The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies

I've been reading this essay: The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies, by Bernard Weiner, on the always useful Common Dreams web site. While I don't subscribe to the full conspiracy theory aspect of this, I think there are some things worth considering.

My take on this is that the Bush administration knew that something was likely to happen, and decided to take a calculated risk that it wouldn't be too bad. Their other alternative was to panic the U.S. and possibly bring our already shaky economy into a deep recession. Perhaps they feared that if they had warned us and nothing happened, they would have been roundly criticized for "crying wolf".

The problematic aspect of this: Apparently administration officials thought the risk was high enough that they changed their behavior over the summer to avoid the risk to themselves of commercial airline-based terrorism:

• Ashcroft stopped using commercial flights in July


• Bush, despite criticism over the amount of time he had spent on vacation (42% of his presidency), spent all of August in Crawford, Texas


• Newsweek reported that on September 10, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns"

It seems they weren't the only people with advance warning:

• San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was warned by "an airport security man" on September 10 to rethink his flight to New York for the next day


• Many members of a Bronx mosque were warned to stay out of lower Manhattan on September 11

It would be easier to brush the author off as just another "conspiracy theorist" if the Bush administration hadn't refused to allow any serious investigation of the intelligence failings that led to September 11. If administration officials felt that the warnings they had were enough to warrant changes in travel plans for the President and members of the cabinet, and failed to warn the American people, I think it's fair to say their behavior was treasonous.