Jan. 01 Memo Warning Bush of Al Qaeda Threat Released

[JaNell]

Al Qaeda Threat Memo

The January 2001 memo from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice warned Bush of Al Qaeda Threat - and she didn't even bother to meet with him until Sept. 4th!

"The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of U.S. policies, including Iraq policy and the (Israeli-Palestinian) Peace Process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge al Qaeda poses."

[Zeo]

Here is the full memo in pdf format from the National Security Archive Web site.

[Alur006]

Not nearly the terribly ignored redflag it was played up to be. That's a basic warning that al-qida/taliban forces were dangerous and needed to be dealt with. Some of it's predictions weren't even acurate, in particular with the Northern Alliance, they were *not* wiped out come that spring, which is why we didn't move in. They held their ground and were doing fine. There as a general opinion among those following the story that the NA was making the right moves to actually win that fight before we stepped in. More to the point, I see nothing in this memo that, were it done, would have prevented 9/11. The memo in particular trying to stop al-queda's money flow, and no plan started at the time of this memo would've choked enough money to stop them. Especially given that they stole these planes, there wasn't a lot of money in this attack on their end. The other is trying to counter their propaganda, which definitely would have had no effect on existing al-queda forces. In all liklihood the men involved in the 9/11 attack were already in the US at this time.

[JaNell]

Here is the full memo in pdf format from the National Security Archive Web site.

Thanks, Zeo, I totally spaced linking to that.