posted 03-29-2004 08:59 PM            

The Line
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 30 March 2004

Former White House Counter-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke has managed to do something that defies modern political gravity. He has stayed in the news, hour after hour and day after day. He was hurled many days ago into the maelstrom of the 24-hour news cycle, which reports one moment on an incredibly important story, flings that story out beyond the Oort Cloud the next moment, and that story is never seen again. Clarke, somehow, has managed to maintain his position at the top of the news despite this process we mistakenly call 'journalism' for longer than any other ten major recent stories combined.

There are several reasons for this. First of all, Clarke's accusations are damning. According to him, the Bush administration ignored the threat of al Qaeda terrorism completely. After the attacks of September 11, the administration became obsessed with attacking Iraq, despite the fact that every intelligence organization in America was telling them Iraq had nothing to do with it. Clarke maintains that the war in Iraq is a dangerous distraction from the defense of the nation, a political war that has nothing to do with making America safer, and one that has cost us terribly in blood and treasure. Given the fact that Clarke was physically in the White House for all this, and that he has been in the anti-terrorism business since the days of Ronald Reagan, his accusations have long, sharp teeth.

There is also the fact that Clarke apologized for September 11. In the context of a White House that has battled the assembly of a September 11 investigation for two years, a White House that has slapped down every plea from the family members of those who died on September 11 to get this investigation rolling, a White House that tried at one point to put the investigation into the slippery hands of Henry Kissinger, a White House that has adamantly refused to hand over relevant data about September 11 to the commission they never wanted to see in the first place, a White House that won't allow National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly before this commission despite her central role in the administration, a National Security Advisor that would dance the Macarena on the Capitol dome if it could get her out of giving that testimony because she knows she will get clobbered with her own words, and finally a White House that never got around to saying they were sorry to the families of the September 11 victims, in the context of all that, Richard Clarke's heartfelt apology to those families instantly became the stuff of political legend.

Another reason Clarke has stayed in the news is because he does not stand alone. Had he been the only person to come forth with savage criticism of George W. Bush and his administration, Karl Rove would have called out the dogs, and Clarke would have found himself selling Amway outside of McMurdo Sound before St. Patrick's Day. Fortunately for Mr. Clarke, and for the truth, he has joined a long and prestigious line of people who have come forward to bear witness against this White House:

* Tom Maertens, who was National Security Council director for nuclear non-proliferation for both the Clinton and Bush White House. Maertens' own words tell the tale: "Clarke was a colleague of mine for 15 months in the White House, under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Subsequently, I moved to the U.S. State Department as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, and worked with him and his staff before and after 9/11. The Bush administration did ignore the threat of terrorism. It was focused on tax cuts, building a ballistic missile system, withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and rejecting the Kyoto Protocol. Clarke's gutsy insider recounting of events related to 9/11 is an important public service. From my perspective, the Bush administration has practiced the most cynical, opportunistic form of politics I witnessed in my 28 years in government: hijacking legitimate American outrage and patriotism over 9/11 to conduct a pre-ordained war against Saddam Hussein."

* Roger Cressey, Clarke's former deputy. Cressey backs up one of the most damning charges that has been leveled against the administration by Clarke: They blew past al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, focusing instead on Iraq. Cressey is one of four eyewitnesses to an exchange between Clarke and Bush which took place in the White House Situation Room on September 12, 2001. Bush pressed Clarke three times on September 12 to find evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks. According to his book, 'Against All Enemies,' Clarke protested that al-Qaida, and not Iraq, was responsible. Bush angrily ordered him to "'look into Iraq, Saddam,'" and then left the room. According to Cressey, Condoleezza Rice was also a witness to this exchange. The word from administration officials is that Rice can't seem to remember it. This, among others, is a reason Rice is refusing to testify publicly before the September 11 commission.

* Donald Kerrick, a three-star General who served as deputy National Security Advisor under Clinton, and stayed for several months in the Bush White House. According to a report by Sidney Blumenthal from March 25, Kerrick wrote Stephen Hadley, his replacement in the White House, a two-page memo. "It was classified," Kerrick told Blumenthal. "I said they needed to pay attention to al-Qaida and counterterrorism. I said we were going to be struck again. We didn't know where or when. They never once asked me a question nor did I see them having a serious discussion about it. They didn't feel it was an imminent threat the way the Clinton administration did. Hadley did not respond to my memo. I know he had it. I agree with Dick that they saw those problems through an Iraqi prism. But the evidence wasn't there." Hadley has since become a White House front man in the attacks against Rickard Clarke.

* Paul O'Neill, former Treasury Secretary for George W. Bush. O'Neill was afforded a position on the National Security Council because of his job as Treasury Secretary, and sat in on the Iraq invasion planning sessions which were taking place months before the attacks of September 11. "It was all about finding a way to do it," says O'Neill. "That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'" O'Neill describes the process of decision-making between Bush and his people as being "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Ron Suskind captured O'Neill's views in a new book titled 'The Price of Loyalty.' "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," says Suskind about his interviews with O'Neill and his review of 19,000 pages of documentary evidence provided by O'Neill. "It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed."

* Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador and career diplomat who received lavish praise from the first President Bush for his work in Iraq before the first Gulf War. Wilson was the man dispatched in February 2002 to Niger to see if charges that Iraq was seeking uranium from that nation to make nuclear bombs had any merit. He investigated, returned, and informed the CIA, the State Department, the office of the National Security Advisor and the office of Vice President Cheney that the charges were without merit. Eleven months later, George W. Bush used the Niger uranium claim in his State of the Union address to scare the cheese out of everyone, despite the fact that the claim had been irrefutably debunked. Wilson went public, exposing this central bit of evidence to support the Iraq invasion as the lie it was. A few days later, Wilson's wife came under attack from the White House, whose agents used press proxies to destroy her career in the CIA as a warning to Wilson and anyone else who might come forward. For the record, Wilson's wife was a deep-cover agent running a network which worked to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. The irony is palpable.

* Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Issues in the State Department. Thielmann, like Ambassador Wilson, was involved in investigating whether the Niger uranium claims had any merit. Thielmann told Newsweek at the beginning of June 2003 that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research had concluded the documents used to support the Niger uranium claims were "garbage." In fact, they were crude forgeries. Thielmann was stunned to see Bush use the claims in his State of the Union address eleven months after the charge had been dispensed with as nonsense. "When I saw that, it really blew me away," Thielmann told Newsweek. He watched Bush use the claim and said, "Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?"

* Karen Kwiatkowski, a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force and a career Pentagon officer. Kwiatkowski worked in the office of Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, and worked specifically with the Office of Special Plans. Kwiatkowski's own words tell her story: "From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."

* Rand Beers, who served the Bush administration on the National Security Council at the White House as a special assistant to the President for combating terrorism. Mr. Beers served in government for more than 30 years working in international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, intelligence, and counter-terrorism. He worked for the National Security Council under presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton. Because of his position, Beers saw everything. In a June 25 2003 interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline, Beers reported that the administration was failing dramatically to defend the United States against terrorism. According to Beers, al Qaeda presented a far greater threat to America than Hussein and Iraq, and that the Iraq war was a terrible and unnecessary distraction from what was truly needed to keep the nation safe.

Rogue journalist Hunter S. Thompson, in a Rolling Stone article from July 4 1973 titled 'Fear and Loathing in Washington: The Boys in the Bag,' described the looming sense of doomed finality which surrounded the Nixon White House after the existence of recorded Oval Office conversations became exposed. The Nixon White House had tried everything to that point to fend off the Watergate scandal: They denied everything, then tried to pay off the central figures, then fired a bunch of people, denied everything again, and finally released edited transcripts of the White House tapes in an effort to stem the tide that was about to flood them out of power.

"There are a hundred or more people wandering around Washington today," wrote Thompson, "who have heard the 'real stuff,' as they put it - and despite their professional caution when the obvious question arises, there is one reaction they all feel free to agree on: that nobody who felt shocked, depressed or angry after reading the edited White House transcripts should ever be allowed to hear the actual tapes, except under heavy sedation or locked in the trunk of a car. Only a terminal cynic, they say, can listen for any length of time to the real stuff without feeling a compulsion to do something like drive down to the White House and throw a bag of live rats over the fence."

Richard Clarke, Tom Maertens, Roger Cressey, Donald Kerrick, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson, Greg Thielmann, Karen Kwiatkowski and Rand Beers all heard and saw the real stuff happening in this Bush White House. Wilson has a book coming out in May, in which he will name the White House operatives who destroyed his wife's career. There will be more books, from more people, and the 24-hour news cycle will continue to ride this tiger.

These people are telling the world about the real stuff. The Bush/Cheney Re-Election Axis is terrified, and the Secret Service detail guarding the White House perimeter might want to cowboy up in preparation for a rain of rat bags coming over that fence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

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posted 03-29-2004 09:30 PM            

Clarke's Public Service
By Tom Maertens
Star Tribune

Sunday 28 March 2004

MANKATO, MINN. — Richard Clarke, who served as the national coordinator for counterterrorism in the White House, argues in his new book, “Against All Enemies,” that the Bush administration ignored the threat from Al-Qaida and instead chose to fight “the wrong war” by attacking Iraq.

The troops who could have been used in Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida were instead held back for the planned invasion of Iraq. In contrast to the 150,000 men sent to Iraq, only about 11,500 troops were sent to Afghanistan, a force smaller than the New York City police. The result is that Bin Laden and his followers escaped across the border into Pakistan.

Meanwhile, American troops are being killed in Iraq, our army is stretched to the breaking point, our international credibility is at an all-time low, Muslims are further radicalized to join a jihad against us, and our relations with key allies have been damaged.

The Bush administration has counterattacked furiously, impugning Clarke’s facts, his timing and his motives. Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign, said on national television that Clarke’s charges were “almost malevolent.” The qualifier “almost” is apparently meant to distinguish Clarke from someone genuinely malevolent — Saddam Hussein, perhaps.

Clarke was a colleague of mine for 15 months in the White House, under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Subsequently, I moved to the U.S. State Department as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, and worked with him and his staff before and after 9/11.

My experience confirms what Clarke relates in his book. The Bush administration did ignore the threat of terrorism. It was focused on tax cuts, building a ballistic missile system, withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

Administration officials seemed to believe that the terrorist attacks on the United States in East Africa, and on the USS Cole, were due to Clinton’s moral failings. Since they didn’t share those weaknesses, and because President Bush had the blessing of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Justice Antonin Scalia, we would be spared any serious attack. Moral superiority would triumph.

I personally believe that Clarke was one of the most effective government officials I have ever worked with — most effective, but not the most loved. He has been described as a bureaucratic steamroller, and he no doubt ruffled some feathers, but who better to put in charge of counterterrorism? Unfortunately, he suffered the fate of Cassandra: He was able to foresee the future but not convince his leaders of the threat.

Despite its own failings, the Bush administration has conducted a scorched-earth smear campaign against Clarke, because his book threatens Bush’s carefully orchestrated image as a war president.

The president keeps repeating the mantra that America is safer now that Saddam is gone. But no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been found in Iraq, and Bush now admits that Saddam was not involved in 9/11. The future of a nuclear-armed Pakistan is far more important to our security than was Iraq.

We have also learned from former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill that the president spoke of overthrowing Saddam from the day he arrived in office. Clarke reports that on Sept. 12, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was already advocating bombing Iraq, even though Clarke told him that Iraq was not involved in the 9/11 attack.

We also know that some people who became members of the Bush administration had been advocating the overthrow of Saddam since 1996. The president’s claim that this was a war of necessity was never supported by the facts. But what better to stir up patriotic fervor in the run-up to an election than a war?

Is this too cynical?

