Rice Warned of Terrorist Threat by Hart on 9/6

[RedSock]

Former Senator Gary Hart, who co-chaired the US Commission on National Security, says he met with Condolezza Rice on September 6, 2001 to talk about the imminent threat of terrorism.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/005907.html

More questions for the Commission to ask next Thursday.

[SheilaT]

1. This should not only be big news,

but why hasn't Hart been all over the news saying this?

[maddezmom]

2. not calling bush a liar, but damn close

One more thing: I met with Rice not long after the president was in Crawford and being briefed by CIA officials on the possible use of aircraft against American targets. This was all happening in the weeks before 9/11. So I think it's terribly disingenuous for the president of the United States to say, "If somebody had told us they were going to use aircraft against the World Trade Center, we would of course have taken action." I think it's just ridiculous to say, "We're not going to do anything until someone tells us where, when and how."

[arcos]

3. wow... this really needs a kick! n/t

[Roon]

4. Let's keep in mind the Hart/Rudman report too..

dimissed by Bush for being too "Clinton"

[Sparkly]

6. Yup, and didn't they receive that

early in 2001?

[Roon]

7. If I remember correctly...

I think Bush got it immediatly after taking office, but I am not sure.

[Sparkly]

9. Right, I thought January

What did they do, appoint a committee to make a study of the study in the report and to make a report about the report?

[skeptic9]

16. 2/15/01: Hart-Rudman Final-Report published

Al Franken (!) has one of the BEST 9/11 timelines I've seen, in his 2003 book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". From his chapter on "Operation Ignore", excerpted online at http://www.avatara.com/operationignore.pdf :

"... on February 15, 2001, a commission led by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued its third and final report on national security. The Hart-Rudman report warned that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern'' and said that America was woefully unprepared for a "catastrophic'' domestic terrorist attack and urged the creation of a new federal agency: "A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security--that would include the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and more than a dozen other government departments and agencies.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had studied every aspect of national security over a period of years and had come to a unanimous conclusion: "This commission believes that the security of the American homeland from the threats of the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government."

The report generated a great deal of media attention and even a bill in Congress to establish a National Homeland Security Agency. But over at the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided that the best course of action was not to implement the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, but instead to launch a sweeping initiative dubbed "Operation Ignore."

The public face of Operation Ignore would be an antiterrorism task force led by Vice President Cheney. Its mandate: to pretend to develop a plan to counter domestic terrorist attacks. Bush announced the task force on May 8, 2001, and said that he himself would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Bush never chaired such a meeting, though. Probably because Cheney's task force never actually met. Operation Ignore was in full swing."

[Leilani]

5. Gary Hart should be called

as a witness, after Rice, to show how much of a liar she is.

[hexola]

8. Gary Hart's revenge...

Payback's a bitch!!!

[Blasphemer]

10. That would be great....

I was hoping the WH's decision to cut a deal that would make it so that no one else would testify beyond Rice, Shrub & Chimp would blow in their faces like this. If they no longer wish to defend themselves, it's time to bring out witness after witness to detail their failures. I bet they would change their tune real fast.

[maddezmom]

12. wonder why no one wants to talk to him from the commission?

guess they really don't want to know the truth. :(

[arcos]

11. kick! n/t

[calimary]

13. KICK!

[balanced]

14. Specific Recommendations before 9-11

Does anyone know whether anyone in the Bush administration ever recommended that airports be put on high alert? If this specific recommendation were actually made to Bush, and he ignored it, that would be news. Obviously, if he had followed such a recommendation (if one were actually made), we might have prevented 9-11.

[oasis]

15. kick