NSA Report Puts New Pressure on CIA Nominee

........system. In Britain or Canada, yes. Here, no.

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."
William Gladstone, 4-time Prime Minister of Great Britain.

america is perfect and racism doesn't exist.

"Why did we let him (Osama bin-Laden) go in Tora Bora? You seem to suggest US had him and then let him go. It is just that he got lucky and escaped. If you don't agree, I would like to hear what you think happened"

OK: But first, a word from our sponsor.
Cleo, not only are you a shill, you're not even a particularly good one. In your earlier posts, you suggested we'd rue all the horrid things we said about Bush, because we'll get hit again.

You went on to suggest that we feel bad because someone is disagreeing with us, (and we call ourselves liberal! Shame on us!)I, for one, don't mind disagreement, as long as the opposing viewpoint is an informed one. That means something that can be substantiated, not the Gospel according to Hannity (who is NOT a good man, he's a self-righteous creep from Long Island who likes to think he's more intelligent than he is) or O'Reilly (who doesn't deserve the file space it takes to insult him. He's beneath contempt). It means something that can be documented and relies on fact, not innuendo.

To help your journey toward reality, here's a little chronology, that includes the answer to What Happened at Tora Bora. After, there are a few questions for you.

1992: George H.W. Bush negotiates permanent U.S. military and support resources in Saudi Arabia. Many middle-eastern leaders, including some who were allied with us in the first Gulf War (notably Haffez el-Assad of Syria and Mubarik of Egypt) cautioned against the insertion of U.S. military in Saudi Arabia during peacetime, for fear it would lend the appearance of occupation.
1993: Osama bin-Laden, related to the Saudi royal family, denounces King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah and other members of the Saudi royalty who approved the U.S. base treaty. bin Laden moves to Sudan, where he issues a fatwa against the "Crusaders and infidels" who occupy the area around Medina and other holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
1993, January 20: Bill Clinton takes office
1993, February 26: 37 days into his presidency, the first attack on the World Trade Center occurs. Though the plan had been formulated for over a year, Clinton does NOT blame his predecessor. Instead, he mobilizes a multi-national, multi-service task force, headed by John O'Neil, an FBI counter-terrorism specialist, to identify, track down and apprehend the culprits (which they do, thanks to solid investigative work and the stupidity of some of the terrorists).
1994: Ramzi Yusef, mastermind of the W.T.C. attack is apprehended.
1999: Customs intercepts a van crossing the Canadian border into Washington state. The Millenium Plot is broken, and the planned attack on LAX never occurs. Clinton convenes a special national security meeting on a weekly basis to review intelligence on al-Queda and other related terrorist activity.
2000: Bush claims victory, after the Supreme Court requires the Florida recount to cease.
2001, January 20: Shrubco takes office. Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Advisor informs his incoming counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, that her greatest concern will be al-Queda, bin-Laden and the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, permitting the free passage of terrorists and material from training sites in Taliban controlled Afghanistan to Pakistan, and thence across the world.
2001, January 28: Shrubco holds their first National Security Council meeting. Agenda: Iraq and how to depose Saddam Hussein. No mention is made of al-Queda or Osama bin-Laden
2001, February: John O'Neil, in Yemen investigating al-Queda links to terrorism is recalled to the U.S. after the American ambassador objects to O'Neil's accusation of Yemeni complicity in terrorist activity (notably the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole).
2001, March: O'Neil is reprimanded for leaving a personal computer unattended at a secure meeting. He subsequently retires from the Bureau.
2001, June: The Phoenix Arizona field office of the FBI inquires about any suspicious activities involving middle-eastern individuals interested in flight training.
2001, July: The Minneapolis field office of the FBI arrests Zacharias Moussouai. An effort to obtain a warrant to open the files on his computer fails, and the warrant is not issued.
2001, July: Outgoing FBI director Louis Freeh informs Attorney General John Ashcroft of concerns regarding a possible run-up to a terrorist strike in the U.S. involving hijacked commercial airliners. Ashcroft tells Freeh the chief priority of the Justice Department is drug trafficking. He recommends Freeh bring his concerns to the INS.
2001, August 6: George Tenet provides the Presidential Daily Briefing, entitled: Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. Shrub appears to listen, then does nothing (unless you count falling off his bicycle and moving tumbleweeds as doing something).
2001, September 5: John O'Neil assumes his new post as Director of Security for the World Trade Center, which he has long predicted will be the focus of any new terrorist attacks within the U.S.
2001, September 10: NSA intercepts three messages that might have to do with the forthcoming attacks. That still isn't definitive, however, it doesn't matter, because they stay in an in-tray and don't get translated until September 12.
2001, September 11: George H.W. Bush has breakfast with members of the bin-Laden family, in conjunction with his activities for the Carlyle Group. His eldest son sits immobile in an elementary school classroom where the class is reading "My Pet Goat", after W.H. Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed Shrub, "Sir, we are under attack. New York has been hit". John O'Neil, and about 2800 others die in the attack in New York. Others die at the Pentagon, and in western PA, where United Flight 93 crashed, apparently en route to the Capitol building.

Shrub then invokes the ghosts of those killed as a justification for invading Iraq. Oh, you wanted to know about what happened with Osama at Tora Bora? Elements of the 10th Mountain Division and the 82nd Airborne Division engaged Taliban fighters at and around Tora Bora. Intelligence indicated not only that bin-Laden was situated with the beseiged fighters, but was physically ill.
At the direction of Tommy Franks (Bush supporter extrordinaire), that the U.S. units hold back and that the final push to rout the fighters at Tora Bora be delegated to the militia of local warlords.
Want evidence? Ok: Here it is:

U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error

By Barton Gellman and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 17, 2002; Page A01

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader. Without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles, using Americans on the ground as first-line combat units.

In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days into the fighting. "No one had the big picture," one defense official said.

The Bush administration has never acknowledged that bin Laden slipped through the cordon ostensibly placed around Tora Bora as U.S. aircraft began bombing on Nov. 30. Until now it was not known publicly whether the al Qaeda leader was present on the battlefield.

But inside the government there is little controversy on the subject. Captured al Qaeda fighters, interviewed separately, gave consistent accounts describing an address by bin Laden around Dec. 3 to mujaheddin, or holy warriors, dug into the warren of caves and tunnels built as a redoubt against Soviet invaders in the 1980s. One official said "we had a good piece of sigint," or signals intelligence, confirming those reports.