The smoking Gun.

[Reciprocity]

This has been a revelation on the workings of the WH before 9/11.

<snip>
BEN-VENISTE: Did you tell the president, at any time prior to August 6th, of the existence of al-Qaida cells in the United States?

Filibuster.......

RICE: I really don't remember, Commissioner, whether I discussed this with the president.

<snip>
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.

<snip>
KERREY: Actually it won't be a question.
In the spirit of further declassification, this is what the August 6th memo said to the president: that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking. That's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of August.

RICE: And that was checked out and steps were taken through FAA circulars to warn of hijackings.
But when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur, under what circumstances -- I can tell you that I think the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before to think about what you could do for instance to harden cockpits.
That would have made a difference. We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike.
The really difficult thing for all of us, and I'm sure for those who came before us as well as for those of us who are here, is that the structural and systematic changes that needed to be made -- not on July 5th or not on June 25th or not on January 1st -- those structures and those changes needed to be made a long time ago so that the country was in fact hardened against the kind of threat that we faced on September 11th.
The problem was that for a country that had not been attacked on its territory in a major way in almost 200 years, there were a lot of structural impediments to those kinds of attacks.
http://wid.ap.org/transcripts/rice.html
A text of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony as delivered before the Sept. 11 commission on Thursday, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks Inc.:

[Old and In the Way]

1. So what did the administration do after 8/6/01 to deal with this

gathering threat?

Can Condi, or anyone in this administration, point the American people to anything concrete they did to react to this knowledge?

Did they:

Increase the threat assessment internally and call for more information?

Advise airlines and other transportation agencies to increase security?

Issue directives to the FBI/CIA to fast track suspicious activity to the WH?

Make any public statements on the OBL/AQ concern?

The only thing I have seen that relates to action on counter-terrorism is that the DOJ downgraded the budget for this activity.


So why didn't they react to the 8/6 Presidential debriefing?

[Junkdrawer]

2. Call me nuts, but I get the feeling that this administration is...

preparing the grounds for surviving a "Players Got Played" scenario becoming public. All the "if we had known planes would fly into buildings", the "we wanted to stop swatting at flies", and now the "strategic vs. tactical" talking points.

Is it possible that there are even more damaging smoking guns out there about to be revealed? Can they possibly survive if the "Players Got Played" is proven?

[Old and In the Way]

7. I like that phrase Junkdrawer

:-)

Someone must have been thinking about planes as bombs-

(6:00 a.m.)

President Bush has just spent the night at Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, Florida. Surface-to-air missiles have been placed on the roof of the resort. <Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02> Bush wakes up around 6:00 a.m. and is preparing for his morning jog. A van occupied by men of Middle Eastern descent pull up to the Colony stating they have a “poolside” interview with the president. They are turned away for not having an appointment.


From www.cooperativeresearch.org Bush 9/11 Timeline

So what was the purpose of the surface-to-air missiles? And how often did Bush take a SAM battery with him on prior overnighters? BTW, Venice is a short hop down the coast from Sarasota.

[Junkdrawer]

13. "Players Got Played" is, of course, your phrase...

BTW: I usually do give you credit.

Back to matters at hand:

Come to think about it, Condi is usually very specific about "World Trade Center" and "Pentagon". Suppose the approval were given while it was thought to be a hijacking, later info revealed planes as missiles and it was too late then to stop it.

[Rockholm]

17. This Shows That They KNEW Something Was A-Coming!

[Junkdrawer]

16. Check this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1372200&mesg_id=1372200

[librechik]

3. thats' funny, becasue until a few days before 9/11 it was legal

for ffpilots to carry firearms, The Bush administration prohibited the "hardening" of security in cockpits by handing down a no firearms order in the week before 9/11.

Coincidence?

What do you think?

[Old and In the Way]

5. That's a very good point librechik!

Instead of focusing what they were not doing to be pro-active, we should look at what they were doing to facilitate the success of an attack occuring.

How could they have done something like that in light of the PDB?

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. And two weeks before 9-11

I walked onto a plane at La Guardia Airport and no one check my ticket or my boarding pass. As a matter of fact they let 30+ people on this plane with no check in because they were in a big hurry to turn the plane around and it wasn't that crowded a flight.

So much for heightened states of alert or any increased security. There wasn't any.

[GiovanniC]

18. Source? Link?

If you have one, that would be great ammunition for my arsenal.

[librechik]

25. I hope you're battling rwers

because the first source that comes up on Google is WND...

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27647

I've looked this up before on the FAA site and it's the real deal--don't have time now.

[GiovanniC]

30. Battling R/Wers and Converting the Undecided

Thanks!

[Beetwasher]

4. She Perjured Herself

The title of the PDB WAS A FUCKING WARNING!!!

Additionally, apparently she also lied when she claims they warned the FAA w/ circulars. FAA and Minetta claim they knew nothing about the threats...

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. See my above post

I can prove that the FAA knew nothing or if they did they didn't bother to let there ground crews know.

[Richardo]

6. Call me a nit-picker, but I take exception to this statement:

The problem was that for a country that had not been attacked on its territory in a major way in almost 200 years...

And what was the 1861 shelling of Fort Sumter by a foreign power (the CSA) and the ensuing four years' unpleasantness, if not an attack "in a major way"?

