Thread: Memo...and Rice
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Old 02-13-2005, 07:12 PM   #20 (permalink)
host
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Quote:
Originally Posted by irateplatypus
host,

as flstf alluded to earlier, you have a habit of dismissing the core issues of a thread and instead taking it where you want to go. a mod owns this one... so we'll see how long that lasts. even so, i'll address the questions you posed as an aside to the discussion.

firstly, it was something of a bonus for the 9-11 commission to have access to the President to begin with. originally the President advocated a similar study of the events leading to 9-11 yet proposed that it be kept within the senate intelligence committee in order to best remove it from political motivations and security leaks. however, there was widespread support for the commission idea so he assented that he and his staff would contribute.

what you fail to understand is that, traditionally, it is VERY uncommon for a President to even come before congressional boards in order to preserve a separation of powers. in fact, there have been just a handful of instances where this has taken place since the civil war. what you assume to be road-blocking on the part of the executive branch is in fact an almost unprecedented reaching across governmental lines of power. it's is true that the terms agreed upon dictated that the President not be in sworn public testimony... but familiarity with the process shows that in itself is an incredible compromise. i do not think you are not sufficiently acquainted with the machinations of our government to comment on this.

the most complete single source of information i can find on these events can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/
you'll find that the commission members were pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place.

now... back on topic. read the text and tell us all why you think the clarke memo has any real value other than in a political maneuver.
The White House declares that Clarke's memo "doesn't contradict the Bush administration's position", you agree with that, I don't agree, Clarke doesn't
either, and it's up to the rest of informed adults to make up their mind.
Quote:
<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ahGqbmVbo0og&refer=us">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ahGqbmVbo0og&refer=us</a>
.......Rice, now secretary of State, testified last year before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. She has said that she and other administration officials received only general warnings, including one in a daily intelligence briefing on Aug. 6, 2001.

Clarke's memo doesn't contradict the Bush administration's position that it lacked specific warnings prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the White House said today.

The issue of whether Bush received warnings before Sept. 11 and failed to act played a big part in last year's commission hearings and a role in the 2004 presidential election. The Clarke memo was described at the hearings, though its full contents weren't released until now.

The memo, posted by the National Security Archive on its Internet site, doesn't change the administration's assessment of the situation, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

``There were some ideas put forward, but they did not constitute a plan,'' he said.

Limited Access

Clarke testified before the Sept. 11 commission that he and his colleagues had only limited access to top Bush officials and was under orders to report to deputies of Cabinet officials.

``So does this slow the process down, to go to the deputies rather than to the principals?'' commission member Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, asked Clarke.

``It slowed it down enormously, by months,'' Clarke responded.

In her April 8 testimony to the panel, Rice said the administration gave top priority to thwarting al-Qaeda yet lacked a ``silver bullet'' to prevent the Sept. 11 strikes.

She said the administration, while not on a ``war footing,'' was on alert for terrorism. Hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon near Washington and a fourth in a field in Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people.

Testifying on March 24, Clarke said, ``I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terror an important issue but not an urgent issue.''...........
irate, the "commission members may have been pleased with the President's input and the context in which this took place." But....I detail below,
what it took to get to the April 30, 2004 "interview" with Bush and Cheney that you cite.

As I've stated before, my research persuades me that Bush & Co's actions and statements do not pass the "smell" test. I'll admit that I don't know what
all of the references I've provided in this thread will ultimately add up to ,
but my research convinces me that Bush should have been turned out of office by the voters last November, and that you have to ignore a huge
amount of damning information that is reported and then can be verified,
if you choose to do that, but for some reason, you refuse to,
concerning Bush and his administration, in order to remain a loyal defender.

Quote:
<a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=340_0_1_0_C">http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=340_0_1_0_C</a>
Who Knew? The unanswered questions of 9/11

By Seth Ackerman | 9.3.03

On July 24, Congress’ joint intelligence panel finally released a declassified version of its inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. Described variously in the next day’s press reports as “scathing,” “damning,” “harshly critical,” and an “indictment” of White House secrecy, the report detailed a stunning series of failures by the CIA and FBI that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

No one in the early post-9/11 months, when the panel was born, could have predicted how damaging its findings would eventually prove. Although the committee was established in defiance of the White House—President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney each personally asked Tom Daschle to limit any investigation to the regular intelligence committees—its work got off to an uninspiring start. Its first staff director, Britt Snider, resigned in April 2002 as committee members squabbled over the scope of the investigation. Expectations for the probe were low.

