# What did the Administration know and when did it know it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331 "2002-05-16T04:15:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![musicguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@musicguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/musicguy)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2002, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/21 "2002-05-16T21:53:40Z")
Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. Rather than focus on what wasn’t done, it seems more crucial to develop better communication between the various agencies that had information so that a bigger picture might have been able to be seen. Condoleeza Rice mentioned that acting on this would have meant shutting down the entire airline system which wouldn’t have (pardon the pun) flown very well. Increased security might have been effective in detecting the box cutters but if they were allowable items, probably not. The only thing that could have helped to prevent this would have been 24 hour survellience of the middle eastern students at the flight school but that would have been hard to justify as no laws were broken by attending the flight schools. I’m no Bush fan but pointing fingers isn’t going to bring one of those people back. I don’t think there was any sinister motive in not releasing this information, at least I don’t want to believe that. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2002, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/22 "2002-05-16T21:57:21Z")
Before we get too worked up about this, remember that the Feds and many law enforcement agencies have people on the payroll who don’t do much but sit around and dream up horrible hypotheticals and then go looking for some shred of evidence that is consistent with the conjectural hypothesis. That is what contingency planning is all about. It is the stuff of nightmares. As anyone who has an anxious spouse can tell you—if you predict every thing sooner or later you will be right. I suspect that this is the sort of thing we are dealing with here. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2002, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/23 "2002-05-16T22:26:46Z")
It’s curious that they never made use of this information in the early days, when the US was trying to convince its allies, and the rest of the world, that bin Laden was behind the attack. Maybe it was part of the secret briefings given to Blair _et. al._ but I have to wonder why the secrecy surrounding the information was more important than the ability to, publicly, make a good case for bin Laden’s culpability. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2002, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/24 "2002-05-16T23:35:42Z")
> [@](#): > > ## There was some evidence. quote: > > ## “The hijacked airplane was to explode over the Eiffel Tower” of Paris. That’s rather old news. The french authorities were warned by informants about the intents of the terrorists during the hijack. That’s why they didn’t allow the plane to take off. Also, it seems to me documents had been seized way before the 9/11 in the Philipinnes, proving that a terrorist group planned to crash planes on civilian targets. So, sure, at least at the light of these two examples, intelligence agencies were certainly aware that such an attack was possible, somewhere, someday, by someone. Same with probably hundreds of other possible threats. On an infinity of potential targets. I’m not sure how this knowledge could have really helped to prevent what occured. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/25 "2002-05-17T03:18:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squink \* > \*\*It’s curious that they never made use of this information in the early days, \*\* I wondered the same thing **Squink** , considering the political situation. 4 or 5 months ago, support for the President was so strong that if there was any wrong doing it could have been mentioned without much fanfare. This all being brought up now seems very similar to GWB’s drunk driving convinction not being mentioned by the press until days before the election. The press (similar to politicians) waits until the time is right to release certain information. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/26 "2002-05-17T04:05:38Z")
Another thing to consider is that Americans wouldn’t have tolerated the security measures in place now, without 9/11. Imagine if the government tried to make approximately the same changes in August, with the only justification being “we’ve received credible threats”. No one would tolerate it. On the other hand, if we had been consistently, incrementally increasing security for the last ten years, it might have been different. But as everyone here seems to realize, the basic problem is the signal to noise ratio of the threats. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/27 "2002-05-17T07:28:23Z")
I haven’t checked the news articles tonight, but I’ve been hearing some things over the radio that may be potentially more disturbing: First is the allegation that the Dubya administration _lied_ to the public after 9/11 about their knowledge of the attacks – e.g., after the attacks, when people were asking if the government had any warnings about them, the Administration lied and said they didn’t. Second is the allegation that the administration was playing favorites with the information they did have, by briefing the Republican leaders in Congress, while leaving their Democratic counterparts in the dark. If these charges are true (and I am not certain if they are), then the Administration definitely has to be held accountable, IMO… ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/28 "2002-05-17T12:28:04Z")
Remember pre-Sept. 11 USA. We were rather convenience-oriented, especially when it came to flying. I wonder how people would have tolerated extensive delays because of a speculative threat - before we all saw 767s flown into skyscrapers. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/29 "2002-05-17T12:46:46Z")
