Rep. Cox just happened to be in that meeting with Rummie and Wolfowitz while the attacts were being carried out. Gee, what a coincidence.
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Chairman Cox's Statement on the Terrorist Attack on America
At 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday, as a hijacked Boeing 767 slammed into the World Trade Center, I was in the Pentagon in the private dining room of the Secretary of Defense. Don Rumsfeld, the Secretary, and Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary, and I were discussing how to win votes for the Bush defense plan that is now pending in the House and Senate.
When minutes later, the Pentagon itself was hit by a Boeing 757 loaded with civilian passengers, virtually the entire building was immediately evacuated. I escaped just minutes before the building was hit. Most of those who remained were huddled in the National Military Command Center in a basement bunker of the building. From there, America's military response is being directed even now.
Ironically, just moments before the Department of Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing to me why America needs to abandon its decade-old two-major-war strategy, and focus on the real threat facing us in the 21st century: terrorism, and the unexpected.
"When I worked on the ballistic missile threat commission , there was an 'event' every few months that focused the attention of those in denial," he told me. "For example, India shocked the world when it detonated a nuclear device. Then Pakistan. Then North Korea launched a two-stage ballistic missile over Japan.
"Terrorist groups, some state-sponsored, are developing these same missile capabilities as we meet here. They are developing the chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to go with them.
"They do not have all the pieces yet, but they will. That is why Congress has got to give the President the tools he needs to move forward with a defense of America against ballistic missiles, the ultimate terrorist weapons.
"If we remain vulnerable to missile attack, a terrorist group or rogue state that demonstrates the capacity to strike the U.S. or its allies from long range could have the power to hold our entire country hostage to nuclear or other blackmail,'' he said.
"And let me tell you, I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event." He repeated it for emphasis: "There will be another event."
Within minutes of that utterance, Rumsfeld's words proved tragically prophetic.
http://cox.house.gov/html/release.cfm?id=33
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