Category Archives: Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals

So know we know about the smoking gun: GW Bush got a memo entitled BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK INSIDE UNITED STATES.

And they did nothing.

And that's why the administration made such a fight about releasing the PDB's to the 9/11 Commission.

When the 9/11 commission was created, I think no one who hadn't seen this memo could have imagined it would exist. I don't care how much Dr. Rice and the others spin the memo as “historical” or failing to spell out what should be done to the last detail. Short of capturing a memo stating the date, place and time of an attack, what more do you want? Do Presidents get memos like this every day? I rather doubt it.

In a normal world we might actually be having a serious conversation about impeachment at this point. Sleeping at the switch is serious. But we'll have to content ourselves with an election. Let's hope they count the votes this time. And remember that sometimes — sometimes — even the conspiracy theories are not damning enough.

Update: Billmon and others were struck by this also. Billmon, however, says that the title of the August 6, 2001 presidential briefing was mentioned in a news article by Bob Woodward published May, 2002. I missed it, and so it seems did he.

Which I suppose proves my point that no quanity of evidence of negligence matters here, except to the election. In that context having the telegenic Dr. Rice say this title on camera — and then beat around the bush to denigrate its significance — is much more important than having it on the Common Dreams web page. But it certainly disproves my point above that no one could have imagined such a damning memo. (New question, why didn't any of the articles over the legalistic fights over the PDB's mention this title?)

Meanwhile I've acquired the Clarke book…

There is a sleeper (waking?) witness on Bush & 9/11: Sibel Edmonds, a translator who alleges that she was bougt off witgh a promotion to keep silent about the adminstration ignoring evidence that suggested an attack was being planned. (I first blogged Ms. Edmonds in January. She's interesting.)

Salon has an article quoting Edmonds as saying,

Referring to the Homeland Security Department's color-coded warnings instituted in the wake of 9/11, the former translator, Sibel Edmonds, told Salon, “We should have had orange or red-type of alert in June or July of 2001. There was that much information available.” Edmonds is offended by the Bush White House claim that it lacked foreknowledge of the kind of attacks made by al-Qaida on 9/11. “Especially after reading National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice [Washington Post Op-Ed on March 22] where she said, we had no specific information whatsoever of domestic threat or that they might use airplanes. That's an outrageous lie. And documents can prove it's a lie.”