A day before the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, former Vice President Dick Cheney jabbed President Barack Obama over a new report that he opted not to attend a number of presidential daily briefings, a decision that Cheney claims is indicative of his aloofness on national security.
“If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden,” a Cheney spokeswoman told The Daily Caller in an email.
Speaking of intelligence briefings:
That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.
The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.
“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government’s transliteration of Bin Laden’s first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.
Cheney and Bush ignored the intelligence briefings about OBL, then, after he killed thousands of Americans, invaded Iraq. Obama ordered the Seals to kill OBL, and that’s driving the Bush administration sociopaths insane.
AxelFoley
Would someone rid me of this meddlesome misanthrope?
handy
Would that the Sith Lord be productive and do the things he’s good at, like accidentally shooting people in the face.
MattR
@handy: Well there’s one good thing we can say about Paul Ryan. He’s never shot anyone in the face (that we know of).
PS. John, you need to edit that last sentence.
GregB
It can’t be said enough:
9/11 happened on Bush and Cheney’s watch…..
AxelFoley
@AxelFoley:
Just want to clear it up–I’m not talking about Cole.
Spaghetti Lee
For certain rightbloggers, you know, the ones who beat the war drums and talk about Sharia and Eurabia and dhimmitude and all that crap, and who made their careers in the Bush era by calling Democrats limp-wristed appeaser pussies…this is never going to register with them. Their War Party, the Daddy Party, the ones who owned the copyright to all things good and patriotic and all-American, they failed. The limp-wristed appeasers got him.
I think this is the reason for the beyond-irrational idea that Obama didn’t “really” get Bin Laden. The phrase “can’t comprehend” gets thrown around a lot for them, but, well, what else is it? For them it’s like waking up one morning and finding that you’ve turned into a platypus. It can’t be real. You’ll wake up soon. I think they’ll never get over it, myself. They’ll still see themselves as the heroes, even though they and their leaders failed miserably.
JGabriel
__
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John Cole @ Top:
The GOP are outraged because they don’t have their bin Laden monster to scare people with anymore.
.
Mark S.
Republicans suck at national security? Next you’ll be telling me they suck at balancing the budget.
gnomedad
Fucking logic! How does it work?
Jay in Oregon
If it was anyone else, I would say that there’s no God, because Cheney should have been struck by a bolt from the heavens for that asshattery.
However, given that it is Cheney, I can only wonder how many small children and puppies he’ll have to sacrifice to Asmodeus to evade divine justice yet again.
Little Boots
oh, great, johnny.
patrick II
On the day before the eleven year observance of 9/11 this cynical sociopath is still using 9/11 as a wedge issue.
Little Boots
@patrick II:
which psycopath?
Tonal Crow
Oh please. It is not projection; it is propaganda. Hasn’t our Democrats learned anythings yet?
—
Romney: like Sarah Palin, but more dishonest.
Mark S.
Reuters:
Some White Southerners Hate Rich Mormons Even More Than Kenyan Muslims
I couldn’t get through the whole article. They interviewed a whole lot of stupid people.
Jerzy Russian
The lack of self awareness is stunning, as usual. Mr. Cheney should go hunting with himself.
General Stuck
You know, Bush Cheney and most of the republican idiot brigades are insane, from being giving much too much rope by the press and voters to hang us all with. But somehow we get things like this nugget of journalism that is a real turdblossom, and not Karl Rove. And with a discernible change of political wind direction, maybe, just maybe, the real root of it all is getting it, finally. At least to a meager degree. The American voter.
All of which, gives Colonel Mustard the melancholies.
SatanicPanic
On Yahoo today wingnuts were calling me stupid for not knowing that the WMDs were moved to Syria. I really, really hope Mitt Romney says this in a speech.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
Five wars in five years was the goal. If you want to complain about Obamas GWOT fine. But at least it seems somewhat measured.
Little Boots
new thread. really. come.
cat48
The prez gets his daily briefings from John Brennan who has an office in the Whitehouse. He often travels with the prez on vacation & overseas b/c he’s just that important & knowledgeable, especially about the Middle East.
TaMara (BHF)
Ok, just got back from my happy place. Those numbers, wow. The projections, even more wow.
Dick Cheney is proof that evil feeds on itself, that is the only explanation for his continued survival.
