Rice to Give Testimony.........

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Rice to Give Testimony.........
93
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 10:05am
Bush aide gives 9/11 testimony.

 



President George W Bush understood the threat from al-Qaeda well before 11 September, his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has said.

Ms Rice is appearing before the body looking into the 2001 attacks.

"President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance," she told the commission.

Ms Rice is testifying in public about policy in the months before the attacks after Mr Bush reversed a decision to refuse the commission's request.


In her opening statement she said: "(President Bush) made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al-Qaeda one attack at a time.

"He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies.'"


Ms Rice told the commission: "There was no silver bullet that could have prevented" the devastating attacks on New York and Washington.


The US "simply was not on a war footing", she said.

"For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat was growing, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient," Ms Rice said.

Observers say Mr Rice's evidence could be vital for Mr Bush's re-election chances.

It is also being seen as a key moment in her own political career, with some tipping her as a future secretary of state or even president.

Her testimony is being covered by all the main US television networks.

She is expected to face intense questioning by the 9/11 commission - a panel of Republicans and Democrats charged with examining all the circumstances of the 2001 attacks, and setting out the lessons to be learned.

They will put to her accusations made by the former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke two weeks ago.

In his testimony - and in a book on the George Bush presidency - he accused the administration of ignoring his warnings about al-Qaeda, and of being fixated with Iraq.

When he appeared before the commission he made a dramatic apology.

"Your government failed you, and I failed you," he said.

Ms Rice did not offer an apology as the White House said the administration felt it had done all it could to prevent the attacks, based on the information available.

But she said: "As an officer of government on duty that day, I will never forget the sorrow and the anger I felt."


The White House had originally refused to let Ms Rice testify, arguing that she was in a privileged position as a presidential adviser and that it would set the wrong precedent.


However it relented after a political row.

The White House has also hinted it may change course and release a speech Miss Rice was due to give on 11 September 2001, but which was never made because of the atrocities.

The speech apparently stressed the need for missile defence, rather than a war on terrorism.

Mr Bush's national security credentials, which are central to his re-election campaign, may depend on Miss Rice's testimony.

Patty Casazza of New Jersey, whose husband died in the World Trade Center attacks, said she hoped the appearance would make things much clearer.

"Her testimony will either undermine our confidence in this administration or bolster it," she told the Associated Press news agency.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 10:44am
In case it might help you, here is a lexicon for decoding Rice's testimony.

Decoding Rice's self-serving testimony.

By William Saletan

Updated Thursday, April 8, 2004, at 4:16 PM PT

Four years ago, when the Justice Department deposed Al Gore in the Clinton fund-raising scandal, I poked fun at Gore's self-serving, hypocritical redefinitions of everyday words. Today, National Security Adviser Condi Rice resorted to similar tactics in her testimony before the 9/11 commission. Here's a glossary of her terms.

Gathering threats: Unclear perils that previous administrations irresponsibly failed to confront quickly. Example: For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.

Vague threats: Unclear perils that the Bush administration understandably failed to confront quickly. Example: The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack. … The threat reporting was frustratingly vague.

Up-to-date intelligence: The precise, useful information the administration responsibly demanded and got. Example: President Bush revived the practice of meeting with the director of Central Intelligence almost every day. … At these meetings, the president received up-to-date intelligence. … From Jan. 20 through Sept. 10, the president received at these daily meetings more than 40 briefing items on al-Qaida.

Specific threat information: The precise, useful information the administration didn't get, thereby absolving it of responsibility. Example: On Aug. 6, 2001, the president's intelligence briefing … referred to uncorroborated reporting, from 1998, that a terrorist might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists. … This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information.

Specific warnings: The precise, useful alerts the administration issued based on the information it got. Example: I asked Dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond. … The FAA issued at least five civil aviation security information circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking.

Briefing: Addition to a warning, without which the warning is insufficient. Example: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.

Recommendation: Addition to a briefing, without which the briefing is insufficient. Example: In the memorandum that Dick Clarke sent me on Jan. 25, he mentions sleeper cells. There is no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them.

