pudge's Journal: Joseph Ralston

Madeleine Albright's main complaint about "Path to 9/11" so far is that she didn't do something the film says she did (warn the Pakistanis about a missile attack on al Qaeda in Afghanistan). The 9/11 Report does not name who did it: it was Joseph Ralston. It only says it was "Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs." Ralston is named in only one place in the Report, on page 482, in a separate footnote related to the incident.

I found only one article about the film mentioning Ralston's name, too. After I found the name, I Googled for "ralston albright pakistan" and came up with a single CNN story that mentions him (and a few other places where this story was reprinted).

Just thought some of you might want to know.

Ralston's meeting was part of the plan

[jamie]

No, you misunderstand. But that's understandable -- the 9/11 Report is worded poorly, so poorly I had to reread Richard Clarke's book Against All Enemies before I remembered what this was about. Here's the 9/11 Report, p. 117:

Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan's army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani off

Re:

[pudge]

You're inferring a link between those two sentences

I don't think I am. I didn't mention anything in the journal entry about the Taliban being warned. I guess that could be inferred from context, since Albright is blamed for tipping off the Pakistanis. But I was just noting that Ralston was the only one who notified the Pakistanis, not that this led to anyone being tipped off, which even the 9/11 Report clearly says is speculation (although they do appear to imply the tipoff was the result of Ralston's vi