Rice Says Bush Understood al-Qaida Threat

[icymist]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040408_908.html

Rice Says Bush Understood al-Qaida Threat
Rice Tells 9/11 Panel That Bush Understood al-Qaida Threat, Rebuts Earlier Clarke Testimony

The Associated Press



WASHINGTON April 8 — Under contentious questioning, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified Thursday "there was no silver bullet that could have prevented" the deadly terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and disputed suggestions that President Bush failed to focus on the threat of strikes in advance.
Bush "understood the threat, and he understood its importance," she told a national commission investigating the worst terror attacks in the nation's history.


In nearly three hours in the witness chair, Rice stoutly defended Bush when Democrats on the commission raised questions about the administration's attentiveness to terrorism, and implicitly and explicitly rebutted a series of charges made two weeks ago by former terrorism aide Richard Clarke.

(more)

[CabalBuster]

1. Lying, Lying, Lying, she didn't even know that Al-Qaida was n/t

[heidler]

11. She uses big words and lame excuses.

It is good to expose facade of understanding by her and Bush.

[BOSSHOG]

2. He understood it was time to get the hell out of Dodge

and go cut brush in crawford (the fake ranch designed to make the fake president look real).

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

23. The trip to the elementary school was a last-minute deal

from what I understand. Usually these events are scheduled far in advance, I guess so they can get their standard backdrop ("Jobs for the Future", etc.), but in this case the visit came up on such sort notice they couldn't to it.

Also, supposedly he was there in Florida to make some sort of No Child Behind award. The only problem is that he'd already given the award to a different class several months before.

No links. Sorry.

[dbt]

3. So why was he on vacation while this threat faced the country?

[icymist]

4. Just what does Rice call being at battle stations?

'But she also said, "Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before Sept. 11, this country simply was not on a war footing."'

It boggles my mind!

[3Pac]

20. wow

truly unbelievable...what is historical about a document that states Al Qaeda is threatening the United States?

[Brotherjohn]

5. So why was his first thought "One bad pilot!", not "OMG! They've hit us!"

[icymist]

7. I recall that Clinton's reaction

was that it had to be Bin Laden right off, without hesitation.

[zbdent]

18. Shi-, the network guy who was in my workplace for the day

was screaming "It's gotta be bin Laden" before the towers even started to collapse.

Never said anything about Iraq, though.

[mulethree]

39. My pothead plumber friend got it right

He called up when the first plane hit and was like

Yo Dude! (flick blub blub blub blub sssss ......)
Turn ... on ... the TV .... NOW...
(Wheeeewwwww Cough Cough Cough)
Someone crashed a plane into the WTC!
Its gotta be that Sheik Omar's guys

[Ganja Ninja]

24. He's so used to personal failure that he assumes everyone ...

has a job they aren't qualified for. That's why he thinks Condi is doing such a great job. To him no one is incompetent they just forget or don't realize or didn't have any advance knowledge. All the excuses he has used through out his life.

[maddezmom]

6. yeah, but she's not sure she told him about the AQ cells in the states

and that the 8/6 PDB wasn't a warning :eyes:

[Brotherjohn]

16. But she's got a LOT to tell him. He doesn't read the papers, and relies..

... on her to brief him.

It takes a long time to verbally describe the antics of Nancy and Sluggo!

[lancdem]

8. If she rebutted Clarke's testimony, then either she or Clarke

is lying - under oath.

[cspiguy]

9. we got her good - but she kicked Kerrey's kiester, IMHO

n/t

[0007]

27. I didn't see it that way -

[fishnfla]

10. And his response after 9/11? Blame Saddam.

Sure, he understood all about al Queada and their notorious links with Iraq. And box cutters are WMD's too.

[MichaelHarris]

12. How in the world

can a man who can't set the time on his VCR understand al-Qaida? This president is a blithering idiot, managed by religious zealots and war mongers who themselves are nothing more than global oil seeking terrorists. The world knows this and its time more and more Americans realize it. Recent polls show more and more Americans are now realizing the lunacy of this administration. This is an administration doing nothing but classifying, hiding, destroying, and denying the truth. John Dean is right, this is "Worse than Watergate", Watergate didn't cost American men and women their lives. As Americans we should be ashamed of our politicians, both republicans and Democrats. We as Democrats and our representatives are to blame for not asking the right questions, tippy-toeing around the need to keep the White House happy. All one has to do is set the TV to Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network to keep this president happy. As president he should biting-at-the-bit to testify under oath publicly to tell the truth. Why would one not want to take an oath to tell the truth? There is only one answer to that, he doesn't plan on telling the truth. Why would a politician, during a campaign, not want to appear publicly to testify? Once again, one answer, he can't face the American public when faced with tough questions. Let me restate my intro, "This president is a blithering idiot" run by fanatics seeking global oil domination, nothing more nothing less.

I am Michael Harris and I approve this statement.

Freeper trolls post this anywhere you want, I'm American which means I can say this anywhere I want, anytime I want. At least for now.

[trekbiker]

26. Yea...

RIGHT ON!!!!!!!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

30. You should put this in print...

in as many newspapers as possible.