Karl Rove, the president’s political adviser, is said to reread Machiavelli the way the devout study their Bibles. It was the Bush-Rove team that deployed the scurrilous push-poll techniques against Sen. John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. (Sample question: “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” In reality, the brown-skinned child with McCain was his adopted Bangladeshi daughter, but the race-baiting worked and McCain was defeated.)

It was also Rove who in 2002 counseled Republican congressional candidates to “run on the war.” This is a man who recognizes a potent political prop when he sees one. Is this the real reason for the invasion of Iraq? The Bush administration’s other justifications don’t hold water.

The Bush-Cheney ads don’t show the dead or wounded from that war, of course, nor do the cheerleaders on Fox News, despite the nearly 4,000 casualties we have suffered in Iraq to date.

They don’t like to talk about the $160 billion we have spent to run the war either. That works out to $571 for each man, woman and child, or $2,285 for a family of four. And the cost is sure to go higher.

Clarke’s gutsy insider recounting of events related to 9/11 is an important public service. From my perspective, the Bush administration has practiced the most cynical, opportunistic form of politics I witnessed in my 28 years in government: hijacking legitimate American outrage and patriotism over 9/11 to conduct a pre-ordained war against Saddam Hussein.

That invasion was then misleadingly packaged as a war on terrorism and used to sell more tax cuts, the USA Patriot Act, oil drilling in ANWR, exemptions to environmental laws and other controversial programs. Those who have opposed the misguided invasion have been labeled appeasers and unpatriotic for failing to support “the troops” — meaning the president’s policies.

As Clarke has observed, the real war is against Al-Qaida. Instead, the Bush administration has involved us in a breath takingly cynical, unprovoked war against Iraq, under false pretenses, which it now uses to justify the reelection of a president who has violated the public trust.

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Tom Maertens, now retired, also served as a Naval officer during the Vietnam era and a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.
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posted 03-29-2004 11:37 PM            

quote:

---

Richard Clark:
Invading Iraq after 9/11 makes as much sense as invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor.

---

quote:

---

Paul O'Neill, former Treasury Secretary for George W. Bush:
Iraq invasion planning sessions which were taking place months before the attacks of September 11. "It was all about finding a way to do it," says O'Neill. "That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'"

---

'Go find me a way to (invade Iraq) do this.'"

It seems to keep coming back to they way the Pentagon had on file.
Proven by Lyndon Johnson, and waiting to be resurrected.

Would the Bush Administration be working so hard to cover up mere incompetence?
http://www.proparanoid.com/OK1.htm#JCS
Portrait of a Terrorist Organization: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Operation NORTHWOODS
James Bamford:
the Pentagon created a secret faked terrorism campaign called Operation NORTHWOODS in 1962, which was intended to commit acts of terrorism on American citizens and blame Cuba as a pretext for invasion and overthrow of the Castro regime. http://serendipity.cia.com.au/wtc.html
"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." — Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II http://serendipity.cia.com.au/wot/seal01.htm
http://serendipity.cia.com.au/wot/plissken.htm
===============================================

Actual Northwoods origional draft: http://emperors-clothes.com/images/north-10.htm

IF someone took Bush literally when he said:

quote:

---

'Go find me a way to (invade Iraq) do this.'

---

"the Pentagon created a secret faked terrorism campaign called Operation NORTHWOODS, which was intended to commit acts of terrorism on American citizens and blame Iraq as a pretext for invasion and overthrow of Saddam's regime."

---with or without Bush's foreknowlege---

posted 03-30-2004 10:22 AM            

From OpEdNews.com

posted 03-31-2004 10:04 AM            

Preparing For Condy Rice
By Joseph Ehrlich
Senderberl@aol.com
3-31-4

Her agenda will be to obfuscate and thus it is imperative for the 9-11 Commission to ask questions from which it will be difficult to escape the truths reflected by the realities taking place in connection with 9-11.

For your interest and possible benefit, we quickly drafted questions within the parameters of a Commission Hearing that even if known should prove difficult for Dr. Rice to fashion an escape. After she testifies, we will review and see whether the Commission pursued these lines. Remember, if the Commission is subsequently seen as soft, then we will assume that Bush has relinquished on more than having Condoleezza appear to testify publicly under oath! Otherwise, keep in mind that the Commission was allowed to pursue its agenda understanding it was obligated in the end to whitewash the truths behind 9-11.

Question. In July and August 2001, you placed the country on heightened alert. Would that statement be accurate and fair to say?

Comment: She will say yes unless she wants to say it was due to Clarke and Tenet.

Question: Did you say in March 2004 "In June and July, when the threat spikes were so high, we were at battle stations?" Is this statement true and accurate?

Question: On September 11, 2001, is it true Dr. Rice, that unfortunately and regrettably the country was not on this heightened state of alert?

Comment: She has no choice but to say yes.


Question: Richard Clarke was one of the people in the current administration who was consistently vigilant in pushing for a strategy to deal with the events that unfolded the morning of 9-11, isn't that so Dr. Rice?

Comment: She would be hard pressed to say anything but yes.

Question: The President requested that such a strategy be prepared, didn't he? Did Richard Clarke have such a strategy prepared for submission to the President?

Comment: Hard pressed to say anything but yes.

Question: Was that strategy operative during the heightened alert status of July and August 2001?

Comment: Anything Dr. Rice answers here dooms the administration in terms of malfeasance for the events of 9-11.

Question: Dr. Rice, as part of your responsibilities as the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States of America, were you obliged to familiarize yourself with the dangers and threats of domestic terrorism?

Comment: She should say yes.

Question: Do you NOW recognize that part of that threat was the deployment of aircraft to strike major buildings and landmarks in the US?

Comment: She has to say yes. There is no need to pursue the issue further with her. She has just admitted to a major failure to meet the standard of the office she holds. If people can't understand her failure to know, then they have to ask her whether she relied on someone else during this period to make decisions as the NSA including handling the pursuits of Richard Clarke for a strategy to deal with the threat of imminent domestic terrorism.

