Here it is the biggest scandal to hit the political spectrum since Watergate. In fact, it's bigger than Watergate.
For this scandal involves the actual re-writing of history, the cover-up of advance knowledge of the 9-11 attackers, the theft of top secret documents by a former Director of National Security, and, oddly, the cover up of the cover up by the current administration.
Let's start at the beginning.
It was election year 2004. Two and half years prior, the country had been attacked by Al-Qaeda in the form of several persons led by one Mohammed Atta.
A blue-ribbon commission is formed consisting of several very questionable members. Kind of like putting Kofi Annan on a blue ribbon panel to investigate corruption by the UN, Jamie Gorelick, assistant to Clinton FBI chief Janet Reno was tapped to be on the commission investigating the 9-11 attacks.
The timing of the whole commission was suspect to begin with. Why during an election year? And why so obviously was it formed during an election year that the results would be published before the election?
Why was an actor in the 9-11 mishap put on the commission?
Why was Sandy Berger caught stuffing top secret documents down his pants of all things? What was he stealing, read that as HIDING, from the 9-11 Commission? And what documents did he successfully destroy?
Because now we find out that not once, but on TWO occasions, a member of the Pentagon addressed the 9-11 Commission regarding an investigation by the Department of Military Intelligence called "Able-Danger." This investigation revealed not only Mohammed Atta, but three other members of the gang of 21 who rammed airplanes into our lawfully built buildings and killed over 3,000 Americans going about their lawful business. Able-Danger identified these guys as a danger to the country and targeted them as members of Al-Qaeda.
The Clinton administration was notified about Atta but unbelievably, a STICKY NOTE was put over the face of Atta. He was declared untouchable by the FBI at the time, as he was allegedly in the country legally. Never mind that this Able-Danger task force targeted him as a part of an Al-Qaeda cell in this country. Since he was in the country legally (and this is questionable) then all was fine.
So all Al-Qaeda cells were allowed to operate in the United States during the Clinton administration so long as its members managed to get an illegal driver's license or lie about being a student?
And members of the Clinton administration went to desperate lengths to hide this fact.
Don't tell me about Watergate. THIS is the exact sort of thing we don't want our government doing. And yet Willie J. and his politically ambitious wife managed to pull this off and effectively re-write history. To cover up advance knowledge of an attack on the United States makes Watergate pale in comparison.
For that 9-11 Commission report is now a part of history. So flawed an accounting of history that one can only hope that the Blogosphere rages with anger.
What was included in the 9-11 Commission report was NOT how it happened.
Oh, and those 9-11 Commission members?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - billy
"What was he stealing, read that as HIDING, from the 911 commission? And what documents did he successfully destroy?"
Why would you lie when the 9-11 commission admitted they had copies of the doc Berger allegedly took?
why would you blame Clinton, when we werent attacked during his presidency but were during bush's?
what did bush exactly do about this since he was in charge when we were hit?
2 - RJ
The 911 Commission has always lacked credibility. So, this is no surprise...
3 - ss
Your post contains this claim:
'Bush had no business covering this up that his election be unfettered and clouded with Clintonian debates.'
Patfish, I'm amused by your phony attempt to sound bipartisan when the fact that you are a right wing shill comes through loud and clear with every post.
Let me ask you this:
How would blaming Clinton hurt Bush?
Bush's most ardent supporters, like yourself, LOVE to blame Clinton.
Americans were killed in an attack on their own soil for the first time since WWII and your boy was in the White House when it happened. No historical gerrymandering is going to get that one out of the history books.
Bye Bye and stay beautiful baby.
4 - MSG John
"Bush's most ardent supporters, like yourself, LOVE to blame Clinton.
Americans were killed in an attack on their own soil for the first time since WWII "
Um, what exactly happened Feb 26 1993? Who was President then?
5 - Bennett
Hold on a second folks. Patfish may lean a little to the right, but her posts run the gamut, and it's not all (or even mostly) politics. The claim that this is smear is WAY premature.
The more I think about the site that gonzo turned BC on to a few days ago (They Rule, the more I think we're in really deep shit here in the good old USA.
Read the post again, and then tell me what you think.
Thanks.
6 - MSG John
"why would you blame Clinton, when we werent attacked during his presidency but were during bush's?"
