This has got to be a new low for CBS! After this many months, to try and link the atrocity on Bush is left wing propaganda at its best. I've posted the full article for future reference in case they cower away from it and remove it from their web-site.
cbsnews.com
Bush Knew Of Hijack Threat
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2002
Smoke billows from the north tower of the World Trade Center, Sept. 11. (AP)
The development, first reported by CBS television, comes as congressional investigators intensify their study of whether the government failed to adequately respond to warnings of a suicide hijackings before Sept. 11.
President Bush (AP)
(CBS) In the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush was told by U.S. intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes, prompting the administration to issue a private warning to federal agencies, the White House acknowledged Wednesday night.
But officials said the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"There has been long-standing speculation, shared with the president, about the potential of hijackings in the traditional sense," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. "We had general threats involving Osama bin Laden around the world and including in the United States."
He said the administration, acting on the scant information, notified the "appropriate agencies" last summer that hijackings were possible.
The development, first reported by CBS television, comes as congressional investigators intensify their study of whether the government failed to adequately respond to warnings of a suicide hijackings before Sept. 11. It is the first link between Mr. Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks.
Fleischer would not discuss when or how the information was given to Mr. Bush, but a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president was made aware of the potential for hijackings of U.S. planes during one or more routine intelligence briefings last summer.
The CIA would not confirm what it told Mr. Bush, but a U.S. intelligence official, on condition of anonymity, said the CIA continuously informed policymakers throughout the summer before Sept. 11 that bin Laden and his network might try to harm U.S. interests and discussed a range of possibilities that included hijackings.
"That was among the many things that we talked about all the time as a potential terrorist threat," the intelligence official said, referring to hijackings.
"But when we talked about hijackings, we talked about that in the traditional sense of hijackings, not in the sense of somebody hijacking an aircraft and flying it into a building," the intelligence official said.
But there was no information that suggested hijackers would crash planes into American landmarks and there was no mention of a date, a CIA official said.
The information was based on intelligence obtained by the U.S. government, the official said, without specifying.
"I will tell you there was, of course, a general awareness of Osama bin Laden and threats around the world, including the United States; and if you recall, last summer we publicly alerted and gave a warning about potential threats on the Arabian peninsula," Fleischer said.
He said Mr. Bush had never been told about the potential for suicide hijackers steering the planes toward U.S targets.
Still, acting on the information the government did have, the administration "notified the appropriate agencies."
"I think that's one of the reasons that we saw the people who committed the 9/11 attacks use box cutters and plastic knives to get around America's system of protecting against hijackers," he said.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.
A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to Osama bin Laden, speculating that al-Qaeda and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said. The officials said, however, that the memo offered no evidence bin Laden was behind the students that raised the concern.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, said through a spokesman Wednesday that the revelations in the memos marked an important discovery in Congress' investigation into why the FBI, CIA and other U.S. agencies failed to learn of and prevent the Sept. 11 plot.
"It represents a failure to connect the dots," said Graham spokesman Paul Anderson. "This was dismissed rather lightly at FBI headquarters."
The FBI also has faced tough questioning about whether it failed to act aggressively enough after arresting Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, in August after he raised concerns by seeking flight training at a Minnesota flight school.
Moussaoui has emerged as the lone defendant charged in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He is charged with conspiring with bin Laden and the 19 suicide hijackers to attack Americans.
FBI Director Robert Mueller repeatedly has said he wished the FBI had acted more aggressively in addressing the Arizona and Minnesota leads but said nothing the FBI possessed before Sept. 11 pointed to the multiple-airliner hijacking plot. |
