9/11 Hearings: okay, how did Condi do?

[dd74]

In your opinion. Did she enlighten? Was it more of the same rhetoric? Did she discredit Clarke?

[island911]

No, No, & Yes

nothing new, just held her ground .. .maybe made the muddy-Clarke-crap clearer.

[dd74]

Originally posted by island911
No, No, & Yes

nothing new, just held her ground .. .maybe made the muddy-Clarke-crap clearer.

Issues with Mr. Clarke, Dr. I.? Please explain.

[nostatic]

I only saw a couple of clips, but she gaffed pretty hard concerning a presidential daily briefing.

Rice insisted the memo did not give any advance warning of what was to happen.

"It did not warn of attacks inside the United States," Rice said. "It was historical information based on old reporting."

Asked by Democratic commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor who has read the memo, to recall the title, Rice said: "I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' "

The other thing that was very lame was Rice's contention that the Clinton administration didn't "leave us a plan". When pushed about that, she said they left the "a series of actionable items."

Nice semantics...

[dd74]

[i]Nice semantics... [/B]

Agreed. I've seen better WTF looks off a rabbit in the crosshairs of my crossbow.

[fintstone]

She did very well and did discredit Clarke to a large extent.

[fintstone]

Kean asks about what she told president but really implies she was ignorant of al-Qaida/Bin Laden prior to Clarke’s briefings (as Clarke had stated)…she nails him..and points out there was even a TV documentary on Bin Laden prior to this:

KEAN: I have a couple of questions. As we understand it, when you first came into office, you just been through a very difficult campaign. In that campaign, neither the president nor the opponent, to the best of my knowledge, ever mentioned al-Qaida. There had been almost no congressional action or hearings about al-Qaida, very little bit in the newspapers. And yet, you walk in and Dick Clarke is talking about al-Qaida should be our number-one priority. Sandy Berger tells you you'll be spending more time on that than anything else. What did you think, and what did you tell the president, as you get that kind of, I suppose, new information for you?

RICE: Well, in fact, Mr. Chairman, it was not new information. I think we all knew about the 1998 bombings. We knew that there was speculation that the 2000 Cole attack was al-Qaida. There had been, I think, documentaries about Osama bin Laden. I, myself, had written for an introduction to a volume on bioterrorism done at Sanford that I thought that we wanted not to wake up one day and find that Osama bin Laden had succeeded on our soil. It was on the radar screen of any person who studied or worked in the international security field.

[fintstone]

Kean attempts gives Rice a question with a false premise based on Clarke's testimony)…select from two choices…either 1. President Bush was confused or 2. President Bush was twisting facts…Rice is not fooled and basically says neither and implies that the Clarke meeting was fabricated (of all testimony, he is the only one who says it ever took place)

KEAN: So when Mr. Clarke writes that the president pushed him to find a link between Iraq and the attack, is that right? Was the president trying to twist the facts for an Iraqi war, or was he just puzzled about what was behind this attack?

RICE: I don't remember the discussion that Dick Clarke relates. Initially, he said that the president was wandering the situation room _ this is in the book, I gather _ looking for something to do, and they had a conversation. Later on, he said that he was pulled aside. So I don't know the context of the discussion. I don't personally remember it. But it's not surprising that the president would say, What about Iraq, given our hostile relationship with Iraq. And I'm quite certain that the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts.

[fintstone]

She nailed Clarke on his contention that the president did not consider terrorism an urgent problem (using Bob Woodwrd's book) by showing how the president’s remarks were intentionally taken out of context:

HAMILTON: The president told Bob Woodward that he did not feel that sense of urgency. I think that's a quote from his book, or roughly a quote from Woodward's book.

