Puppet Masters
However, Rice did not mention how in 2001 the Bush White House failed to prevent terrorist attacks from Osama bin Laden, despite being warned numerous times.
It has already been made public that Clinton/Bush anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke gave the Bush White House a briefing on August 6, 2001 with the now-infamous heading 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.'
Now, the New York Times reports there were actually a series of warnings between May and August of 2001, which the Bush administration ignored.
On May 1, 2001, the Bush White House was told by the CIA that "a group presently in the United States" was planning a terrorist attack, reports the Daily Mail.
On June 22, 2001, the Bush White House was told an Al Qaeda attack could be "imminent."
However, the neoconservatives in the Pentagon told the Bush White House that the CIA had been fooled into believing bin Laden was preparing an attack to distract the U.S. from Saddam Hussein.
In response, the CIA prepared a brief on June 29, 2001 with over a page of evidence, including an interview with a journalist, in which aides to Bin Laden warned of an upcoming attack. That paper also said: "The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Osama bin Laden."
The CIA sent the Bush White House another warning on July 1, 2001 which said the terrorist attack had been delayed, but would soon take place.
President Bush was told on July 24 that the attack was still being prepared, but had been postponed by a few months.
President Bush requested a more detailed analysis of al Qaeda, which was the famous briefing created by Richard Clarke and given to the Bush White House on August 6, 2001.
Following 9/11, the Bush White House said it had never been told when or where the attacks would take place.
Amazingly, National Security Advisor Condi Rice wrote a March 22, 2004 column in the Washington Post that said: "No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration."
Reader Comments
Think back to the disco bombing in Germany. Mossad set up a clandestine transmitter in Tripoli and broadcast congratulations to the non-existent Libyan bombers. US intel took the bait, and Clinton ordered the bombing of Libya, killing Gaddafi's adopted daughter.
So why do people believe that the intel chatter, forecasting the airliner attacks against NYC, were legitimate?




...on the Gwenyth Todd story.
That story demonizes Richard Clarke and implicates some other military and government people in various questionable activities.
So here is the New York Times making out Mr. Clarke to be the guy who got it right and Bush to be the guy who got it wrong.
Why did Bush "ignore" the warnings? Probably because he knew about them already. Did Clarke know that Bush knew? Hm. Maybe not.
Bush is basically out of reach now, so it's OK to blame him for all this.
Do we yet know what REALLY happened? No.