Rice Refuses to Testify About 9-11 Under Oath

[buff2]

Rice Refuses to Testify About 9-11 Under Oath

Gail Sheehy, The New York Observer, February 9, 2004

http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/frontpage1.asp

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has agreed to be interviewed
by the bipartisan 9/11 commission on Feb. 7, after weeks of resistance
from the White House to the bipartisan panel's requests, The Observer
has learned.

In a Feb. 3 interview the newly minted commission member Bob Kerrey, the
former Senator from Nebraska, now the president of the New School
University, said that Ms. Rice's interview will not be held under oath,
and the results of the interview are not to be made public.

But as the Bush administration fights to limit the scope and time
allotted to the independent commission investigating a broad array of
failures leading up to and during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, Mr. Kerrey is emerging as a strong antagonist to their efforts to
contain the political damage.

Mr. Kerrey, the commission's unlikely new spitfire, told The Observer he
would lobby the comission to request sworn, public testimony from Bush's
embittered national security advisor.

"I'm very much interested in following up on the statement Condoleezza
Rice made at her famous press conference in '02, that 'I don't think
anybody could have predicted . that they would try to use an airplane as
a missile,'" Mr. Kerrey said. "I don't believe that."

[SoCalDem]

1. So, she admits that she plans to LIE???

That's the ONLY reason to not testify under oath :eyes:

[gWbush is Mabus]

4. why won't the American people...

WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[drdigi420]

14. because most of them are too damned stupid

most of them are too damned stupid to realize that bush is a liar, cheney is evil, there is no god, and the drug war does more damage than the drugs themselves

intelligence is not a valued character trait in the US

big titties and a large bank account are more important to most of the sheep

[daveskilt]

2. How very Oliver North of her.

let the shredding begin

[salinen]

5. Well at least she has admitted

that she will not lie to god.

[KansDem]

11. "to god"

and "too good" }(

[proud patriot]

3. By not swearing in under oath

this is just another opening for suspicion.

If they had nothing to hide , she would be under oath.

[pacifictiger]

8. I saw an interview

with the head of the 911 commission last night regarding the time extention - interesting that, tucked in with other comments, he said their final report will probably "differ somewhat from the official position."

[spanone]

6. If she lies to us, she'll lie to them. Oaths would only make it messy.

[hlthe2b]

9. No, it would make her legally responsible under Federal Perjury laws...

That's the point... She knows she can lie and get by with it, if she does not take the oath.

Clinton was nailed only because of his statements under oath to Congress...

[Jose Diablo]

7. OK, so Rice implied the administration knew and let it happen n/t

[stopbush]

10. Boy, Condasleeza is really caught between a rock and a hard place!

Will she accept her own hour-long show on MSRNC or take the offer - any offer - from Faux next January?

[rman]

12. That's how i like my government: trustworthy.

-

[truthspeaker]

13. 5th Amendment

She has a constitutional right not to incriminate herself, after all.

[LeahMira]

15. What a weasel.

She has a constitutional right not to incriminate herself, after all.

That doesn't have anything to do with taking an oath. She still has her constitutional rights when she answers under oath.

What she is apparently doing is putting everyone on notice that she will continue to lie as it suits her, but will take advantage of the formal situation to give her lies more substance than they would have in a casual setting.

[truthspeaker]

16. I wasn't being completely serious

What I meant was, truthful testimony would incriminate her because she's

GUILTY!

[tarheel]

17. I'm not sure about

this and any DU law experts may correct me, but I believe that the 5th amendment only applies to criminal proceedings in a court room. I do not believe you you can exercise the 5th in a congressional inquiry. As I said, I may be wrong about that, but it seems someone informed me of this and I did not belive it and I checked and found out they were correct. :shrug:

[truthspeaker]

18. seems to me we saw the 5th invoked a few times before Congress

during the Clinton years.

You're under oath, and anything you say in public can be used as evidence in a court of law, so I'm pretty sure the 5th covers any testimony you are compelled to make, in or out of court. Same reason you don't have to talk to police, I believe.

[tarheel]

19. As I said I was

not sure about the validity of my original statement, but out of curiosity, who specifically are you referring to that invoked the 5th before congress during "the Clinton years".

I remember several people answering that they had no recollections of many events, and Bill himself did basically lie under oath during a deposition. But Bill did not even avail himself of his 5th amendment rights and that was I believe in a civil sexual harassment case not testimony before a congressional inquiry.

I am not disputing your assertions, I am simply trying tomake myself aware of as many facts as possible for future reference.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. You sure can

In the Watergate hearings, John Mitchell said 'I don't recall' or took the fifth so many times it was ridiculous. He couldn't even remember if he went to the bathroom the day before. Yet, this smuck was the Attorney General of the US and he couldn't 'remember' anything.

Has for Ms. Condi, who the hell is she to decide whether or not to testify? Anyone else would be going to jail if they refused? Remember Susan McDougal?

[KharmaTrain]

21. As A Public Official, Isn't She Already Under Oath???

Was she sworn in to her position? Thus, her remarks, if said in her official government capacity, would mean that this is a statement made under oath? Just playing devil's advocate here...and seeing how this loophole can be sealed off.

[BigBigBear]

22. She'll lie

to cover the White House's incompetance and complete lack of interest in keeping the US safe from terrorists prior to 9/11.

Just out of curiosity, how many Clinton officials (Berger, Albright, etc) have testified, or agreed to do so? Anyone know?

[ignatius]

23. Do they have the power to subpoena her? If so haul her

sorry ass in under a subpoena.

[worldgonekrazy]

25. They have the power but the committee is split

I think they are hoping she will agree to it, but if she does not we might well see a subpoena. Then things would really get interesting.

[worldgonekrazy]

24. Whoa! Explosive statement by Kerrey

"I’m very much interested in following up on the statement Condoleezza Rice made at her famous press conference in ’02, that ‘I don’t think anybody could have predicted ... that they would try to use an airplane as a missile,’" Mr. Kerrey said. "I don’t believe that."

...

Mr. Kerrey also revealed to this writer that the scope of the 9/11 commission will take in "about half of what the President was doing in the pre-9/11 situation in Iraq. He alleged that there were Al Qaeda and terrorist connections, and that’s very much part of what we’re examining."

...

"When the Bush administration began in January of ’01, their transition team rearranged the Clinton national-security agenda. The question is: Did they continue the anti-terrorism effort? Where did they put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden on their list of national-security threats?"

...

"One of the presumptions that keeps surfacing is that an attack on our homeland was incredible," Mr. Kerrey said at one point during the hearings. "Yet there was a pattern beginning with the World Trade Center bombing in ’93, followed by a much more sophisticated attack on Americans in our embassies in Africa in August ’98 and the terrorist attack on the Cole in October 2000, which we knew was Al Qaeda. The possibility of a terrorist strike on our soil was obvious. Do they have to send you a memo?! You people ought to be coming to the microphone and saying, ‘We failed miserably, and it cost us like hell.’ What is this: ‘We couldn’t have imagined … ’? These people defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, for Godsakes!"

...


These statements are damn near LIHOP, but I wonder if perhaps Kerrey's words weren't "edited" a bit.