Historical: Communications that mentioned the past and were therefore irrelevant to the future. Example: The Aug. 6 PDB …was not a particular threat report. And there was historical information in there about various aspects of al-Qaida's operations. … This was not a warning. This was a historic memo.

Analytical: Documents given to the administration that were general and therefore useless. Example: On the Aug. 6 memorandum to the president, this was not threat reporting about what was about to happen. This was an analytic piece. … Threat reporting is, "We believe that something is going to happen here and at this time, under these circumstances." This was not threat reporting. … The PDB does not say the United States is going to be attacked. It says Bin Laden would like to attack the United States."

Broad: Documents issued by the administration that were general and therefore effective. Example: Our counterterrorism strategy was a part of a broader package of strategies that addressed the complexities of the region.

Structural: Factors that the administration couldn't influence because they were systematic. Example: The absence of light, so to speak, on what was going on inside the country, the inability to connect the dots, was really structural.

Chance: Factors that the administration couldn't influence because they were non-systematic. Example (answering charges that the administration might have disrupted the 9/11 plot by holding regular Cabinet "principals" meetings on terrorism): You cannot depend on the chance that some principal might find out something in order to prevent an attack. That's why the structural changes that are being talked about here are so important. Synonym: Lucky. Example: I do not believe that it is a good analysis to go back and assume that somehow maybe we would have gotten lucky by "shaking the trees." … We had a structural problem.

Bureaucratic impediments: Factors that the administration couldn't influence because they involved the administration. Example: We did have a systemic problem, a structural problem. … It was there because there were legal impediments, as well as bureaucratic impediments.

Set of ideas: Richard Clarke's proposals for fighting al-Qaida, prior to being adopted by Bush. Antonym: Plan. Example: We were not presented with a plan. … What we were presented on Jan. 25 was a set of ideas.

Strategy: Clarke's proposals for fighting al-Qaida, as adopted by Bush. Example: We decided to take a different track. We decided to put together a strategic approach to this that would get the regional powers. … But by no means did ask me to act on a plan. He gave us a series of ideas.

Swatting flies: Bill Clinton's weak, partial counterterrorist measures. Example: made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was tired of swatting flies. … He felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by swatting flies.

Disrupting: Bush's strong, partial counterterrorist measures. Example: directed the director of Central Intelligence to prepare an aggressive program of covert activities to disrupt al-Qaida.

Law enforcement: Clinton's weak policy of targeting individual terrorists. Example: That's actually where we've had the biggest change. The president doesn't think of this as law enforcement. He thinks of this as war.

Hunting down terrorists one by one: Bush's strong policy of targeting individual terrorists. Example: Under his leadership, the United States and our allies are disrupting terrorist operations, cutting off their funding and hunting down terrorists one by one.

Diplomacy: Clinton's impotent pleas to foreign governments. Example: We were continuing the diplomatic efforts. But we did want to take the time to get in place a policy that was more strategic toward al-Qaida, more robust.

Strong messages: Bush's potent pleas to foreign governments. Example: Within a month of taking office, President Bush sent a strong private message to President Musharraf, urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to bring Bin Laden to justice and to close down al-Qaida training camps.

Deferral: Clinton's irresponsible postponement of counterterrorism ideas. Example: We also made decisions on a number of specific anti-al-Qaida initiatives that had been proposed by Dick Clarke to me in an early memorandum after we had taken office. Many of these ideas had been deferred by the last administration.

Taking time: Bush's prudent postponement of counterterrorism ideas. Example: We did want to take the time to get in place a policy that was more strategic toward al-Qaida, more robust. It takes some time to think about how to reorient your policy toward Pakistan. It takes some time to think about how to have a more effective policy toward Afghanistan.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2098500/

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 11:33am
Testimony Paints Image of Passive Inner Circle

By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — In her much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice delivered a powerful rebuttal Thursday to critics who say President Bush brushed off warnings of a major terrorist attack inside the United States — warnings that poured into American intelligence agencies like a torrent in the summer of 2001.

But on the critical question of what the Bush White House did in response to those warnings, Rice's performance was markedly less effective. Repeatedly, she described a White House inner circle that spent its time on broad strategy and left it up to the bureaucracy to decide how to meet the escalating threat, with no real follow-up from the White House.

