NYT Reveals Obama Was Warned Of ‘Major Terrorist Plot’ To Attack Inauguration

• The night before his inauguration Obama was warned there was a major terrorist plot to attack the inauguration: “After a weekend of round-the-clock analysis, the nation’s intelligence agencies were concerned that the threat was real, the men told him. A group of Somali extremists was reported to be coming across the border from Canada to detonate explosives as the new president took the oath of office.”
  
  And this brings it home: “No matter how much he thought about terrorism as a senator or as a presidential candidate, it was another thing to face it as the person responsible for the nation’s security — and quite another thing again to know the threat was aimed directly at himself, his wife and their two daughters.”
  
  The solution, such as it was: “Among those in the room [including Hillary Clinton] was Robert Gates, who served two years as Bush’s defense secretary and would remain in that post under Obama. After the meeting, everyone eventually agreed that Gates should stay away from the inauguration in a secret location. With no other member of Obama’s cabinet confirmed by the Senate, Gates — an incumbent cabinet officer who also had the imprimatur of the newly elected commander in chief — was the most logical person in the line of succession to take over the presidency should the worst happen.”

• On the difference between Obama and Bush with regards to dealing with terrorism: “During his first year, [Obama] has adopted the bulk of the counterterrorism strategy he found on his desk when he arrived in the Oval Office, a strategy already moderated from the earliest days after Sept. 11, 2001….Where Bush saw black and white, Obama sees gray. Where Bush favored swagger, Obama is searching for a more supple blend of force and intellect.
• Why we’re only hearing about it now: “With joblessness still plaguing the economy and health care dominating his agenda, Obama has not wanted his presidency to be defined by the war on terror, as Bush’s was. He has given few public speeches on the topic and declined to discuss it for this article.”
• Bush’s advice to Obama: When Obama sat down to talk with the outgoing president, Bush pressed him to be vigilant every day. “That’s mostly what they talked about,” a senior Bush adviser told me. “I think President Bush came away thinking that President Obama understood at an intellectual level, but you don’t really understand at a gut level until you’re in that seat.”
  
  Read the full piece here: Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism [NYT]

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  filed under
  911, barack obama, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, National Security, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Peter Baker, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
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  • Nachi

    Do not be surprised if the future reveals that the entire plot (s) was/were conceived of by the alcoholic BushDrunk Gang. All things are possible with such a craven group.