Because the intel failure happened under Clinton's watch.
7 - billy
sure, clinton foiled the millenium bombing and tried to strike osama with a cruise missile BEFORE 9-11, bush was reading a childrens book and condoleeza never even heard of al qaeda. they had a year in power and did nothing. give me a break. clinton is a terror fighting champion next to bush, and the results showed.
8 - Pat Fish
. No historical gerrymandering is going to get that one out of the history books.
~~~~~
In 2004 62 MILLION Americans re-elected Bush. DESPITE the attacks you infer he is responsible for. THAT fact can never be taken out of the history books.
As for why I think going after Clinton would have hurt Bush, well I'm not sure. As stated, I don't believe for a minute the Bush administration didn't know about this Able-Danger.
Which by me, and your mileage may vary, was orchestrated by the Clinton admin to cover THEIR mistake. The fact that the Clinton Director of National Security was caught with classified documents in his pants means something to me. Again, your mileage may vary.
Yes, I'm a conservative. There's no secret there. But I know I'm a fair and decent person and I know I want my elected government to do the right thing beyond politics and their own personal gain. Lots of Bloggers think like this, silly me.
I think that Bush was avoiding any confrontation with Clinton. I'm thinking, but could be wrong, that Bush didn't want the campaign debate to be about the Clintons. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the appearance of looking like he was going after his predecessor.
The point is, ad hominym attacks aside, the Bush admin had to know this at the time. TODAY they're sending out Weldon to talk it up.
Make no mistake though, this is a Clinton coverup and nothing less.
Your mileage may vary.
Some people rather like having their feet peed upon while being told it's raining.
I do not.
9 - MSG John
"clinton foiled the millenium bombing "
An alert and lucky border guard foiled the Millenium Bomber. Not intel, not Clinton.
"tried to strike osama with a cruise missile "
And delayed ordering that strike--result, Osama got away. And he also revealed how we were keeping tabs on Osama, causing ObL to change tactics.
10 - Jewels
Re: Comment 8: Pat Fish -Amen to that! So glad to find sane comments on a highly debated and very often convoluted, manipulated story.
Too bad Bill had to spend so much time spooging on Monica's nice dresses.
This comment:
"The fact that the Clinton Director of National Security was caught with classified documents in his pants means something to me."
Seems to me the Clinton administration is rather summed up by this trite, yet illegal scenario of this individual smuggling out docs in his pants.
(Have you seen the Dick Cheney pic yet? It's on another page. Clinton would absolutely die of envy with his complete preoccupation of his own pants.)
11 - WhatTheHeck
F-up was on Clinton's watch, but thing is that according to this guy, Bush canceled the programs Clinton was trying to put in place right up to the transition anyways.
No winners here. Ordinary people must demand the truth, no matters where it leads. It's not like we are keeping secrets from Al-Qaeda about this now.
12 - RogerMDillion
"Perhaps he wanted to avoid the appearance of looking like he was going after his predecessor."
Perhaps he wanted to avoid reminding America how things were running better under a Democratic President?
13 - Jewels
Re: Billy,
Dear Billy,
You sweet boy. Do you not realize, wait let's review your comment, "Why would you blame Clinton, when we weren't attacked during his presidency but were during Bush's?" (corrected some grammatical errors, punctuation, etc.. couldn't help myself.) Osama Bin Laden and his thug terrorist 'gang' had the plans of attacking NYC in the works DURING Mr. Clinton's term, (he was too busy spooging on Monica's dress, and getting BJ's all around the White House to notice) there were numerous warnings and intelligence (noun) being sent out, but carefully kept descreet by his admin. Do you know why these matters were not being addressed and then taken care of as they should have been and quite possibly then avoided 9/11?
Here is one theory: the Clinton's wanted to leave open the legacy of what a GREAT FREAKING PRESIDENCY they were leaving the American people! Yes, prosperity. (Oh, yeah, that proved to be a bit of a paper tiger when discovered so many corporations were falsely upping their profits, and what about the technology industry? Yeah that.) What else... I'm thinking, perhaps some really informed left-wingers could enlighten me. Hmm. Whitewater. No I'm not talking about a fun trip to Colorado. I could go on.
