Caught with his briefing down

[mdlbear]

It's pretty clear what they were thinking...

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11, 2001, that al Qaeda members were in the United States and the FBI had detected suspicious activity "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," according to a secret memo the White House released under pressure on Saturday.

White House officials were quick to say after the document's evening release that the Aug. 6, 2001, memo did not warn of the Sept. 11 attacks and that although it referred to the possibility of hijackings, it did not discuss the possible use of planes as weapons.

"There's nothing in here that we can show was tied to the 9/11 plot," a senior White House official told reporters.

We already know that this administration was primed and ready to go to war with Iraq. A nice little war would make Bush look good, take peoples' minds off the economy, and give Ashcroft an excuse to erode a little more of the Bill of Rights for the duration. They probably figured that maybe a plane would get hijacked, a couple of hundred people would get killed, and if they could trace it back to Saddam it would be just the excuse they needed.

What they got, of course, was even better: the chance to declare a never-ending, unwinnable "war" against Terrorism, and a damned good start down the road toward a police state.