Did Condi Tank?

[CagedTroll]

Only seen the first two hours on c-span.org, so far. Pundits on the networks didn't seem to have watched that much of it, IMO. But I haven't once heard her call Richard Clarke a liar! And a Pre-9/11 memo that didn't get a lot of attention before has yet to be de-classified. Meanwhile plots to attack the us in 2000 were successfully disrupted by the CLINTON administration.

Any thoughts?

[luvmetender]

If you are a republican: She did a great job. She is so intelligent and didn't admit to anything.

If you are a democrat: She didn't admit to anything and should have.

[mayor]

She was remarkable and I'd vote for her as President in a heartbeat. She has too much class to come right out and call Clarke a liar. His testimony speaks for itself. The partisan democrat hacks already had the answers they wanted in her private testimony and didn't want her to clarify beyond the show they were putting on. They are disgraceful.

Man, I love being on the right side...

Condi rocks!

[crazytimes]

I completely agree! I thought she was very impressive. What I did NOT like was how some of the people on the commission were treating this as if she were on trial.

One person in particlar was really ticking me off. He kept saying "answer the question." She WAS answering the questions and giving explanations.

Sorry but if you are going to spend time and I presume a large amount of taxpayer dollars (gee, those looked like very nice leather chairs ) then I expect to get more than just a yes/no answer.

I think the entire commission as a whole is a waste. What exactly does it accomplish? Even CLARKE himself admitted that 9/11 could not have been avoided.

Secondly, why would terrorism have been a big issue. Before 9/11, terrorism was something that happened in Israel, Ireland, and the Middle East. It wasn't something that happened in the United States of America.

I just don't see why it was supposed to be such a huge priority. Who could have imagined that on September 11th terrorists would hijack airplanes and crash them into the WTC and Pentagon? I just don't think that ANY amount of intelligence would have lead someone to think of an attack of that magnitude.

And as far as whether Iraq was the main target after 9/11...maybe I'm wrong, but didn't we go into AFGHANISTAN first? And why SHOULDN'T Iraq have been mentioned? It's not as if we were on good terms with them!

Ok, I found the goal on their website

The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

We already have the Dept. of Homeland Security. As well as our CIA and FBI. And of course our Dept. of Defense. Not to mention our President and his team of advisors.

But of course this isn't enough. We need another group of politicians sitting in their posh chairs and drinking their nice mineral water spending weeks and months (and money) all to make "recommendations."

Whoop de doo.

[chippers21]

Originally Posted by crazytimes

I completely agree! I thought she was very impressive. What I did NOT like was how some of the people on the commission were treating this as if she were on trial.

One person in particlar was really ticking me off. He kept saying "answer the question." She WAS answering the questions and giving explanations.

Sorry but if you are going to spend time and I presume a large amount of taxpayer dollars (gee, those looked like very nice leather chairs ) then I expect to get more than just a yes/no answer.

I think the entire commission as a whole is a waste. What exactly does it accomplish? Even CLARKE himself admitted that 9/11 could not have been avoided.

Secondly, why would terrorism have been a big issue. Before 9/11, terrorism was something that happened in Israel, Ireland, and the Middle East. It wasn't something that happened in the United States of America.

I just don't see why it was supposed to be such a huge priority. Who could have imagined that on September 11th terrorists would hijack airplanes and crash them into the WTC and Pentagon? I just don't think that ANY amount of intelligence would have lead someone to think of an attack of that magnitude.

And as far as whether Iraq was the main target after 9/11...maybe I'm wrong, but didn't we go into AFGHANISTAN first? And why SHOULDN'T Iraq have been mentioned? It's not as if we were on good terms with them!

Ok, I found the goal on their website



We already have the Dept. of Homeland Security. As well as our CIA and FBI. And of course our Dept. of Defense. Not to mention our President and his team of advisors.

But of course this isn't enough. We need another group of politicians sitting in their posh chairs and drinking their nice mineral water spending weeks and months (and money) all to make "recommendations."

Whoop de doo.

I agree with you. It is all politics. And politics stinks. Everyone twists everything hoping for a political advantage. In this case the country suffers, because we are not providing a united front against terrorism and we are perceived as weak and divided.

