George: Frolf, frisbee golf Jerry. Golf with a frisbee. This is gonna be my time. Time to taste the fruits and let the juices drip down my chin. I proclaim this: The Summer of George! – George Costanza

How did the White House respond to the intelligence they received in the summer of 2001 of increased “chatter” and the possibility of terrorist attacks?

HADLEY: [T]he President put us on battle stations.

STAHL: Now he[Clarke]’s the top terrorism official in this administration at that point. He’s saying you didn’t go to battle stations.

HADLEY: Well I think that’s just wrong (60 Minutes, March 21, 2004)

On July 1, 2001, Sens Dianne Feinstein and Richard Shelby of the Senate Intelligence Committee appear on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and warn of potential attacks by Osama bin Laden. Feinstein: “One of the things that has begun to concern me [is] whether we really have our house in order. Intelligence staff have told me that there is a major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months.” (CNN interactive)

He loves the [White House] perks like the theater and the bowling alley. He escapes as often as he can to Camp David and his Texas ranch and makes no apologies for starting his weekends by 3 p.m. or so on Fridays. (July 12, 2001, USA Today)

[Remember, at this point, the (p)Resident had been in office barely six months. The following information was culled from a CNN interactive timeline and the excellently detailed and sourced 9/11 timeline. Most of the text is intact, but some has been redacted or slighty altered to avoid redundancy or confusion. The CNN timeline is a javascript, not linked on the front, but can be found by a site search.]

After receiving an Aug 1, 2001 message from the FBI reiterating a July 2 warning about terrorist activity and the upcoming third anniversary of the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa [CNN interactive],Bush leaves for a vacation that nearly sets a record for the longest presidential vacation. He spends most of August 2001 (Aug 4-30) at his Crawford, Texas. While it is billed a “working vacation,” ABC reports Bush is doing “ nothing much ” aside from his regular daily intelligence briefings. [via the 9/11 timeline ]

Aug 6, 2001 – President Bush receives classified intelligence briefings at his Crawford, Texas ranch indicating that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. The memo read to him is titled “ Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US “, and the entire memo focuses on the possibility of terrorist attacks inside the US. National Security Advisor Rice later claims the memo was “fuzzy and thin” and only 1 and a half pages long (his normal daily security briefings run two or three pages) but other accounts state it was 11 pages long. [Newsweek, 5/27/02, New York Times, 5/15/02, Die Zeit, 10/1/02] [via the 9/11 timeline ]

The contents have never been made public. However, a Congressional report later describes what is likely this memo (they call it “a closely held intelligence report for senior government officials” presented in early August 2001): it mentions “that members of al-Qaeda, including some US citizens, had resided in or traveled to the US for years and that the group apparently maintained a support structure here. [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02] via the 9/11 timeline

The report cited uncorroborated information obtained in 1998 that Osama bin Laden wanted to hijack airplanes to gain the release of US-held extremists; FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks and the number of bin Laden-related investigations underway; as well as information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the US with explosives.” [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Incredibly, the New York Times later reports that Bush “ broke off from work early and spent most of the day fishing ” (see also August 4-30, 2001). [New York Times, 5/25/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Information about the Aug 6, 2001 memo surfaced in May, 2002. Read the jaw-dropping White House dissembling about it in the extension, but one particularly disgusting bit of thuggery comes from Total Dick Cheney.

May 16, 2002 – Vice President Cheney states: “my Democratic friends in Congress … need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.” He calls such criticism “thoroughly irresponsible … in time of war” and states that any serious probe of 9/11 foreknowledge would be tantamount to giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy.

[Yeah, that guy doesn’t have anything to hide.]

“On September 10, 2001, a CIA plan to strike at al Qaeda in Afghanistan, including support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, is given to the White House. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asks for a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney. The California Democrat is told that Cheney’s staff would need six months to prepare for a meeting.” (CNN interactive)

Public testimony, under oath, hooked to a polygraph, televised, me standing behind him holding a large sock filled with horse manure.

(Update: Quiddity has a graphic up illustrating how BushCo reduced counterterrorism pre-9/11. Also, I corrected the May 2002 date above.)

May 15, 2002: The Bush Administration is embarrassed when the CBS Evening News reveals that Bush had been warned about al-Qaeda domestic attacks in August 2001 (see August 6, 2001). via the 9/11 timeline

Bush had repeatedly said that he had “no warning” of any kind. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer states unequivocally that while Bush had been warned of possible hijackings, “The president did not – not – receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers.” [New York Times, 5/16/02, Washington Post, 5/16/02] via the 9/11 timeline

“Until the attack took place, I think it?s fair to say that no one envisioned that as a possibility.” Fleischer [MSNBC, 9/18/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Fleischer claims the August memo was titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike the US” but the real title is soon found to end with “… Strike in US.” [Washington Post, 5/18/02] via the 9/11 timeline

The Guardian will state a few days later, “the memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners were intended for use as missiles and that intended targets were to be inside the US.” It further states that, “now, as the columnist Joe Conason points out in the current edition of the New York Observer, ‘conspiracy’ begins to take over from ‘incompetence’ as a likely explanation for the failure to heed – and then inform the public about – warnings that might have averted the worst disaster in the nation’s history.” [Guardian, 5/19/02] via the 9/11 timeline

May 16, 2002: In the wake of new information on what Bush knew (see May 15, 2002), Vice President Cheney states: “my Democratic friends in Congress … need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.” He calls such criticism “thoroughly irresponsible … in time of war” and states that any serious probe of 9/11 foreknowledge would be tantamount to giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy. [Washington Post, 5/17/02] via the 9/11 timeline

May 16, 2002 (B): National Security Advisor Rice states: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile,” adding that “even in retrospect” there was “nothing” to suggest that. [White House, 5/16/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Is Rice aware how many people did predict such a thing, even many years prior to 9/11?? What about Japanese kamikaze pilots in WW2? For instance, Former CIA Deputy Director John Gannon has stated that scenario has long been taken seriously by US intelligence: “If you ask anybody ? could terrorists convert a plane into a missile? ? nobody would have ruled that out.” Rice also states, “The overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas.” [MSNBC, 5/17/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Slate compares this with the title of Bush’s August 6 briefing: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” and awards Rice the “Whopper of the Week.” [Slate, 5/23/02] via the 9/11 timeline

Rice later concedes that “somebody did imagine it” but says she didn’t know about such intelligence until well after this conference. [AP, 9/21/02] Which is worse: Rice lying again about not knowing such intelligence, or someone in her position actually not knowing such intelligence? via the 9/11 timeline