US Had Warning of 9/11

[Greybriar]

....how do you feel about Bush in hindsight? on this and on economics?

Almost the same way I felt about Bush prior to the last Presidential election: Anybody but Bush.

Bush sucked as a President.

[son_of_montfort]

How quickly we forget the spine and resolve he showed immediately after 9/11

Bush seemed to forget that spine and resolve pretty quickly too... :P

I'm with Greybriar, Bush single handedly made me switch political affiliation. In 2000, I would have voted for Bush (I certainly wasn't going to vote Gore). Now, I don't even recognize the Republican party. The policies of his administration, in particular the continuance of the culture of deregulation since Reagan, coupled with his expansion of federal government and federal spending, are - IMHO, the reason for the mess we are in now (or at least activated a potential mess that had been forming).

Worse, is how Karl Rove's philosophy of no-holds-barred, no-prisoners political warfare in campaigning has completely hijacked the American political process. We have Bush to thank for the dangerous polarization of our country. I won't even mention the Evangalization of the Presidency. Dang... I mentioned it.

OJsDad, I thought it was pretty well argued that FDR might have had short forewarning of Pearl Harbor. I also thought this was old news about Bush. Somewhere I heard that 9/11 was on a list of possible threats that crossed his desk, but it was one of many that seemed improbable.

[LongBlade]

Somewhere I heard that 9/11 was on a list of possible threats that crossed his desk, but it was one of many that seemed improbable.

From the little I heard it was a matter of priorities - yes, we knew there were terrorists, but they hadn't done much in a long time and generally when they did they took hostages, which is easy enough to manage as a general rule.

I'm sure someone had a Red Team that had already produced this scenario, but the issue wasn't so much the impact as the lack of priority. The lesson I take from this is that the Patriot Act and associated insane overspending were completely unnecessary. I've suspected that for several years now. It's good to see the truth finally emerging, and time to start closing that party down. Far too much money and people being wasted chasing witches that don't exist.

[Bison]

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I'm sure they knew something was coming and that it's involve hijacked aircraft.  The G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001 was moved out onto a ship protected with a huge number of SAMs and Bush spent his nights on a carrier.

[bayonetbrant]

yet around 6 years of his Presidency we had a pretty stable and growing economy.

Well I would agree that it was 'growing' but not sure we call it all 'stable'- much of that growth was through a variety of financial shenanigans that all crashed in 2008.

[Bison]

yet around 6 years of his Presidency we had a pretty stable and growing economy.

Well I would agree that it was 'growing' but not sure we call it all 'stable'- much of that growth was through a variety of financial shenanigans that all crashed in 2008.

The world/US economy from before Bush was based on shenanigans.  Nor was the bubble during his Presidency the only one.  Cycles and all.

[bayonetbrant]

yet around 6 years of his Presidency we had a pretty stable and growing economy.

Well I would agree that it was 'growing' but not sure we call it all 'stable'- much of that growth was through a variety of financial shenanigans that all crashed in 2008.

The world/US economy from before Bush was based on shenanigans.  Nor was the bubble during his Presidency the only one.  Cycles and all.

It absolutely wasn't the only cycle out there.  But while there was growth, I don't know that it was stable growth.  The causes of the instability can be traced to actions initiated under Clinton, but the fact remains that the growth existed on some pretty tenuous grounds, and that instability was never really addressed. 
Either way, it's a fairly moot point when discussing whether or not the US had sufficient information to connect the pre-9/11 dots, and if so, that our subsequent 'security theater' over-reactions (DHS, Patriot Act, etc) were in fact, completely unnecessary.  I'm pretty sure that was Jim's original point, and one which I agree with much of, at least in principal.

[Bison]

Well I'd say we knew with certainty that Al Qaeda wanted to attack in a big way in NYC.   They attempted to do so on the WTC during the Clinton administration.  We also know now in hindsight there was chatter that was known in individual agency, but not shared.  Frankly given the nature of the attack, I don't believe those dots being connected would have given a credible date/time/method without a source from inside the planning cell.  I honestly think it too optimistic to think we could have prevented the attack.

There needed to be a mechanism that forced the American intelligence community to work together.  Whether DHS is the answer I don't know, but its growth and expansion is a bit disconcerting.  Frankly I think the TSA is out of control.  Also the Patriot Act passage needs to be viewed from the poitical and social climate it was first passed under.  Americans saw boogie men behind every corner and wanted them removed.  The Patriot Act was sold as the means to do so.  I certainly think there are aspects of it that need to be removed.  I just think sometimes its easier to look back and say I don't like they did that and forget how we felt as a nation at the time.  Iraq is a perfect example.  To much to detail, but in short the vast majority of Americans, to include the media and politicans, were beating the drums.  We were pissed and wanted a fight.  It wasn't until the ramp up of the next election that the media and rhetoric turned.

[LongBlade]

Good points, Bison.

You're right - at the time we saw ghosts in every corner. I'm less concerned with criticizing the past than I am in righting the present and improving our prospects for the future.

[pawelj]

Talk about warnings, here's a bit of a personal story. On the morning 9/11, waiting on a train, going to work here in London, which is 5 hours ahead of NY, for some reason I recalled an item on the new from the Howard Stern show back in the late 80's, when I still lived in NY. The news was about a Pakistani airliner coming to a landing at JFK almost crashing into the WTC, because the pilot misanderstood the altitude instructions from the ATC. The studio heads were then speculating about what would happen in that case, and I distinctly remember the phrase "half of Manhattan would be on fire".
Strange coincidence.

[LongBlade]

That is strange.