[CagedTroll]

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[luvmetender]

Originally Posted by mayor

She was remarkable and I'd vote for her as President in a heartbeat. She has too much class to come right out and call Clarke a liar. His testimony speaks for itself. The partisan democrat hacks already had the answers they wanted in her private testimony and didn't want her to clarify beyond the show they were putting on. They are disgraceful.

Man, I love being on the right side...

Condi rocks!

al-Qaida Threat Included in Bush Memo
By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's August 2001 briefing on terrorism threats, described largely as a historical document, included information from three months earlier that al-Qaida was trying to send operatives into the United States for an explosives attack, according to several people who have seen the memo.

The so-called presidential daily briefing, or PDB, delivered to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 - a month before the Sept. 11 attacks - said there were various reports that Osama bin Laden had wanted to strike inside the United States as early as 1997 and continuing into the spring of 2001, the sources told The Associated Press.





The same month as that briefing of Bush, U.S. intelligence officials received two uncorroborated reports suggesting terrorists might use airplanes, including one that suggested al-Qaida operatives were considering flying a plane into a U.S. embassy, current and former government officials said.

Those August 2001 reports - among thousands of varied and uncorroborated threats received by the government each month - weren't deemed credible enough to tell the president or his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the officials said. Neither involved the eventual Sept. 11 plot.


The sources who read the presidential memo would only speak on condition of anonymity because the White House has not yet declassified the highly sensitive document, entitled ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States.''


That declassification process is expected to be completed soon, allowing the Bush administration to make the document public in a historic disclosure of secret presidential intelligence briefing materials.


The sources said the presidential memo included a series of bullet items that brought Bush through a history of mostly uncorroborated intelligence that cited al-Qaida's interest in hijacking planes to win the release of Islamic extremists who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999 as well as the trips of suspected al-Qaida operatives, including some U.S. citizens, in and out of the United States. It suggested al-Qaida might have a support system in place on U.S. soil, the sources said.


The document also included FBI analytical judgments that some al-Qaida activities were consistent with preparation for airline hijackings or other types of attacks, some members of the commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said earlier this week.


The second-to-last bullet told the president that there were numerous - at least 70 - terror-related investigations under way by the FBI in 2001 involving matters or people on U.S. soil, the sources said.


And the final bullet told the president of a recent intelligence report indicating al-Qaida operatives were trying to get inside the United States to carry out an attack with explosives, the sources said. There was no specifics about the timing or target, the sources said.


The sources said the briefing memo did not provide the exact date of that intelligence but made clear it was in the 2001 time frame, and that FBI and other agencies were investigating it. The information had been provided to intelligence and law enforcement agencies well before Bush's briefing, the sources said.


They said final bullet in the presidential memo was based on an intelligence report received in May 2001 that indicated bin Laden operatives were trying to cross from Canada into the United States for an attack.


A joint congressional inquiry report into the Sept. 11 failures first divulged the existence of the May 2001 threat report last year but did not reveal it was included in Bush's briefing. The congressional inquiry described the intelligence this way:


``In May 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information that supporters of Osama bin Laden were reportedly planning to infiltrate the United States via Canada in order to carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives.''


In her testimony Thursday to the Sept. 11 commission, Rice described Bush's Aug. 6 daily briefing as including mostly ``historical information'' and said most threat information in the summer of 2001 involved overseas targets.


Rice also testified that she did not recall seeing any warnings before Sept. 11 that a plane might be used a terrorist weapon, though it was possible others in the White House did.


Current and former government officials familiar with terrorism intelligence told the AP that in the same month Bush received his briefing, U.S. intelligence received two uncorroborated reports - among hundreds - suggesting terrorist might use planes but that neither reached the president or Rice.


The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one report in August 2001 said there was uncorroborated information that two bin Laden operatives had met in October 2000 to discuss a plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi using an airplane.


That report stated the operative would either bomb the embassy using the airplane or drive the airplane into it, according to information provided congressional investigators and cited in their report released last year.