But the investigation was transformed a month before its first hearings were set to begin. In May 2002, a string of explosive leaks ignited a public debate over the government’s handling of the 9/11 attacks and made the performance of the intelligence agencies a political issue. CBS reporter David Martin revealed that weeks before the attacks, the CIA had warned Bush personally of Osama Bin Laden’s intent to use hijacked planes as missiles. That followed the damaging exposure by The Associated Press’s John Solomon of a pre-9/11 FBI memo from an officer in Phoenix warning of suspicious Middle Eastern men training at flight schools—a warning that went unheeded.

The disclosures rocked the administration. “BUSH KNEW,” blared the May 16, 2002 cover of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. A front-page headline in the Washington Post warned, “An Image of Invincibility Is Shaken by Disclosures.” Even worse for Bush, the news set off an interagency war of press leaks over who was to blame for the mishaps, with each embarrassing leak from the CIA provoking a defensive counter-leak from the FBI. The result of the battle, which wore on through the summer, was political misery for the White House.

By September 2002, Bush was forced to accept the one thing he had been desperately hoping to avoid: an independent blue-ribbon commission into the 9/11 attacks. The commission, as Newsweek put it, may turn out to be “the most far-reaching and explosive government inquiry in decades.” Bush agreed to it only after a series of contentious White House meetings with families of 9/11 victims who were outraged over the summer’s disclosures. Faced with this powerful new political force, the administration saw no way out. “There was a freight train coming down the tracks,” one White House official said. The resulting National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, formally established in late 2002, will not release its final report until May 27, 2004.
Quote:
<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4091EFD39590C7A8CDDAE0894DB404482">9/11 Commission Says U.S. Agencies Slow Its Inquiry
by Philip Shenon
New York Times
July 8, 2003</a>

WASHINGTON, July 8 - The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony.

The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, with the commission's chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.

<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B1EFE3B550C758EDDA90994DB404482">Oct. 25 2003 - Thomas H Kean, chairman of federal commission investigating Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks, says White House continues to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from panel and that he is prepared to subpoena documents if they are not turned over within weeks;</a>

Oct 27,'03: The White House refuses to yield the PDBs. A mere two years after 9/11, the greater concern has become not wanting to establish a precedent. Claiming executive privilege, Bush thus holds that finding everything known leading to the attacks on American soil that killed 3,000 is insufficient to merit this precedent. (For that matter, when could this precedent be cited in some future claim other than in the event of an equal catastrophe?)
Nov 12, ’03: The White House agrees to make portions of the PDBs available to the commission, but only two members of the 10-member commission are to have access, and two others allowed to see only their notes. Documents and notes will be kept in the White House. The other commission members will thus see nothing. The White House had even demanded the right to choose which commissioners could see the PDBs and notes.
Jan 27, 04: The commission seeks an extension from Congress beyond the May 27 deadline. Its work has progressed slowly because of the stall the administration has staged in providing documents. No one in the White House has even agreed to testify before the commission. Congress, reflecting White House fears that an embarrassing report may burst forth in the heat of the President’s reelection campaign, resists stoutly, accusing the commission of playing politics. Kean and Hamilton, gentlemen of unassailable rectitude, hardly fit that profile.
Feb 4, ’04: The White House accepts an extension to July 26.
Feb 9, ’04: Those members of the commission disallowed from seeing the intelligence briefings threaten to subpoena the documents, maintaining that denied access hobbles their ability to arrive at correct findings. The White House is effectively saying that its inhabitants can be trusted with secrecy, but citizens on the commission cannot. Bush has maintained that the intelligence reports are “very sensitive”, that very few see the briefings. Yet, in a New York Times op-ed piece, Richard Allen, national security adviser under Reagan, says that a number of cabinet members received the briefings and “staff members everywhere sneak a peek if they can”. Even Bob Woodward was shown a trove of National Security Council documents for his hagiographic book, “Bush at War”.
Feb 12, ’04: The White House relents, to the extent of allowing all 10 members to review a summary of the documents. The commission announces it will seek testimony from Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft.
Feb 25, ’04: Battling the commission to the last, President Bush and Vice President Cheney set strict limits on their cooperation, agreeing only to private testimony and only before only the two heads of the commission. The President will allow just a one-hour interview.
Mar 31, ’04: With the public’s sense of cover-up mounting, the White House finally relents, allowing Rice to testify, but only on condition that neither she nor any further White House official can be called by the Commission for public hearings.
Apr 1, ’04: The Bush administration blocked from the 9/11 panel thousands of pages of foreign policy and counter-terrorism documents in the Clinton administration archives. This only became known when the general counsel of the Clinton presidential foundation complained. The White House agreed to let its lawyers review the documents, which is not the same as turning them over. Former aides said the files contain classified documents concerning that administration's efforts against Al Qaeda.
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