NYT: Before 9/11, Warnings on bin Laden

Before 9/11, Warnings on bin Laden

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 9, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - More than three years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.

The cable was one of two documents released Thursday by the National Security Archive, a research organization at George Washington University that obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act. The other was a memorandum written five days after the 2001 attacks by George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, to his top deputies, titled "We're at War."


The June 1998 cable reported to Washington that three American officials, the State Department's regional security officer, an economics officer and an aviation specialist had met Saudi officials at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh to pass along a warning based on an interview Mr. bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of Al Qaeda, had just given to ABC News.

They said he had threatened in the interview to strike in the next "few weeks" against "military passenger aircraft," mentioning surface-to-air missiles. The cable said there was "no specific information that indicates bin Laden is targeting civilian aircraft," but added, "We could not rule out that a terrorist might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian target."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/national/nationalspecial3/09documents.html

buildings . . . " as per Condi during her 9-11 Commission testimony.

Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow . . .

I was apoplectic.

under Clinton was a rubber raft filled with explosives pulling up to a ship in a foreign port and blowing a hole in it, killing a number of sailors . . .

and then, less than a year later,

being able to go freely through this country (well, except for someone paying attention and trying to get word up through the chain of command) all through 2001 and get into aircraft and take over and smash the planes into the WTC?

Of course, that was "still Clinton's fault" . . . even though he was out of the office 8.5 months . . .

No rightwinger tried to claim that the first attack on the WTC was Bush41's fault, despite it being less than two months after Bush41 left office . . .

VIPs like then-AG and still-turdball John Asskkkroft got warned Osama was up to no good months before 9-11: