Woodward: Saudi envoy tring to fuzz-up meeting

[JoFerret]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/23/woodward.bandar/

He says Bandar told him he thought Iraq war was imminent
Friday, April 23, 2004 Posted: 7:15 PM EDT (2315 GMT)




WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's assertions that he did not learn of President Bush's decision to launch war on Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell are false, journalist Bob Woodward told CNN on Friday.

"For some reason, Bandar wants to fuzz this up," said Woodward, whose book "Plan of Attack" tells of a meeting in early January 2003 in which Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld briefed Bandar on war plans.

He said Bandar woke him up with a late phone call Thursday night and ended up acknowledging that Woodward's description of the meeting was accurate.

Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has said Woodward was correct when he said he attended a meeting at the White House on a Saturday -- two days before Powell was told of the decision to go to war.

But Bandar said this week on CNN's "Larry King Live" that Woodward missed an element.

"Both Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld told me before the briefing that the president has not made a decision yet, but here is the plan," Bandar said.

"Not true," Woodward told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "In this meeting you have the secretary of defense saying -- according to the secretary of defense's own words -- 'you can take this to the bank; this is going to happen.' And I interviewed the president, and we spent a long time going over that meeting and the meeting with Colin Powell.

"And the president is the one who said, like to Colin Powell, 'time to get your war uniform on.' That's not a maybe. That's: War is coming. It could not have been clearer. For some reason Bandar wants to fuzz this up.

"Bandar called me last night," he added. "Woke me up -- a quarter of 12. And we went through this. And I said, 'What are you doing?' "
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[LittleApple81]

1. His picture and the last paragraph are telling. His facial expressions

are really strange, aren't they? It looks like he is forcing himself to move his lips.
Last paragraph:

said, 'Well, the issue here is when you left that meeting did you think the president had decided on war?' Woodward told CNN. "Bandar said 'absolutely.' "

[NNN0LHI]

2. Wonder if Bandar remembers that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi? n/t

[dArKeR]

3. Air America's Randi Rhodes: Bush 1 in meeting with Bin Laden's brother

at the moment of 911 attack. At a Carlyle meeting.

I heard this for the first time today. I must admit I don't watch much TV, don't read the newspaper, and I was overseas during this time period but I was connected to the net and the DU. My excuse: I feel my role is more of a digger and input my peronal experiences overseas. I still read more than most. So if I never heard of this I don't think many Sheeple have heard of it. And in my 6 hour test, no one I've asked around town have heard this either.

http://www.airamericaradio.com/pub/prg4about.htm

It took me a few hours and then I figured out why America was attacked that day. It had nothing to do with days of religious observance. Nothing to do with dates in history. The reason for September 11 was to bring attention to the Bush Crime Family cronie business relation with the Saudi Crime Regime. (my opinion). So the CIA/NSA/FBI should be looking for the next attack to occur during some kind of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Carlyle business deal with the Saudi or other Middle Eastern country, in my opinion.