Bush Failed to Protect Us on 9/11

by Duckman GR

Why do you think he'd do any better now? And if you do, what would you base that on? The rise in terrorism and terrorism related death all over the world since 9/11? The fact that the Taliban are coming back in Afghanistan and we're stuck in a spiraling out of control war in Iraq?

Elizabeth Drew writes in the New York Review of books on the 9/11 Commission report. I urge you to, if nothing else, read her article, and if you doubt her story, read the report. She correctly points out that while they never “said” Bush was to blame, the whole damn report just screams it out. And when it comes to the response to the PDB titled “bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” well, we know what that was:

The CIA analysts told the commissioners that they put all the relevant information they could into the PDB in order to get the President's attention. The report tells us that this was the thirty-sixth Presidential Daily Brief so far that year related to bin Laden and al-Qaeda—though the first to warn of a possible attack on the United States itself.

After the alarming PDB was presented to the President, nothing happened. The commission reports dryly,

We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States.

No meetings were convened to demand that the relevant intelligence officials search for pertinent evidence that might be found within their agencies—such as the Phoenix memo or the various conversations between the FBI's Washington headquarters and an FBI agent in Minneapolis, who warned that he was concerned that Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a plane and crash it into a major building.

She had also noted that [i]n one of its more astonishing discoveries, the commission found that George Tenet spoke to President Bush, who was at his ranch in Texas for six weeks during the summer, only twice during the month of August (once in a routine briefing after Bush had returned to Washington).

NOTHING HAPPENED. Get it? He did nothing. W stands for Wrong. And it also stands for Nero.

[update 10:30 pm 9/13/04]

One of our brilliant commenters pointed out a spelling manglement clearly attributable to an evil doer. That should read as: That dolt continued to take his fake vacation on his fake ranch doing fake chores, not choirs, although I could add a crack about preaching to his false choir, but I won't.

That dolt continued to take his fake vacation on his fake ranch doing fake chores, while al Queda operatives crawled on their stinking bellies closer to their foul goal. While his precious Condi did, what, stupid parlor tricks?

As the 9/11 reports tells us, there was no coordination, no bush shaking, no nothin. The terror light was blinking red, and the whole Bush Brain trust sat on their asses and did nothing. And as we were reminded this weekend, 3000 people died because of the insanity of religious fundamentalism, and the incompetence of George W Bush.

And spare me the tragic events transformed Bush into some decisive and resolute leader. What did Bush do after the children were assured of his calmness and goodness? He hung around for a photo-op. He meandered, took his sweet time. Follow this time line for what the great and resolute leader did on that beautiful and deadly day.

And then, even when he does take action, he stills screws it up. As larre writes here about Juan Cole's commentary, ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan.

And why did we do that? Because Bush wanted to avenge his daddy, and Cheney and the neoncons took full advantage of his petulant desires to advance that agenda. That absurd and illusory fantasy of American Might remaking the middle east.

Didn't anybody learn anything from the shooting of Don VIto Corleone? Never let them know that you're interested, that desire is a key that can be turned, and bush's key got turned Big Time.

Yes, we are re-making it alright, but not in any kind of a desireable manner. Unless they really do want a Shia fundamentalist governnment in Iraq, or a civil war that could potentially involve, ready, Kurds, Shia's, Sunni's, Iranians, Turks, Isaeli's, Saudi's, Pakistani's, Uzbekhs, Chechniyan's, Russian's, Syrian's, Palestinian's, Afghani's, Talibanistas, oh, it's a long list, it's quite the can of corn these jackals have opened for the profits of oil and government contracts for the M.I.C.

Yeah, I feel so much safer, don't you.

Read that timeline, you might get an eyeful.