Debunking the Warnings

Richard Miniter points out that the recent Scripps poll simply reveals that 62% of the American public are wrong about the specificity of the warnings received:

Richard Clarke, the hard-driving “counter-terrorism czar,” testified before the 9-11 commission about pre-September 11 intelligence. He said that the number of “al Qaeda threats and other terrorist threats was in the tens of thousands—probably hundreds of thousands.” But none of it contained specific information that could be used to stop the 9-11 plot. Clarke is even more emphatic in his book, Against All Enemies: “Had we had any chance of stopping it, had we the knowledge we needed to prevent that day, those of us sitting as members of CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] would literally have given our lives to do so; many of those around the CSG table had already put their lives at risk for their country.”

What was lacking was “actionable intelligence.” To prevent the 9-11 attacks (or any terrorist attack), intelligence officials need to know the target, timing, and type of attack, what counterterrorism researcher Kevin Michael Derksen calls “the three T’s of tactical intelligence.” Without knowing all three elements—when, where, and how—an attack cannot be stopped. If you knew that al Qaeda was going to attack the World Trade Center on September 11, but assumed a truck bomb attack, you would be inspecting cars while the planes crashed overhead.

Jon Gold steps boldly into the comments section with Patty Casazza's claim that some whistleblower she met along the side of the road in Maryland told her that the government knew the exact date, the method and the targets; what a shame she neglected to mention this "evidence" in 9-11 Press for Truth.

Terrific article by Miniter; lame comments by the Troofers.