The fact that anyone still listens to him? For that I have no reasonable explanation.
patrick II
We are being destroyed by ideologues. The neocons believed that Saddam Hussein was the true enemy and no evidence would convince them otherwise. Others believe that the evidence of a universe that is billions of years old and the science evolution should be dismissed. Faith based economics asserts the natural order of supply-side theory and unsustainable accumulation of wealth. If a problem cannot be fixed by the free market then we pretend it does not and cannot exist — so climate change is dismissed.
And others pretend to believe this idiocy to advance their own agenda. Romney and Ryan exemplify the self-reinforcing combination of the ambitious pretender (Romney) and the true-believer (Ryan.)
We are screwed.
Mandalay
The GOP are outraged because several prominent Republicans including Bush, Romney and McCain had all spouted explanations for why we couldn’t and/or shouldn’t go after bin Laden.
Their leaders were (and are) ineffective, but Obama got the job done and put them in their place. THAT is why the GOP is outraged.
jaleh
I have to keep telling this to myself to stop from going crazy when I think about the way Republicans think:
“Its impossible to initiate a rational dialogue with some one about beliefs and concepts if he has not acquired them through reason. It doesn’t matter whether we are looking at God, race, or national pride.” and politics?
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel’s Game
Spaghetti Lee
I’d like to hear the Bushies’ argument for some putative OBL-Saddam alliance. I would bet my bottom dollar it boils down to “I can’t tell Those People apart”, or at least a vast, vast lack of knowledge about the various political/cultural differences among Muslims.
Petorado
Thank you for reminding us, Mr. Cheney, that you remain a font of pure evil. Now I see why people continue to hound frail old men like Pinochet to make sure that one day they are brought to justice. … One day buddy, one day.
angelfoot
“If President Obama
were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basiswas more concerned about Dick Cheney’s legacy, then perhaps he would understand whypeople areDick Cheney is so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden,” a Cheney spokeswoman told The Daily Caller in an email.Rafer Janders
What? That doesn’t even make sense as a criticism on its own terms. How does A (attending intelligence briefings on a regular basis) lead to B (understanding people’s feelings)?
angelfoot
Also, you can bet your sweet ass that Obama is privately reading the damn briefings, probably without moving his lips but maybe from his teleprompter-like iPad.
tech98
None of which were the real explanation, “Republicans need a bogeyman hiding out there to bash Dems, funnel money to our oil/military-industrial cronies, and rile up the fear-driven stupids that keep us in power”.
Bin Laden was worth far more in hiding than dead to the Republican Party.
Smiling Mortician
@Rafer Janders: If I may, just a slight modification:
If President Obama
were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basiswas more concerned about Dick Cheney’s legacy, then perhaps he would understand whypeople areDick Cheney is so offended at hisefforts to take sole credit for thekilling of Osama bin Laden.ETA: Oops, that was for angelfoot, not Rafer Janders. Apologies.
angelfoot
@Smiling Mortician: Modification duly noted and accepted.
angelfoot
@Rafer Janders:
I know, it’s a total non sequitur. What would the retort be to that? “If Dick Cheney had only paid attention to his intelligence briefings, then perhaps he would understand why people…”
freelancer
Goddamn, it offends me that there is a human being out there who is probably dead in the ground because they were on the same potential recipient list for a Heart Transplant as Cheney. I’ve said it before, I will live to piss on that fuck’s grave.
Turgidson
@MattR:
Give him a chance. He’ll brag about such an incident. Then, of course, it will turn out to be a total fucking lie. Just like everything else this contemptible twit says.
piratedan
you know what… I hope that miserable asshole lives another 30 years… and gets to see the election of Hilary Clinton, Deval Patrick and then One of Castro brothers. Watch the recovery of the US economic system using Democratic policies, see financial sanity restored to the markets with tighter financial regulations, the Consumer protection Agency thrive, our clean energy initiatives producing startling changes using solar, wind and geothermal energy. Cars that drive themselves and a supreme court that upholds women’s rights and that Religion, masquerading as political interests are taxed just like corporations are when Chief Justice Sotormayor reverses Citizens United.
I hope he lives to a 110 and watches his every dream and attempt to control the country either pissed on, derided or left as a black blotch in our nation’s history books.
victory
There is just no way around it, if it was Gore instead of Bush, he would have been Impeached and put on trail for Treason.
IOKIYAR
dewzke
test
tones
Repubs:
ooga booga bin laden!
Bhutto:
He died years ago… [immediately dies herself]
Obama We got him!
Repubs No Fair!