[tw]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

I also listen to Radio Havana for a dose of their decidedly political propaganda.

6.000 Mhz if I remember. Have not listened to them or Radio China for a while. Winter will make better reception.

Meanwhile, the well published excerpt from Woodward's book: From the Washington Post of 1 Oct 2006:

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director. ...

But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the National Security Agency intercepts and other intelligence. Could all this be a grand deception? Rumsfeld had asked. Perhaps it was a plan to measure U.S. reactions and defenses.

Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."

Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.

The United States had human and technical sources, and all the intelligence was consistent, the two men told Rice. ...

Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies. ...

Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.

The anti-ballastic missile system which does not work, costs $billions, and unilaterally destroyed but another international treaty was more important to George Jr's administration - according to these people. Even Richard Clark's anti-terrorist group was removed from a White House that was literally still fighting a cold war - even fearing attacks from China. It further explains why Colin Powell had to defuse what could have been a war over a silly spy plane. Cold war type mentality was Rice's, et al attitude back then. Anti-ballastic missile system, due to what their political agenda insisted, defined the enemy.

Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, but she just didn't get it in time, Tenet thought. He felt that he had done his job and had been very direct about the threat, but that Rice had not moved quickly. He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.

Black later said, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head."

How bad was Iraq back in 2003. What was a 'secret' then - Americans were attacked 1000 times every month in a country that, somehow, wanted to be liberated. This was before Bremmer disbanded the army and police.