Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Who knew what and when?
Could the 11th of September, 2001, terrorist
actions on American soil have been prevented?
 I’m
sure that I would not be honest if I said that in my opinion
the terrorist actions could have been prevented, but upon
examining the facts that have recently come to light I
find that President Bush apparently did not give enough
credence to FBI, CIA, and other intelligence reports that
apparently were available a number of months prior to
the 11th of September incident.
Much of the information that was available was said to
have included specific intelligence about Osama bin Laden’s
plans to inflict mass casualties upon the American people
and more importantly that these attacks would occur upon
American soil. The use by the terrorists of hijacked aircraft
as flying bombs, which if even a degree of intelligence
existed about such a method of destruction prior to the
terrible event, (or even pointed to this method as being
a possible choice of weapon), had been acted upon, "maybe"
it could possibly have been at least circumvented, if
not fully prevented.
The "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks",
have been holding hearings to try to determine if enough
intelligence was collected and made available prior to
the event, and more importantly if the information available
was acted upon. People testifying before the committee
included amongst many others, FBI  Director
Robert Mueller, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General
John Ashcroft, former counter terrorism Director Richard
Clarke, (who had many scathing comments about the lack
of interest by the Bush Administration in information
which was available), National Security advisor Condoleezza
Rice, (defender of the faith), who initially resisted
testifying before the committee, (claiming Executive privilege),
and refused to testify under oath - but the White House
finally relented and allowed her to testify under oath
before the committee in an open session. President Bush
and Vice President Cheney in a private session will testify,
(not under oath), before the National Committee. Question:
Why have the two major players chosen to testify jointly?
Who knows? Could one say that if this were a Charlie McCarthy
comedy act, one could easily recognize which one was the
ventriloquist and which one was the dummy?
My comments: Shall we say that the committee is trying
to establish what degree of blame could be allocated to
members of the intelligence community and the White House
Administration by their failure to recognise and act upon
available evidence and make credible plans to counteract
the September eleventh terrorist actions. I feel that
the question of who is to blame is a mute point as there
is more than enough blame to go around the whole administration,
(including the FBI and the CIA).
Why didn’t the FBI and CIA press the White House
more vigorously to accept the information available, and
recommend that immediate action be taken against the potential
perpetrators, prior to the event? According to several
witnesses, (questioned by the committee), the potential
threat was somewhat ignored on the basis that it apparently
did not warrant a high degree of priority by the White
House at that time.
 Questions:
After the eleventh of September 2001 terrorist action,
(which obviously involved the Osama bin Laden financed
Al-Qaeda terrorist organization), why was the White House
so gung ho in retaliating to the event by invading Iraq
when it has never been proven that Iraq had any ties with
the terrorists who committed this heinous crime?
Why didn’t Mr. Bush and his advisors focus more
upon the Afghanistan connection, (as it was pretty obvious
that Afghanistan was where the Al-Qaeda operatives where
being trained), rather than turn its full fury upon the
Iraqi people? Was this just another case of American arrogance
in that they were not able to accept that a small group
of militant Muslims would have the effrontery to attack
the current greatest military power in the world, especially
upon American soil.
Perhaps if one looks back in history to a similar situation
which happened during World War Two, when America, (although
being forewarned that Japan was preparing to attack Pearl
Harbour), adopted the same arrogant approach and would
not, or could not, accept that the Japanese would have
the temerity to attack the mighty military power of the
United States stationed at Pearl Harbour.
The United States obviously were wrong on both counts.
If American arrogance did play a part in both of these
incidents, surely this is a terrible indictment of American
politicians and the Administration who were in power at
the time, when they were proved terribly wrong and the
people of America suffered such disastrous consequences
as a result of the delayed action. Of course this is a
catch 22 situation---where you are damned if you do, and
damned if you don’t.
World opinion has for many years accused America of
arrogance, but in defence of the people of America I must
say that unfortunately they depend a great deal upon the
information provided to them, which in many cases is shrouded
in secrecy and full of inaccuracies, and therefore one
must not rush into condemning a whole race for the actions
of their politicians.
American politicians are viewed worldwide as being somewhat
immature in the field of foreign policy and diplomacy,
and can be predictably demanding in their views affecting
American policy decisions, (whether those decisions are
right or wrong), which in these days of world strife where
the balance is so delicate and fragile, that the bull
in a china shop approach can be fatal when the people
involved cannot differentiate between the benefits of
a "kid glove approach" versus "iron fist
action", which has been witnessed so plainly in the
current Iraq situation.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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