The Military Policy staff of the 9/11 Commission concluded on March 23, 2004, that actionable intelligence was lacking in order for President Bill Clinton to respond militarily to the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000: “The problem was in assigning responsibility for the attack. The intelligence community immediately suspected al Qaeda, but they […]
Category: quotes
10/15/2000
In October 2000, “the National Commission on Terrorism, led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, reached a conclusion that was all too clear: ‘The U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities lacked the ability to prioritize, translate and understand in a timely fashion, all of the information to which they have access.” [The 15th of the month […]
10/15/2000
“The armed Predator [drone] flew over Afghanistan eleven times in September and October 2000, [counterterrorism czar Richard] Clarke told the author [Richard Miniter]. It supplied hours of clear video, showing bin Laden in various compounds. In October 2000, the Predator crashed in Afghanistan. Whether it was brought down by high winds or machine gunfire, no […]
10/15/2000
“In October 2000, the president [Bill Clinton] chose not to identify bin Laden as the originator of the attack on the USS Cole, even though his own intelligence apparatus said there was no other conclusion.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page […]
10/13/2000
“A Pentagon intelligence analyst [Kie Fallis] resigned on October 13 [2000], declaring that his warnings about al Qaeda in the region had been ignored and suppressed by his superiors. None of his analysis involved specific threats against the [USS] Cole, however. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, the former White House counterterrorism aides in [counterterrorism czar] […]
10/12/2000
“On October 12, 2000, al Qaeda operatives on a small boat laden with explosives attacked a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, killing 17 members of the ship’s crew and wounding at least 40. The plot…was a full-fledged al Qaeda operation, supervised directly by Bin Ladin.” – 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Page 190 […]
10/12/2000
“Even after the [USS] Cole bombing [on October 12, 2000], [Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard] Clarke could not persuade Defense Secretary William Cohen or his top uniformed officer, Hugh Shelton, to take an offensive strike against al Qaeda or the Taliban seriously. ‘Although we fully shared Mr. Clarke’s anger and frustration,’ recalled [then-Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright […]
10/12/2000
“On the morning of October 12 [2000], two al Qaeda suicide bombers load a device made of C-4 explosive into a small skiff and take off across the harbor in Aden, Yemen. The U.S.S. Cole, an advanced guided missile destroyer, is at the refueling dock. As the skiff approaches the ship…the bomb detonates, blowing a […]
10/12/2000
Following the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, on October 12, 2000, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) specialist Kie “Fallis was disgusted. For the past year he had been tracking the al Qaeda terrorist network and found that the group was intimately linked to the government of Iran. …Fallis was angry that his repeated […]
10/12/2000
“On the day the [USS] Cole bombing was carried out [October 12, 2000], NSA [National Security Agency] produced a top secret intelligence report warning that terrorists were planning an attack on an American target in the Middle East. But the NSA report was not dispatched until several hours after the bombing.” – Bill Gertz, Breakdown, […]