OUCH! Widow Indicts Bush For 9/11

[Berzerker]

On Hardball with Chris Mathews, the widow of a man killed when the #2 World Trade Center collapsed laid blame for her husband's death squarely at the feet of Bush, Rumsfeld et al. When asked what she would have done to prevent the totality of 9/11 she said the Bush administration could have warned Americans about the potential of hijacked airlines being used as missiles based on prior intelligence, including a plot to use an Egyptian airliner as a missile a few years back. Instead, Bush sat before a group of children for ~25 minutes and Rumsfeld sat at his desk for ~45 minutes until the Pentagon was hit...

Not only would the occupants of the second tower (actually both towers) been given advance warning so they could have started evacuating immediately instead of wondering it the attack on the first tower was an accident, the passengers on board the other planes would have had warning and could have prevented the hijackers from accomplishing their missions ala UA 93... And that's just for starters and doesn't rely on what could have been done via airport/airline security, just the information that hijacking airliners for use as missiles was possible given intelligence at the time...

I don't know, I've been reluctant to blame Bush for 9/11 but this woman has obvioulsy been studying what happened and she put into words the ineptness with which the Bush administration acted before and during the attack...

[JohnT]

Yeah, hindsight is great, isn't it? I bet the Catholic church is still kicking itself about how it failed to prevent the Reformation.

[Space05us]

I know, lets put her as head of security, whatever the title may be, and see how she fares.

[Asher]

If you ask me, it was her fault for letting her husband go to work.

[Berzerker]

I don't agree, it's not like the intelligence community was oblivious to the potential of such an attack inspite of Condoleeza Rice's claim no one could have predicted the use of airliners as missiles. I suspect we weren't warned because of the impact on the airline business, etc. But I'd call the failure to warn Americans negligent... People in those towers and on those airliners had no information about what was happening and that was a result of the government not informing us about what Al Qaida had in the works... Hell, I hadn't heard of Al Qaida until 9/11...

[Berzerker]

If you ask me, it was her fault for letting her husband go to work.

Maybe if the government had warned people that airliners might be hijacked and used as missiles, your sarcasm might be somewhat valid. Then had her husband remained in the 2nd tower based on the belief the 1st tower was just an accident he would carry some responsibility for his choice not to evacuate immediately...

[Asher]

They wouldn't have evacuated all highrises in America on a tip like that.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

But the people in the building told the employees to go back into the second tower. Someone should have told them to evacuate the second building after knowing two things:

1.) This was probably the terrorist attack that intelligence had indicated would happen

2.) They knew that there were other planes that had diverted from their flight paths

[Space05us]

okay so what if someone said Al Qaida is going to use an airplane as a missle. okay, and they could use a van to blow up a building. Or a person can walk into a bar with a bomb strapped to his chest and blow himself up. But that doesnt mean that we're going to inspect every van, and person who walks into a night club. So what if we had been informed that they could use an airplane as a missle, whats that mean?

[rev]

It means someone would have done something when four hijacked airliners start heading for the biggest metropolises in this country.

[Space05us]

I never heard anything about the control towers having the knowledge that the planes were hijacked, as far as I understood they were simply off course and not responding to communications.

[MrFun]

shoulda, coulda, woulda


yadda, yadda, yadda

[Imran Siddiqui]

I bet the Catholic church is still kicking itself about how it failed to prevent the Reformation.

Space05us and MrFun are right on this issue.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Quote:

I bet the Catholic church is still kicking itself about how it failed to prevent the Reformation.

. . . . . . . and MrFun are right on this issue.

You feeling alright there, Imran??

[Imran Siddiqui]

Even a blind horse can find water sometimes.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Even a blind horse can find water sometimes.

Ha -- that was soooo not funny.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I thought it was... and that is all that counts .

[Berzerker]

They wouldn't have evacuated all highrises in America on a tip like that.

Not before the attack, but at least people would have some reason to react appropriately after the first tower was hit and not just assume it was an accident. And the passengers on board all the planes would have had a clue about their fate, not just the people on board UA 93 which was diverted away from it's intended use by informed passengers...

Sheesh! Listening to you guys you'd think it was perfectly reasonable for the people at Pearl Harbor to be caught off guard, yet commanders in charge there did get blasted for negligence... I've agreed with your view in the past but the more I learn the more I'm getting the impression our government royally screwed up. We were treated to decades of warnings and education about what to do during the cold war but 9/11 was...well...a total surprise. Why? Because the government apparently decided we shouldn't be informed... Not good... I have to agree with this woman inspite of the 20/20 defense...

[Nubclear]

WOW!

[Q Classic]

cool. can we blame bush for other things, too?

it's his fault that i have this goddamned flu.

[GePap]

Blah- the president was supposed to hear of the attack, rush to a phone and order the evactuation of the second tower? Why? Giulliani, the chefi of NYPD and FDNY would deserve as much blame if that is the charge.

