Of course, you probably won’t read or hear about this in the US media but, if true, this story in The Independent borders on damning. A former FBI translator claims she told the 9-11 Commission there are documents showing the administration knew in the spring and summer of 2001 that there were plans to attack the US with airplanes. What I find most interesting is this part of the article, which, unfortunately, provides no documentation or references: “The Bush administration, meanwhile, has . . . obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used ‘state secrets privilege.'” (Via The War In Context).
I really haven’t been one of those after the Bushies for what did they know and when did they know it. It was their post 9-11 actions that offended me. Yet they’re putting up such a fight and fuss now that you can’t help but wonder if there’s some real vulnerability on this point. In that regard, I finished Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud last night. Without going into detail, the latter pages of the book seem to confirm what Richard Clarke has been saying about how Bush’s people didn’t care about terrorism or al Queda. I know these books were published the same month and both on Simon and Schuster imprints but it seems odd Unger would be prescient enough to know what a splash Clarke would make in the media and thereby craft his book in such a fashion to support Clarke (although it is clear Clarke was a source for Unger’s book).
