QandO

March 30, 2004

Excerpts from the 9-11 Interim Report
Posted by McQ

While perusing the 9-11 commission interim report, I came across this ... emphasis is mine:

By early 1997 intelligence and law enforcement officials in the U.S. government had finally received reliable information disclosing the existence of al Qaeda as a worldwide terrorist organization. That information elaborated a command-and-control structure headed by Bin Ladin and various lieutenants, described a network of training camps to process recruits, discussed efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and placed al Qaeda at the center among other groups affiliated with them in its “Islamic Army.”

This information also dramatically modified the picture of inchoate “new terrorism” presented in the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate. But the new picture was not widely known. It took still more time before officials outside the circle of terrorism specialists, or in foreign governments, fully comprehended that the enemy was much larger than an individual criminal, more than just one man, “UBL,” and “his associates.”

For example, in 1996 Congress passed a law that authorized the Secretary of State to designate foreign terrorist organizations that threaten the national security of the United States—a designation that triggers economic, immigration, and criminal consequences.

Al Qaeda was not designated by the Secretary of State until the fall of 1999.

So al Qaeda was finally, officially identified as a terrorist organization which was a threat to the US in 1997. One assumes Richard Clarke was in on this.

You'd guess then, based on Clarke's testimony that terrorism was the Clinton administrations highest priority that they immediately took action to eliminate the threat or at least neutralize it.

Yet it was not until 2+ years later that al Qaeda was actually designated as such by the Clinton administration.

So it took Clarke and the Clintion administration 4 years to identify al Qaeda, and once identified, almost 3 more years to get the organization designated as one which threatened the national security of the US? Even after they identified al Qaeda as implicit in the Khobar Towers and Embassy bombings?

Why? No answer's been given for that question.

Yet Clarke continues to claim that somehow the new Bush administration should have recognized in 7 months what it took him and the Clinton administration 7 years to put together.

They took 7 years to tie OBL to the organization al Quada. 7 years. If this doesn't speak VOLUMES concerning the price we paid for gutting our intelligence capability during the Clintion years, I don't know what does. And let us not forget, Kerry wanted to cut it back even further.

Remember as well, this is the SAME intelligence apparatus the Bush administration inherited from Clinton. Remember too that the Bush administration, per Clarke, immediately increased the budget 5 fold in an effort to "eliminate" al Qaeda.

But that's not the real kicker. We now have a terrorist organization which has been designated as a threat to the NATIONAL SECURITY of the US, and the Clinton administration does what about it? It does this:

While Afghanistan became a sanctuary for al Qaeda, the State Department’s interest in Afghanistan remained limited. Initially after the Taliban’s rise, some State diplomats were, as one official said to us, willing to “give the Taliban a chance” because it might be able to bring stability to Afghanistan. A secondary consideration was that stability would allow an oil pipeline to be built through the country, a project to be managed by the Union Oil Company of California, or UNOCAL.

Translation? So the guy who blew up Khobar Towers, the USS Cole and the two African Embassies is in Afganistan along with the bulk of his terror organization and we know it, but the extremist authoritarian Islamic regime presently in Afganistan (i.e. the Taliban) "might be able to bring stability to Afganistan" so we'll essentially ignore it. And besides, there's a chance we might benefit from an oil pipeline if we give them a "second chance".

Amazing. That's the CLINTON administration (namely Albright) giving OBL a pass ... not Bush. Its Albright's department wanting to give the Taliban, and thereby al Qaeda, a "second chance".

And they did ...

We call it "9/11".

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