Damn ... I've been too busy at work to have a chance to watch much tv. I'm kinda puzzled how predator drones could have prevented the attack though ... I'm assuming that bin laden wasn't planning the attacks by drawing schematics outside in the sand for everybody to see ... right?

And I'm not sure about the time frame and everything, but weren't the hijackers already positioned in the US long before 9/11?

Oh well ... wished I coulda have seen them squirm

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Retro ...

Well, the theme of the questioning (for both Albright and Powell) basically consisted of:

- What intellignece did you have?

and

- Did you act on it?

Powell stressed that, despite the warnings left by the Clinton administration, that his administration did not have the intelligence necessary to take military action against Al Qaeda in light of the USS Cole bombings. The follow up questions were then:

- Why did you not have pre-existing intelligence folios / policies on Al Qaeda? (They weren't finalised until September 2001.)

and

- If the intelligence was thin, why wasn't there a more concerted effort - in light of the inherent dangers posed by Al Qaeda - to gather intellignece, including via the means of these predator drones? (Because they weren't ready until September.)

Now it's not something I'd be particularly caught up on either, but there were 3-4 consecutive questions on this point (namely, why drones weren't used to gather the intelligence necessary to facilitate a military attack), so I assume it bares some significance. Once again, I'm not starting a conspiracy theory, just posing a question.

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Last edited by Renegade on Mar-23-2004 at 18:32

quote:

Originally posted by occrider And I'm not sure about the time frame and everything, but weren't the hijackers already positioned in the US long before 9/11?

That was mentioned, but wasn't dwelled upon. Powell said something along the lines of that despite inconsistencies in some of the visas and other documents possessed by the hijackers, there was nothing significant enough for them to be detected by any intelligence agnecy. But you're quite right, the hijackers (apart from four maybe?) were never in Afghanistan.

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quote:

Originally posted by occrider I'm kinda puzzled how predator drones could have prevented the attack though ... I'm assuming that bin laden wasn't planning the attacks by drawing schematics outside in the sand for everybody to see ... right?

He never said the predator drones just by themselves could have prevented the attack. Let's look at what Renegade actually said:

quote:

He was then asked why they didn't use the "predator" spycraft (used in the Afghan war) to gather intelligence on Al Qaeda from Afghan airspace and he answered that they weren't ready until that September either.

Notice that he sets up the stage by stating that the predator drones could have been used to gather intelligence on Al Qaeda. They may not be drawing schematics in the sand, but they sure move around, gather supplies, etc.

quote:

... it seems like a bit of a coincidence that these things - that could have helped to prevent an event like Sept 11 - weren't ready until almost the exact moment when the attacks occurred?

Emphasis is mine. Renegade was never implying the drones could have stopped 9/11, only that they could have helped stop it. How? By gathering intelligence on Al Qaeda!

It's too easy to dismiss something in a witty manner and not think about the actual issue involved.

But let's also not get into conspiracy theories, shall we? This thread could potentially degenerate into one of those. To play devil's advocate for the Bush administration, one could say that despite the existence of intelligence on Al Qaeda, it wasn't dramatic enough to warrant drastic action such as using predator drones to spy on them. It's drastic because (and I may be wrong) the predator drones are not long range and must operate from a base (whether an aircraft carrier or actual land base). So the U.S. wasn't about to send an aircraft carrier out to Afghanistan just to launch some drones and gather some intelligence on Al Qaeda. Unless the prior intelligence hinted at something huge like 9/11, in which case it would have been prudent to do so... I don't know what this "prior intelligence" was, sorry.

Also, it may have just been the case that the predators really were only ready after 9/11, just out of coincidence!

quote:

Originally posted by Alccode He never said the predator drones just by themselves could have prevented the attack. Let's look at what Renegade actually said: Notice that he sets up the stage by stating that the predator drones could have been used to gather intelligence on Al Qaeda. They may not be drawing schematics in the sand, but they sure move around, gather supplies, etc. Emphasis is mine. Renegade was never implying the drones could have stopped 9/11, only that they could have helped stop it. How? By gathering intelligence on Al Qaeda! It's too easy to dismiss something in a witty manner and not think about the actual issue involved.

