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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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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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The 9/11 Commission
. 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 
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