I think it it just a little bit naïve of the administration to say that we had intelligence suggesting that OBL was planning to hijack US airplanes, and then stick all of that evidence into the “incredible” file. This is a man who has been implicated in a string of deadly attacks on the US and its allies: • The 1993 World Trade Center bombing • The 1998 bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 • The 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. • Bin Laden also claims responsibility for a 1993 gunfight that killed 18 U.S. troops in Somalia and • The 1996 bombing of the Khobar military complex in Saudi Arabia that left 19 U.S. soldiers dead. Flash forward to August 2001: OBL plans to hijack airliners? Oh, we’re sure he just wants to fly them from A to B and then land somewhere and hold the hostages for ransom. :rolleyes: With the rapsheet above, _any_ evidence that suggested that OBL - _the world’s #1 terrorist_ - was planning on doing _anything_ like hijacking airliners should not have gone into the Incredible File. I don’t agree that the general public would have resisted a pre-9/11 ounce of prevention with regard to the airlines. [Argenbright’s](http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/02/06/rec.argenbright/index.html) hiring practices were more than enough reason to start clamping down on airport security, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/30 "2002-05-17T13:03:46Z")
Well, there is one question I really would like to have answered: how in the world were we so brain-dead **stupid** as to leave the cockpit doors unlocked! We’ve had airplane hijackings for…what? thirty years?..and nobody ever thought to lock the goddam door? ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/31 "2002-05-17T13:09:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Does the possibility of 20 suicidal terrosists hijacking four planes simultaneously for use as missiles sound credible? Sure does. I predicted this attack back in 1993 with no special skills in terrorism or law enforcement. All it took was setting your mind to it for a moment to realize that it was an obvious, realistic and inevitable plan. When I heard reports over the summer that there were warnings of a major domestic attack it was the first thing I thought of and I didn’t have the benefit of specific warnings of hijackings. What in hell else would they do with hijacked planes? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/32 "2002-05-17T13:36:30Z")
Not only that, but you could read the agents memo who wrote of Zacharias Massouri “The kind of guy who might crash a plane into the WTC”. Sounds like _someone_ at least, was doing their job thinking of “non-traditional” hijackings. Oh, also, Ramzi Yousef, as he was being carted off by helicopter from the WTC bombing in 1993 said “Next time I’ll use planes.” Maybe that would’ve been a fucking clue? ---
**Author:** ![keeper0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@keeper0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeper0)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/33 "2002-05-17T15:27:41Z")
Our government suffers from the same information overload that we do. Fifty bazillion pieces of information flying around and human beings trying to see how they fit together. On September 11, everybody finally got to see the picture on the box. They missed it. Through naivety, miscommunication or bad luck, they didn’t put it together. Strangely, that doesn’t bother me all that much. Human mistakes are inevitable, and I probably would have missed it too. What bothers me is the susbsequent self-righteous finger pointing, and the fact that only NOW are we finding out the truth. For the administration to publicly chastise the CIA and FBI for not doing their job, while in posession of these memos, is duplicitous. I am not claiming it is a Nixon-esque conspiracy, but rather a standard political refusal to accept any responsibility for anything bad that happens. Politics as usual, despite efforts to claim the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Spritle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Spritle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spritle)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/34 "2002-05-17T15:39:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by keeper0 \* > **They missed it. Through naivety, miscommunication or bad luck, they didn’t put it together.** Perhaps it was not any of these. During the previous administration, the defense budget for intelligence communities was severly cut. That and the poor pay of gov’t vs. private sector and the difficulties of recruitment create an intelligence environment where there is more information gathered than man or machine can sift through. I’m not saying that had the budget cuts not come then the events of 9/11 would have been avoided, but it’s kind of dumb to to expect 100% output if there isn’t a commensurate input. (and the above comments regarding the number of hot bits vs. the number that can be assessed vs. the number that pan out is staggering holds true. Also, private citizens are often not told of thwarted attempts for reasons mentioned in this and other threads, to reveal what we know can hint at how we know it.) ---
**Author:** ![crimsonshriek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b487fb/32.png) [@crimsonshriek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crimsonshriek)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/35 "2002-05-17T16:00:34Z")
george bush is a very unfortunate thing to have happenend to the US. the presidency is being run and managed by all the presiden’t men; the US is hence left with a parliamentary sort (cabinet etc) of leadership under the guise of a presidential form of government. the harm coming off this is that all reporting structures are put in place for a presidential set-up wherein the president is at the center of things but unfortunately decisions don’t get taken that way. hence the mess and mire. had the times been less turbulent we probably would not have known the difference, but they are not and we’re stuck with this buffoon. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/36 "2002-05-17T17:08:22Z")
Miscommunication? Naivite? Information overload? Clinton under-funding? These arguments are offesively off base. So far, we’ve learned, from the memos that the intelligence KNEW that these men were capable of hijacking planes and “crashing them into the WTC” in Zaccarias’s case, and WERE REPORTED to their supervisors! The question is, who ignored this information. **It wasn’t a failure of intelligence, it was a failure of action!** And further, was it “Miscommunication” that caused the adminitration’s eight month delay? I know it certainly wasn’t naivite! ---