RICE: Let me begin with the Woodward quote, because that has gotten a lot of press. And I actually think that the quote, put in context, gives a very different picture. The question that the president was asked by Mr. Woodward was, Did you want to have bin Laden killed before September 11th? That was the question.
The president said, Well, I hadn't seen a plan to do that. I knew that we needed to _ I think the appropriate word is 'bring him to justice.' And, of course, this is something of a trick question in that notion of self-defense which is appropriate for ... I think you can see here a president struggling with whether he ought to be talking about pre-9-11 attempts to kill bin Laden. And so, that is the context for this quote. And, quite frankly, I remember the director sitting here and saying he didn't want to talk about authorities on assassination. I think you can understand the discomfort of the president.
The president goes on. When Bob Woodward says, Well, I don't mean it as a trick question; I'm just trying to your state of mind, the president says, Let me put it this way. I was not _ there was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11th. I was not on point, but I knew he was a menace and I knew he was a problem. I knew he was responsible. We felt he was responsible for bombings that had killed Americans. And I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice and would have given the order to do just that. I have no hesitancy about going after him, but I didn't feel that sense of urgency and my blood was not nearly as boiling. Whose blood was nearly as boiling prior to September 11th?
And I think the context helps here.

[fintstone]

And again:

Hamilton: And by our count here, there were some 100 meetings by the national security principals before the first meeting was held on terrorism

RICE: We show 33 Principals Committee meetings during this period of time, not 100. We show that three of those dealt at least partially with issues of terrorism not related to al-Qaida. And so we can check the numbers, but we have looked at our files and we show 33, not 100.

[fintstone]

Here she nails Ben-Veniste when he asks her a two part question (first part making a false assertion) and tries to make her only answer the second part...cutting her off in mid sentence. Then he then actually lied about what he had asked when she called him on it.

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.
Now, the ...
BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.
RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste ...
BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the ...
RICE: I would like to finish my point here.
BEN-VENISTE: I didn't know there was a point.
RICE: Given that _ you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.
RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

[lendaddy]

Puleeese. You guys act like the PDB was some kind of herald on wings. I would imagine Clinton had similar PDB's prior to the first WTC attack, prior to the Cole, etc... These threats are daily, hence pDb. "Oh my goodness OBL wants to attack us"
"We already knew that boss"
"No, but it says right here!"
"It always does boss"

That is how I imagine it goes. Kissenger said they use to get literally DOZENS of these every day. If you want our government to do everything in its power to attempt to prevent every potential threat of the day then I hope you are cool with Marshall Law.

I bet if we could see every security briefing the majority of us would puke. To try and pin this on W's admin is quite something. They had bearly even taken office, and most of the planning and setup for this attack was already done and here prior to his being sworn in. Come on guys, this is really sad stuff.

[lendaddy]

Just to add to it, it is sad to see the vultures picking away at them knowing that they cannot use other un-released information to back them up. They use this one PDB and make it sound like it was some earth shatteing thing where interns were running down the WH halls shouting "PDB, PDB, Wooop Whoop, PDB". This is opportunism at it's worst.

[fintstone]

Here Rice addresses Clarke’s contention that the Clinton Administration had more success due to more “principle meetings” where he was invited. He uses the millennium threat as the example of his success. Like throughout his book and testimony; he is a superhero whose advice and action saves the world from terror…in fact, the millennium threat was only caught because a customs agent was lucky or observant…even though Customs had received no alert or warning...and the meetings had no effect.

FIELDING: And kind of related to that, we've heard testimony, a great deal of it, about the coordination that took place during the millennium threat in 1999 where there were a series of principals meetings and a lot of activity, as we are told, which stopped and prevented incidents. It was a success. It was an intelligence success. And there had to be domestic coordination with foreign intelligence, but it seemed to work.

RICE: And after September 11th, Dick Clarke sent us the after-action report that had been done after the millennium plot and their assessment was that Ressam had been caught by chance _ Ressam being the person who was entering the United States over the Canadian border with bomb-making materials in store. I think it actually wasn't by chance, which was Washington's view of it. It was because a very alert customs agent named Diana Dean and her colleagues sniffed something about Ressam. They saw that something was wrong. They tried to apprehend him. He tried to run. They then apprehended him, found that there was bomb-making material and a map of Los Angeles. Now, at that point, you have pretty clear indication that you've got a problem inside the United States.
I don't think it was shaking the trees that produced the breakthrough in the millennium plot. It was that you got a _ Dick Clarke would say a lucky break _ I would say you got an alert customs agent who got it right. And the interesting thing is that I've checked with Customs and according to their records, they weren't actually on alert at that point. So I just don't buy the argument that we weren't shaking the trees

[fintstone]

After Kerry's long lecture on why we should not be at war with Iraq..and questions her point reagrding a "strategic approach"....Rice nails him by quoting from his own speech immediately after the Cole attack where he said we should attack Iraq.

