9/11. And like many of our other dealings with "revolutionaries" and questionable persons it came back to bite us hard.

Oh when will we ever learn?

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 02:25 PM

"Strick, I would have thought WTC in New York because it was tried before and the terrorists are out to cause as much death and destruction as well as hitting our "monuments" to ourselves and a center of agreat deal of world wide monitary action.

Because they tried using a truck bomb before I would have thought that they would most likely try something else (while also making sure the precautions in place to prevent that from happening again were still functioning."

Fair enough, Chief. After the August 6th PDB, I might have been thinking something completely different since it has people apparently scoping out the Federal buildings in Manhattan. I would have thought of OKC and wondered if they were looking for softer targets with tried and true methods.

Even if I decided they could use airplanes, I wouldn't have put all my eggs in one basket and focused all my attention on the Twin Towers. A likely target, yes, but so are thousands of others (we thought the building I was in on 9/11 was a natural target, too) including the Pentagon and the White House. Damned hard to protect all the possible targets for more than a week with the methods Dick Clarke proposed, much less the 6-7 weeks we had from the first alert to the actual even. In some other universe, they got it and protected the Twin Towers, only they gave up just be for the actual attack and lost them anyway.

No offense, but from my read of what little has come out of the Commission hearings so far, there wasn't much to throw out from the last administration.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 02:54 PM

"To go to the UN is a joke"

You haven't been watching the news, recently, Larry K.

Bush can't go it alone..... like he promised he could
He needs help... like he said he didn't.

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:01 PM

"I wouldn't have put all my eggs in one basket and focused all my attention on the Twin Towers"

I should hope not, Strick. The vast majority of attention-focusing would serve a much better purpose at the country's air and sea ports, border crossings, etc.

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:13 PM

"The vast majority of attention-focusing would serve a much better purpose at the country's air and sea ports, border crossings, etc."

I agree, Jim, but those points are so far reaching and the variety of threats so great they defy the word "focus". We've been so successful with illegal immigration and drug smuggling through the years, after all.

Besides, whats to keep us safe from the garden variety domestic terrorist or a foreign one that's already here? Al Qaeda isn't producing well trained new ones, but who knows who might be living next to you.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:28 PM

"I agree, Jim, but those points are so far reaching and the variety of threats so great they defy the word "focus". We've been so successful with illegal immigration and drug smuggling through the years, after all."

And 'focusing' attention on the Twin Towers (and every other tall building) would have been any easier?

It's the 'eggs in one basket' bit that's flawed, IMO. If we know how effective we are in drug smuggling, illegal immigration, and the like, we never needed a 9/11 to remind us that our security was lax.

Going into Iraq was like taking eggs from one badly in need of repair basket, and tryng to force them back into the chicken.

Well that's the way I have been reading it, anyway.

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:49 PM

Nobody paid any attention to John O'Neill. And nobody is still paying any attention to John O'Neill.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 03:50 PM

"And 'focusing' attention on the Twin Towers (and every other tall building) would have been any easier?"

Far from it. Frankingly, I'm convinced it's not completely possible to protect against every threat, not without doing things that make the Patriot Act look liberal. It's not that drug smuggling, illegal immigration, and the like tell us our security is lax, they tell us it can't be done. You do have to focus on the likely threats and put more emphasis on human intelligence at the likely source of any threat. Better security at our borders is the second line of defense at best and a relatively weak one at that. The bad news is, much as we've learned with people determined to assasinate presidents, if someone wants to attack us badly enough, they'll find a way.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 04:40 PM

The question was a rhetorical one, Strick... Of course the vista is just as imposing. But the defeatist nature of your last statement, and the acceptance you have of this state of affairs,is worrying, Strick.
It provides all the excuse we need to go into another country and sell the idea to the Nation that this is going to make thimgs safer.

I've said it before, $86 billion would have gone a long way if spent revamping Internal Security, instead.
The fact that it was not even contemplated at the beginning of the Bush Presidency, is a question of assignation of priorities, IMO, and in this respect, also, 9/11 could have had a chance of being prevented.

That $86 bn. is only the tip of the iceberg, you know. When was the last time any Government put in a realistic tender for anything? (that question was also rhetorical, incidentally). The longer this goes on over in the 'Axis of Evil' (because the job is far from over, remember), the more drain it will be on the American economy.

If America pulls its troops out of Iraq, as it will someday do, will everybody remember that Iran and Syria were also on the next-to-liberate-list, and wonder where all those plans went?

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:04 PM

I have more than once thought of Thomas Friedman's observation that the scale of the attacks on 9/11 were due to a lack of imagination. OUR imagination.

I think it's pretty clear that, as George Bush was quoted, he didn't have OBL as a top priority. From what I've heard and read, however, the FBI were hardly at the top of their game and did overlook some real danger signs.

In 2001 a television show called "The Lone Gunmen", a short lived spinoff from "The X-Files" had as an episode a government plot involving flying a computer controlled airliner full of people into one of the twin towers. It has a pilot's eye view of the approaching towers at night, and at the last minute our hero takes control and is just able to clear them.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:31 PM

"In 2001 a television show called "The Lone Gunmen", a short lived spinoff from "The X-Files" had as an episode a government plot involving flying a computer controlled airliner full of people into one of the twin towers. It has a pilot's eye view of the approaching towers at night, and at the last minute our hero takes control and is just able to clear them."

Shame it had such crappy ratings.

It's not just a lack of imagination, you know. I realize as a boss that part of my job is to keep the people who work for me from getting too carried away with concern for outlandish risks. Some people see problems everywhere and can let their imaginations keep them from accomplishing things; they become too timid and fearful. It's a good thing to keep people focused on the goals and moderating a few primary risks. Then suddenly you get the Discovery disaster or the Twin Towers because we become so used to minimizing the more far fetched risks, we don't recognize when they become real and present.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 07:06 PM

"Then suddenly you get the Discovery (Challenger?) disaster or the Twin Towers because we become so used to minimizing the more far fetched risks, we don't recognize when they become real and present.

You can excuse absolutely anything with that remark, Strick, if you put your mind to it.

I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but not with the same "Well that's just the way it is" kind of complacency.
It is relevant, however, that the 'systemic flaws' the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found, prior to the STS-107 accident, were not which".. one would expect to see [in] an organization if it were trying to change its culture./i>".

If nothing was learned from the Challenger, it was the fault of those people whose responsibility it was to learn those kind of lessons. Where was the hindsight, then?

Columbia could have been prevented, 9/11 could have been prevented, and sharp border guards are always an asset.

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 01 May 04 - 01:07 AM

Actually there is a hell of alot more we could be doing to secure our nation without imposing extreme measures on our citizens. Unfortunately it comes down to the bottom line. No-one wants to spend the money on it. Spending the tax money is fine but don't ask us to fund our own security (even though we profit from being more secure).

I pointed out gaps in security years ago (sorry I have to be vague, no idea who may read from this site) to a business. You'd have thought they'd want to take care of them to protect their property and products from thieves and vandals. It would at least have saved them some insurance money. No they wouldn't do it. Too much money up front with too little return in the immediate quarters.

In more ways than one we're at the mercy of our own businessmen.

Subject: RE: BS: 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented: Kean
From: Strick
Date: 01 May 04 - 07:35 PM

" I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but not with the same 'Well that's just the way it is' kind of complacency."

Excuse? Complacency? No, understanding. You try your best and you look hard at your failures to try to understand them. You can't assume you're never going to fail again. Even when we try to avoid the old mistakes, they have a wonderful way of showing up in new clothes.

9/11 was preventable the way my first marriage was -- all the clues were there for anyone looking backward.