Was Bush Asleep at wheel While Terror Warnings Mounted?

Question

Did Bush ignore a C.I.A. report that warned "Al Qaeda poised to attack inside the U.S............... in the months prior to the attack on 9-11? Where was he and what was he doing after being handed said "report"?

Answer 1

he doesn't seem to be able to know what he was doing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm73wOuPL60

is the fourth estate not asleep still?

Answer 2

No, he wasn't asleep at the wheel.

Yes it’s true that there were warnings about al Qaeda. But these were mixed in with warnings about Hamas, Timmy McVeigh types, anti-government skin-heads, etc. The trouble is that every month the CIA gets thousands upon thousands of warnings & it has to sort them all out.

How do you know, before the fact, which threats and real and which are false leads? Almost no one in the world truly foresaw the unprecedented hijackings of 9/11. It’s so obvious after the fact, but in truth, it was impossible to predict.

It retrospect, anyone can appear to be a genius. Yes, looking back, and picking through the hundred-thousand warnings that came in over several years, you can find a warning about al-Qaeda. This is not good enough to prove that a mistake was made and especially that Bush “knew it” and “ignored it.” That would have required ESP.

I haven't seen any evidence that the al-Qaeda data was, before the fact, sufficient to stand out above all the other warnings.

Answer 3

The hijacker's trained for well over a year how to fly aircraft like those on September 11, 2001 they boarded. Selected carefully and so forth. If Bill Clinton had spent more time out of the closet he would have removed the threat before it became a reality. So much for being Popular.

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A3513_o_2_0_C/

September 4, 1998 report on Clinton's Phony Anti Terrorism Policy... Sandy Berger, Top Clinton Adviser arrested for removing terrorism documents from National Archives? Just before the 9/11 Commission Reports investigation begins?
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/know-about-jihad
and what about these events? Where was GW Bush then?

President Bush declared war with Iraq. Clinton had his Operation Desert Fox & the Persian Gulf War. But who's counting those deaths?
http://www.nysun.com/article/48926

If only bashing Bush was not such a quick trigger fast response to all the ill's in the world. He had alot of help.

Answer 4

It's not that simple.Governments receive hundreds of such red lettered warnings but the occurrence rate is not even one in a thousand.So what you do with the other 999 warnings?You see,a terrorist or an attacker has a tactical advantage of selecting a target,a place and timings and has a historical success rate of 90 % or more.This gives a defender a success rate of zero to 10 %,Bush or no Bush.An event like 9/11 could have happened all the same.particularly due to the mind set of America(including you) and it's various arms dealing with the subject, at that point of time.If in spite of all above you are still keen on Bush-bashing,then you have to catch him on some thing else. By the way,he is one of the most generous President to provide ample chances to all to catch him with his foot in his mouth any time and anywhere.Good hunting'

Answer 5

What was Bush to do? Contrary to what you might have seen on YouTube or Moveon.org, there was NO intel specifying in what manner the attacks would occur. There was NO intel specifying a time frame or location for the attacks. Was Bush then to act on rumors suggesting that an attach "might" occur and lock down the entire country?

You must understand that until 9/11, there had never been hijackings like we saw that day. Usually hijackings were committed by groups who stormed the airport by force and took their guns onto the plane and made demands. Still then, terrorists had never used airliners as suicide weapons.
Prior to 9/11, it was normal for people to show up at the airport with knives - if it was shorter than 3 inches, you could keep it on the plane with you. Now, what do you get when you have 4 or 5 thugs with 3 inch boxcutters who intend to kill the pilots? They're gonna do it. It is NOT the President's job to regulate what people take on an airplane. The director of the FAA is responsible for that. Even then, to that point, airport security never made people take off their shoes or conduct cavity searches, etc.

I have this arguement for you:

Bush was provided with the SAME information that Clinton was provided during his presidency. Taking into consideration that bush was in the White House an whopping 6 months before the attacks, he had a lot of stuff which he had to deal with. Perhaps it was Clinton's ill-attitude toward national security in ignoring the CIA intel, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and the hundreds of threats by Al Queda to the U.S. which provided the illusion to the brand new Bush administration that this was not a matter of priority.

Answer 6

He was warned by the Clinton people during the transition from one Administration to the next and by the CIA. He may have been asleep at the wheel or may have chosen not to heed the warnings seeing this as an opening that would justify a war against Iraq which he had been planning to do even before he was "elected".

Answer 7

The Bush administration continually warned Congress, beginning in "03, that the economy was in danger, but the Dems in Congress (especially Barney Franks) denied there was a problem and blocked any corrective action. Don't be so quick to blame Bush for everything. The only thing I blame him for was his failure to explain hardly anything to the people.

Answer 8

If he was asleep at the wheel then so was the previous administration because the 9/11 attack was in the works long before President Bush took office.

Answer 9

No he was not asleep at the wheel. But since you are all knowing, why don't you walk in the shoes of the thousands of intelligence folks who were trying to pin point where the attack was going to be? You Monday morning quarterbacks are getting rather tiresome.

Answer 10

Be honest. No one ever could imagine what kind of danger we were in with these ruthless terrorists. Bush is doing his share now in the fight against terrorism.

Answer 11

Yes.

Some of these posters have clearly never read the
911 Commission Report....