W's Mind Was on Vacation Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Even the NYC tabloids are breaking ranks. The arch-reactionary NY Post has run a front-page headline asking "What did he know, and when did he know it?" and the Daily News gives us "W's Mind Was on Vacation" -- when, indeed, was it not? Here we learn that Resident Smirk, while on the ranch last August, spent his time talking to cows. Too bad the cows didn't tell him about his security warnings. But being rural Texas cows, they knew nothing about the World Trade Center, student pilots in Florida, or the many plots over the last 25 years to use hijacked airplanes as Building Buster weapons.] The NY Daily News - May 19, 2002 http://www.nydailynews.com/today/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-151416.asp W's Mind Was on Vacation by Michael Daly On the fourth day of the longest presidential vacation in three decades, George W. Bush addressed the press from a golf cart outside his Texas ranch. "I'm working on a lot of issues, national security matters," Bush said. This was Aug. 7 of last year, one day after Bush was presented with a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." The document suggested that Al Qaeda might well be planning to hijack airliners. The possibility had already been raised in public documents available on the Internet, so Bush would not have been breaching security if he imparted a warning that the same people who had bombed our embassies in Africa and our ship in Yemen might be contemplating an attack here involving airliners. A few public words from the President might have spurred that FBI agent in Phoenix to remind headquarters of the report he had submitted in July that Al Qaeda operatives could be training at American flight schools. Somebody at the FBI even might have remembered a 1996 conspiracy case brought in New York against Osama Bin Laden associates who had plotted to blow up American airliners. The lead defendant was Ramzi Yousef, who also oversaw the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef's co-defendant was Abdul Hakim Murad, and the evidence at trial detailed his involvement in another scheme. The case file included a summary of an interrogation by the Philippine police in 1995. "Murad's idea is that he will board an American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger, then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters," the report stated. "There will be no bomb or any explosive that he will use in its execution. It is a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute." Cows Have Their Say That and a half dozen other warnings remained just so many unconnected dots as Bush rode off in his golf cart to shoot a few holes. He later cleared a little brush from a "nature trail" on his 1,600-acre spread. "I love to go walk out there, seeing the cows," Bush had been quoted saying. "Occasionally, they talk to me, being the good listener that I am." The next day, Bush again paused to address the press. "I've got a lot of national security concerns that we're working on ? Iraq; Macedonia, very worrisome right now," he reported. Bush still said nothing about the threat at home from Al Qaeda. He had all the networks' cameras on him and just a few words might well have jarred the FBI and others into connecting the three or four dots needed to save almost 3,000 lives. Dots that on Aug. 16 came to include the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui on immigration charges. A Midwest flight school had reported that Moussaoui showed a suspicious lack of interest in taking off and landing. The arresting agent wrote that Moussaoui seemed "the type of person who could fly something into the World Trade Center." Bush continued puttering around the ranch. He rose before dawn each morning. The rousting that got his immediate attention involved his dog, Barney. "One of the interesting things to do is drink coffee and watch Barney chase armadillos," Bush was quoted saying. "The armadillos are out, and they love to root in our flower bed. It's good that Barney routs them out of their rooting." Then, Bush went for his daily jog. "I'll run 3 to 4 miles and then walk another mile, get back about 10 till 8 and have my national security briefing," he said. After that, he read and wrote some memos and maybe did a little more trail clearing. "We're now working on another one," he said. "That entails moving deadwood and chopping low cedars, low-hanging branches. Eventually, it will be a real path." In the evening, Bush would "just drive around with the dogs. ... Or Laura and I will just drive around." He sometimes fly-fished on his man-made lake. "And then we have a nice light dinner, generally with friends, and sit out on the end of the porch looking at the lake, and visit or swim. We ... kind of lounge in the swimming pool." Actions vs. Words On Aug. 30, Bush ended his month-long vacation, having spent 42% of his eight months in office either on the ranch, at Camp David, or at his family's compound in Maine, according to The Washington Post. He stopped in San Antonio to address the American Legion national convention. "It's a dangerous world," Bush said. "This nation still has enemies, and we cannot expect them to be idle. And that's why security is my first responsibility, and I will not permit any course that leaves America undefended." Bush got a standing ovation. He continued on to Washington still not uttering a word that might have alerted an FBI field agent or a flight school instructor or maybe an airline ticket clerk. He departed the White House the next day to spend the weekend at Camp David. On Sept. 10, Bush flew to Florida to promote reading. He was visiting a school the following day when he got word of the attack he is so sure could not have been prevented. 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