9/11 Warnings: Scandal or Second-Guessing?

Even with the knowledge President Bush had that members of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network might try to hijack airplanes, it is doubtful that he could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. What is disturbing, however, is that this information was kept secret from the public even after the attacks.

As with the secret energy meetings Vice President Dick Cheney had with Enron officials and others and the refusal of the Bush administration to release the Reagan papers as required by law, a disturbing pattern is emerging of a secretive president who thinks he cannot and will not trust the people he has sworn to serve, the citizens of the United States.

Leon M. Salter

Los Angeles

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Re “What Did Bush Know, When Did He Know It?” letters, May 17: The bottom line for me is, if the American people had this information passed on to them, they may have possibly realized that when the first plane hit it wasn’t an accident, but perhaps terrorism. Those in the second tower never would have been cleared to go back their offices and so many lives may have been saved. Can we forget Bush’s (pre-9/11) inexperience in world affairs and national security?

Shannon Bailey

Agoura Hills

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The Democratic leadership just put the president in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If the president had ordered major detentions of possible terrorists based on general information, the same Democratic leadership would accuse him of being a cowboy and stomping on people’s freedoms. So instead of showing a united front in the ongoing war on terrorism, they are using this for their own political gain. Shame on them.

Al Mendoza

Torrance

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Bush means well, he is patriotic and would do nothing to harm our country. He is just too stupid to figure out the dangers amid all the warnings he got.

Gaston Serrato

Rowland Heights

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Eight months later we are now going to “investigate” who knew what prior to 9/11? This time and energy could be better spent focusing on improving the security of our airports and large public areas. All the shoulda, coulda, woulda will do nothing to change what has happened.

I am confident that if, in his daily briefing, Bush was informed, in detail, of the upcoming attacks of 9/11, he would have handled the situation at that time. Let’s move forward and concentrate on our task at hand: fighting terrorism.

Peg Ackerman

Pasadena

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Re “In Hindsight, Warnings Are Clear,” by James Pinkerton, Commentary, May 17: Thank you for publishing one of the more rational articles on this issue. To listen to much of the media, and some Democratic politicians, Bush and his administration are apparently guilty of the deaths of 3,000 Americans and possibly treason as well.

We all know that if Bush had proposed any of the post-Sept. 11 security measures prior to the attacks, his administration would have been ridden out of town on a rail.

Scott Padgett

Los Angeles