(sigh) Democrats cower/cover-up/complicit in INCOMPETENCE

(sigh) Now we get to the nuts-and-bolts of why CowardlyDemocrats.blogspot.com is so necessary. It is not just that Mr. Bush, Karl Rove, and their minions are greedy, selfish, corrupt, bullying, lying, and incompetent. Well, it is the later. You see, Mr. Bush and his Republican government were INCOMPETENT at preventing 9-11. That is, if you don't subscribe to the "conspiracy theory" that Bush and his government were complicit in the 9-11 attacks.

But we don't need the more extreme "conspiracy theory" to note that Mr. Bush is a danger, a threat, to America's security. On the face of it, the reason Pres. Bush did not heed CIA and FBI warnings that "Al Qaida was determined to attack in America" was either that, #1.) he was unawares of these warnings, having IGNORED his own "Counter-terror Czar" Richard Clarke's almost manic requests for a "principles meeting" to discuss the threat (or having placed incompetent supervisors in place who did not forward the lower-level "system is blinking red" warnings and alerts); or #2.) Mr. Bush WAS aware of the terror threat in the summer of 2001 (he stayed aboard a US warship, the carrier Enterprise, at the Genoa G-8 Economic summit, a graphic message for a peaceful summit, in which the White House explained "terror threats" as the reason for Mr. Bush staying aboard the warship), but CHOOSE NOT DO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, taking a gamble that the alerts were over-active, and that AMERICAN BUSINESSES WOULD BE HARMED if measures - namely increased security - were taken to thwart a potential terror attack or hijacking.

If the later were the case - (#2. above) that Mr. Bush took a gamble that NO terror attack would take place - then his bet failed miserably.

If the former were the case - that Mr. Bush DID KNOW of the terror alerts, warnings, and threats, as conveyed by his Counter-Terror Czar (who, if he didn't talk to Mr. Bush directly, did talk to Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and other Bush advisors), CIA, and August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in America" - but Mr. Bush STILL FAILED to do ANYTHING about those threats - then he was clearly PART OF THE PROBLEM, PART of the THREAT TO AMERICA, like a cop asleep at his post, or a fire-engine that took a wrong turn and arrived at a fire 20 minutes late.

This, of course, is all PAST HISTORY. What is so troubling in all of this, is that Mr. Bush HASN'T LEARNED HIS LESSON.

He stacks FEMA and HOMELAND SECURITY with his cronies and campaign staffers, such as Joe Albaugh, Michael Chertoff, and "Brownie" Michael Brown. He continues to allow Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to stay on at the DoD, despite Rumsfeld's glaring policy failures bordering on abject incompetence. (How else do you define "letting Iraqi looters loot tons and tons and tons of ammunition from unsecured military ammunition complexes, as American troops did KP duty less than 10 miles away"?) And, of course, Mr. Bush refuses to "connect the dots" re TORTURE and abusive treatment at hands of American servicemen/women STIMULATING THE INSURGENCY (among dozens of other policies/omissions that stimulate the insurgency.)





FAA Reportedly Dismissed Moussaoui Concern
By Jerry Markon and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; 1:21 PM

In emotional testimony in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui
today, the former manager of an Arizona flight school that trained one
of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers told a federal jury that she had
expressed alarm about her student to the Federal Aviation Administration
and cried when she learned he had flown an airliner into the Pentagon.

Margaret Chevrette said she helped train hijacker Hani Hanjour at Pan Am
International Flight Academy in Mesa, Ariz., near Phoenix, from late
December 2000 until March 2001. She said Hanjour, a Saudi who is
believed to have piloted the American Airlines plane that crashed into
the Pentagon, was a poor pilot who spoke limited English.

She said she had been "worried that he was going to hurt himself or hurt
someone else because he didn't have the skills" to fly an airliner and
risked causing an accident.

Chevrette said she reported her concerns to the FAA during Hanjour's
training at the flight school but that the agency did little in
response. She said an FAA official who oversaw her school suggested she
obtain an English interpreter for Hanjour, which was against the
agency's own regulations.

"I reminded him it is required to be able to speak and write English on
your own" to be permitted to fly a plane in the United States, Chevrette
testified.

When she heard about the Sept. 11 hijackings, "I already knew in my
heart that Hani was a part of it," Chevrette said. She recalled driving
to work when she learned that a plane had hit the Pentagon after two
planes had already struck the World Trade Center in New York.

"I think that's the thing that just snapped," she said, recalling her
realization that it was a terrorist attack. "I remember crying all the
way to work, knowing that our company helped do this." The academy
closed in December 2001.

As Chevrette spoke, her voice hoarse and breaking at times, two family
members of the Sept. 11 victims cried softly in the third row of the
U.S. District Courtroom in Alexandria.

The day after the attacks, she testified, her FAA contact called her and
said, "Your worst nightmare has been realized."

