On May 16, 2002, in a press briefing at the White House to discuss the August 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief (PDB), which had been disclosed by news outlets the day before, “Steve Holland of Reuters pressed her [National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice]. ‘Why shouldn’t this be seen as an intelligence failure, that you were […]
Category: quotes
5/15/2002
“On May 15, 2002, the story leaked on CBS News that the president [Bush] had been informed that bin Laden was planning airline hijackings. The next day all major newspapers reported on the August 6 [2001] briefing with the implicit implication that the president had somehow known in advance of the September 11 attack.” – […]
5/15/2002
In his speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell “said that in May 2002, after the coalition forces overthrew the Taliban emirate in Afghanistan, [Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi fled through Iran to Iraq in order to get medical attention in Baghdad. There he was allegedly […]
5/15/2002
“In May 2002, [FBI Special Agent Ken] Williams told a congressional committee that if FBI officials had acted on his recommendations [to scour flight schools for suspicious Middle Eastern pilots], he believed the September 11 attacks might have been thwarted.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Peter Lance, 1000 […]
5/15/2002
A New York Times article on May 15, 2002, “citing government officials, reported for the first time that the memo [sent to FBI headquarters on July 10, 2001, regarding the suspicious number of Middle Eastern men in flight training schools] mentioned bin Laden by name and also suggested that his followers could use the flight […]
5/15/2002
On May 15, 2002, “CBS reported for the first time the existence of the August 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief, the one that referred to potential attacks on American soil. That night, in response to the revelations by CBS, the White House finally acknowledged that Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early […]
5/15/2002
Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote: Abu Musab al- “Zarqawi, the deputy to bin Laden, had come to Iraq in May 2002, had had meetings with senior Iraqis and established a presence there in October 2002. This intelligence has not been withdrawn, by the way. Probably we should have paid more attention to its […]
5/15/2002
Former Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed “described how he was interrogated by an MI5 [British military intelligence] officer in Pakistan in May 2002, before his rendition to Morocco. He said the officer knew he had already been tortured numerous times after his capture the previous month, with methods that included days of sleep deprivation, a mock […]
5/15/2002
On May 15, 2002, CBS News reported “that a daily briefing presented to [President] Bush a few weeks before the [9/11] attacks [August 6, 2001] warned him specifically about the threats of a domestic hijacking by al-Qaeda.” – Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 212 […]
5/15/2002
“In its evening newscast of May 15, 2002, based on information it had received anonymously, CBS reported in dramatic fashion that the president [Bush] had received an intelligence briefing in early August [6] 2001 that ‘specifically alerted him of a possible airliner attack in the United States.’ Correspondent David Martin went on to report, ‘The […]