**Author:** ![Jibby7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/65b543/32.png) [@Jibby7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jibby7)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/37 "2002-05-17T17:57:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > \*\* > > Second is the allegation that the administration was playing favorites with the information they did have, by briefing the Republican leaders in Congress, while leaving their Democratic counterparts in the dark. > > If these charges are true (and I am not certain if they are), then the Administration definitely has to be held accountable, IMO… \*\* [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20020517/ts\_nm/attack\_bush\_dc\_32](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20020517/ts_nm/attack_bush_dc_32) According to the Administration, Democrats knew as well: “Some key Democrats were also aware of the possibility of a terrorist attack, Fleischer said. He pointed to remarks by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein last July in which she said she had been told ‘there is a major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months.’” ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/38 "2002-05-17T18:52:58Z")
I don’t think anyone (other than a few cranks) are “blaming” Bush for the attack. The issue for me is the misinformation that the administration puts out. The administration initially claimed that “no one could have forseen flying planes into buildings”. Maybe they should have talked to me; I had often wondered why terrosists didn’t do just that. The government had actually considered the possibility two years prior to September 11. > [@](#): > > Two years earlier, the prospect of an attack involving planes crashing into buildings was raised in an 1999 interagency U.S. government study compiled by the Library of Congress and shared with various government agencies. > > In the executive summary of that 149-page report, available on the Library of Congress Internet site, the authors specifically cited al Qaeda involvement in a possible terror attack in which a jet would crash “into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House.” > \*source: [http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/17/bush.sept.11/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/17/bush.sept.11/index.html) \* Also, right after 9/11 the administration said that there were no warnings. There were in fact many warnings of highjackings (although not specifically of using planes as missiles) as we now know. > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON, May 17 — On July 5 of last year, a month and a day before President Bush first heard that al Qaeda might plan a hijacking, the White House summoned officials of a dozen federal agencies to the Situation Room. > > ``` > “SOMETHING REALLY spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon,” the government’s top counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, told the assembled group, according to two of those present. The group included the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service. > Clarke directed every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer nonvital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. For six weeks last summer, at home and overseas, the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness — and anxiety — against imminent terrorist attack. > > ``` > > \ > > ``` > Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet had been “nearly frantic” with concern since June 22, according to one frequent interlocutor, and a written intelligence summary for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on June 28: “It is highly likely that a significant al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks.” By late summer, one senior political appointee said, Tenet had “repeated this so often that people got tired of hearing it.”... > > ``` > > But it is also true that Bush and his Cabinet advisers were not yet disposed to respond to al Qaeda as a first-tier national security threat. The alerts of the early and mid-summer — described by two career counterterrorist officials as the most urgent in decades — had faded to secondary concern by the time of Bush’s extended Crawford vacation. As late as Sept. 9, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld threatened a presidential veto when the Senate proposed to divert $600 million to counterterrorism from ballistic missile defense. > \*source: [http://www.msnbc.com/news/753410.asp](http://www.msnbc.com/news/753410.asp) \* ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/39 "2002-05-17T19:02:44Z")
My goodness! A major probability! Of a terrorist incident! In the next 3 months! And we made sure to inform… the California Senators! Of course, how silly of us to even ask! Ch-rist – Ari Fleisher is cited! Give the administration the usual 24 hours to contradict Mr. Zero Credibility, would ya? I hear he actually did inform Sen. Feinstein of a credible, specific threat… to Air Force One! I heard he’s having joint strategy sessions – looking for the real killers with OJ! ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331/40 "2002-05-17T19:44:38Z")
I don’t think anyone on the SDMB is less fond of the Bush Administration than I am, but even I wince when it is suggested that Bush “should have known and done something”. I am appalled that the Bush Administration is now suggesting that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (one of my Senators), knew or should have known, but I’ve a very low opinion of the political acumen of the Bushistas. Suggesting that Bush knew is as irresponsible as suggesting that Roosevelt should have (or did) personally decode the Japanese diplomatice messages and figured Pearl Harbor for attack. These sorts of attacks are by stupid people who have to reduce the world to a cartoon simplicity of who is good and evil. They simply don’t understand that the President doesn’t actually do everything himself/herself, or even with the extensive White House staff. Even if you have all the information in various departments, it doesn’t mean it is going to be put together and then acted on by someone with authority to turn the government around on a dime. Say what you want about the Thief in Chief, say that he is dim, say that he is lazy, say that he just doesn’t care, but he is not responsible for the WTC bombings. His response has had its good moments and its bad, but there is no way he could have known himself, or should have. I think that the press is irresponsible to play the story the way they have been, but I have a pretty low opinion of the press. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/109331.md?page=3)