“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released," an expert tells Salon
Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time... Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him.
“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.
“If the administration wanted to get it done, I’m sure they could have gotten it done,” says Elias-Sanborn.
One last thing is worth mentioning from the documents published today: Anyone with any doubt that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dangerous to the United States is contradicting U.S. intelligence. “Violence between Israelis and the Palestinians, moreover is making Sunni extremists more willing to participate in attacks against US or Israeli interests,” the CIA wrote in February 2001. It is not the only piece of information revealed by the new documents that will be deeply uncomfortable for the Bush administration and hawks across the country.
Go read it at Salon.
It makes official many of the suspicions people have had and many of the things we believed we knew based on the evidence that had already been released.
This is what happened the last time we put a Republican agenda in charge at the White House, since America seems to have forgotten. If we make that mistake again, we put everything at risk. We must continue to support those in Israel who want to create a more peaceful region, however, we also now know that the CIA warned us before 911 against lashing ourselves to the conservatives in Israel who continue to be obstacles to peace. Romney's insistence that the USA must be synonymous with Israel, no matter who's in charge over there, is a very very dangerous proposal. And the CIA warns that it is not in our national interest.