Although Moussaoui's name did not come up during Chevrette's testimony,
it appeared that prosecutors had called her as part of their continuing
effort to show that Moussaoui's actions before the Sept. 11 attacks had
paralleled those of the hijackers who carried out the al-Qaeda plot,
killing nearly 3,000 people.

Moussaoui, 37, pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with al-Qaeda in
the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The jury in the
trial will determine whether he lives or dies.

Moussaoui also took flying lessons and was a poor student, and he paid
for his training with large amounts of cash, as Chevrette testified
today that Hanjour did. The diminutive Saudi had paid for his course
with more than $7,000 in cash, which was unusual, Chevrette testified.

continued for two more pages at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032200275.html

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Fly Into a Building? Who Could Imagine?
by Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

March 22, 2006


WASHINGTON
Three little words:
Still employed there.
Of all the through-the-looking-glass moments in the last few days, the strangest is this: The F.B.I officer who arrested and questioned Zacarias Moussaoui told a jury that he had alerted his superiors about 70 times that Mr. Moussaoui was a radical Islamic fundamentalist who hated America and might be plotting to hijack an airplane.
Seventy? That makes one time for every virgin waiting for Mr. Moussaoui in heaven. Judging by how disastrously the prosecution is doing, the virgins will have to wait.
We could have cracked the 9/11 plot if the F.B.I. wasn't run by dunces. Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers got a break because according to the testimony of the officer, Harry Samit, a better-run bureau could have broken the case even without the terrorist's confession -- maybe F.B.I. officers should have shot him with some paintballs.
On Sept. 10, 2001, Mr. Samit confided to a colleague that he was "desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer." He never heard back from the F.B.I.'s bin Laden unit before 9/11 -- what did the unit have to do that was more pressing than catching bin Laden? And he was obstructed by officials in F.B.I. headquarters here, whom he labeled "criminally negligent."
He named two of the officials who did not want to endanger their careers with any excess aggression toward radical fundamentalists: David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, then working on the Radical Fundamentalist Unit.
Even though Condi Rice told the 9/11 commission that "no one could have imagined" terrorists' slamming a plane into the World Trade Center, an F.B.I. officer did. Officer Samit testified that a colleague, Greg Jones, tried to light a fire under Mr. Maltbie by urging him to "prevent Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center."
Later, Mr. Jones told Mr. Samit that it had just been "a lucky guess."
Kenneth Williams, a Phoenix agent, also sent a warning memo to the phlegmatic Mr. Frasca in July 2001, after sniffing out a scheme by Osama to dispatch Middle East extremists to America to get flight training.
Neil Lewis wrote in The Times yesterday that "William Carter, an F.B.I. spokesman, said that neither the bureau nor Mr. Maltbie nor Mr. Frasca, who are still employed there, would have any comment."
Still employed there? How can Mr. Maltbie and Mr. Frasca still be employed at the F.B.I.? How can Michael Chertoff still be employed at Homeland Security? How can Donald Rumsfeld still be employed at the Pentagon?
Missing 9/11, missing Katrina, mangling Iraq, racking up a $9 trillion debt -- those things don't cause officials to lose their jobs. Only saying something honest -- as prescient Gen. Eric Shinseki did -- can get you a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
Rummy told reporters last week that the military was preparing for a civil war in Iraq, but he did not consider it a civil war yet -- even though he acknowledged it was hard to tell exactly when chaos tipped into civil war.
"I don't think it'll look like the United States' Civil War," he added sanguinely. Yeah. At Fort Sumter, Lincoln let the enemy fire first. So the defense secretary believes if the body count stays below the Civil War era's 600,000, Iraq will achieve a healthy blue-state, red-state democracy?
One administration official says that Rummy does not hold the same sway in meetings anymore, that he's treated as an eccentric old uncle who pops off and is ignored. But why can't W. just quit him? Instead, the president praised him for doing "a fine job" on two wars and transforming the military, when Rummy actually bullied the military to go along with his foolish schemes in Iraq and has sapped the once-feared fighting machine.
At his impromptu press conference yesterday, the president presented himself as a nice guy doing a difficult job, relentlessly joshing with reporters. He chided the press for playing into terrorists' goals by showing bad news from Iraq -- "they're capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show" -- even as reports surfaced about insurgents outside Baghdad storming a jail, slaughtering 18 police officers and letting the prisoners out, following fast upon an insurgent raid on Iraqi Army headquarters in Kirkuk. Does the president think TV will instead report on an increase in melon sales at the market?
When the Bushies harp on training Iraqi security forces so America can hand the country over to them, it has a hollow ring. Back in 2003, the U.S. de-Baathified Iraq and put its faith in its friends, the Shiites. Now, given the suspected Shiite death squads and militias, the U.S. wants to bring the Sunnis back into the system. So whom do we trust? And for how long?
Asked if he could envision a day when there would be no more U.S. forces in Iraq, the president said, "That, of course, is an objective." But he added that it would be decided by future Iraqi governments and future American presidents.
Once W. is not still employed there.
Posted: March 23, 2006
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