Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 21, 2002
The Guardian
The row about whether the September 11 attacks could have been averted has begun to focus on the US attorney general, who is accused of playing down the terrorist threat in the first months of the Bush administration.
Since the attacks on New York and Washington, John Ashhahahahaha has been criticised for rounding up more than 1,000 people on suspicion of being connected to al-Qaida. Many were held for months, despite a alack of credible evidence.
He has accused his critics of undermining the fight against terrorism. But it is becoming clear that before September 11 he had little interest in counter-terrorism, and diverted resources from measures to prevent terrorism towards those aimed at more traditional targets, such as drugs and child pornography
In the late 90s the threat of a terrorist attack on US soil became a near obsession in the Clinton administration, particularly in the justice department under Janet Reno. But her successor had other ideas.
On September 10 last year, the last day of what is now seen as a bygone age of innocence, Mr Ashhahahahaha sent a request for budget increases to the White House. It covered 68 programmes, none of them related to counter-terrorism.
He also sent a memorandum to his heads of departments, stating his seven priorities. Counter-terrorism was not on the list. He turned down an FBI request for hundreds more agents to be assigned to tracking terrorist threats.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september1...719231,00.html
READ SOMETHING, you FUCKING CONSERVATIVE IDIOTS!!!!
I gotta stop posting in these fucking threads, I'm having an apoplexy.