[lbo-talk] RE: They simply 'failed'

[Joseph Wanzala]

Most of the progressive left have spent the last two years running 
interference for the Bush administration giving Bush & Co. lots of time to 
get their story straight about their 'failure' to prevent the attacks. The 
notion that 'Bush Knew' was either ignored and when it was addressed it was 
only to attack and ridicule those who raised the issue as 'conspiracists'. 
Now it turns out that they knew much more than even the left (Steve Rendell, 
Amy Goodman, Norman Solomon, Larry Bensky) was willing to allow. Now that it 
has been established that they could have prevented it - I think we need to 
explore the question that Arlen Specter has raised" - why did they 'let it 
happen'? (which incidentally, has essentially been the position of the much 
maligned Michael Ruppert).

http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/911-preventable.htm

"This was not something that had to happen. They simply failed."

— Thomas H. Kean, Chair of the independent commission investigating 9/11. 
Kean is a Republican appointed by Bush

"They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap, and 
they didn't do anything to prevent it."

— Senator Richard Shelby, then ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence 
Committee; member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11

"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots. I 
think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they didn't 
act on it."

— Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican member of the joint intelligence 
committee that investigated 9/11

"There were lots of warnings."

— Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

"Should we have known? Yes, we should have. Could we have known? Yes, I 
believe we could have because of the hard targets [CIA operatives were 
tracking]."

— Representative Porter Goss, Chairman of the House Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence; Republican co-chairman of the joint intelligence 
committee that investigated 9/11

"I cannot say for sure that there wasn't a possibility we could have come 
across some lead that would have led us to the hijackers."

— FBI Director Robert Mueller

"As of September 10th, each of us knew everything we needed to know to tell 
us there was a possibility of what happened on September 11th."

— Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff (described by the Associated 
Press as "the Bush administration's top anti-terrorism prosecutor")

"Had one human being or a common group of human beings sat down with all 
that information, we could have gotten to the hijackers before they flew 
those four airplanes either into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the 
ground of Pennsylvania."

— Senator Bob Graham, then Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence; Democratic co-chairman of the joint intelligence panel that 
investigated 9/11

"If you put all those pieces together, I don't say you could have prevented 
September 11th, but there might have been some warning, had it been handled 
properly."

— Vice President Dick Cheney

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