You're right, Democrats are to blame...for allowing this imbecile to illegally reside in the White House. Their apathy placed the United States in imminent danger of attack by allowing this coup of self-centered incompetent ninnies to proceed without prosecution.

[MichaelHarris]

31. I've

sent some of my other DU articles to places like the NY Times but I never hear from them. They prolly think I'm a commie rat bassid or something.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

36. Try the WP

They print a lot of stuff, because most of the freepers around here don't read as far as the editorial page.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

32. commie rat bassid!

Oh, nevermind....

[MichaelHarris]

33. hahahahahahah

see

[MichaelHarris]

34. hahahahahahaha

see

oops dup

[Just Me]

41. Fabulously succinct, mharris660!!!

I encourage you to never, ever shut-up *LOL*!!!

I tend to cautiously gauge my audience,...but, I am almighty happy to hear the likes of you!!!

[MichaelHarris]

45. I

may get beat up, kicked around, and ridiculed but the one thing I can honestly say is I'll never be silenced. Been that way my entire life. I am as pissed off now as I was during RayGun's administration, even more so. We are in dangerous times my brutha's and sista's, there are people out there who want to strip you of your civil liberties. They want a holy war in this country, I'm not talking about al-Quida, I'm talking about this administration and its followers. I've paid my dues, as a young man protesting the Vietnam War, protesting reagan's criminal drug smuggling administration, and bush sr's secret maneuvers to control the worlds oil supply. I will not rest now, this fight is just getting started. Thanks for your kind comments,

Michael

ps on edit: feel free to use any of my editorials in any way you see fit. Some may be archived.

[Robb]

13. What "contentious questioning"?

The AP just prints her talking points.

"Stoutly" defended Bush? "Democrats on the commission"? Quick, let's POLITICIZE 9/11. :grr:

[underpants]

14. Yes only Kerry and Ben-Veniste's actual words

and not all of them.

They are spinning this away hard.

[icymist]

15. Let's see who ignored the terrorist threat more...

<snip>
"For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient," Rice acknowledged.

Okay, 1981 through Jan. 1989.......Regan.....Rebublician
1989 through Jan. 1993.......Bush I....Republician
1993 through Jan. 2001.......Clinton...Democrat
2001 through present.........Bush II...Idiot,er Republician

[RoyGBiv]

17. Transcript of Rice Testimony

http://wid.ap.org/transcripts/rice.html

There's a weird gray block on it during Kerrey's questioning, or at least in my browser. Must be some random glitch, possibly due to my setup, because it doesn't hide anything particularly important. And, I could cut and paste it out of there to see all of it.

Anyway...

[Zhade]

38. Interesting tidbit here...

I remember, later on, in a conversation with Prime Minister Blair, President Bush also said that he wondered could it have been Iran, because the attack was so sophisticated, was this really just a network that had done this.

Same thought that a lot of LIHOP/MIHOP people have had...not about Iran, but about the complexity of the operation.

9/11 could have been stopped at any number of points, even while it was occurring, and yet no one stopped it. I think the reasons why are pretty clear.

[Corgigal]

19. A question

is their any money to be made by any privately owned entity in the terrorism/counter business before Sept 11th? Do we have any "new" businesses now in the game and where can we find them? Do they give to national/state campaigns, ex Blackwater's guns for hire?


I personally don't think Cheney and others gave a damn about this info because they couldn't see profit in it.

[Just Me]

42. Hmmm,...the neocons are totally committed to profiteering from war.

So, I am confused that you would think Cheney and others wouldn't give a damn about info concerning war profiteering. In my humble view, they are the EXPERTS on war profiteering and would know exactly who would/could profit.

[davepc]

21. Rice contridicts the Bush claims...

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.




This goes utterly counter to the claim that the administration was focused on external terrorist threats to US interests.

[calimary]

22. Another problem: she repeatedly said this was a "historical" memo

outlining past instances. Well, D'OH! That established, doesn't it mean that this was, then, an accounting of earlier attacks, both inside and outside the US, that tip us off to further activity inevitably ahead?

Further, I heard Chris Matthews later on, reminding of Tenet having breakfast with someone at the St. Regis Hotel - and, when news of the WTC being hit (first tower, I think) he immediately reacted: "gee, I hope it wasn't that guy taking pilot lessons." Matthews' point: some pretty big, and suspicious-looking alarms had reached all the way up to Tenet's level. And if he was meeting with bush on a regular basis, every day or so, didn't he mention this to bush, or - if he did, was bush even paying attention?

[LiberalFighter]

37. They have a problem in recognizing a pattern developing

[MichaelHarris]

46. Can we

use the "historical memo" defense in relation to the Bible when the neocons use it to change our Constitution?

[robbob]

25. Understood the threats, understood it's importance

...but failed to do a God-damned thing about it. LIHOP in a nutshell. This is why he needs to be impeached.

[Ravy]

28. All threats must supply time, date, method of destruction, names

of victims, exact location, and accurate description of the perpetrators to be taken seriously by the * administration.

