Briefings on June 29, July 1, and July 24 carried similar warnings. On July 9, Eichenwald writes, one official suggested staff members of the CIA Counterterrorism Center “put in for a transfer so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place.”
“[The Bush administration] got this information and they weren’t looking at it in the context of here’s this huge threat that’s developed,” Eichenwald said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Look at what the Pentagon said, ‘What’s the nation state that’s backing them? Oh, we think it’s Iraq.’ And so, it was a frame of mind that was not unreasonable for them to have because they hadn’t been getting the intelligence until very recently about the evolution and change of al-Qaida.”
Eichenwald, however, was criticized by former New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, for writing the piece.
“I think this is incredibly unfortunate,” he said on Morning Joe, adding that, “I think is incredibly unfair and a disservice to history.”
Eichenwald wrote a book, “500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars,” describing the intelligence briefings and actions taken by the Bush administration before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Article First Appeared @http://news.yahoo.com/report-documents-disclose-9-11-warnings-081156564–politics.html