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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- Also see this extensively-linked page for an entire site on Bush/bin Laden and Saudis http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/bin_laden_ties.htmlwww.hvk.org/articles/1101/71.html FBI 'was told to back off bin Laden family' Author: Press Association Publication: The Sydney Morning Herald Date: November 8, 2001 London - United States special agents were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September 11, a BBC television program has claimed BBC2's Newsnight also said on Tuesday night that it had secret documents from the FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks which showed that despite claims that Osama bin Laden is the black sheep of the family, at least two other US-based members are suspected of links with a possible terrorist organisation. The program said it had obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of bin Laden family members living in the US before September 11. A document showed that special agents from the Washington field office were investigating Abdullah, a close relative of Osama, because of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a suspected terrorist organisation, it said. The US Treasury has not frozen WAMY's assets, and insists it is a charity, the program said, yet Pakistan had expelled WAMY "operatives" and India claimed WAMY was funding an organisation linked to bombings in Kashmir. The FBI did look into WAMY but for some reason agents were pulled off the trail, it said. The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah from 1987 to 1989, Michael Springman, told the program: "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants - people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained there. I complained here in Washington ... and I was ignored." He added: "What I was doing was giving visas to terrorists, recruited by the CIA and Osama bin Laden to come back to the United States for training to be used in the war in Afghanistan against the then Soviets." The program said it had been told by a highly placed source in a US intelligence agency there had always been "constraints" on investigating Saudis, but under President George Bush it had become much worse. After the elections, the intelligence agencies were told to "back off" from investigating the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals. The policy was reversed after September 11, it reported. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1190302,00.html> President spends 40% of time out of the office Gary Younge in New York Monday April 12, 2004 The Guardian President George Bush has spent more than 40% of his presidency at one of his three retreats, sparking criticism from Democrats that he is not taking his job seriously at a crucial time in US history. Mr Bush was on his 33rd visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, at the Easter weekend, where he has spent 233 days or almost eight months since his inauguration, according to a tally by CBS news. Add his 78 visits to Camp David and five to Kennebunkport, Maine, and he has spent all or part of 500 days out of the office while in office. Mr Bush was at his ranch on August 6 2001 as part of a month-long holiday when he received the briefing warning of Osama bin Laden's determination to attack the US, which has become a focal point of the 9/11 commission of inquiry. On Thursday the president watched his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, give her testimony on television, then toured his ranch with the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, before giving an interview to Ladies Home Journal. Regardless of what is going on in the world Mr Bush is usually in bed by 10pm and wakes at 6am. As governor of Texas he would be in work by 8.30am and out by 5.30pm. In between was a 90-minute to two-hour break for exercise or a nap. Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/opinion/11DOWD.html> April 11, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Our New No-Can-Do Nation By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Young Americans are bravely fighting and dying in Iraq, trying to fulfill the audacious vision of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to remold Iraq in the image of America. But while we try to turn them into us, who have we become? The president presents himself as an avatar of American values, plain-spoken cowboy and tough flyboy. But Condi Rice's testimony on Thursday raises the depressing possibility that we've lost the essence of our frontier spirit: the ingenious individualist who gets around the system and faces down the drones. From Abigail Adams to Tom Sawyer to Bugs Bunny to Jimmy Stewart's Jefferson Smith to Indiana Jones, the best American character is plucky, nimble, clever, inventive. So it's disturbing to see our government reacting to crises with a jaded shrug and lumbering gait, especially since we are up against such a creative, chameleonlike enemy. Consider the pathetic performance of NASA, which inverted its motto to "Failure is an option" by shrugging off warnings about the safety of the seven Columbia astronauts who burned up coming back to earth, and not trying to send up a rescue shuttle. This no-can-do spirit marked George Tenet's lame excuses to senators in February who wanted to know why the C.I.A. never picked up the trail of Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilot who crashed Flight 175 into the south tower on 9/11, even though the Germans gave the agency his name and phone number. "They didn't give us a first and a last name until after 9/11," Mr. Tenet said. And what would Eliot Ness say about an F.B.I. that is less computer savvy than American preschoolers and Islamic terrorists? The F.B.I. is only halfway through modernizing its computers, which could not, before 9/11, do two searches at once, such as "Al Qaeda" and "flight schools." Can't we draft Bill Gates for duty? This ominous passivity was threaded through the testimony of Ms. Rice, a brainy and accomplished woman who should represent the best of America. She blamed "systemic" and "structural" impediments that prevented the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. from sharing. She complained that other people hadn't recommended what she should do; even the terrorists were faulted for not giving specifics. The screeching chatter in the spring and summer of 2001 - "There will be attacks in the near future" - did not yank Mr. Bush and his team from their Iraq fixation. "But they don't tell us when," Ms. Rice protested. "They don't tell us where, they don't tell us who, and they don't tell us how." Paging Nancy Drew. Inconclusive intelligence did not bother the Bush team when it wanted to be "actionable" on Iraq, or engage in "tit for tat" with Saddam. The Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing - remarkably headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" - mentioned Al Qaeda's wanting to hijack planes and the 70 F.B.I. field investigations into suspected Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the U.S. The briefing had three-month-old information that Al Qaeda was trying to sneak into the country for an explosives attack. No wonder the C.I.A. chief and counterterrorism czar were running around with their hair on fire. What should have made Condi hysterical, she deemed "historical." W. kept fishing and denouncing Saddam, while Condi sat for a glam Vogue photo shoot and interview. On Iraq, they ran roughshod over the system. On Al Qaeda, Condi blamed the system, saying she couldn't act on Richard Clarke's plan until there was a strategy, a policy, "tasking," meetings, etc. The F.B.I. officials who ignored Coleen Rowley as she tried to break through the obtuse leadership of Louis Freeh's F.B.I. to get evidence on Zacarias Moussaoui, and Kenneth Williams, the Phoenix agent who outlined the Al Qaeda plot to train Arab terrorists in our flight schools, have not been held accountable. Why aren't the heroic Ms. Rowley and Mr. Williams running something? Dick Clarke has struck a chord because his passionate efforts reflected those great American virtues of ingenuity and brashness. Even if he was a bit of a cowboy, loading up his .357 sidearm to return to the West Wing the night after 9/11, at least he was not dozing through High Noon. . My last column should have identified Iraqis fighting inside a Falluja mosque as Sunnis, and the Iraq turnover date as June. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top For a very extensive analysis of the PDB see: THE PROGRESS REPORT http://www.progressreport.org www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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