[havocmom]

29. Didn't he state just the other day that he didn't have any information

about any threats?

OK, Smirk, who's lying, you or your NSA?

[young_at_heart]

35. I guess that explains why he stayed in the classroom for so long

He KNEW all about the threat so there was no need to excuse himself and start "leading"!

[Tellurian]

40. The ^^POINT^^ is, it was to Bush's benefit to ignore the potential

of a Terrorist threat. Opportunity knocking, he answered with complacency. Bush needed an excuse to pirate the oil in Iraq-

case closed- End of story.

[primavera]

43. "Chatter" doesn't provide "where, when, or how"

So should we understand that, in Condi's opinion, unless terrorists send us specific and detailed advance notice of where, when, and how they're going to attack us, we shouldn't do anything? Gosh, I'm so impressed by the competence of our security agencies. What if we were warned of an upcoming attack and provided the when and where, but not the how? Would two out of three be good enough, or would we really need to hold out for all three before warning anyone to be the alert? I can just see the telegram from Condi to al Qaeda: "Ha! Don't think we're falling for that old trick - you didn't say HOW you were going to attack us!"

She said much the same thing about Clarke, that he warned of the impending threat, but his plan wasn't quite good enough to act upon. Gee, well that certainly sounds like a good excuse to just ignore it and take a month's vacation in Crawford. Didn't it occur to anyone that maybe, if the planned response from Clarke wasn't up to snuff, maybe they should come up with a response that was? Why does it follow that the most responsible response is to just forget about it and hope it goes away all by itself?

[gate of the sun]

44. she's a piece of shit and a liar

they all are. They didn't even ask the right questions. Anyone who bothers to look into the evidence readily available on the internet knows this is bullshit. They are traitors to our country and to the people who died. They are traitors and should be handcuffed and led out of the whitehouse for all to see their guilt and shame. That is even too good for them.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

47. Bush* tells Woodward: "I wasn't on point"+"I didn't feel the urgency..." !

Our idiot pResident indicted himself for not acknowledging the danger the American public was in when he gave Bob Woodward these lovely characterizations of his limited recognition of the threat in his own frikkin' words!

Conned-a-sleeza Ricin even REPEATED this in front of the 9/11 commission this morning in an effort to spin this by implying he didn't mean it!!

This is similar to ambassador April Glaspie accidentally admitting to enraged reporters who had just read the transcript of her discussion with Saddam Hussein where she gave him a green light to invade Kuwait.

As she dodged the accusing reporters by jumping into a waiting car, she huffed "We didn't think he'd take the whole thing!" and thereby confirmed George H.W.Bush's complicity in starting the invasion of Kuwait and the First Gulf War.

Criminals tend to be stupid and make stupid mistakes that incriminate their stupid selves.

"I wasn't on point..."
As they say down south, THAT DAWG DON'T HUNT.

[dArKeR]

48. Tensions mount as Rice defends White House - IOL

By Stephanie Griffith

Washington - Condoleezza Rice, the United States national security advisor, deflected some hostile fire on Thursday as she defended the White House against accusations that it failed to defend the country against al-Qaeda.

The hearing of the September 11 commission that could help decide whether President George W. Bush is re-elected on November 2 and even Rice's future, was shown live by all major US networks.

And Rice and Democratic members of the official September 11 commission were applauded at times as they jousted over the contents of a daily briefing memorandum to Bush warning of possible hijacking just a month before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington using hijacked airliners.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1081446300662B223&set_id=1

[dArKeR]

49. Rice 'danced around issues' - NEWS24

Washington - Relatives of September 11 attacks victims said that testimony given by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to an official commission on Thursday had failed to fully explain why the United States was caught offguard by al-Qaeda.

"I think she really danced around the issues," said Mary Fetchet, whose son Bradley, 24, perished when terrorists ploughed an aircraft into the second World Trade Centre tower on September 11, 2001.

"She gave very vague responses. Questions that she didn't want to answer, she didn't answer," said Fetchet.

Fetchet had also wanted Rice to follow the example of former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke who apologised to the families for the US government's failure to prevent the attacks. Clarke made the gesture when he appeared before the commission two weeks ago.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1510445,00.html

[dArKeR]

50. Bush warned about Bin Laden before September 11 - MG

Just one month after taking office in 2001, United States President George Bush bluntly told Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to bring terror kingpin Osama bin Laden to justice, the official September 11 inquiry was told on Thursday.

Musharraf was also told to abandon support for the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and close al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, told the independent inquiry into the deadly 2001 attacks in the US.

US and Afghan opposition forces eventually ousted the radical Taliban Islamic militia in late 2001 with the support of Musharraf.

Rice stoutly defended Bush's pre-September 11 counterterrorism strategy and suggested that it failed largely due to Pakistan's backing for the Taliban.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33964

[dax]

51. She rebutted NOTHING

Carefully vetted liar did well for her boss but her incompetence showed-she is really an oil exec with academic training on EUrope and RUssia and blatantly ignorant of the Middle East and it showed.

[dArKeR]

52. Rice causes furor over Lockerbie - TT

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/04/10/2003136104