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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
 Thu Apr 29, 2004 4:47 pm
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Bush, Cheney Questioned Over Sept. 11 Attacks
1 hour, 4 minutes ago
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney faced questions on Thursday from the Sept. 11 commission about whether they considered al Qaeda an urgent priority before the catastrophic attacks and if they could have done more to counter the threat.
In a historic session with potential election-year ramifications, Bush and Cheney sat down in the Oval Office promptly at 9:30 a.m. EDT with the panel of five Republicans and five Democrats to answer questions for possibly several hours.
Bush agreed under pressure from victims' families and the commission to answer questions from all panel members, but only on condition he have Cheney at his side and they meet in private, with no recording of the session. They were not under oath.
The meeting took place in the very heart of presidential power, the Oval Office, rather than in a room that would have provided a traditional table-and-chair setting.
Bush and Cheney took up opposite seats in front of the fireplace, and commission members were clustered in the room on couches and chairs.
Bush was joined by White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales and two other, unidentified White House lawyers who were there to take notes. The commission was allowed to bring one staffer for note-taking.
Past testimony has established that elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus were aware of threats to American targets from the militant al Qaeda network, led by Osama bin Laden, before the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks.
Bush was braced for close questioning about his response to an Aug. 6, 2001, presidential intelligence memo entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In US." It said al Qaeda members were in the United States and that the FBI had detected suspicious patterns of activity "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks."
Bush was likely to be asked why he did not launch the U.S. government into battle stations based on the memo, which he received while on vacation in Texas.
Bush has already said the memo's usefulness was limited because it did not point to a specific target and did not provide "actionable intelligence." He was unlikely to give any ground on that position.
"This is a good opportunity for the president to sit down with members of the commission and talk to them about the seriousness with which we took the threat from al Qaeda, the steps we were taking to confront it, and how we have been responding to the attacks of September 11," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said after the meeting got started.
Bush's advisers were worried the commission's findings will be critical of the president, who is running for re-election in November on his record of fighting terrorism. The panel is working to complete its final report by July 26, well into the campaign season.
"It's good to see that after opposing and then stonewalling it, President Bush and Vice President Cheney will finally be testifying before the 9/11 commission," said Chad Clanton, a campaign spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
"Let's hope they are open and forthcoming," Clanton said.
A Harris Poll released on Wednesday said 62 percent of those polled believed the Bush administration was warned by intelligence reports "about possible terrorist attacks in this country."
Bush, who initially opposed creation of the independent commission, was likely to be asked what he had done to prepare the United States for the possibility of al Qaeda attacks in the months after they took office.
Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has said Bush did not heed his warnings that al Qaeda was an urgent threat. |
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Ellyn
Joined: 16 Jul 2000
Posts: 4458
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Sun May 09, 2004 5:54 am
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http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=148
FAA 9/11 TAPE DESTROYED
Update (05/0 : Matthew L. Wald's report from Sep11th
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements
NY Times May 6
WASHINGTON, May 6 — At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said today...
The taping began before noon on Sept. 11 at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island, but it was later destroyed by an F.A.A. quality-assurance manager, who crushed the cassette in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.
The inspector general had been asked by Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, to look into how well the Federal Aviation Administration had cooperated with the 9/11 Commission.
The quality-assurance manager told investigators that he had destroyed the tape because he thought making it was contrary to F.A.A. policy, which calls for written statements, and because he felt that the controllers "were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping" because of the stress of the day.
Please also check out:
The lost war drill?
Flight 11-The Twin Flight
Update (05/0 : Matthew L. Wald's report from Sep11th
(*thx to Woody Box)
NY Times (Mirror)
"...For example, at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in
Ronkonkoma, which handles long-distance traffic around the New York
metropolitan area, the first inkling of a hijacking that most
controllers had was when a supervisor came to the cafeteria and asked
if he could change the television channel to CNN.
"Our TV's are always tuned to ESPN," one controller said.
The television screen showed one tower of the World Trade Center with
a hole in it. "We didn't know what kind, what airplane. There were
rumors it was a 737," the controller said. "We said, `No way, it
would be a much bigger hole.' We were watching, and we saw the second
one go in."
In the darkened, windowless cavern that is the operations floor of
the center, most controllers did not learn of the twin hijackings
until their colleagues came up from the cafeteria...."
Woody's Timeline:
8:44:38 R42: can you turn that DAL2433 a little bit to the right they
got that Eagle flight in there and the guy at 310 that they wanted to
look at this American to see what altitude he is at can you put him
on a 290 heading and stop the DAL1489 beneath him.
After 8:44 Am Flight 11 "officially must have been dropped" from the radar,
but "R42" didn't recognise it,
because he didn't ask, what happened.
It would be interesting to find out, who "R42" is.
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun May 09, 2004 7:40 pm
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Geee.....absolutely NO suprise here.
Of course they destroyed it. Along with those NYC firefighter radio tapes as well.
--------
http://www.letsroll911.org/
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