[Peace-discuss] Perspective on "What Bush Knew"

[Jim Buell]

At 08:08 AM 5/22/2002 -0700, David Green wrote:
>ZNet Commentary
>What Did Bush Know, When? May 22, 2002
>By Michael Albert
>
>The above question screams from mainstream newspapers.
>It froths from
>liberals' lips. What troubles me more, however, is
>that some leftists
>also find it important.
>

Right enough, but you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder at 
the coincidence of the attacks and nuggets like the following from NBC News 
last week. Quite a coincidence that the Trade Center/Pentagon attacks 
happened just as the Bush crew was ready to launch an all-out war on 
Afghanistan no matter what. Note that the following story in no way 
indicates the topic is "contingency plans" - the NBC sources say the Afghan 
invasion was due to happen as soon as Bush signed the paperwork (he'd been 
away at the ranch for a couple months, after all ...). Albert's main point 
- that US policy as a whole is a crime - is well taken, but when there are 
smoking guns to be found, those are nothing to sneeze at either. It seems 
all too likely that the imminence of all-out invasion (which the Taliban 
and Al Qaida can't have been unaware of) had some bearing on the carrying 
out of the hijack attacks. Likewise, whether or not people with US spy 
agency ties knew any of the particulars of the Sept. 11 plans beforehand 
and whether those details were also known to people inside the Bush 
administration (both wide-open questions that cry out for real 
investigation), they must have known on some level that they couldn't plot 
this invasion without risking some kind of awful retaliation.

jb

source: http://www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp
(also discussed in a World Socialist Web Site story - 
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/may2002/bush-m18.shtml - and almost 
noplace else I've run across)

>U.S. planned for attack on al-Qaida
>
>White House given strategy two days before Sept. 11
>
>May 16 - The directive represents the game plan for an all-out diplomatic 
>and military assault on al-Qaida, sources told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski.
>
>NBC NEWS
>WASHINGTON, May 16 -President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for 
>a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have 
>the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. 
>and foreign sources told NBC News.
>
>The directive constituted a 'game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of 
>the Earth.'
>- U.S. OFFICIAL
>
>THE DOCUMENT, a formal National Security Presidential Directive, amounted 
>to a "game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the Earth," one of the 
>sources told NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski.
>
>  The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from 
> diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources 
> said on condition of anonymity. In many respects, the directive, as 
> described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the 
> White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 
> attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to 
> the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans "off the shelf," 
> Miklaszewski said. The United States first would have sought to persuade 
> other countries to cooperate in the campaign by sharing intelligence and 
> using their law enforcement agencies to round up al-Qaida suspects.
>
>  The plans also called for a freeze on al-Qaida financial accounts 
> worldwide and a drive to disrupt the group's money laundering. The 
> document mapped out covert operations aimed at al-Qaida cells in about 60 
> counties.
>
>In another striking parallel to the war plan adopted after Sept. 11, the 
>security directive included efforts to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban 
>government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United 
>States, with provisions to use military force if it refused.
>
>  PLAN WAS READY TO GO
>Officials did not believe that Bush had had the opportunity to closely 
>review the document in the two days between its submission and the Sept. 
>11 attacks. But it had been submitted to national security adviser 
>Condoleezza Rice, and the officials said Bush knew about it and had been 
>expected to sign it. The couching of the plans as a formal security 
>directive is significant, Miklaszewski reported, because it indicates that 
>the United States intended a full-scale assault on al-Qaida even if the 
>Sept. 11 attacks had not occurred.
>
>Such directives are top-secret documents that are formally drafted only 
>after they have been approved at the highest levels of the White House, 
>and represent decisions that are to be implemented imminently.
>
>Such a directive would normally be approved with the president's knowledge 
>by his Principals Committee, which in Bush's White House includes Rice, 
>Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 
>Secretary of State Colin Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and CIA 
>Director George Tenet, among other senior administration officials.