At one point, asked about a memo written to her by White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke warning that the parochial interests of the agencies would thwart action unless the White House kept the pressure on, Rice said she thought Clarke was just trying to "buck me up."

"The problem for Dr. Rice in her testimony," as Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, put it, "is that the concept of bureaucracy she offers is essentially a passive, not an active concept."

The question is, Jamieson said: "Would it have made a difference if they had a different concept?"

Rice faced more than three hours of questioning that oscillated between hardball and softball, and at times even descended to T-ball as friendly members of the panel served up queries designed to help her score rhetorical home runs.

And Rice gave no ground on the White House line: The president did everything he could, but "structural" defects in the nation's intelligence and security systems made it impossible to detect and avert the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But the portrait of Bush and his closest aides that emerged from her testimony, while acquitting them of ignoring the warnings, left an image of leaders detached from the practical challenges of mounting a defense.

In a sense, it came down to two concepts of how a president should operate: the Bush team's view that the chief executive should delegate authority, and the view espoused by Clarke and others that the White House should actively work to ensure that effective action is taken — including "shaking the trees" to move sometimes-hidebound government agencies.

Grace Under Pressure

Supporters and critics alike gave Rice high marks for her grace under questioning, and most said her performance was likely to improve the administration's image on the sensitive issues concerning the 9/11 attacks.

"She did a good job. She wasn't confrontational," said George C. Edwards III, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University.

At the same time, Rice's answers depicted an administration less in command of the government than her composure and relaxed demeanor in the witness chair may have implied.

For example, to demonstrate that she and the president fully understood the spiking threat level in the summer of 2001, Rice read the commission fragments of what she called "the chatter" from Al Qaeda sources being picked up by intelligence agencies: "Unbelievable news in coming weeks…. Big event…. There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar…. There will be attacks in the near future."

Repeatedly, however, Rice told the commission that warnings and memos that reached her desk — including a critical Aug. 6 CIA report on Al Qaeda plans to attack the United States — were too vague to permit concrete action.

Though the still-classified memo was entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," Rice said, "This was not a threat report to the president or a threat report to me. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it," Rice said.

At least some of the 10 commissioners saw the issue a different way: Not did the administration do what it was asked, but did it ask what it should do?

"But don't you ask somebody to do it?" countered commissioner Timothy J. Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "You're not asking somebody to do it. Why wouldn't you initiate that?"

Bush has always said that his management style is to delegate responsibility, and to trust his aides to report to him what he needs to know.

But Texas A&M's Edwards said that puts an extra responsibility on the president to create an atmosphere in which aides can raise unpleasant issues, not just once, but many times.

That's what Clarke, in his testimony before the commission two weeks ago, said he tried to do. He said he repeatedly asked to raise the issue of a looming domestic attack at higher levels and was rebuffed.

"I can't criticize orderliness," Edwards said. "The question is — is it orderliness at the expense of free communication?"

Throughout her testimony, Rice returned to what she called "structural" problems — especially constrained communication between the FBI and CIA — that she said kept government officials from "connecting the dots" and sending more specific threat warnings to her and Bush.

Jamieson said that's a line of argument that does not lay to rest the central question: Could more have been done?

"When she answers by talking about structure, it's a deflection of the question," Jamieson said. "It can be true that there is a structural problem, but that doesn't eliminate the question of whether people within the structure could have done something more."

John W. Dean III, himself a veteran of Washington scandal who has written a new book on the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, said he was also struck by the passivity at the heart of Rice's arguments.

"If Richard Nixon had been given that info, I can assure you he wouldn't have taken months to act on it," said Dean, who served as Nixon's counsel and — once the Watergate scandal broke — became a central figure in the unraveling of the Nixon presidency. He later pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

"She pointed to systemic, structural problems that anybody who has ever worked in Washington knows about," said Dean.

In effect, Rice found herself in a rhetorical snare.

Arguing that the president fully grasped the threat of terrorist attacks — her answer to the first fundamental question she had to address in her appearance — only made it harder for her to explain convincingly why he, or she, had not done more to try to stop the attacks, which was the second question she had come to address.

