Ron Suskind, George W. Bush And The August 6, 2001 PDB

[Gold9472]

Ron Suskind, George W. Bush and the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/06/20/911pdb/index.html

(Gold9472: "David, look, let me just say it again: Had I known there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack. I would have done everything I can. My job is to protect the American people. And I asked the intelligence agency to analyze the data to tell me whether or not we faced a threat internally, like they thought we had faced a threat in other parts of the world. That's what the PDB request was (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040411.html). And had there been actionable intelligence, we would have moved on it." - George W. Bush, April 11th, 2004

As you can see, George W. Bush openly says he requested this Presidential Daily Briefing. Why would he request a PDB just so the CIA would have an alibi, or something to "cover" their "ass"?)

Tim Grieve
6/20/2006

Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine" is out this week, and the Washington Post's Barton Gellman (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211.html?sub=AR) says it's full of "jaw-dropping stories" about the Bush administration's war on terror.

Or lack thereof.

We've known for years now that George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/) on Aug. 6, 2001, in which he was warned: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." We've known for almost as long that Bush went fishing afterward.

What we didn't know is what happened in between the briefing and the fishing, and now Suskind is here to tell us. Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

[PhilosophyGenius]

Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Well that sure backfired.

[YouCrazyDiamond]

Suskind writes:

‘Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."’
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Let me see if I got this straight. When the August 6, 2001 PDB not only says OBL determined to strike the USA, but also in doing so they would be following the example of “WTC bomber Ramzi…,” there is no sense of urgency to consider the WTC a target? Furthermore, the PDB states that AQ people were in the USA since May 2001 preparing for “attacks with explosives.”

And, of course, you all more or less know the rest of what happened:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911security.html

(And it should not be forgotten that Marvin Bush was a principal in a company called Securacom that provided security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport.)

But after 9/11, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target" on the words of a brutally tortured, mentally ill, relatively insignificant member of AQ.

I’m a more than a little confused as to Bush’s sense of what is actionable.
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The August 6, 2001 PDB can be found at these sites:

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/80601pdb.html

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb1.html