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August 6: George Tenet delivers to the vacationing Bush a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.", saying al Qaeda is planning on hijacking planes and possibly attacking New York. No action is taken. The next day Bush tells the press pool "I've got a lot of national secuirty concerns that we're working on - Iraq, Macedonia, very worrisome right now."
August 16: INS arrests Moussaoui, saying he's "the type of person who could fly something into the World Trade Center".
August 25th: Bush still on vacation. Clarke's memo of fighting terrorism still sitting around, waiting for his attention. Bush tells press "Spot's a good runner. You know, Barney-terriers are bred to go into holes and pull out varmint. And Spotty chases birds. Spotty's a great water dog. I'll go fly fishing this afternoon on my lake." Later builds a nature trail.
Feeling the heat in August about an "imminent terrorist attack", acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard requests an additional $58 million in anti-terrorism funding from the Department of Justice.
September 5: Eight months after Rice had been briefed, and 11 months after Clinton suggested Bush create it, Clarke's plan finally reaches the principals comittee. Bush is back from his month-long August vacation. Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld decide to advise Bush to adopt Clarke's plan with a phased in approach. They wait several days before they put it on his desk.1
September 9: The Senate Armed Services Committe recommends shifting $814 million from missile defense to anti-terrorism funding. Secretary Rumsfeld informs the Senate that he will recommend the President veto this.
September 10: Ashcroft sends his budget request to Bush. Includes spending increases in 68 different programs, none of which deal with terrorism. Ashcroft passes around a memo to his department of his seven top priorities, again terrorism isn't on the list. Acting FBI Director Pickard receives Ashcroft's official denial for Pickard's request for more anti-terrorism funding.
September 11: Using hijacked airliners, Saudi and Egyptian members of al Qaeda attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing thousands. Another hijacked airline crashes to earth in eastern Pennsylvania, apparently brought down as part of a battle between the hijackers and the passengers. Military moves to DefCon 3, all domestic flights are grounded.
September 11-15: Some 142 Saudi nationals, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, are allowed to fly out of the country.
November: Clinton's "defunct, cut, non-battle ready military" kicks the crap out of Afghanistan.
Military is so dismantled it prompts
Lawrence J. Korb, director of national secuirty studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, to say after the Iraq invasion "[t]he fact of the matter is that most of the credit for the successful military operation should go to the Clinton Admnistration."
There will, of course, always be those who close their eyes to inconvenient facts, but even