"If the message got through, and he didn't act, then it is clearly his responsibility," Edwards said.

Fixing Responsibility

For many, responsibility is the crux of the issue.

Rice's argument that "systemic" problems were to blame for not preventing the attacks puts the debate in a long-term context that effectively shifts responsibility more to the Clinton administration, which was in power for eight years before them, compared to the Bush administration's eight months.

Rice also used the "silver bullet" argument — that there was no one policy the Bush administration could have adopted that would have stopped the attacks.

In the closest she came to admitting an error or accepting responsibility, Rice said, "For more than 20 years the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient."

Some critics said that all those arguments were effectively just an attempt to evade responsibility.

Moreover, Jamieson said, Rice's continued resistance to releasing classified documents that bear on the issue — along with the long White House effort to keep her from testifying — was a reminder of the ways the administration has not cooperated with the commission.

The result, said Jamieson, is that despite putting Rice on the front line, some who watched may still think the Bush administration has something to hide.

"This is a problem that goes beyond Condoleezza Rice," Jamieson said. "The accumulation of that impression is not good for the Bush administration."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-assess9apr09,1,3756594.story?coll=la-home-headlines






iVillage Member
Registered: 02-25-2004
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 11:47am
I completely agree! I watched the whole testimony and she repeated her same answers, (which all were evasive) over and over agian.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 12:24pm
Besides the show I really didn't see anything knew.

The thing that brothers me is why politics must take presidence over finding the truth.

An and example of showing how long the government really get the point of needed anit-terror measures was when I alert guard found the critical part to foil the 2000 plot that would of hijacked planes and killed many people. Wouldn't you think, that alone would of sent shock waves, that this is very close to home but no one did anything, did they? So as Condi stated, in Jan when they took over, the letter from the past admin. did 't say anything that would give them a idea of a major terror threat.

From what I have seen and heard, the flaws run deep, thru more than one administration, and agency, and I more concerned as to what is being done now not, the same old BS of politics and looking to blame.

I saw on yanqui TV and BBC, yesterday, the 9/11 widows. Strange why they hold the present admin respponsible for 9/11 and want them to be held accountable because they were in charge at the time of 9/11. While I felt sorry for the widows and wanted the testimony to show the public the true perparaness both before and after 9/11, all I saw was a politcal show as usual. The way the widows were continued to be presented on all TV channels it played like a show that sounds more like wanting to blame someone other than the people who actually did the deed. The people presented on TV were saying. "the gov't is responsible since they were in charge at the time of 9/11", "if they did their job my loved ones would be alive", "the gov't is hiding the truth", "of course it's the gov'ts fault for 9/11", and so on. As an example of easy blame is, after "Pearl harbor", blame the US gov, after, sinking the lusitania, blame the US gov, the sinking of the Maine, blame the US gov, the capturing of the alamo, blame the gov and so on. Really it's gotten to the point where blameing is the only thing people do especially when politics are concerned.

I get the idea, it's taking real giref and looking for anyone close to home blame just like people who sit at home and get everything supersized and blame McD's they are extremely fat?

Everybody knows, that ALL the past administrations and gov't agencies were flawed and not just the present admin. There is just too too much evidence to support it and only pointing fingers(middle finger) only does the eneny good.

My concern is what are they doing now to prevent another 9/11? I want team work from all agencies not the same ole political BS games.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 12:39pm

Amazing...


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/168409_ressam09.html

Seattle an al-Qaida target? Local security officials left out of loop


Friday, April 9, 2004


By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER


National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the nation yesterday -- and apparently for the first time law enforcement in Seattle -- that the CIA warned President Bush that al-Qaida terrorists might try to hijack an airplane and free would-be terrorist bomber Ahmed Ressam.


Ressam, who has become an important government witness in terrorism cases, has spent most of the time since his December 1999 arrest in the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac.


In testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, Rice added that checks had been made on whether a courthouse involving the Ressam case in 2001 was under surveillance and that "the FBI had full field investigations under way."


But the special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office at the time said yesterday that he never heard of any such investigations. And retired agent Charles Mandigo added that no one ever informed him of threats to the prison or the courthouse.