Question: In your position of NSA, and in terms of your obligation to become fully familiar with what you need to know within the ambit of your responsibilities, would you say that one aircraft off transponder in the New York City or Washington D.C. area would be reason for concern?

Comment: She may say yes or no. If no, then the inquiry should be would her answer be the same or different if there was reliable intelligence of imminent domestic terrorism? If she still says no, then she is incompetent. Needless to say that the logic becomes more concrete and sure with two three and four planes off transponder, as the case on 9-11.

Question: As the National Security Advisor, do you believe that it is part of your responsibility to anticipate threats regarding terrorism?

Question: If these proceedings were televised Dr. Rice and we all received notice that we were under attack by terrorists, right this moment, would you suggest we leave this room?

Question: Has your office prepared or helped prepare a strategy to protect the vital interests of the United States?

Question: Dr. Rice is it fair to say that part and parcel of protecting the vital interests of the United States includes protecting the President of the United States?

Comment: Without another question, you have Rice with her own answers supporting our position that the President remaining at Booker Elementary was proof positive of complicity by the Bush administration.

Question: Richard Clarke said the following:

" Every day George Tenet was going in to see the president in the Oval Office. Because George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence, now gives the president his daily briefing. And almost every day the president was hearing from George Tenet that there's an impending al-Qaeda attack. As far back as February, George Tenet testified before the Congress that al-Qaeda was the major national security threat. And yet, they have 100 meetings before they get around to dealing with it."

Dr. Rice is anything he said false or inaccurate and if so could you clarify it for us?

Question: Richard Clarke said the following:

"Dr. Rice called me and said, "The president wants a strategy." And I said, "Well, you know the strategy was what I sent you on January 25, and it's been stuck in these low-level committees." And she said, "Fine. I'll deal with that." Well, she didn't deal with it until September."

Dr. Rice is anything he said false or inaccurate and if so could you clarify it for us?

Question: Dr. Rice did George Tenet every say to you in substance "Something is going to happen." If so, could you tell us to your best recollection when and how the United States dealt with that warning from the CIA director? By the way, did he often generate alarms of this order and magnitude?

Question: Dr. Rice did the President on or about August 6, 2001, receive a briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane?

Question: Dr. Rice was the White House told in July 2001 that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles?

Question: Are you aware of conflict of interest standards?

Question: Is it customarily fair for judges in a court case to even avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest?

Question: During your tenure as National Security Advisor did you have an opportunity to speak with oil companies regarding their opinion about matters of public interest? Did any conversation at all encompass events in the Middle East?

Question: Did any US oil company ever suggest that the United States would be better off not making a military incursion into Iraq?

Question: Were our air and shorelines on 9-11 under an above average level of monitoring for terrorism or attack?

Question: Dr. Rice, is the country better off because 9-11 took place? Did we make lemonade out of the lemons we were handed? Would this be the case if the Iraqis had welcomed invading troops with open arms?

Question: On March 19, 2003, the attack on Iraq commenced at 9:00 PM and the President addressed the nation at approximately 10:15 PM. At 6:00 AM you confronted President Bush with the bad news that Saddam had survived the bunker buster bombs. In view of what you learned regarding 9-11, did you anticipate that US troops were at great risk for WMD attack between 9:00PM and 6:00 AM the next morning when clumped together in Northern Kuwait? Had they been subject to such attack would the catastrophe have been beyond your imagination to anticipate? Was the fact that Saddam survived the bunker buster attack beyond your imagination? How long exactly was it before the Commander in Chief authorized the troops to move from their clustered positions in Northen Kuwait?

END MAR 30 04 11:00PM SENDER, BERL & SONS INC.

posted 04-02-2004 11:51 AM            

March 28, 2004

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=40729

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes in an effort to quell growing questions surrounding the Administration's inconsistent claims about its pre-9/11 actions. Not only did Rice refuse to take Richard Clarke's lead and admit responsibility for her role in the worst national security failure in American history, but she continued to make unsubstantiated and contradictory assertions:

RICE CLAIM: "The administration took seriously the threat" of terrorism before 9/11.

FACTS: President Bush himself acknowledges that, despite repeated warnings of an imminent Al Qaeda attack, before 9/11 "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism. Similarly, Newsweek reports that Bush's attitude was reflected throughout an Administration that was trying to "de-emphasize terrorism" as an overall priority. As proof, just two of the hundred national security meetings the Administration held during this period addressed the terrorist threat, and the White House refused to hold even one meeting of its highly-touted counterterrorism task force. Meanwhile, the Administration was actively trying to cut funding for counterterrorism, and "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" despite a serious increase in terrorist chatter in the summer of 2001.

Source: "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward
Source: Newsweek & vetoed request - http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorismfoi/whatwentwrong.html
Source: Refusal to hold task force meeting - http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8734-2002Jan19?language=printer
Source: Only two meetings out of 100 - http://www.detnews.com/2002/politics/0207/01/politics-526326.htm

RICE CLAIM: "I don't know what a sense of urgency any greater than the one we had would have caused us to do anything differently. I don't know how...we could have done more. I would like very much to know what more could have been done?"

FACTS: There are many more things that could have been done: first and foremost, the Administration could have desisted from de-emphasizing and cutting funding for counterterrorism in the months before 9/11. It could have held more meetings of top principals to get the directors of the CIA and FBI to share information, especially considering the major intelligence spike occurring in the summer of 2001. As 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick said on ABC this morning, the lack of focus and meetings meant agencies were not talking to each other, and key evidence was overlooked. For instance, with better focus and more urgency, the FBI's discovery of Islamic radicals training at flight schools might have raised red flags. Similarly, the fact that "months before Sept. 11, the CIA knew two of the al-Qaeda hijackers were in the United States" could have spurred a nationwide manhunt. But because there was no focus or urgency, "No nationwide manhunt was undertaken," said Gorelick. "The State Department watch list was not given to the FAA. If you brought people together, perhaps key connections could have been made."

