Michael Scheuer Quotes
No one should be surprised when Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States. I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable.
Scheuer, Michael. Interview. "Al Qaeda's New Front." Frontline, PBS, 25 Jan. 2005.
36 days later, September 11, he did strike. See {617467} for some of the specific contents. The memo was kept secret by the Bush administration until public pressure as a result of the 9-11 Commission hearings forced the declassification and release. At that point it became clear that there was no reason that the memo could not have been released much earlier except that it was embarrassing. See {637530} and {637533} for two other Bin Laden Warnings that Bush and his team ignored.
Bush claimed he did not remember the conversation. His incoming National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was also briefed about bin Laden by the Clinton anti-terrorism director, Richard Clarke. The Bush Administration ignored the warnings until bin Laden struck on 9-11
Two months later the attack of September 11 took place. CIA Director Tenant had been do alarmed by the information that the CIA had obtained that he immediately called the National Security Advisor to arrange a briefing at the White House. This was attended by Rich B, Tenant, and his deputy for counter-terrorism, Cofer Black. Black recommended that the United States immediately go on a “war footing.” It is not known what Rice discussed with President Bush but the nation did not go on a war footing and there was no alert even of the airports where the terrorists started their attack taking over planes. Tenant would later say that one of his biggest regrets was that he did not take the matter to the President personally when his meeting with Rice produced no action.
The Libertarians were major opponents of President George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative.
36 days later, September 11, he did strike, and at the World Trade Center. The memo was kept secret by the Bush administration until public pressure as a result of the 9-11 Commission hearings forced the declassification and release. At that point it became clear that there was no reason that the memo could not have been released much earlier except that it was embarrassing.
Michael F. Scheuer (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies. One assignment during his 22-year career was serving as Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorism Center, known as "Alec Station") from 1996 to 1999. He also served as Special Advisor to the Chief of Alec Station from September 2001 to November 2004.
