So he DID know beforehand......

The other thing you have to remember (which Tiger Shark touched upon) is that the information given to the President (whoever happens to be holding the post at the time - and this applies to other world leaders as well) was in a highly condensed form, probably edited to fit on one page. He would not have got the full information, because it's just not possible. Could you imagine what would happen if a leader of a country received every piece of paperwork produced by one department (e.g. the Foreign Office, or whatever the US equivalent is)? They wouldn't be able to take it all in - hence why they have advisors, deputies, heads of departments etc. to do this for them. The last person who is likely to know what is going on in the White House/Congress/the Senate is the President - he has a million other things to worry about.

Now I don't normally defend George Bush (or America to be honest) but I think in this situation he is being blamed (as are his top advisors) for something they may have known next to nothing about. American media is too quick to point the finger at someone, and this is being used by the Democrats to push whoever they're putting up for election (John Kerry last time I checked). When a group of terrorists bombed a Spanish train station in the early hours of the morning, you didn't see everyone turning round to the government there saying "you should have known about this - it's all your fault, why didn't you do something about it?" - and if they did it certainly wasn't blown out of proportion (ok so there was a backlash in the general election a couple of days later, but that's to be expected following such an event - people have their views altered temporarily in the face of tragedy).

I can see September 11th becoming like Bloody Sunday is over here - a tragedy that happened several years ago but no-one wants to drop the subject until someone carries the can for the event. So far Bloody Sunday has cost over £250 million - mostly in legal fees - do you really want that amount of your taxes wasted trying to blame someone for September 11th?

This isn't a new phenomenon.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n6p35_Weir.html
:cool:

Tru dat rcgreen.

-Cheers-

Terrorists, sorry "politically motivated murderers" have been PLANNING on hijacking US planes since the 60's and certainly planning on destroying the World Trade Center since the 80s. What's new?

RoadClosed: I think whats new is taht we stoped ooking for them from 2000 to sept 11 2001, why was the cole investigation stoped? we where so close to getting these guys before 9/11 (had one in custady, higherups orderd his release.)why did we stop all investigations and ignore all warrnings (sorry memos with "warrning" slaped on the top that where not warrnings.)?

Quote:

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16 Mar 2004 13:40:23 GMT
Yemen says arrests suspect in USS Cole bombing
SANAA, March 16 (Reuters) - Yemen has arrested a suspected militant wanted over the 2000 bomb attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole in the port of Aden, an official Web site said on Tuesday.

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found here: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16256538.htm
also: http://us.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/20/arrests.yemen/

Is this the Cole investigation are you talking about? :D I will admit I don't remember hearing anything about the ten or so susects (depending on which newspaper you read) that escaped from jail, but I found plenty of resources that indicated arrests were being made right up to the point they all escaped in April of 2003....

Look further into the cole incident...we had the suspects before 2001, but we ended the investagation...it wasnt untill after 9/11 that we picked it back up...the ywould have led us to the 9/11 hijackers. the masterminds where one and the same. Look int othe froonline epasode "the man who knew" ran right after 9/11...we should have had the basterds before they could crash planes into anything, but the new administration cut antiterror funding in favor of missle defense.

Uhm, if I may throw in my 3 dimes. As much as I don't like Bush, there isn't much he could've been able to do anyways given the information and time he was given. Yes, the memo was that Bin Laden was going to Hijack planes. And? The white house recieves probably a MILLION threats a week or they recieve a memo of some sort. Same way that school's USED to react to a "whisper" that their might be a shooting before Columbine. It takes something like 9/11 (or Columbine) for people to take threat's seriously..

As for the blame? You'd have to go back atleast 10 years worth of people to blame for that. Interestingly enough, I've noticed Bin Laden spends quite some time in the planning of his attacks. 93' WTC attack - '96 - '99 - '01. So it's usually over a spread of 2-3 year's.

Quote:

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This isn't a new phenomenon.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n6p35_Weir.html

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^Word.. :)

i heard tonight that NORAD was training for planes being hi-jacked and used as weapons but they were planning for the hi-jacking of forign aircract flown into the US.

what would critics be saying about bush or clinton if they were able (no one would have allowed it before) to put measures in place that could have prevented 911. they'd be calling him a paranoid nut trying to create a nazi state. what if bush had invaded afganistan before hand and 911 never happened...every anti-us butt hole in the world, including some...no allot of our own citizens, would be screaming for him to be arrested. no one knew what would happen before hand but OBL's crew. OBL is the only one to blame. the american people litteraly needed a bomb to fall on them before they would allow any action. if OBL were brought to trial in the US, with the evidence we have against him for 911 i think he'd walk. we have more evidence against saddam and look at the worlds reaction to capturing him.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Tedob1
i heard tonight that NORAD was training for planes being hi-jacked and used as weapons but they were planning for the hi-jacking of forign aircract flown into the US.

what would critics be saying about bush or clinton if they were able (no one would have allowed it before) to put measures in place that could have prevented 911. they'd be calling him a paranoid nut trying to create a nazi state. what if bush had invaded afganistan before hand and 911 never happened...every anti-us butt hole in the world, including some...no allot of our own citizens, would be screaming for him to be arrested. no one knew what would happen before hand but OBL's crew. OBL is the only one to blame. the american people litteraly needed a bomb to fall on them before they would allow any action. if OBL were brought to trial in the US, with the evidence we have against him for 911 i think he'd walk. we have more evidence against saddam and look at the worlds reaction to capturing him.

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Hrmm, really good post Tedob. I agree about the paranoid nut trying to create a nazi state thing, but they wouldn't be saying that if he had said to people "Look, we got a credible threat some shyt's about to go down". LOL :D I mean if Bush and his admin would've given even a small warning or let a little out to the press that they have something fishy going on around that time, then the public mighta reacted the way it should. They would be more cautious because like most say "It's better to be safe then sorry".. damn right :)