Hey he was the one to put "drones not ready until September" and "conspiracy theory" into the same sentence . Hehe I was merely stating why I thought that a conspiracy theory revolving around the predator drones was not very plausible. Personally, I don't think that Predator drones around Afghanistan would have prevented anything ... especially 9/11. After all, what kind of intelligence could it have gathered to prevent 9/11? At most, it could have tracked al-Q movements, I'm not sure what kind of intelligence estimates one can draw from such data other than "they're moving around a lot." Furthermore, with supplies, I dunno if Al-Q was shipping box cutters from Afghanistan to the US to supply the hijackers .

I agree with you and Renegade that in all liklihood it's not a consp theory, and that the thread shouldn't descend into that. I think it's a mistake to associate the predator drone topic with a conspiracy theory, since it diverts attention from what it really is imo ... gross incompetance in anticipating the growing threat, taking that threat seriously, and failing to gather more intelligence. Before 9/11 the white house sat on its ass and dropped the ball when it came to analysts saying there was a growing threat. After 9/11 the white house accelerated anti-terrorism intelligence operations, such as predator drones, and tried to cover its tracks of incompetance. Anywayz ... I'll stop since I don't have anything to contribute to the thread topic at this time.

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Retro ...

btw those predator drones can carry missles and fire them. in fact such a drone killed a senior al-q member in yemen a while back:

quote:

America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out an attack in Yemen that killed six suspected members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, according to US officials. The men died when the jeep they were travelling in was hit by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA plane - believed to be a Predator drone, the US sources said. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2402479.stm

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If God is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question.

The reason the predator drones were brought up by the commission and by me in my previous post is because they could have been utilised to build on the sketchy intelligence we had about Al Qaeda. Both administrations say that they were aware of the threat Al Qaeda posed, but could not act because they lacked the intelligence necessary to target specific sites or people (that is, the military wouldn't have known where to fire). The significance of the drones is that they could have been used to fill in the gaps in our intelligence and therefore a military strike could have been launched against Al Qaeda prior to September 11 (though it's difficult to say what impact this would have had on the events of that day - whether it could have been prevented / delayed etc.). Powell, as I said before, said that although the drones were used to gather intelligence (and, as Izzy showed, to strike targets) during the Afghan campaign in October, they weren't ready until the early days of September.

I'll make it clear yet again that I'm not trying to fan a conspiracy, but that if a conspiracy does exist in some form it's merely that the Bush admin were lazy in terrorism policy formulation and in taking proactive measures to inhibit Al Qaeda. The policies that weren't ready until "September 4th" and the predator drones that weren't ready until September either (although they were, apparently, ready and fully operational just one month later) are just manifestations of this suspiscion harboured by many that the Bush admin were lazy in their confrontation of terrorism and that they failed to sufficiently heed the warnings left by the outgoing national-security staff by translating the evident threat posed by Al Qaeda into a military-backed, proactive attempt to hinder Al Qaeda operations at the root.

Anyway:

quote:

Both the Bush administration and the Clinton White House before it were well aware of the growing threat that al-Qaida posed to the United States. As far back as 1993, the group was implicated in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. What this commission is now trying to determine is whether either administration could have done more to head off the 9/11 attacks, including taking more aggressive military action against Osama bin-Laden's group. President Bush says he would have taken swift action if he had information that an attack on the United States was imminent. His administration did not complete a review of its counter terrorism policy until the same month as the 9/11 attacks that claimed some three thousand lives.

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?...F64921C0505F48D

I think if Condi Rice does decide to take the stand, she'll be asked:

1) Why did you decide to completely scrap the anti-terrorism policies of the previous administration?

and

2) Why did it take so long to formulate your own? If you were aware, as you say, of the threat posed by Al Qaeda, why wasn't there more urgency shown in formulating the strategies necessary to protect the nation?

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