Source: Slash counterterrorism funding -http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcrime/articles/How%20Sept_%2011%20Changed%20Goals%20of%20Justice%20Dept.htm
Source: CIA knew 2 hijackers in the U.S. - http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/2/111044.shtml

RICE CLAIM: "Nothing would be better from my point of view than to be able to testify, but there is an important principle involved here it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisors do not testify before the Congress."

FACTS: Republican Commission John F. Lehman, who served as Navy Secretary under President Reagan said on ABC this morning that "This is not testimony before a tribunal of the Congress…There are plenty of precedents for appearing in public and answering questions…There are plenty of precedents the White House could use if they wanted to do this." 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick agreed, saying "Our commission is sui generis…the Chairman has been appointed by the President. We are distinguishable from Congress." Rice's remarks on 60 Minutes that the principle is limited to "sitting national security advisers" is also a departure from her statements earlier this week, when she said the "principle" applied to all presidential advisers. She was forced to change this claim for 60 Minutes after 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste "cited examples of non-Cabinet presidential advisers who have testified publicly to Congress." Finally, the White House is reportedly moving to declassify congressional testimony then-White House adviser Richard Clarke gave in 2002. By declassifying this testimony, the White House is breaking the very same "principle" of barring White House adviser's testimony from being made public that Rice is using to avoid appearing publicly before the 9/11 commission.

Source: Quote from Tony Snow Show - http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-23-911-rice-usat_x.htm

RICE CLAIM: "Iraq was put aside" immediately after 9/11.

FACTS: According to the Washington Post, "six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2-and-a-half-page document" that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq." This is corroborated by a CBS News, which reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq." In terms of resources, the Iraq decision had far-reaching effects on the efforts to hunt down Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As the Boston Globe reported, "the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis."

posted 04-02-2004 12:43 PM            

By Ellis Henican

From: http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen283726054
mar28,0,4246297,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

WASHINGTON

You can always tell when a scandal is about to cause real damage to a president: The demand for human sacrifice begins.

No, not by the other party. Not by the investigators on the case. Not even by the hungry media.

It's the big guy himself, suddenly overcome with nervousness and self-protection, who casts wary eyes on his own unfortunate subordinates. Someone will have to be cooked in oil, he decides. Someone will have to be blamed. Someone will have to be dinner tomorrow night.

But who?

If a president is lucky - or the scandal is fleeting and trivial - a single, solitary body may be enough to silence the howling dogs. More often, that only whets the appetite. But whatever the ultimate bounty, this is where the bloodletting begins.

And so it shall again.

These past few days, questions have raged furiously around the terror-fighting record of George W. Bush. The bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks is closing in. It's an especially damaging issue, hitting right at the heart of the president's personal credibility and his re-election plans.

So as the week rolled on, the official Washington dinner menu grew increasingly clear.

No, it wasn't red beans and rice this time. It was Condoleezza now.

She was a tempting choice, no doubt about it. As the president's national security adviser, it was her job to supervise counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke. And that didn't exactly work out so well. Plus, she has also said she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year. So, hey, it's only a few months at issue here. Really, what's the harm?

But for days, she was left to stew in her own poisonous juices, trying to explain why she won't talk in public and under oath to the terror commission but she has time to be interviewed by every network this side of the Home and Garden TV.

Selective silence, the strategy was called. It was imposed by White House lawyers. And gosh, it's a tough one to defend in public.

Basted, marinated and plated soon, that's what Rice has to look forward to, hurt if she testifies publicly, hurt if she does not. By the arrival of the weekend, the heat was already being raised.

Rice hardly seemed to sense this yet. She kept on giving interviews. She said on Thursday, she'd happily talk to the commission, but only privately and not under oath.

She was acting like the good team player she always had. How much longer will it be 'til more valuable dead than alive?

Alienating the families of the Sept. 11 victims with her refusal to testify. Trying to answer the scalding critiques of the suddenly toxic Clarke. Pedaling hard to explain that concept of selective silence.

And contradicting the various accounts of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and the other Bush team players about precisely what had occurred.

If she weren't the national security adviser to the president of the United States, you'd almost have to feel sorry for the woman.

Has she been targeted because she is a woman. Is it because she's black? Is it because she seems to have the president's ear and others in the White House are jealous?

Who knows?

But by week's end, even some of the president's usual supporters seemed to be hinting that, maybe, it wasn't only Rice who was being damaged. They were worried about the president too.

"A political blunder," Republican John Lehman, the former Navy secretary who sits on the terror panel, said of the White House's refusal to let Rice testify in public.

"Personally, I think her voice is so good, so powerful," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, adding his own cheery spin, "it would be to the administration's benefit" if she testified publicly.

Even Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, conceded that the public-versus-private testimony was a hard distinction to explain. "I don't know necessarily what the difference is," he said. "She's going to tell it exactly how it happened."

posted 04-05-2004 10:54 PM            

LINK:

posted 04-06-2004 07:30 PM            

White House Vetting Could Delay
9/11 Report Until After Election

Agence France Presse

Tuesday 06 April 2004

The chairman of an independent commission looking into US counterterrorism activities prior to the September 11 attacks said he could not guarantee that the panel's report will be released before the November presidential election because of a protracted White House vetting process.

Former Republican New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean said he was "surprised" by the situation, but saw no way around it.

The probe, which President George W. Bush initially opposed but later agreed to under pressure, has turned in to a political hot potato after former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke accused Bush of doing a "terrible job" of fighting terrorism prior to the strikes on New York and Washington in September 2001.

In a new book and public testimony before the commission, Clarke, who left his White House job last year, said the administration did not treat terrorism as an urgent matter before the attacks.

The accusation has sparked a fierce round of finger pointing and propelled counterterrorism to the forefront of the US political campaign.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" television program, Kean said White House vetters will go over his report "line by line to find out if there's anything in there which could harm American interests in the area of intelligence."

