Corruption as an issue in the 2006 US elections

A President Gore would have heeded the very strong warnings about the possible attacks by airplane. Bush was oblivious to all warnings of terrorism, as well as the terrorism action plan left for Bush by Clinton. I think that 9/11 would have been prevented.

Bush was too busy planning an invasion of Iraq. Moreover, the planning began before he even won the first election.

What you are saying doesn't match up with the report of othe 9/11 Commission.

During Bush's first term, FBI agents were urging action regarding the Arabs learning to fly airliners. The agents were ignored.

Responsibility for domestic intelligence gathering on terrorism was vested solely in the FBI, yet during almost all of the Clinton administration the relationship between the FBI Director and the President was nearly nonexistent. The FBI Director would not communicate directly with the President. His key personnel shared very little information with the National Security Council and the rest of the national security community. As a consequence, one of the critical working relationships in the counterterrorism effort was broken.

For example, information on the FBI's effort in 1998 to assess the potential use of flight training by terrorists and the Phoenix electronic communication of 2001 warning of radical Middle Easterners attending flight school were not passed to FAA headquarters. Several top FAA intelligence officials called the domestic threat picture a serious blind spot.

Moreover, the FAA's intelligence unit did not receive much attention from the agency's leadership. Neither Administrator Jane Garvey nor her deputy routinely reviewed daily intelligence, and what they did see was screened for them. She was unaware of a great amount of hijacking threat information from her own intelligence unit, which, in turn, was not deeply involved in the agency's policymaking process. Historically, decisive security action took place only after a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered.

slkshock7 -- And your bias is hidden?

The fact of the matter is that 9/11 occurred during the Bush watch, at which time the relevant agencies were headed by Bush appointees.

I feel that 9/11 would have been avoided during a Gore presidency.

The fact of the matter is that 9/11 occurred during the Bush watch, at which time the relevant agencies were headed by Bush appointees.

I feel that 9/11 would have been avoided during a Gore presidency.

Bush received particularly strong warnings from Richard Clarke and others that bin-Laden had resolved to attack the USA in 2001, and that he might use commercial planes. Bush resolutely ignored this, probably because of his focus on an invading Iraq. Clarke and O'Neill say this in their books.

Al Gore would not have been interested in invading Iraq, and would have acted on the warnings about bin-Laden.

It is so tiresome that the right has to somehow drag Clinton and others into the explanations for Bush failures. I guess they are not big enough to take responsibility.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Tuesday his account of the Bush administration's early discussions about a possible invasion of Iraq has been distorted by a "red meat frenzy."

The controversy began last week when excerpts were released from a book on the administration published Tuesday in which O'Neill suggests Iraq was the focus of President Bush's first National Security Council meeting.

That started what O'Neill described to NBC's "Today" show as a "red meat frenzy that's occurred when people didn't have anything except snippets."

"People are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration," O'Neill said.

"Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq."