This is just pathetic

Now, I know you've seen news coverage of the release of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that included a section about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, so I'm not going to spend time going over that. But since not all the coverage included the text of the briefing, I've got it down the bottom of this post.

What I did want to mention here was the comically absurd response of Republican James Thompson, the same man who acted as co-prosecutor with John Lehman in the attempt to derail Richard Clarke. He argued, as quoted by AP, that

the memo "didn't call for anything to be done" by Bush.

The memo's details confirm that the Bush administration had no specific information regarding an imminent attack involving airplanes as missiles, Thompson said.

"The PDB backs up what Dr. Rice testified to. There is no smoking gun, not even a cold gun," he said.

I mean, this is hilarious. I haven't seen such a high level of nonsense since Nebraska Republican Senator Roman Hruska defended Richard Nixon's nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court by saying mediocre judges were entitled to "a little representation" in 1970 - except maybe for when Republican (It's always the Republicans, isn't it? Weird.) Congressman Charles Sandman of New Jersey was defending Richard Nixon in his impeachment hearings in 1974.

Consider that the briefing says

- Bin Laden has wanted to attack the US since 1997.
- He "prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks."
- Al-Qaeda members have lived in or traveled to the US for years, "and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks." Some are US citizens.
- A source said people were being recruited in New York.
- There have been "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." (Emphasis added.)
- Federal buildings in New York recently have been under surveillance. (The White House says this turned out to be innocent tourists, but that's irrelevant because the briefing doesn't say that.)
- And not three months earlier, a call had been placed to the US Embassy in the United Arab Emirates "saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." (Note that where I quote the document I use it's spelling of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.)

And yet! And yet! Because the briefing doesn't specifically tell Georgie-boy what to do and didn't specifically state a threat of "an imminent attack involving airplanes as missiles," the White House is off the hook, clean as a whistle, innocent as a newborn lamb, pure as driven snow....

This is truly high comedy.

The Hilarity Continues Dept.: Senior White House officials said the CIA prepared the document "in response to questions asked by the president about the possibility of attacks" by al-Qaeda inside the US. But the senior officials "refused to say what Bush's response to the memo was."

The text of the briefing: Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ''bring the fighting to America.''

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to xxxxxxxxxxx service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members - including some who are US citizens - have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a xxxxxxxxxx service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.