A special clearance team led by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and made up of top US intelligence and counterterrorism officials has already been set up, he said.

But the report, expected to contain hundreds of pages of findings and testimony, is unlikely to be finished before July, according to congressional officials.

That will leave the vetting team only three to four months to complete its work, if American are to see the document before they go to the polls on November 2.

Asked if American will be able to see the report before the election, Kean answered, "I have no guarantees."

It took the White House close to seven months to clear a congressional report on US intelligence in the lead-up to the attacks, which killed all the occupants of four passenger jets, destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and severely damaged the Pentagon building in Washington, leaving some 3,000 people dead in all.

Moreover, the congressional account emerged from that vetting last July with dozens of blacked-out pages, which experts later said contained sensitive information about an alleged Saudi role in financing al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic networks.

Democratic commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton assured on the same show that the panel will not put up with any political editing of the document, saying, "We're not going to let them distort our report."

Hamilton also expressed confidence White House vetters will focus on protecting intelligence sources and information collection methods rather than on the panel's substantive findings.

But reacting to the controversy surrounding the probe, the John Kerry election campaign released a compendium of press reports showing the president's lack of enthusiasm for the commission and its work since its inception.

"Bush opposed the commission entirely, he initially didn't include funding they requested after they were established, he still has not provided documents the commission has said are necessary for their work," said the campaign of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

-------

posted 04-06-2004 08:17 PM            

This must be an OLD shot of her - she actually has a smile on her face:

posted 04-06-2004 08:23 PM            

And now for Mech’s favorite radio personality:

posted 04-07-2004 03:18 AM            

They ignored the final report of the Hart-Rudman commission, the Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, that was issued on January 31, 2001 (www.cjr.org/year/01/6/evans.asp)
They blocked Senate hearings on the Hart-Rudman commission's report, scheduled for the week of May 7, 2001, by announcing a brand new commission led by Vice President Dick Cheney - which never met before 911 (www.cjr.org/year/01/6/evans.asp)
They ignored repeated requests from the Hart-Rudman commission from January 2001 to September 6, 2001, when National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice said she would "pass on" their concerns (www.cjr.org/year/01/6/evans.asp)
They ignored repeated requests from Senator Dianne Feinstein to restructure US counter-terrorism and homeland defense programs, starting in July 2001 and continuing through September 10, 2001, when Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff told Feinstein to wait 6 months (www.senate.gov/~feinstein/Releases02/attacks.htm)
They ignored the report of the Gore Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (www.fas.org/irp/threat/212fin~1.html)
The Bush administration changed Bill Clinton's policy towards Afghanistan to appease Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their Saudi backers to promote the interests of oil companies, putting profits for campaign contributors ahead of fighting terrorism:

They prevented FBI terrorism experts from investigating Saudi Arabian ties to Al Qaeda before 911, leading to the resignation of FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill only two weeks before 911 (democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7352)
They ordered the Naval Strike Force - which President Clinton deployed near Afghanistan on 24-hour alert in order to strike Osama Bin Laden - to "stand down" before 911 (democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5714)
They gave $43 million to the Taliban in April 2001 (www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm)
When appeasement failed, the Bush administration then prepared for war against Afghanistan:

They issued an ultimatum to the Taliban in July 2001, telling them to turn over Osama Bin Laden and permit Unocal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan in return for a "carpet of gold" - or face a "carpet of bombs" (http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5166)
They prepared a National Security Presidential Directive on September 9, 2001, a detailed "game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the Earth" (http://www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp?cp1=1)
The Bush administration ignored numerous warnings from US and foreign agencies:

They ignored warnings as early as June from the National Security Agency's Echelon electronic spy network that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture (http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170072.html)
They ignored warnings from an FBI agent in Phoenix on July 10, 2001 about suspicious Arab pilots with ties to Al Qaeda who were training in a local flight school, urging a nationwide investigation of Arab students in flight schools (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30176-2002May16.html)
Bush personally ignored warnings from the CIA on August 6, 2001 that Al Qaeda planned to hijack US planes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35744-2002May17.html)
They ignored warnings from Jordanian intelligence in the summer that a major attack was planned inside the US using airplanes (http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=58269)
They ignored warnings from Israeli intelligence in August that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent, organized by a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/16/wcia16.xml)
They ignored warnings from Russian intelligence in August that at least 25 terrorist were trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack US targets, with future plans to attack financial, nuclear, and space facilities (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/izvestia_story_pic.html)
They ignored warnings from Moroccan intelligence in August that Bin Laden was "very disappointed" by the failure of the 1993 WTC bombing, and planned "large-scale operations in New York in the summer or autumn of 2001" (http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=58269)
They ignored warnings from Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on August 31 of an impending attack on the US (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LEB112A.html)
They ignored phone calls from Abu Zubaida, bin Laden's chief of operations, to the United States that were intercepted by the National Security Agency shortly before 911 (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/wnt_missedsignals_1_020218.html)
They ignored an extraordinary number of "puts" on the stocks which were hardest hit by the 911 attacks, including American and United airlines, in the days leading up to 911 (http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=99402)
The Bush administration failed to take meaningful precautions against a terrorist attack when so many warnings were being issued:

They allowed counterterrorism agencies to "stand down" from the highest level of alert before August 6, 2001, despite repeated warnings from CIA director George Tenet (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30176-2002May16.html)
On 911, Bush failed to take decisive action:

George W. Bush said on two occasions that he saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on 911, and was told by Andrew Card about the second plane hitting the World Trade Center at 9:05 a.m. - yet Bush did nothing but listen to a children's story until 9:30 a.m. instead of ordering fighter jets to intercept all hijacked planes immediately (http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=6061)
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney ordered the Pentagon to shoot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania at 9:55 a.m., but could have shot down the other three flights if they had not waited so long to act (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42754-2002Jan26)
Following 911, Bush used the tragedy to promote the agenda of his wealthy and powerful supporters:
Bush pushed through the USA Patriot Act, which rewarded right-wing opponents of freedom and civil liberties
Bush demanded additional tax cuts for the wealthy using the pretense of "stimulating" the economy
Bush massively increased defense spending, to the direct personal benefit of his father and his cronies in the Carlyle Group
To cover up his failures, the Bush administration resorted to stonewalling, fingerpointing, and lies about 911:

