Rice says Memo to Bush entitled

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Rice says Memo to Bush entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside US" - not a "Warning"

August 6th 2001 Memo was "Historical Document"

By D. LINDLEY YOUNG
The Modern Tribune - April 8, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. (4/8) - On August 6, 2001, over a month before 9/11, during the "summer of threat," President Bush received a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) at his Crawford, Texas ranch indicating that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. The memo was entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike inside US", and the entire memo focused on the possibility of terrorist attacks inside the US. In testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor to President Bush, stated to the commission that she and Bush considered the August 6th PDB as just an "historical document" and stated that it was not considered a "warning."

In other words, although: there was a serous spike in terrorist threats during the "summer of threat;" the threat was considered "great;" and, that bin Laden and al-Qaeda was a serious or urgent threat to the US, a PDB specifically headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," was not a "warning" by Rice standards. This is despite the fact that the PDB even mentioned that planes may be involved in hijackings.

Even if the August 6th PBD, was just background information, it is still significant. Rice said Bush requested it during what has been termed the most significant amount of terrorist threat in US history. It does not take any unreasonable concern for be alarmed by a statement that "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

Rice admitted, "Dick Clarke had told me, I think in a memorandum–I remember it as being only a line or two–that there were al Qaeda cells in the United States." What Rice herself actually knew by August 6th was enough to be alarming. The is absolutely no doubt she knew Al Qaeda was in the US determined to strike. The Rice testimony places the focus clearly upon the response of Bush and Clarke.

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