Separately, the CIA sent a warning to the Federal Aviation Administration in August 2001 asking the agency to advise commercial airliners that six Pakistanis in Latin America, not connected to al-Qaida, were considering a hijacking, bombing or sabotage of an airliner. That warning did not have specifics on a time or location but said it could involve Britain, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Cuba, among others, according to information made public by the congressional inquiry.


Rice stated emphatically on Thursday she did not see any such reports about al-Qaida using a plane as a weapon until after Sept. 11, suggesting the intelligence may have reached someone lower in the White House.


``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,'' she said. ``I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst.''



04/09/04 22:05


© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

[crazytimes]

© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

LOL. I liked this part...hehe..

[pandybat]

Originally Posted by luvmetender

Rice also testified that she did not recall seeing any warnings before Sept. 11 that a plane might be used a terrorist weapon, though it was possible others in the White House did.

Duh! It's not like anyone had the full details of any specific threat but a threat *was* mentioned and should have been acted upon no matter what. Officials were warned and did nothing about it. That's the bottom line.

[prism68]

Originally Posted by pandybat

Duh! It's not like anyone had the full details of any specific threat but a threat *was* mentioned and should have been acted upon no matter what. Officials were warned and did nothing about it. That's the bottom line.

Seems to me there were SEVERAL warnings about Al Queda for YEARS (including during Clinton's tenure)... the point seems to be that this warning was no more indicative of a serious threat of attack than any of the other billions they had rec'd.

What would y'all have had them do? EVERYTIME they receive a warning of some POSSIBLE attacks (which is daily I am sure)- lock down the airports, cancel the subways, dock all the ships... etc.

I am amazed at how brilliant all the plans are from minds that are looking at the issue through hindsight
Maybe because hindsight is 20/20?

[pandybat]

I would have done more than:

"Just one month before terrorists claimed the lives of 3,000 Americans at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was on a 30-day vacation in Crawford, Texas," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "He was informed by his national security team that al Qaeda operatives in the United States had the ability to hijack passenger airplanes."

Judging from news accounts at the time, terrorism was hardly a cloud on the national radar. Reporters covering Bush worried over the heat, the length of the president's vacation, the controversy over stem cell research, and the differences between Crawford and Kennebunkport.

Bush took questions the following day. "I'm working a lot of issues -- national security matters," he told them. But the one he discussed in detail was not terrorism. Iraqi gunners in the no-fly zone had once again tried to shoot down U.S. jets.

"Saddam Hussein is a menace," Bush told reporters after a round of golf. "He's still a menace, and we need to keep him in check, and will. He's been a menace forever, and . . . he needs to open his country up for inspection so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

That makes me think Bush was too worried about what was going on in another country to pay much attention to what was going on or threatened to happen here in the U.S.

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[mayor]

I applaud the liberals on this thread for pointing out the bleeding obvious, all the while ignoring the fact that it was Clinton's policies that led up to 9/11. If anyone is to blame, it is the impeached President, not the true leader that we now have in the White House.

You people are used to children being in the White House. We now have grown ups running the show. I suggest you sit back and let them do their jobs.

Mayor

[patti1]

I have said before and I relly believe both administrations are to blame as are many government agencies. And how many of us would have seen it coming if we had the same information. I don't believe any president would have allowed these attacks-that is absurd. But what does bother me is where is our president now? We have had a terrible week in Iraq and he's in Texas, saying very little. This morning on tv, someone asked Paul Bremer who we would turn things over to on June 30, and his reply was "that's a good question." So I just turned the tv off and enjoyed my Easter. That's kinda scary.

[chippers21]

And I on the other hand, think neither administation is to blame, as we really never believed that terrorists would go to this extreme to kill "the enemy". It was a new experience for us.
Hindsight....woulda,shoulda, coulda is pretty sad.
Even sadder is the way our politicians are attempting to win elections with this stuff.
Now we know what the terrorists are capable of our challenge is to stop them before they do it again.

[bwsmom]

Originally Posted by mayor

You people are used to children being in the White House. We now have grown ups running the show. I suggest you sit back and let them do their jobs.

Mayor

AMEN!!!!