If she whishes to Blame bush for it she can blame him for not following up post-haste against Al Qaeada as the outgoing Clintonites asked for, but not the very events as they happened that day.

[The diplomat]

Hind sight is great but let's be fair. What do you really think the reaction of the american people would have been if before the attack (when nobody believed such an attack could happen), Bush et al. had suddenly gone around warning people not to fly and not to got to work because terrorists may try to crash jets into a building? Bush would have been ridiculed and accused of creating a false sense of panic!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Bush would have been ridiculed and accused of creating a false sense of panic!

Normally I think you are a loon (), but you are spot on with this. I mean, remember all the warnings and the lights and all that jazz after 9/11 and every little bit of info was checked out. People mocked it viciously. Can you imagine what it would have been like prior to 9/11?

[orange]

I dislike Bush, but what that lady is saying is unfair. He's the President, not a psychic.

[VJ]

"Ouch"? Some greedy hag wants to use his dead husband as an excuse to earn $$$BIGBUCKS$$$ from wherever there is money, using the laughing stock of the whole worl justice system of the United States. I wouldn't call this news.

In other words, who cares?

Yeah, hindsight is great, isn't it? I bet the Catholic church is still kicking itself about how it failed to prevent the Reformation.

[chequita guevara]

What she is saying is correct, but her specifics are wong.

Let me lay out for you the sequence of culpability. This stretches over four administrations and twenty years, but it doesn't really get interesting until Clinton.

Clinton, in order to appease the Republican Party, appoints a Republican to head the FBI, Louis Freeh (or however his name is spelled). Freeh hates Clinton's guts, and is a rather insuborindate leader. Clinton should have sacked him, but doesn't.

Despite mounting evidence that terorists are no longer targetting Americans, but rather America, LF continues to harrass and dismiss the anti-terorrism experts in the FBI. Most of the FBIs efforts are expended on drug interdiction. Despite this, the FBI manages to foil several major plots, including the millenium plot, Ramsey Yousef's plot to blow up mutliple airliners, etc. Clinton asks for more anti-terrorism powers, and Congress refuses some but grants others.

Then Khobar Towers. Then the embassies are attacked. Clinton relatiates by firing missiles, some of them destroying a pharmasuetical factory the US still insists was a chem weapon factory. Camps in Afganistan are also hit. When the USS Cole is bombed, Clinton orders a comprehensive policy created to deal with terrorism. It is completed in Dec., 2000. It is handed to the Bush team and they are told that the most important threat they will have to face in their coming Administration is al-Qaeda.

The plans include creating a special task force to coalate and coordinate all anti-terrorism efforts in the US, creat a department of homeland security, make anti-terrorism a primary effort in both the CIA and FBI, more cooperation between the agencies, etc.

They are ignored. Then plan is shunted aside. All invesitgation into the Saudi sources of AQ are stopped, by orders from above.

Aug 6, while setting records for spending the most time on vacation for a President in history, Bush is briefed at his Crawford ranch that AQ is planning to hijack multiple airlines. The AG, Ashcroft, considers the threat serious enough that he stops flying on civilian airlines.

Several of our allies, including both Israel and Germany, are telling the US that they have intel that AQ is planning a major attack on the US in the very near future.

They are ignored.

9/11, the Bush Administration finally takes its head out of the sand, but not before flying 150 prominent Saudis out of the U.S. (including two of bin Laden's brothers) before the FBI can question them.

They pull out the Clinton plan and begin to use it.

Had the Republican Party not so hated Clinton and completely dismiss his administration's effort, had they followed up on the plan that had been handed to them, and had they not quashed the FBI's invesitgations into the Saudis, it is possible that 9/11 could have been, if not prevented, at least mitigated.

[JohnT]

Che, Che, Che... is everything political to you?

Sheesh! Listening to you guys you'd think it was perfectly reasonable for the people at Pearl Harbor to be caught off guard, yet commanders in charge there did get blasted for negligence...

Actually, it is very reasonable not to expect the inconcievable, even if you are warned. Nobody really expected the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor, and nobody would've really believed that there would be a foreign terrorist attack on US soil.

Didn't your parents ever warn you about something to which you replied (in mind if not by mouth) "bullshit", only to find out they were right? If not, consider yourself incredibly unique.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course, John... and in the end, of course, the leftyish Dems are right and the Republicans are always wrong... it is che we are talking about .

[DinoDoc]

Where was this overriding concern with terrorism supossedly held by the Clinton administration people keep harping on? I never saw it in thier actions.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Space05us
I never heard anything about the control towers having the knowledge that the planes were hijacked, as far as I understood they were simply off course and not responding to communications.

In the most tightly controlled commercial airspace in the world, and you have two aircraft in the air at the same time that deviate from course under control, but do not repond to communications? If that doesn't raise alarm bells to to 38,000 ****ing feet, then someone really had to have their heads up their asses.