14 - billy
maybe you should ask bush. he had time but did nothing for a year, so nice try blaming the past great president for the present miserable failure of bush, but it wont work. you are of the type who chanted "no blood for monica" when he tried to kill osama. you didnt even know who osama was and claimed it was just a medicine factory. so what do republicans know about terror besides blustering, political posturing, and distracting the president over his private life when he was trying to keep us safe?
15 - Victor Plenty
Your photo for this story is a forgery, a ludicrously bad forgery at that. At first glance it might pass undetected, but even the most cursory inspection reveals it is not an image of Atta's photo with a real sticky note on it. Instead, the image of an entire pad of sticky notes has been clumsily pasted on top of some old file photo. Your arguments are just as poorly constructed, Patfish.
Knowledge of an operating al-Qaeda cell in the United States is absolutely not the same thing as "advance knowledge of an attack."
Investigators often keep tabs on known enemy operatives. Instead of arresting or deporting these people, smart investigators watch them carefully to learn their goals, their methods, and the identities of other enemy operatives who are still not yet known.
Obviously something went horribly wrong with that process in the case of Atta and his confederates. With their identities known to the government, it should have been possible to watch them more closely and prevent the September 11 attacks.
However, we still have never seen enough evidence to know who really dropped the ball. Did the Clinton administration spitefully neglect to pass along crucial knowledge to the Bush administration? Did Bush's people arrogantly ignore what Clinton's people tried to tell them? Or did something else go wrong, without Bush's or Clinton's people being the bad guys?
If anybody has been able to find out the real truth, they have failed to present any argument solid enough to convince anyone except the people who already hate Clinton, hate Bush, or hate both.
16 - billy
"Did Bush's people arrogantly ignore what Clinton's people tried to tell them?"
likely, because they were so intent on invading iraq, bush just "didnt think about osama a whole lot." (Bush's words AFTER 9-11)
17 - Dave Nalle
"why would you blame Clinton, when we werent attacked during his presidency but were during bush's?"
Um, we WERE attacked during Clinton's presidency, also by agents associated with Al Qaeda, also at the WTC.
As for why Atta and others weren't arrested at that time, my understanding has always been that they were specifically not arrested so they could be tracked and used to locate other undercover terrorists, but that the project was mismanaged and the FBI lost track of them over the years.
Dave
18 - Bennett
Yeah, but the photo IS fucking lame.
Not that that changes anything, or not.
19 - Rich
I would suggest reading Richard Clark's book "Against All Enemies", if you haven't already.
With hope some of you will give Richard Clark a chance to explain his perspective.
20 - Marc
Billy:
You're such a hack Billy it's unbelievable!A few questions for you billy.
How did Clinton "stop" the millenium bombing? NEVERMIND, you'll only spout your typical nonsense. Here's the correct answer, NOTHING, Clinton did nothing. The millenium bomber was stopped BY CHANCE by an alert Canadian boarder officer.
And lets compare shall we. Clinton lobbed a cruise missle at Osama. Bush although not captureing Osama as yet took out his entire infrastructure.
billy here is the most important question and relates to the USS Cole. You remember it don't you?
On October 12, 2000, al-Qaeda operatives in a small boat laden with explosives attacked the USS Cole while on a refueling in Aden, Yemen
Question why did Clinton LET it happen?
In January of 2000, a man known as 'Khallad' had completed his work in helping plan the destruction of a U.S. warship visiting Yemen, the U.S.S. The Sullivans. The attack had just failed because the boat filled with explosives had sunk.
So again billy why did Clinton LET IT HAPPEN, knowing one attempt failed. Yet he sent the USS Cole into the same post?
Why billy, why?
21 - ss
MSG-
I spoke in anger and I was wrong.
In that I left the '93 bombing of the WTC out when I claimed we hadn't been attacked on our soil since WWII.
As to the main aim of this post, conservatives trying to lick their wounds by blaming Clinton for the attack that happened on GW's watch.
That is exactly what your doing.
Everyone knows you people blame Clinton for the price of gas if you could find a way to twist some facts.
No one who doesn't listen to Limbaugh takes your claims seriously.
