of course not. I merely point out that an early August PDB warned the administration that terrorists were planning an attack within our borders using airplanes... and not only did the administration NOT proactively respond to that warning by beefing up their anti-terrorism activities, they, in fact, DE-emphasized anti-terrorism to the point of removing funding from anti-terrorism activities at the DOJ the very day before 9/11. Clearly, they were asleep at the wheel. Asscroft was more worried about porn, and Condie and Colin and Rummy were more interested in star wars than they were about terrorists. That's why dubya demoted Clarke... because anti-terrorism was so passe. And all you Bush apologists with brown noses continue to give him a free pass on all of that.
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/staff_statements/staff_statement_9.pdf
Law Enforcement, Counterterrorism, and Intelligence Collection in the United States Prior to 9/11
You need to bone up on some facts of life....how mis-managed the FBI was under Freeh and Reno's attempt to fix it.
excerpt from Pg 4
..........Reno told us that the Bureau never seemed to have sufficient resources given the broad
scope of its responsibilities. She said in light of the appropriations FBI received, it
needed to prioritize and put counterterrorism first.
She also said that Director Freeh
seemed unwilling to shift resources to terrorism from other areas such as violent crime.
Freeh said that it was difficult to tell field executives that they needed to do additional
counterterrorism work without additional resources.
Finally, even though
the number of agents devoted to counterterrorism was limited, they
were not always fully utilized in the field offices. We learned through our interviews that
prior to 9/11, field agents often were diverted from counterterrorism or other intelligence
work in order to cover major criminal cases.
The second core challenge was a legal issue that became a management challenge as
well. Certain provisions of federal law had been interpreted to limit communication
between agents conducting intelligence investigations and the criminal prosecution units
of the Department of Justice. This was done so that the broad powers for gathering
intelligence would not be seized upon by prosecutors trying to make a criminal case.
Its no surprise that the terrorists had no trouble getting into the country in 2000, is it ?
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http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/testimony/2001/ag_statement_05_09_01.htm
Statement of Attorney General John Ashcroft before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary, and Related Agencies
Hearing on U.S. Federal Efforts to Combat Terrorism
May 9, 2001
FY 2002 Budget Request (THE BUSH BUDGET)
The President's FY 2002 budget increases the Department's resources for counterterrorism and critical infrastructure protection by $103 million over the enacted FY 2001 funding level. This amount includes $40 million in requested program enhancements plus base adjustments and portions of programs that support counterterrorism-related activities.
Of the $40 million in program enhancements, a total of $32 million is requested by the FBI for security and investigative duties at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, for increased security requirements at various FBI locations, and to support its incident response readiness responsibilities.
For the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), $7 million in new funding is included to establish intelligence units along our Northern and Southern borders. These units will monitor terrorist activities and smuggling operations, and assist in tracking the movement of illicit narcotics, weapons, and other contraband across our nation's borders.
And the Criminal Division requests $1 million for extradition and foreign legal assistance workload, translation services and computer network security enhancements.
In addition to the enhancements discussed above, and in recognition of the critical role State and local public safety agencies play in managing the consequences of any terrorist event involving weapons of mass destruction, the Department's total budget request inc
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So ...... lets hear about that $50+ million that you think Ashcroft removed from the counter-terrorism effort in Sept., seeing as how he made this
request in May of 2001 for $103 million increase for the following year......a link to these claims might be useful....