[Old and In the Way]

8. Or Oklahoma Federal Building Bombing?

That didn't count?

[leftofthedial]

38. or the bombing of the WTC in 1993?

WTF???

[sangh0]

9. I guess Pearl Harbor wasn't a part of the US either

.

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Hawaii wasn't a state

until the late 1950's.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. Hawaii was annexed by the U. S. in 1898, became a territory in 1900...

...finally became a state in 1959.

As a territory, Hawaii was very much part of the United States.

<http://www.lava.net/~poda/history.html>

[Oddman]

10. John Dean is right - this is worse than Watergate . . .

I NEVER thought I would see a more corrupt administration than Nixon's. Everyone must realize that this administration is far, far worse. Nixon bungled a burglary - bu$h bungled 3000+ lives in 9/11 and 650 soldiers in Iraq and 12,000 innocent Iraqi civilian lives and a record surplus and the environment and prescription drugs and on and on and on . . .

Hey bu$h - Money Doesn’t Buy Everything . . .
http://www.arts-america.com/priceless.htm

“President” Bush Takes a Vacation . . .
http://www.arts-america.com/vacation.htm

[Guaranteed]

11. Yes, she perjured herself...it doesn't look like you have it up there

but at one point she says, I believe talking to Ben-Veniste, "(the PDB) did not warn of attacks in the United States..."

Definite perjury.

[librechik]

33. SOT defense

"slip of the tongue"

she'll walk

[gristy]

20. This statement has been bothering me since I heard her say it

We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike.

WTF is she talking about? Is she saying that because the US wasn't going to be able to harden cockpits in the three months "that we had a threat spike" that it made no sense to even start the process? How many days did it take to secure our cockpits after 9/11?

I just cannot figure out what the f*** she is talking about.

[HornBuckler]

21. Excellent Point

I've Been Thinking The Same Thing - What The Hell Kind Of Answer Is That?

[IkeWarnedUs]

22. Her statement about the cockpit doors implies that

. . . they didn't try because they knew they couldn't get it done in the three months until the 9/11 attacks.

The argument that they didn't try because they didn't have time implies that they knew how much time they had.

[gristy]

23. That's right.

That's the only explanation I can think of. In fact, when she made this statement I got a sense of her "catching herself" and not saying

We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had... until 9/11 (hmmm, no...).
We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike.

[Dunedain]

24. You got it

defies logic doesn't it? Where was the time constraint?

[Sterling]

37. Yes it sounds like they had a date set, lol

Boy why did she say that?

[guitar man]

26. PDB

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


BUSH: "That's my cue to take a month long vacation.":eyes:

[napi21]

27. I doubt FAA warned their pilots, and it's questionable that

the WH warned the FAA. I certainly never heard any pilot saying that they had warnings and I would think at least one of them would have come forward by now.

I would also think the turn around time at NORAD would have been much quicker if there had already been warnings!

[Nashyra]

29. My husband is a pilot with American Airlines

and I am a flight attendant and there were no warnings NO WARNIGS and no security alerts, there was nothing in our company e-mail that even remotely suggested that there was something amiss in contrast with the amount of e-mail notifications we were given prior to the millineum by the CLINTON administration. She is a LIAR>

[mike1963]

31. I'm a commercial pilot (not for an airline) and I interact with a LOT of

other pilots - none of them or the FAA ever said anything whatsoever
about any sort of threats before 9/11 in my presence.

[napi21]

40. I suspected that! My son is an Aircraft Mech for a major airline

no, not United or American, thank God. He usually has all the scuttlebutt and there was NOTHING about this!

How can we get this LIE out to the public?

The whole thing looks to me like this admin is trying to blame ABB!!!

[Hemprus]

28. Is it me

or can you hear Oliver North talking!:think:

[Jose Diablo]

32. The "structural changes" this administration wanted

was to turn the USA into a police state with a secret police spying on the citizens and suspension of the Bill of Rights. I.E establish a STASI in the USA.

These people are traitors to the constitution and the people of the USA.

[calimary]

34. CALL YOUR REPS!

Toll Free! See my sig line...

[Reciprocity]

35. Declassified

Do you all think that the brief will be declassified?

[Reciprocity]

36. It is clear to me from this that someone knew something.

The Jersey Girls
9/11 widows react to Rice's testimony
Hardball with Chris Matthews


LORIE VAN AUKEN, WIDOW OF 9/11 ATTACK: We also know that people stopped flying domestically. Ashcroft stopped flying. Pentagon officials stop flying the day before September 11. They were warned not fly on September 11. We think San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was told not to fly. That’s all domestic. You know, everybody keeps telling us how they were focused outward.

MATTHEWS: You’re talking about before 9/11 they were warned?

VAN AUKEN: Yes. Yes, right.

<snip>

BREITWEISER: If the public was better informed in the summer of 2001, lives would have been saved. Maybe the attacks wouldn’t have been prevented; but lives would have been saved.
My husband was in Tower II. If he knew that it was a terrorist attack, he wouldn’t have stayed in the building

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4696092/

[sam sarrha]

39. The 6th of august... he left the 8th of august and never returned till

after 911 , Chaney left to on a private jet too...... that is suspicious