Jersey Girls respond to Woodward's book

I found this story interesting after some recent accusations Bush has made, about Democrats being a party that "waits" for an attack without doing anything. This seems to be yet another example of the Republican administration transferring criticism they deserve to a group that doesn't deserve it (ie, some have tried to blame the pages for Foley's indiscretions, or pretended they didn't want to be seen as "hating gays" for calling Foley out. Come on, this is the party trying to ban gay marriage by inciting hatred, and suddenly they're afraid of being seen as homophobes?)

Anyways. Clinton has made it clear that he was after bin Laden, and passed on plans/suggestions that were clearly not followed by the Bush administration. We know that the administration had multiple warnings in the months and weeks leading up to the attacks. And we know that Ashcroft conveniently was told not to fly in commercial airliners. Too bad the administration didn't see fit to question whether the rest of the American public was safe.

Here's from the Jersey Girls:

Statement Regarding al Qaeda Threats
October 5, 2006

Astonishingly, five years post 9/11 the public is made aware about an urgent July 10, 2001 meeting that took place between former CIA Director George Tenet and then, National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. This information comes from Bob Woodward's newly released book, "State of Denial".

Despite this Administration's rhetoric that they had "no warnings" leading up to 9/11, it has become abundantly clear, that key Administration officials were made aware of the vast array of Al Qaeda threats and warnings that existed in years prior, and more importantly, in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2001.

When we add the July 10, 2001 meeting to the plethora of other clear warnings that our government had, a very concise view of the al Qaeda threat emerges. Those other warnings include, but are not limited to:

* Warnings from leaders of other nations and foreign intelligence apparatus' of terrorist threats

* June 30, 2001 Senior Executive Intelligence Briefing (SEIB) entitled "bin Laden Threats Are Real"

* The threat of President Bush's assassination at the G-8 Summit by al Qaeda in July of 2001 – using aircraft to dive bomb the summit building

* July 2001 Phoenix memo, which told of potential terrorists taking flight lessons

* 52 FAA warnings – five of which mentioned al Qaeda's training for hijacking

* August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in US"

* National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)entitled "Islamist Extremists Learn to Fly"

* Intelligence agency heads describing themselves with their "hair on fire" to characterize the imminent nature of the threats they were intercepting from Al Qaeda and their sense of urgency in relating them to the Bush Administration

* The arrest of Zacharias Moussaoui in August of 2001

* FBI Agent Harry Samit's 70 unsuccessful attempts to get a FISA Warrant to examine Moussaoui's belongings

So in conclusion: the party that waits for an attack? That'd be Bush's Republican administration.

(Oh, not to mention this new scheme for a wall on the Mexican border. Um, are we seriously worried about terrorists coming from Mexico? Seems like an expensive project with little potential payoff for preventing terrorist attacks. What about securing freight? What about securing our chemical plants? Oh yeah, Bush is waiting for an attack before he does anything about those.)