AlterPolitics

Former NY Times reporter and bestselling author Kurt Eichenwald wrote a scathing NY Times Op-Ed Tuesday in which he revealed how the Bush Administration refused to heed MANY explicit (previously unknown) warnings of the impending 9-11 attacks.

His information is based upon Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) he obtained, which the Bush Admin had refused to release to the 9-11 Commission, and interviews he conducted with intelligence and Bush Admin officials for his new book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.

Eichenwald stated that the neocons at the Pentagon contested the C.I.A. warning briefs, assuring “the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled,” and that “Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.”

The C.I.A. responded with an “analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.” The White House’s refusal to take action lead some officials at the C.I.A. counterterrorism group to contemplate requesting for transfers “so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place.”

The Op-Ed created a firestorm in the inner beltway, and the neocon response to Eichenwald was both swift and predictable. 

Immediately after the Op-Ed’s release, former Bush WH Press Secretary Ari Fleischer Tweeted the following,  in an attempt to marginalize Eichenwald as some loony conspiracy theorist:

Disgusting op-ed in NYT by a truther implying Bush knew of 9-11/let it happen. NYT decries lack of civility, then adds to it.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2012

How can the NYT ridicule birthers then make their op-ed page home to a truther??

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2012

CNN’s Anderson Cooper invited Eichenwald and Fleischer onto his show tonight to debate the facts underlying Eichenwald’s reporting, but Fleischer predictably resorts to ad hominem attacks, and demands Democrats share the blame for the Bush Admin’s gross negligence:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghbkJVj570Q[/youtube]