From: "John Beamish" 


"Mark"  wrote in message
news:416ac4f2{at}w3.nls.net...
>
[big snip]
>
> According to Richard Miniter in "Shadow War," we've

Not yet in our library system.  (But "Richard Miniter" - a
different one, most likely - is the author of "The things I want most
: the extraordinary story of an emotionally disturbed boy's journey to a
family of his own" which seems like a fascinating read.)

> killed or captured over 3,000 al Qaeda operatives in 102 countries since
> 9/11. We had special forces on the way to Afghanistan within 24 hours of
> 9/11 and the Brits joined us there in less than a week to gather
> intelligence from already captured al Qaeda that was used to help plan the
> air strikes that began on 10/7/01.
>

From my perspective ... sending people _that_ quickly suggests some
"after the fact" justification (i.e., the people were already
scheduled to head out so their departure was hastened and then justified).

>
> Yes he was, but absent the the successful attack on the WTC, he had
neither
> the urgency nor the political capital to do more than he did.

Valerie has a delightful theory here that, basically, blames it all on Ken
Starr.  In (extreme) precis:  if Ken Starr had stopped at the end of the
Whitewater stuff then Clinton wouldn't have been distracted with the (long
list of events ending with his) impeachment and would have been able to
focus his political capital where it would have been better used.   I know
there are some weaknesses but, from this side of the border, everything
that was connected to the bj was so "totally bogus" that, even
today, I (and Valerie) continue to be absolutely astounded at the energy
put into the subject and the near total refusal of some people to simply
"move on".

> As didn't the incoming
> incoming Bush administration, who, BTW, had considerable trouble in
getting
> their appointees briefed in a timely manner due to the limbo in the
election
> and also met with a much more contentious confirmation process

Which feeds (see Valerie ) from the "okay, let's stick it to
them, now" attitude.

>  for the same
> reason. Miniter believes that's the primary reason that Tenet was
retained -
> too bad IMHO.
>
> > and passed that information along to the incoming administration and it
> > was
> > their set of priorities (not the tool set) that governed their
subsequent
> > actions.  I think it has been well (possibly conclusively) documented
that
> > the current administration in spite of all the information flows made a
> > conscious decision to focus elsewhere.
>
> I don't believe any such thing has been documented,

Having read Bernstein's "Plan of Attack", I find it difficult to
conclude otherwise.

> conclusively or
> otherwise. Indeed, they had plans for sending the CIA over to Afhanistan
> with $200M to better arm the Northern Alliance, set up more listening
posts
> and begin a military affront on the Taliban beyond sending some cruise
> missiles in. That plan was finalized in August and though too late to
thwart
> 9/11 (probably 5 years too late), I'm sure it was helpful that it had
> already been hatched when the CIA headed out on 9/12 for Afghanistan.
>
> > And that brings us to the second item:  if the new processes (your
broader
> > term) or new legislation (mine) were in place, can there be any
assurance
> > that the attack on the towers would have been prevented.  Clearly, there
> > can
> > not be such assurance.
>
> No, there cannot be any ironclad assurance of success in any operation.
>
[snip]

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