From today's New York
Times:
"In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission. ...
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable." ...
But but but we were told by Condi "Perjury" Rice that NO ONE could have imagined such a thing. And for months after the attacks, the Administration swore up and down that there had been absolutely no warning of anything.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system.
Five months? ... Let's count backwards? January, December, November, October, September ... Why, that's right in the thick of the campaign season and just before the debates. How
about that? Just another coincidence.
The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Two weeks ago? And we're just hearing about it now? Ah, that ol' liberal media -- always on the Junta's heels ... begging for a biscuit. Actually, one of the more amazing aspects of this story is that it wasn't part of the usual Friday 4:30pm news dump.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time. ...
I suppose all 52 of those reports were "historical" in nature, as Rice described the August 6, 2001 PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US."
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking ... Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden ...
The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat ...
Wait a minute. We were just told a few paragraphs ago that the FAA "warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if 'the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners ...
a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable.'"
Right now, with all that we know (despite the Junta's herculean attempt to block, hide or destroy any and all information related to the attacks), the best thing you can say about the Bush Administration and 9/11 -- the
best thing -- is that they knowingly sat on their asses and allowed the terrorist attacks to go forth.
You really have to wonder what it will take for the general public to wake up.