04-13-2004, 08:30 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Condoleezza Rice says the Bush administration has a good story to tell about fighting terrorism and she's pouring it out in television appearances, interviews and newspaper articles. The one place she won't talk is in public, under oath, before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 1, 2001, terrorist attacks. - salon.com
``I don't know necessarily what the difference is'' between a private interview and public testimony, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. ``She's going to tell it exactly how it happened,'' he said. - i will tell ya scotty, its called testify under oath - perjury - can you say that scotty? let the american people see how miss condi responds, in public, under fire.. - the drone
* RICE CLAIM: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02
* FACT: On August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." In July 2001, the Administration was also told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. [Source: NBC, 9/10/02; LA Times, 9/27/01]
* RICE CLAIM: In May 2002, Rice held a press conference to defend the Administration from new revelations that the President had been explicitly warned about an al Qaeda threat to airlines in August 2001. She "suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* FACT: According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high.we were at battle stations." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'" Meanwhile, the Bush Administration decided to terminate "a highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Newsweek, 3/21/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: President Bush and Vice President Cheney's counterterrorism task force, which was created in May, never convened one single meeting. The President himself admitted that "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism before 9/11. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; Bob Woodward's "Bush at War"
* RICE CLAIM: "Our [pre-9/11 NSPD] plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: 9/11 Commissioner Gorelick: "There is nothing in the NSPD that came out that we could find that had an invasion plan, a military plan." Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: "Right." Gorelick: "Is it true, as Dr. Rice said, 'Our plan called for military options to attack Al Qaida and Taliban leadership'?" Armitage: "No, I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11." [Source: 9/11 Commission testimony, 3/24/04]
What allowed the Bush administration to get away with silence on 9/11 and lies on the extent of the Iraqi threat? The White House staff had managed to cow most of the press into obedience and it also managed to clamp down on internal dissent.- Randolph T. Holhut
"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things," Bush told Bob Woodward in "Bush at War." "That's the interesting thing about being president."
"since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice-president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years." - Vice President Dick Cheney sept 03
That was, as a number of observers have pointed out, a bald-faced lie. Mayer reported that Halliburton pays Cheney "deferred compensation" that amounts to $150,000 per year. He continues to hold $18 million in stock options as well...
CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff?" - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04 FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04
WASHINGTON - In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. - Who's keeping us safe? Ashcroft cut counterterrorism budget after 9/11 attacks
Bush is disengaged, incurious, manipulated by those in the closed circle around him, and he adopts ill-conceived strategies that he has played little or no part in preparing. Bush is the Oz behind the curtain, but unlike the wizard the special effects are performed by others. Especially on terrorism and 9/11, his White House is at "battle stations" to prevent the curtain from being pulled open. - sydney blumenthal, salon.com
"The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He's no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn't let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam's capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war...we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth." - Paul Krugman
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons." ?Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." ?Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
"There is no question but that they would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan?the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites and doing all the things that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda would not let them do." - Donald Rumsfeld Feb. 20,2003, in an interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer.
"Never said that.... Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find anywhere me saying anything like [that].... I never said anything like that because I never knew what would happen and I knew I didn't know." - Donald Rumsfeld Sept. 25, 2003
"I'm a firm believer in feeding people their own words back to them, when it's appropriate." - Trent Lott
``I don't know necessarily what the difference is'' between a private interview and public testimony, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. ``She's going to tell it exactly how it happened,'' he said. - i will tell ya scotty, its called testify under oath - perjury - can you say that scotty? let the american people see how miss condi responds, in public, under fire.. - the drone
* RICE CLAIM: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02
* FACT: On August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." In July 2001, the Administration was also told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. [Source: NBC, 9/10/02; LA Times, 9/27/01]
* RICE CLAIM: In May 2002, Rice held a press conference to defend the Administration from new revelations that the President had been explicitly warned about an al Qaeda threat to airlines in August 2001. She "suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* FACT: According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high.we were at battle stations." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'" Meanwhile, the Bush Administration decided to terminate "a highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Newsweek, 3/21/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: President Bush and Vice President Cheney's counterterrorism task force, which was created in May, never convened one single meeting. The President himself admitted that "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism before 9/11. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; Bob Woodward's "Bush at War"
* RICE CLAIM: "Our [pre-9/11 NSPD] plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: 9/11 Commissioner Gorelick: "There is nothing in the NSPD that came out that we could find that had an invasion plan, a military plan." Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: "Right." Gorelick: "Is it true, as Dr. Rice said, 'Our plan called for military options to attack Al Qaida and Taliban leadership'?" Armitage: "No, I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11." [Source: 9/11 Commission testimony, 3/24/04]
What allowed the Bush administration to get away with silence on 9/11 and lies on the extent of the Iraqi threat? The White House staff had managed to cow most of the press into obedience and it also managed to clamp down on internal dissent.- Randolph T. Holhut
"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things," Bush told Bob Woodward in "Bush at War." "That's the interesting thing about being president."
"since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice-president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years." - Vice President Dick Cheney sept 03
That was, as a number of observers have pointed out, a bald-faced lie. Mayer reported that Halliburton pays Cheney "deferred compensation" that amounts to $150,000 per year. He continues to hold $18 million in stock options as well...
CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff?" - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04 FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04
WASHINGTON - In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. - Who's keeping us safe? Ashcroft cut counterterrorism budget after 9/11 attacks
Bush is disengaged, incurious, manipulated by those in the closed circle around him, and he adopts ill-conceived strategies that he has played little or no part in preparing. Bush is the Oz behind the curtain, but unlike the wizard the special effects are performed by others. Especially on terrorism and 9/11, his White House is at "battle stations" to prevent the curtain from being pulled open. - sydney blumenthal, salon.com
"The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He's no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn't let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam's capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war...we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth." - Paul Krugman
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons." ?Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." ?Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
"There is no question but that they would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan?the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites and doing all the things that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda would not let them do." - Donald Rumsfeld Feb. 20,2003, in an interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer.
"Never said that.... Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find anywhere me saying anything like [that].... I never said anything like that because I never knew what would happen and I knew I didn't know." - Donald Rumsfeld Sept. 25, 2003
"I'm a firm believer in feeding people their own words back to them, when it's appropriate." - Trent Lott
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