22 - Bob Blogdal
Well Billy, looks like your spin didn't spin, Firstly Clinton was an awsome president getting a little extra action or not. So lets leave Clinton out of all this. pres, Bush reversed or negated everything concernig Bin Ladin that Clinton had in place in the first 100 days making us more vulnerable.Bin Ladin purposefully waited for Bush to become president to attack, not only that, this current admin was hoping to utilize the attack politically from the get go. The Bin Ladin family and the Bush family are very close, there is more here than meets the eye. Everything you are witnessing, the dragging on of the war, missing Bin Ladin , raising oil prices are all a carefully crafted plan by this admin to appease, the Saudis and for us to do their dirty work,what is that you ask? the Saudis had a little problem and still do called Bin Ladin. they had it in for us on Oil prices and a pact was made to hit America up for more cash for gas way before the elections even begun. Halliburton is in this up to there eye balls as is Cheney and Rice. They think Americans are simpletons and fools and can not see the forest for the trees. How do you justify the way this war has been handled, you cannot, it has been underfunded and undermaned since day one to purposelly drag it on a while, we remove millions of barreles of oil from Iraq evry day moving it into our reserves and reselling it on the open market , and mind you making a killing , no pun intended. lets look at Fallujah everyone remembers it, for two weeks prior to the invasion the Bush people did what is refered to as telegraphing your blow. Every day on the media they release info stating what they where going to do and when. This my friends is a tactic to drag the war on and allow the insugrents to move on in time to fight another day, or it is the military being guided by idiots take your pick. I do not blame the Generals who told us how to win and I back our troops 150% however they were duped by this admin. I am not saying Bush is in with Bin ladin but his family are very close frineds and have had dinner at each others home, so it does not suprise me that Bush dragged his feet to get Bin Ladin, and secondly he nedded this to drag on as long as possible. What I am saying is Bush used Bin Ladin to his advantage to expand a game plan that was years in the making. Now why was it so important to go into Iraq, because the EU and UN were normalizing Saddam and Iraq and bringing them into the European fold, any longer and Saddam would of been untouchable. what is really going on here is this, Russia, France , Germany were all dealing with and getting oil from Saddam. This was happening at a time when we are in a trade war with the EU, with a growing trade deficit , we needed Iraq to put a strong arm hold on the EU and force better trade negotiations with them. It has worked to a point , but the price we paid for this bold move is to become islolated in the world and looked at as a paryah nation. Saddam was not a threat to us physically he was a threat to us in the long run finacially. The Saudis, Bush, Cheney , Rove had all this planned out long before he ever ran for office of president. If you can not see how Bush works by now you never will. Clinton was the most effective president of the modern era, and well loved with high approval ratings even at the end. What is going on now falls directly on the Bush admin and their lack of diplomatic and military know how, or their crazy plan to appease the saudis and pocket some cash for their friends.
23 - Bob Blogdal
Jewel, your take is a little off base as well, firstly Clinton did not try to hide what was going on with Bin Ladin, only in the sense that he had snipers and strikes to kill him ongoing, which is something that should be kept quiet. When Bush became president the gas prices started to rise, from 99 cents to now 3.00$ a gallon, why? simple Bush is trying to play the world market game, during Clinton the US dollar was outpacing the rest of the world making commerce on the open world market wince. By taking the gas prices up moved our dollar down and hence or dollar today is in line with other world traders namely the Euro and American dollar are more inline. There is nothing wrong with our economy right now other than that it has been manipulated, to drive our dollar down to help with, CAFTA, WTO and world trade. What America has had to trade off with this scenario is our standard of living which must take a hit for us to not outpace the other worlds markets. Bush eliminated the Clean Air Act the Clean Water act, what we are giving up to appease corporate entities is stagering and will bite us in the ass in the end. Now here is the good news and Bush understands this, after his game is played the wealthy who play the markets can then make a killing as our DOW rises as it will when Democrats once again fix the economy, this is an old game.
24 - billy
Holy Cow Bob Blogdal, long post:
"Bush reversed or negated everything concernig Bin Ladin that Clinton had in place in the first 100 days making us more vulnerable"
I agree here, which goes to my post: Bush was intent on getting Iraq, at the expense of al qaeda and it came back and bit him on the ass, and his apologists are still trying to spin years later and make excuses why it happened on his watch.
the cole bombing was like a mosquito bite, then when bush takes over we die of cancer.
who is better on terror?
25 - Bob Blogdal
Sorry for so long a post, it just all infuriates me, like many of you I gather.