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TracGunny
04-12-04, 03:45 PM
Raw Data: Text of Released PDB
Saturday, April 10, 2004

The following is a redacted text of the presidential daily briefing from August 6, 2001:

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997' has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,116766,00.html

TracGunny
04-12-04, 03:46 PM
April 12th - 3:35 pm ET

Bush says there was no warning in pre-Sept. 11 memo that something would happen in U.S.

PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas — On the defensive, President Bush said Monday there was no warning in a pre-Sept. 11 intelligence memo that "something is about to happen in America" before the nation's worst terrorism attack. He said U.S. intelligence services may be due for reforms.

"There was nothing in there that said, you know, `There is an imminent attack,'" Bush told reporters. "That wasn't what the report said. The report was kind of a history of Osama's (bin Laden's) intentions."

Democrats have suggested there was more to the memo, the center of an election-year skirmish over the president's anti-terrorism policies before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He said he would answer more questions at an East Room news conference Tuesday night. It will be the first formal news conference of the year.

Bush is coming under intense scrutiny for his anti-terrorism policies before the 2001 attacks. The criticism threatens Bush's political standing seven months before he stands for re-election, with the war on terrorism his strongest selling point.

At the center of the brouhaha is an intelligence memo from Aug. 6, 2001, showing that Bush received reports from as recent as May 2001 about possible terrorist plots in the United States.

The memo specifically told Bush that al-Qaida operatives had reached American shores, had a support system in place and were engaging in "patterns of suspicious activity ... consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." It did not provide specific times or places for potential attacks.

Standing alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a joint news conference, Bush minimized the importance of the memo.

"There was nothing in this report to me that said, `Oh, by the way, we've got intelligence that says something is about to happen in America,'" Bush said.

Citing statements by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Bush said: "Now may be the time to revamp and reform our intelligence services."

He said the memo brought him some comfort when it outlined efforts by the FBI to prevent attacks. "Had they found something, I'm confident they would have reported back to me," Bush said.

The president has been on the defensive since the White House, under pressure, released the memo Saturday.

The document has "nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America — well, we knew that," Bush said Sunday.

"I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into" and had any specific intelligence pointed to threats of attacks on New York and Washington, "I would have moved mountains" to prevent it, Bush said during a visit to Fort Hood, Texas, 50 miles from his ranch here.

A Republican member of the Sept. 11 commission backed that up Monday.

Former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson told ABC's "Good Morning America" that "no reasonable American could hold the president responsible for the attack."

"If I'm the president and I get a special briefing that I've asked for, and he asked for this, and said the FBI is conducting 70 field investigations about this, then I assume the FBI is on top of the job," Thompson said. "The president is not an FBI agent."

Commission member Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, told NBC"s "Today" show "there is a major game of finger-pointing going on around here. Our job is to get to the bottom of it."

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said public figures "shouldn't be scapegoating" and said he believes serious questions must be raised about whether the FBI is equipped to deal with terrorism.

Bayh said most Western governments have separate counterterrorism departments. "We don't. We need to ask ourselves, maybe the time has come to do that," he told CBS's "The Early Show."

The memo's contents are somewhat of a surprise because for two years, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice starting with a May 2002 news conference left the impression that the document focused on historical information and that any current threats mostly involved overseas targets.

Rice first outlined the then-classified memo's contents at a news conference in May 2002. The "overwhelming bulk of the evidence" before Sept. 11, she declared, was that any terrorist attack "was likely to take place overseas."

The 500-word document mentioned two current threats: suspected al-Qaida operatives might have cased federal buildings in New York and that, according to a phone call to an American embassy in the Middle East, a group of supporters of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was in the United States to plan attacks with explosives.

The FBI later concluded that two Yemeni men photographing buildings in New York were tourists.
To accentuate the potential domestic threat, the memo told Bush the FBI had 70 investigations related to bin Laden under way.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
http://wire.jacksonville.com/pstories/20040412/2061888.shtml

snipowsky
04-12-04, 04:11 PM
Who are these people kidding? They had so much intel before 911 and they all dropped the ball. That's our government for you!

God bless America...but eff this Government!

d c taveapont
04-12-04, 08:01 PM
damn. you did not get jumped on for this post. somebody is slipping up.....especially when the government is mentioned....the mouse :)

tophor
04-12-04, 09:36 PM
AMEN snipowsky! I stated this earlier on a similar post, the govt actually knew back in the early ninties but did nothing. Now they are blaming it on the CIA and the FBI not sharing info with each other, crock of bull! The govt should have done something about things YEARS ago rather than waiting for 1000's of innocent people dying.

Osotogary
04-12-04, 10:23 PM
Analogy-
I remember I was given an art project to complete in a two day period but I needed supplies. I asked a designated facilitator for assistance and guess what, "I'd like to help you but you and your project are way down on my "Things to do" priority list."
Now here was person who knew what I had to do, he was aware of the importance of my project, he had the designated resources to assist me, he knew that I was going to ask him for those available resources and yet he wouldn't help me because I wasn't a priority...to him.
The project did not get done and guess who got the poop?

I know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the 911 inquiries but this kind of scenario is played out continually in every tier of society. In other words ...none of this surprises me.
My analogy didn't involve National Security.

d c taveapont
04-12-04, 10:46 PM
Are my eyes deceiving me nope. you gents have my applause for stating what you believe.....and i am not trying to stir things up . before some one mentions that.....the mouse

snipowsky
04-14-04, 06:30 PM
My whole point about politicians in general and we have homeland security is that the US government is looking out for the intersest of the it's self, not the people.

We are the government, we are the people and politicians forget that! They are most far removed from reality, veterans issues, foreign policy and etc. it's amazing. Don't get me wrong I love America, but anymore our government is becoming tyranical.