By Allan P. Duncan
April 11, 2001
Last week during her testimony before the 9-11 Commission, Condoleeza Rice was asked about the President's Daily Brief that was given to President Bush on August 6, 2001 . Rice indicated that the PDB was an "historical assessment," and not a rundown of a current threat.
I disagree.
Two important points are that both Washington DC and New York City were mentioned in the PDB and both were eventually attacked 36 days later on 9-11.
New York City references:
"A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks." (they weren't being recruited to be Boy Scouts...they were being recruited for attacks)
"F.B.I. information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York . "
Washington DC reference:
"After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington ."
In my opinion, the most important quote is one of the New York references. "F.B.I. information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York . "
Since they already knew that Bin Laden had tried to attack the Los Angeles Airport in the Millennium Plot in late 1999, and because "F.B.I. information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks", I believe any reasonable person would have seen this as a major red flag, especially since the PDB then stated that there had also been "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York " .
The words "since that time" and "recent surveillance" indicate that the "patterns of suspicious activity consistent with preparations for hijackings" had to have been conducted between late 1999, when the Millennium Plot was thwarted, and August 6, 2001 when Bush was briefed on the PDB. This is not a huge expanse of time, and to refer to it as "an "historical assessment" and not a rundown of a current threat is ludicrous. How much time has to pass before information becomes historical enough to justify not taking action on it?
Another point I want to make is, where are most of the federal buildings in New York ? Wouldn't you think that if they knew these federal buildings had recently been "under surveillance," and that "patterns of suspicious activity" had been documented "consistent with preparations for hijackers or other types of attacks" that they would have increased security in the area of these buildings and warned the people who lived and worked there? Again, I believe any reasonable person would have shored up security and warned these people. Since there was no added security and the people weren't warned, it says a lot about the officials who received this information.
And on a last note, what kind of "patterns of suspicious activity" had been either reported or observed that would have caused officials to believe that these activities were "consistent with preparations for hijackings"? I mean, how do people prepare for hijackings? Were the people involved in these "patterns of suspicious activity" doing something out of the ordinary that raised these suspicions? If so, then where and when were these people preparing for hijackings and who were the people who were planning to become the hijackers?
In order to make statements like these in a classified document as important as the President's Daily Brief, there must have been strong evidence that hijackings were being planned somewhere by somebody, otherwise it wouldn't have been mentioned at all.
If anything, the August 6th PDB opens up a whole new can of worms that needs to be sifted through and thoroughly investigated. We the People must now demand that even tougher questions be asked of those who knew this information to try to ascertain why these same people did nothing about it. To let it go as nothing more than "an "historical assessment" would be a slap to the face of all the good people who lost loved ones on 9-11. The 9-11 Families along with all of the American people deserve to know the truth.
Allan Duncan is a 911 activist, and a former Social Worker and police officer, who lives in New Hope , PA. This article is copyright by Allan Duncan ADuncan282@aol.com originally published by opednews.com Permission is granted to forward this or to place it on a website as long as the article is included intact, including this statement