They have continually lied about the extent of the warnings about the 911 attack

Shortly after 911, Ari Fleischer declared flatly that there were "no warnings"
When it was revealed in May 2002 that the CIA briefed Bush personally on August 6, 2001, they claimed that the briefing did not address terrorist attacks in the US; then they claimed it was a "low-level" briefing based on only one warning
Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people... would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." (5/16/02)

The Pentagon commissioned a study in 1993 called "Terrorism 2000", which predicted multiple simultaneous attacks, the use of airplanes as weapons, targeting of large landmarks and financial centers, etc. (http://www.infowar.com/class_3/class3_081398a_j.shtml)
A Fedex employee tried to crash a DC-10 into FedEx HQ in Memphis in 1994, but was apprehended
An Islamic fundamentalist group hijacked an Air France flight and loaded it with 27 tons of fuel to destroy the Eiffel Tower, but special forces stormed the plane on the ground
Abdul Hakim Murad and Ramsey Yousef conceived of 'Project Bojinka' in 1995, a plan to blow up 11 US airline flights over the Pacific in 1995, and to crash airplanes into the Pentagon and the CIA, which definitely caught the attention of counter-terrorism experts in the US (http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html#_Toc9410681)
The Library of Congress Report on The Sociology And Psychology Of Terrorism warned in 1999 about suicide hijackers (http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Sociology-Psychology of Terrorism.htm)
The Pentagon conducted a drill in December 2000 to respond to an airline crashing into the Pentagon (http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html)
U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July 2001 that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092701genoa.story)
They did everything possible to block an independent commission investigation

Bush and Cheney personally called Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle urging him not to conduct an investigation (http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/inv.terror.probe/)
When pressure for an independent commission became too strong, they suddenly announced warnings of another attack - although they did not raise the official alert level above yellow, leading to widespread speculation of a deliberately false alarm to stop the momentum
When the Independent Commission finally began its work, Bush used Nixon's dictatorial doctrine of "Executive Privilege" to deny commissioners access to crucial documents (http://www.msnbc.com/m/pt/printthis.asp?storyID=910676)
George W. Bush himself has repeatedly JOKED about the 911 attack:

posted 04-07-2004 03:31 AM            

U.S. Networks to Air Rice Testimony Live Thursday
Tue Apr 6, 2004 04:08 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The three major U.S. broadcast networks said on Tuesday they will broadcast live National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 2001 attacks.
ABC, NBC and CBS said they would go live at 9 a.m. EDT on Thursday to broadcast the appearance, which comes amid controversy over whether she failed to focus on the threat posed by al Qaeda in the weeks before the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the world Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A Fox News spokesman said they would offer their coverage to affiliates to air at their discretion.

A spokeswoman for NBC news said Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert would anchor the network's coverage; CBS said Dan Rather would handle its coverage; and ABC said Peter Jennings and a senior team of correspondents would cover the event.

Rice, who initially declined to testify, is scheduled to appear before the commission for 2-1/2 hours, and the networks said they would stay with her appearance as events warranted.

The White House had initially insisted that Rice's testimony be private before bowing to political pressure from both Republicans and Democrats that she speak publicly.

She is expected to address claims by former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that she and President Bush ignored the threat of al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks.

While it is not uncommon for networks to interrupt regular daytime programing for breaking news, lengthy scheduled preemptions during the day for news events are far less frequent. NBC said the last time it aired daytime gavel-to-gavel coverage of a live address was the one given by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations in February 2003.

CBS is a unit of Viacom Inc., ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co., NBC is a unit of General Electric Co., and Fox is a unit of News Corp. Ltd. . (With additional reporting by David Morgan and Steve Holland in Washington)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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posted 04-08-2004 09:23 AM            

***

Rice Clashes with 9/11 Commission on Al Qaeda
1 hour, 7 minutes ago

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - National security adviser Condoleezza Rice clashed sharply with Democratic members of the commission on Sept. 11 on Thursday over how seriously the Bush administration treated the al Qaeda threat in the weeks before the attacks.

In highly charged testimony that has taken on enormous political importance, Rice began by saying that the administration of President Bush as well as several previous presidents failed to respond adequately to threats from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization and other "terrorist" networks.

(OH....YOU MEAN CIA ASSET BIN LADENS ORG?)

But she insisted there was no "silver bullet" to avert the deadly hijacked airliner attacks and the faults were mainly "structural," stemming from the fact the United States had a historical "allergy to the notion of domestic intelligence."

(BULL...YOU HAD TERRORISM FUNDING INCREASED
EVEN MORE AFTER BOTH OK CITY AND 1993 WTC BOMBING....YOU DONT NEED ANY MORE MONEY)

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat, was the first of the 10 members of the bipartisan panel to challenge Rice, focusing particularly on a briefing given to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, at which a document was presented entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

As members of the audience, including some family members of 9/11 victims applauded, Ben-Veniste demanded that the report be declassified. He said even its title had been kept secret until now. Rice said it contained no specific threats.

"It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting," she said.

Throughout her appearance, Rice tried to put the Bush administration's actions in the first eight months of 2001 into a historical context. While Democratic members of the panel sharply challenged Rice at times, Republicans by contrast largely accepted her answers and moved on.

In her 20-minute opening statement, Rice said: "The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient."

'NOT ON WAR FOOTING'

"Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11, this country simply was not on a war footing."

Rice's testimony under oath, shown live on network television, could hardly have come at a more dramatic moment, in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign and during some of the heaviest and most widespread fighting in Iraq since U.S. forces occupied the country a year ago.

