Posted on 09/11/2012 6:38:29 PM PDT by Kaslin
On this solemn day, most of the nation mourns the loss of life that occurred on this day eleven years ago and contemplates the changes that have occurred since then. Most, but not all. Kurt Eichenwald, contributing editor for Vanity Fair and writer for the New York Times, published an inflammatory op-ed accusing former President Bush of not preventing the attacks:
“While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed.”
Trust me, he tells us. He read the documents and knows that the administration responded with “negligence.” This is no light accusation. Eichenwald is accusing the President of knowingly putting the American people at risk. Exactly why President Bush would do this is never specified beyond the explanation that, “the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled…” The evil and ever elusive “neo-cons” were behind this alleged (and completely undocumented) negligence.
According to Eichenwald, solid evidence demonstrating an imminent threat was outlined in Presidential Daily Briefings. The same briefings Bush attended religiously because he prioritized our national security. Eichenwald cites the most damning:
“By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible….Operatives connected to Bin Laden, one reported on June 29, expected the planned near-term attacks to have ‘dramatic consequences,’ including major casualties. On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but ‘will occur soon.’”
What could the President have done with this information? They believed there was a group planning an attack soon. Where were they planning? What would this attack look like? What are the names of the people involved? If these details, which would help Eichenwald’s case, were present in the documents he obtained, why would he not include those? All this proves, if it is to be taken at face value, is that there was a threat, not that Bush didn’t take it seriously or could have prevented it.
Eichenwald insists on drawing broader conclusions though, despite the limited nature of the facts before him. He reaches a new level of indecency and complete disregard for history when he continues:
“Yet, the White House failed to take significant action…Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can’t ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all.”
Eichenwald’s whole argument falls apart with these sentences. It’s a cop out to speculate that had someone acted differently, the outcome would have been different. This could be said about anything. It’s demonstrative of Eichenwald’s ignorance and eagerness to throw Bush under the bus that he doesn’t say what this different action would look like.
In an interview this morning on Morning Joe, Eichenwald could not defend himself and was completely torn apart by Former NY Governor Pataki:
Eichenwald asserts that the Clinton-Gore administration understood the changing roles of nation-states better than the Bush administration. Since President Bush did not, according to Eichenwald, accept this view of the evolving system of international relations, he was fooled. But when asked by Jon Meacham if a hypothetical President Gore could have taken some mysterious, unnamed preventative action and stopped 9/11 from happening, Eichenwald cannot answer definitively.
It’s easy to retroactively look back and say things should have been done differently. It’s harder to lead through those difficult times and take the necessary actions to make America secure again, as Bush did. Governor Pataki could not have said it better:
“To look 11 years later and say, ‘this was happening before September 11th, in the summer,’ and to go through and selectively take out quotes and say, ‘you should have done that, you should have done that,’ I think is incredibly unfair and a disservice to history.”
Eichenwald’s a stinky little fart.
GW Bush was not negligent, even Bill Clinton was not negligent.
I am sick to death of fracking liberals blaming GW Bush for everything.
There were hundreds and hundreds of documents..........unfortunately the people looking at these documents made mistakes.
The ONLY people responsible were the followers of islam.
islam wants to kill us, they have been saying so since Thomas Jefferson.
What was in the documents Sandy Berger stole and destroyed during the 911 hearings —Clinton cover up anybody
Clinton
first WTC attack
flight 800
Embassy bombings
USS Cole
twice turned down ops to take out UBL
too busy staining a blue dress
Same reporters would have been outraged at the arrest of the terrorists prior the attack.
Same faction now upset at all measures taken to stop all future attacks.
Give NYC to the Arabs for peace,
They can have it,.
Little Nazi fags can be so obnoxious sometimes. Yo Kurt! KMA!
It's easy, after the fact, to go back and find “irrefutable” intelligence indicating a given attack would occur. The truth is, there was also irrefutable evidence of 999 other possible attacks as well.
This is what makes intel such a thankless job. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, you're wrong.
There’s a reason none of the planes crashed into the New York Times building ~ and it’s not a nice one.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20070307eichenwald.jpg
2007
Former New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald was in an Ann Arbor, Michigan, courtroom this morning, a witness in a child-porn prosecution captioned State of Michigan v. Kenneth Gourlay. But when Eichenwald took the stand, it could have been renamed “$2,000 Check v. Journalism 101” — and Eichenwald’s testimony showed he knows he broke the rules.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/03/times_prostitute_rescuer_eiche.html
Hard to "connect the dots" when you only have 1/2 of the picture.
Mark
only twice?
scum attack ..what a low nasty thing to do on 911..
Kurt Eichenwald - former speechwriter for candidate Walter Mondale’s Presidential race
Did you see the docudrama, Path to 9-11?
This Disney picture makes a clear case of negligence preceding the Bush Administration.
This jackass reporter is attempting to rewrite history.
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