Mandigo is not alone:



  • The chief district judge who presided over Ressam's case said that his courthouse said no one told him his courthouse was under threat.



  • A deputy U.S. marshal charged with courthouse security said no one informed the Marshal's Service about the danger.



  • An assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting Ressam said he never heard a thing about it.



  • A federal anti-terrorism agent said if there was an investigation into threats against the courthouse and the prison, no one told the local joint terrorism task force.


    But a White House spokesman defended Rice's testimony as accurate.


    "These statements represent what was in the PDB (president's daily brief from the CIA) -- the information presented to the president," said spokesman Frederick Jones.


    Asked why information about the threats appears not to have been passed on to federal and local law enforcement in Seattle, Jones said:


    "I cannot take at prima facie value that you've contacted the correct FBI agents. I don't know what the ground truth is."


    And Jones added that "whether the information (in the CIA briefing) is correct or not" is a matter for the intelligence agencies to address.


    Jones urged that publication of a story wait until the White House declassifies the Aug. 6, 2001, briefing. He said it is highly likely that it will be made public today.


    Rice's comments came in response to aggressive questioning from Sept. 11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste about the content of the intelligence briefing.


    Rice responded by saying that:


    "The fact is that this August 6th PDB was in response to the president's questions about whether or not something might happen or something might be planned by al-Qaida inside the United States. He asked because all of the threat reporting or the threat reporting that was actionable was about the threats abroad, not about the United States.


    "This particular PDB had a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98; that he had, in fact, liked the results of the 1993 bombing.


    "It had a number of discussions of -- it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States -- Ressam. It reported that the FBI had full field investigations under way.


    "And we checked on the issue of whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings, and we were told, I believe, that the issue was the courthouse in which this might take place."


    Rice's mention of the 1993 bombing apparently refers to the attack in February of that year on the World Trade Center in New York.


    Customs agents arrested Ressam in December 1999 after he arrived in Port Angeles on a ferry from Victoria, B.C. He had explosives in his trunk and had plans to use them at Los Angeles International Airport.


    He is awaiting sentencing after striking a deal with the government to testify in other terrorism cases.


    Proceedings in the Ressam case took place in two federal courthouses, Seattle and Los Angeles. The case began in Seattle before Chief District Judge John Coughenour, who moved the trial to Los Angeles because of pretrial publicity. Coughenour presided over the case in both cities. Asked yesterday whether he was told about a terrorist surveillance on the courthouse, he said: "No sir. No, I never heard anything about it." Coughenour has a top-secret security clearance.


    The U.S. Marshals Service, an agency of the Department of Justice, is responsible for courthouse security. One deputy marshal present during the Ressam proceedings said yesterday: "I never heard it. If I knew they were doing surveillance of our building, we would have done countersurveillance."


    A chief deputy marshal at the Los Angeles federal courthouse yesterday refused to comment.


    But former Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Gonzalez, a member of the team who prosecuted Ressam, said yesterday that he was not told of any FBI investigations or threats to the courthouse. "I knew nothing of it," said Gonzalez, now a state court judge.


    And a member of Ressam's defense team, federal public defender Tom Hillier, said yesterday that no one informed him of such a threat. Hillier said yesterday that security arrangements surrounding Ressam did not hurt the defense team's ability to do its job.


    Hillier said Ressam has spent most of his time since he was arrested at the federal detention center in SeaTac.





    P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 206-448-8072 or paulshukovsky@seattlepi.com


    © 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  • cl-nwtreehugger



    Avatar for moon627
    iVillage Member
    Registered: 03-26-2003
    Fri, 04-09-2004 - 12:47pm
    i understand why rice was defensive of the bush admin - its her job - duh ! but what i dont understand is why bush + co. dont apologize while they're in front of the families and the commission - its the perfect opportunity to say ''we're sorry we didnt do more to ensure the safety of the american people and for what happened because of it'' - so simple and eloquent even if insincere. i think it would go a long way to their benefit if they'd stop acting like they had no clue that a terrorist attack in america was imminent and that there was no way to stop it anyway - because if all they'd done was warn the FAA and other transporation depts theres at least a chance they'd have seen it coming sooner and possibly done something about it.
    iVillage Member
    Registered: 04-16-2003
    Fri, 04-09-2004 - 12:54pm
    <>

    Two thoughts run through my mind. 1) a total lack of curiousity that could lead the administration to reassess their initial beliefs, i.e., what didn't fit within the mental framework was to be ignored. 2) it does seem that Condi Rice needed directions to act, ie,paraphasing, usually when I get a memo people want me to do something; when a memo doesn't present a plan of action it is not important. This is strange for a very intelligent person, usually they are reading between the lines: what does this mean; and what should be a response?