Critics of the administration have charged that Bush placed more emphasis on Iraq than on the threat from bin Laden.

Rice responded to damaging testimony by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who told the panel Bush ignored warnings about al Qaeda before the attacks and focused mistakenly on Iraq afterward.

She sharply denied Clarke's assertion that Bush pushed him to find an Iraqi connection to the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people in New York and Washington. "I'm quite certain that the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts," she said.

(LIKE WEAPONS OF MASS MASS DESTRUCTION..RIGHT CONDI?...LIKE THE THREAT FROM IRAQ? "THOSE WMD's HAVE TO BE SOMEWHERE")

Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, another Democrat, described the FBI response to the threat in the weeks before the attack as "feckless."

(THE FBI WAS SITTING ON INFORMATION)

"Yes, the attorney general was briefed but there was no evidence of any activity by him about this," she said. "Have you actually looked at the messages that the FBI put out? To me, and you're free to comment on them, they are feckless. They don't tell anybody anything. They don't bring anyone to battle stations."

Rice said that on entering office in January 2001, the Bush administration fully understood that al Qaeda posed a serious threat. She said Bush was regularly briefed by CIA chief George Tenet and began working immediately to shape a strategy to combat the organization.

'BUSH UNDERSTOOD THREAT'

"President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al Qaeda one attack at a time. He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies'," Rice said.

(NAH....BUSH'S FAMILY DOES BUISNESS WITH THE BIN LADENS AND THE CARLYLE GROUP...BUSHS FAMILY COULD MAKE BILLIONS ON THIS "TERROR" WAR)

During what has become known as the "summer of threat," Rice said the government moved to a "high state of alert and activity." But she said the threats were not specific and most indicated the attack would come overseas, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

Rice read the commission some of the intelligence "chatter" reports U.S. agencies picked up: "Unbelievable news in coming weeks; Big event ... there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar ... There will be attacks in the near future."

Some relatives of victims said before the hearing they hoped Rice would acknowledge the administration made errors.

"It's most important that she tell the unvarnished truth without any spin," said Beverly Eckert, whose husband was killed on Sept. 11.

"It would be very refreshing if someone in the administration finally admitted that some mistakes were made," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" show.

The charged political atmosphere surrounding Rice's appearance had raised concern the commission of five Democrats and five Republicans could see the proceedings give way to election year partisanship.

Bush had opposed creation of the commission and resisted calls for public testimony by Rice until public and political pressure grew too strong.

Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said live TV coverage would make Rice's testimony the most widely publicized national security hearing since the Iran-Contra congressional probe in 1987.

posted 04-08-2004 11:16 AM            

Alex Jones
Infowars.com
April 8, 2004

Condoleezza Rice and the 911 Whitewash Commission are putting on a huge theatrical display. I have made two documentary films covering September 11th and have written a book on the subject. I have interviewed dozens of government officials and have been continually researching the CIA-Al-Qaeda connection even prior to 9/11.

I can say unequivocally that Condoleezza Rice is a congenital liar. Remember, this is the woman who got up on national television and told the world that no one in the White House or in the intelligence complex had ever heard of terrorist plans to crash planes into buildings.

As a radio broadcaster, I had seen at least 50 mainstream media reports in the six years leading up to 9/11 reporting on the fact that Islamic terror groups were planning to fly aircraft into US, British, French, Israeli and Egyptian landmarks.

Her lie was so blatant that even the dumbed-down general public saw right through it. She later had to admit that she was wrong. (That makes her a liar) But it wasn't just her, it was the whole beady-eyed administration crowing like a bunch of roosters that no one in the world had ever heard of such a plan. This was despite the fact that in November of 2000 the Pentagon ran a drill in which terrorists flew a plane into the Pentagon.

Now Rice has the sickening aplomb to go on national television and claim that the first major national security policy directive of the administration was "not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of al-Qaida."

This would have me rolling on the floor if so many people hadn't died on September 11th.

The truth is public knowledge, but it has been buried in the back of hundreds of newspapers in the US and across the world. Bush ordered the FBI not to stop Al-Qaeda and to leave terrorist funding organizations alone in the US. He threatened to arrest FBI agents that continued to investigate Al-Qaeda, Hamas and others.

Bill Clinton told three separate countries that he didn't want them to arrest Al-Qaeda. He also ordered the FBI to stop investigating them while, at the same time, refusing to even take receipt from foreign countries of thousands of pages of documents detailing Al-Qaeda operations.

The truth be know, Al-Qaeda is a military-industrial complex creation. It is a wholly manufactured threat to be used to scare Americans and people of the world into submission. The 9/11 commission is a joke. Chairman Keen is in business Bin Laden's brother-in-law. Almost every member of the commission and top staffers were involved in the 9/11 cover-up prior to the commission being formed.

Don't forget that the first "independent" head of the commission was going to be known war criminal Dr. Henry Kissinger. When that backfired on the globalists, they simply got lesser known thespians to carry out their Shakespearian WWF play.

If this were a real commission they would be asking Condoleezza Rice why the White House called Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco on the night of September 10th and warned him not to fly to New York on the morning of September 11th. They would ask Dr. Rice why her boss, George Bush, ordered her to allow 144 members of the Bin laden family to be picked up by three separate flights and flown out of the country on the night of September 11th, when all other air traffic was grounded.

The kangaroo commission would ask her to explain why the CIA was running a major drill out of DC at 8:30 AM on September 11th simulating hijacked planes being flown into landmarks in New York and DC.

They would ask her why NORAD stood down for over an hour for the first time in US history.

Of course, the commission, in secret session, talked to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds who told them in specific detail how she was ordered to falsify records in order to cover up evidence of specific warning before 9/11 of plans by Al-Qaeda to fly planes into skyscrapers in US cities. She also talked about how John Ashcroft offered to bribe her with a better job to keep quiet and threatened to arrest her if she didn't shut up. He also had her followed. now the commission has never said one word about these incredible revelations in all the countless press conferences and tV new shows they've been on.