RICE: I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.
That's a strategic view...
And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean, it was really _ quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech, because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really...
(LAUGHTER)
... an asymmetric...
KERREY: I presume you read it in the last few days?
RICE: Oh no, I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach. Now, you can decide that every time Al Qaida...
KERREY: So you're saying that you didn't have a military response against the Cole because of my speech?
RICE: I'm saying, I'm saying...
(LAUGHTER)
RICE: No.
KERREY: That had I not given that speech you would have attacked them?
RICE: No, I'm just saying that I think it was a brilliant way to think about it.
KERREY: I think it's...
RICE: It was a way of thinking about it strategically, not tactically.

[fintstone]

Anti-war Kerry’s speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, on October 19, 2000, immediately following the attack on the Cole:
"In my opinion [the attack on the Cole] is part of a military strategy designed to defeat the United States as we attempt to accomplish a serious and vital mission. I hope we will direct the anger and desire for vengeance we feel away from Yemen and towards Saddam Hussein ... I can think of no more fitting tribute to the 17 sailors lost on-board the Cole than completing our mission and helping the Iraqi people achieve freedom and democracy."

[island911]

Originally posted by lendaddy
. .. . If you want our government to do everything in its power to attempt to prevent every potential threat of the day then I hope you are cool with Marshall Law.

. . .
To try and pin this on W's admin is quite something.
. ..

Yep -- Even the late-nite shows saw this. The over zealous partisan "questioning" reaked so badly, . . .ripe for jokes.

On Nightline, Ted Kopple had on (ABC paid "consultant") Dick Clarke.

Even Ted Kopple poked holes in Dick Clarkes spin.

SO: when it's obvious BS(political attacks) . .even to these guys, I would say Dick Clarke is going down for the count. Though I'm sure there are some WWF fans still rooting for Dick Clarke to get up and throw a chair, or something.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Marshall, martial, or marital? Seems all apply.

[Bleyseng]

You guys hear whatever you want to hear. Bush is still looking for the WMD's that we went to war over. Lies and more lies. Condi sounded like all her answers were scripted to me. Spin and more spin
Since most of the real important docs are classified we won't know what really happened soo we can only use hindsight that it WAS on Bushs watch that this happened. No excuses will change that, HIS TEAM is responible for the Sept 11 attacks.

[350HP930]

To repeat my post on this very subject . . .

Rice confirmed that the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief (PDB), which the White House had steadfastly refused to release to either the Commission of the public, was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'' She added that the PDB included information on the FBI field offices pursuing "70 full-field investigations" of Al Qaeda cells in the United States. "I don't remember the Al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about," Rice testified to the Commission. I would assume as national security advisor she should be the one to tell other people how to act on this info, not the other way around.

It was interesting that CR initially tried to claim that "It did not warn of attacks inside the United States, It was historical information based on old reporting."

Later, however, Bob Kerrey revealed that the memo told the president "that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking."

And to think that bush, rice and the rest of his administration are still trying to claim that they had no idea that something like 9/11 could occur at the same time that people in their administration stopped flying on commercial air liners in the days and weeks approaching 9/11. Whats worse that this bold faced and dispicable lie is the fact that all the bush worshipers rather believe this BS than the facts.

Faced with additional questions about this and other discrepencies with the bush administration's web of lies rice just gave a lot of "I don't recall"s and "I don't remember"s as to avoid perjury charges if more documentation revealing her administration's lies are released.

If synchronized lying was an olympic sport bush and his sychophants could win a gold medal.

If shrub manages to win or steal another election I think it will be prime time to have another impeachment hearing for something a bit more serious than a president lying about getting a blow job.

. . . .

Now that the stories are being compared to those of other whistleblowers and documentation its pretty clear that clarke was being truthful and rice is full of it.

If not for their idoltry, hero worship and blind faith for their preffered 'leaders' what would die hard bush supporters do to keep up their insane belief that anyone towing the bush administrations line is being truthful?