    Here's an article that examines her body language:

    What she didn't say out loud

    Gerard Nierenberg, author of "How to Read a Person Like a Book," and Sonya Hamlin, author of "How to Talk So People Listen," comment on Rice's body language:

    Hands: "She was supposed to be giving information, but her hand gestures revealed her job was to hold back information. ... She folded her hands 20 times during her opening statement. Whenever she gave an answer, she returned to her position of control by folding her hands. When she was questioned harshly, she folded her hands." -Gerard Nierenberg


    Head: "She has very hooded eyes and an almost arrogant expression when her face is in repose. So she smiled a lot to be ingratiating. But you don't smile in that kind of situation unless you're manipulating someone." -Sonya Hamlin

    "The only time she appeared to be rattled was when they asked her why there was no retaliation for the attack on the Cole. At that point she touched her nose, which is how humans signal doubt. At another point, after she gave an answer that she was satisfied with, she brushed back her hair. That's a preening gesture."-Gerard Nierenberg

    http://www.nydailynews.com/04-09-2004/news/story/182094p-157940c.html

    iVillage Member
    Registered: 03-18-2000
    Fri, 04-09-2004 - 1:24pm

    >" the CIA and FBI should have kept track of the terrorist better. There were a lot of mistakes made. However, I do not hold any one person at fault because I know no one actually expected this great tragedy to happen as it did. But it is time for the current administration to say okay we screwed up and failed to connect the dots, let's see what we as a country can do better next time. Forget the election and party affiliation for a minute, both Democrats and Republican citizens died on 9/11. "<


    ITA

     


    Photobucket&nbs

    iVillage Member
    Registered: 03-18-2000
    Fri, 04-09-2004 - 2:55pm

    Bureaucracy in the FBI/CIA, I'm sure, didn't help the gathering & comparing of all info. available, but "too vague" doesn't accurately describe the following.


    >" For example, to demonstrate that she and the president fully understood the spiking threat level in the summer of 2001, Rice read the commission fragments of what she called "the chatter" from Al Qaeda sources being picked up by intelligence agencies: "Unbelievable news in coming weeks…. Big event…. There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar…. There will be attacks in the near future."

    Repeatedly, however, Rice told the commission that warnings and memos that reached her desk — including a critical Aug. 6 CIA report on Al Qaeda plans to attack the United States — were too vague to permit concrete action. "<

    How much more of warning should one want to go on high alert?


    Shouldn't responsibility for action come from the top & then delegated down the ladder?

     


    Photobucket&nbs

    iVillage Member
    Registered: 04-16-2003
    Fri, 04-09-2004 - 3:21pm
    <<>" Though the still-classified memo was entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," Rice said, "This was not a threat report to the president or a threat report to me. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it," Rice said.>>

    "I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it," Rice said

    This is exactly what I was what irritates me. Doesn't she have authority? It leads me to believe she didn't think she should iniate any activity--she was responsible for reviewing and advising period. How couls she be so passive in such a high level position. Previously, when State and Defense were squabbling, she made an announcement that she was to COORDINATE activity. I wondered at the time if she was the right person to head the NSA. Reminds me of the Pillsbury dough boy, push and it goes mush. Go along, don't make waves. When you don't know what to do--do nothing.

    I agree the Bush/Cheney testimony will be more of It's not my fault, we have excuses, keep passing the buck, least it stops near me." Failure of leadership--INDEED.

    Edited 4/9/2004 3:26 pm ET ET by hayashig


    Edited 4/9/2004 3:27 pm ET ET by hayashig

    Pages