George W Bush, Political Terrorist

by William Rivers Pitt - t r u t h o u t

Thursday, 23 May, 2002

The earthquake began on Thursday, May 16th: The Bush administration had been warned by the CIA months before September 11th of Al Qaida terrorists and plans to hijack airplanes. Nothing of substance was done to address the threat – "The proper agencies were warned," we were told, but no representative of any pertinent agency has since stepped forward to acknowledge receipt of any warnings.

In fact, the spokesman for Massport, the Massachusetts state agency responsible for security at Logan airport, stated bluntly in the pages of the Boston Globe that his agency never heard from the Federal government regarding any hijacking threat. The two aircraft that destroyed the World Trade Center towers and killed thousands of Americans went wheels-up at Logan.

By Friday the news was sprayed across the headlines of virtually every newspaper on the planet: Bush Knew.

The implications were deadly for the Bush White House. Information had been given that indicated terrorist attacks were imminent, but little if anything was done to prevent them. Concern for the profit margins of the airline industry, which would have been crippled had a serious terrorist warning been disbursed in high summer, were first offered as a good reason why no true measures were taken to prevent the hijackings.

Later, spokesmen like Ari Fleischer and Dick Cheney came forward to claim that the warnings were "vague" and "non-specific" and therefore not worthy of notice. We were told that the hijack warnings pertained to "traditional hijacking" scenarios, as if that forgave the lapse in security. The weekend political talk shows became a showcase for spin, and the word went out for all to hear – the Bush administration is blameless, and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor.

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