Posted on 05/21/2006 7:50:06 AM PDT by yoe
Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter at the center of the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby case, reveals that she received advance word about a terrorist plot that turned out to be 9/11 - but the Times spiked the story.
Miller spent 85 days in jail before finally disclosing that Libby was the source who confirmed to her that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative.
Miller - who's no longer with the Times - never wrote a story about Plame. But she's more troubled by another story that didn't run - the one about 9/11.
Miller began investigating al-Qaida after the terrorist group's October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen.
Over the weekend before July 4, 2001, there were strong indications that terrorists were planning to attack the U.S. or a major American target elsewhere, Miller said in an interview with Scott Malone and Rory O'Connor that appeared on the Web site NavySEALS.com.
The attack never materialized. But that weekend "I did manage to have a conversation with a source," she told the interviewers.
"The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up. The incident that had gotten everyone's attention was a conversation between two members of al-Qaida. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the Cole.
"One al-Qaida operative was overheard saying to the other, "Don't worry; we're planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.'
"I was obviously floored by that information. I thought it was a very good story - the source was impeccable, the information was specific, tying al-Qaida operatives to, at least, knowledge of the attack on the Cole, and they were warning that something big was coming, to which the United States would have to respond. This struck me as a major Page 1-potential story."
However, when Miller met with her editor Stephen Engelberg, he was critical, noting that Miller didn't know who the operatives were, where they were overheard or what attack they were planning.
"At that point I realized I didn't have the whole story," Miller said. She continued to probe, but couldn't turn up enough information to satisfy Engelberg.
The story never ran. And two months later came al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks.
Engelberg, now managing editor of The Oregonian in Portland, told the Columbia Journalism Review: "More than once I've wondered what would have happened if we'd run the piece. A case can be made that it would have been alarmist and I just couldn't justify it, but you can't help but think maybe I made the wrong call."
Said Miller: "Sometimes in journalism you regret the stories you do; but most of the time you regret the ones that you didn't do."
Sort of naive of you ... Iran is setting itself up for an attack to try and revive their revolution. Saudi's have too much oil we need and continue to pretend they're our friends. We will not do anything to SA regardless of how many terrorists leave there and come to slaughter Americans.
I don't believe that statement is accurate.
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Ano now the...
...Enemy Within BILL CLINTON is busy once again attempting to keep us from seeing the threat to our very own LIBERTY his lifelong terrroist allies really do pose to the rest of us:
BILL CLINTON: Global Warming Bigger Threat Than terrorism
http://www.Newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/21/101445.shtml
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+
Also, declaring war on Al-Qaeda would have hurt Clinton's chances for a Nobel Peace Prize. By focusing on his "legacy", he made sure he didn't have one. Clinton was only willing to go to war for Muslims against Christians, not the other way around.
MSM typically loves to propagate stories that lash out at Bush. Miller's story may appeal to MSM because it ultimately paints Bush as a belligerent hapless buffoon - a pawn exploited by an infinitely more intelligent and politically astute bin Laden.
And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the Cole.
I am so glad that Judith stuck to her guns as a reporter and did not give in to the moral question of saving American lives.!!!!!!!!!!!NOT!!!!!!!!!
How sad, I feel for a person that only thinks within the box of her narrow convictions.
Please give me some simple realistic examples....that would have stopped 9-11.
Isn’t Miller admitting she knew of a crime that was about to take place and refused to report it? That means she could be up for at least manslaughter charges couldn’t she?
Jimmy Carter is a communist.....He should have all his retirement, library taken away from him because of all this asshole comments against this country he's made. There MUST be something done to these x presidents when they conduct their selves in this manner!!!! They'd keep their stupid mouths shut if they had these types of consequences to face!!! COMMIE CARTER IS A DISGRACE...
If Jamie Gorelick allowed information to be passed to the FBI we could have asked Muhammad Atta personally that question before 911.
Thanks, yes, I've read it. The first thought that came to mine: "Beslan." Absolutely chilling.
"At that point I realized I didn't have the whole story," Miller said.
It was only at this point she realized she didn't have the whole story?
Is this woman truly so dense she needed her editor to point out the obvious to her?
Pretty.
ouch ... thank you
What?!
You don't believe Comrade Miller was given access to TS SIGINT?
Nobody gets in the cockpit. Period. Aircraft maneuvers, inversions, everything allowed. Land ASAP.
Nope.
That being said, there is no way to say...definitively that 9-11 would or wouldn't have been prevented even if they had been in place.
And that was my point....Hindsight is 15-20....but we don't have that luxury. FWIW-
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