Pre-Sept. 11

[1549]

I bring this up for two reasons. 1-The current investigation looking into what happened in the time before Sept. 11. 2-I read a very thorough New York Times article this morning about counterterrorism and the white house leading up to Sept. 11.

 

A brief outline of the article (not in chronological order, they are ordered pretty much as they appeared in the article):

 

-President Bush was briefed 40 times about urgent terrorist threats

 

-Airlines were put on high alert over the summer of 2001

 

-In the late summer the white house gathered domestic security orginizations and told them terrorists were preparing attacks against US interests, over 30 phonecalls that were intercepted mentioned attacks against the US.

 

-The administration believed attacks were going to occur on US targets overseas, a CIA official said there was a 98% chance of an overseas attack.

 

-In the seven years before Sept. 11 Bush and Clinton had been warned a total of 12 times about Airplanes being used as weapons.

 

-No briefings during the summer of '01 mentioned using airplanes as weapons

 

-President Bush requested a report on the terrorism involving airlines, the report concluded it was more likely airplanes would be hijacked for ransom rather than used as weapons.

 

-After taking office, a broad plan on how to deal with the taliban was drafted. The plan mentioned using diplomatic and financial pressure as well as small covert military strikes to pressure the taliban into expelling Al-queda from Afghanistan.

 

-Clinton officials warned the Bush administration that Terrorism would be a growing problem.

 

-After taking office the bush administration raised the counter terrorism budget 7%.

 

-The Bush defense department focused more on missle defense than counter terrorism.

 

-A defense department report found that the US was not prepared to deal with terrorist attacks overseas or in the US.

 

The overall theme was that while the administration was working on some counterterrorism plans, there was no urgency involved, until the late summer of 2001.

[Goldmember]

i would have to vote "no" simply because 9/11 happened, which obviously shows that not enough was done. if enough was done to stop it, 9/11 would never have happened. i don't feel anyone's to blame simply because nobody thought our weaknesses would lead up to 9/11. and before people politicize the thread, if there were people to blame they would be from both democratic and republican administrations.

[Pale Hose Jon]

You can not adequetly prevent terrorism physically

You need to mentally change the minds of those who hate you

[1549]

i would have to vote "no" simply because 9/11 happened, which obviously shows that not enough was done. if enough was done to stop it, 9/11 would never have happened. i don't feel anyone's to blame simply because nobody thought our weaknesses would lead up to 9/11. and before people politicize the thread, if there were people to blame they would be from both democratic and republican administrations.

Only so much can be done though.

 

If lives became inconvenienced by tough security before sept. 11 people would be very upset.