I have this vision of heads spinning furiously at the White House as they try to keep their stories straight. From the Center for American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=40520 Condoleezza Rice's Credibility Gap A point-by-point analysis of how one of America's top national security officials has a severe problem with the truth Pre-9/11 Intelligence 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] 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] 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] 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"] 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] Condi Rice on Pre-9/11 Counterterrorism Funding CLAIM: "The president increased counterterrorism funding several-fold" before 9/11. – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/24/04 FACT: According to internal government documents, the first full Bush budget for FY2003 "did not endorse F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators" and "proposed a $65 million cut for the program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants." Newsweek noted the Administration "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism." [Source: New York Times, 2/28/04; Newsweek, 5/27/02] Richard Clarke's Concerns CLAIM: "Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says "principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11. [Source: CBS 60 Minutes, 3/24/04; White House Press Release, 3/21/04 CLAIM: "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: "On January 25th, 2001, Clarke forwarded his December 2000 strategy paper and a copy of his 1998 Delenda plan to the new national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice." – 9/11 Commission staff report, 3/24/04 Response to 9/11 CLAIM: "The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: "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. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04] 9/11 and Iraq Invasion Plans CLAIM: "Not a single National Security Council principal at that meeting recommended to the president going after Iraq. The president thought about it. The next day he told me Iraq is to the side." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: According to the Washington Post, "six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2-and-a-half-page document marked 'TOP SECRET'" that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq." This is corroborated by a CBS News, which reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq." [Source: Washington Post, 1/12/03. CBS News, 9/4/02] Iraq and WMD CLAIM: "It's not as if anybody believes that Saddam Hussein was without weapons of mass destruction." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/18/04 FACT: The Bush Administration's top weapons inspector David Kay "resigned his post in January, saying he did not believe banned stockpiles existed before the invasion" and has urged the Bush Administration to "come clean" about misleading America about the WMD threat. [Source: Chicago Tribune, 3/24/04; UK Guardian, 3/3/04] 9/11-al Qaeda-Iraq Link CLAIM: "The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11." Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that "It is not surprising that people make that connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said "we don't know" if there is a connection. [Source: BBC, 9/14/03]
I can't believe why anybody would ever think she would be a viable candidate. Even before this flap, her performance has been lackluster. Cheney and Rummy run foreign policy. She holds W's hands and briefs him on stuff when necessary, but other than that she really doesn't do that much. Anytime I heard her name mentioned as a candidate it smacks of affirmative action by the very people who vehemently oppose it.
I agree 110%. The only reason she is ever mentioned by the Republican party is because she is a woman, she is black, and she is a neocon. It definitely smacks of affirmative action by those who oppose it. Hypocrites.
That's Dr. Rice, according to the White House. Is it just me or isn't the good doctor's scowl very sexy? just kidding.
(AP) - There is no ironclad legal doctrine buttressing National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's refusal to testify publicly before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, law experts said Monday. Rice already has spoken to the commission in private. But she says public testimony is protected by executive privilege. That principle says presidential advisers cannot be legally forced to disclose their confidential communications if that would adversely affect the operations of the executive branch. It is rare for White House advisers to testify publicly before Congress or congressionally appointed panels like the Sept. 11 commission. But exceptions exist, and legal scholars say they poke holes in Rice's argument. She also has spoken openly to the media about the attacks and the advice she offered President Bush about terrorism. "The whole idea of executive privilege is that the president's advisers should be able to give advice in confidence," said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American University. "That means the advice should be kept confidential. But she's talked to everybody under the sun. More... http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ap/20040329/ap_on_re_us/sept_11_commission_28
NBC: Rice to testify in public, under oath Bush, Cheney also agree to speak before entire 9/11 panel BREAKING NEWS NBC, MSNBC and news services Updated: 10:00 a.m. ET March 30, 2004WASHINGTON - In a reversal, the White House has agreed to allow national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testify in public and under oath before the Sept. 11, 2001 commission, NBC News has learned. In addition, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have agreed to testify before the entire commission, not just the two co-chairmen. The commission and Congress have agreed that Rice's testimony would not be considered precedent setting, NBC's Tim Russert reported. The White House and Rice had earlier insisted that allowing a national security adviser to testify under oath would compromise the principle of "executive privilege," where a president can exchange ideas freely with that adviser without fearing it will be made public. At issue is how seriously the Bush administration took the threat of terrorism before 3,000 people died in the worst strike on U.S. soil. The commission is meeting Tuesday for the first time since dramatic — and dramatically conflicting — testimony last week. Rice's earlier refusal to testify in public had magnified criticism by former counterterrorism director Richard Clarke, one of the witnesses at last week's commission hearing. Clarke accused Bush, who is running for re-election on his record of fighting terrorism, of being obsessed with ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at the expense of fully focusing on the war against terrorism. The White House is refusing to let Rice testify publicly based on a long-standing position that presidential advisers who have not been confirmed by the Senate cannot give public testimony. “Various options are being discussed,” a senior administration official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. But White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, “Right now, we’re just in the preliminary discussion stages with the commission.” Conditions on Rice appearance Rice, who spoke to the commission for about four hours Feb. 7, asked last week to appear before the commission again to respond to some of the allegations leveled by Clarke. The White House made the offer in a letter that made Rice’s appearance conditional on her appearing in private and without taking an oath. The commission’s Republican co-chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, said his panel would continue to press for Rice to appear publicly and would ask to place her under oath. Demands that Rice comply were increasingly cutting across party lines, with Republicans joining Democrats’ insistence that she not evade public testimony. “There’s a time to rise above principles,” former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a Republican member of the commission, said Monday on NBC’s "Today” show. He said Rice would not be sacrificing the principle of executive privilege because the panel, which was appointed by Bush, was “not an arm of the Congress.” “Lawyers are driving this train,” he said, creating an issue when the Bush administration has “nothing to hide.” ‘60 Minutes’ interview Critics said Rice’s many news interviews in recent days damaged her credibility in refusing to speak to the commission in public. “Television interviews are no substitute for answering the commission’s questions under oath,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a floor speech Monday, adding that it was “sheer hypocrisy” to grant television interviews while spurning the commission. Rice has defended her claim of executive privilege in a number of nationally televised interviews, most recently Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify,” Rice said, a week after Clarke’s allegations got their first widespread attention when he appeared on the same program. “I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle involved here. It is a long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.” Rice again disputed Clarke’s claim that Bush tried to intimidate him on Sept. 12, 2001, into finding a connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraqi regime of Saddam. Rice acknowledged that a meeting took place at which the president asked about Iraq, but she emphasized: “I have never seen the president say anything to people in an intimidating way. The president doesn’t talk to his staff in an intimidating way to get them to produce evidence that is false.” Rice also took issue with claims that terrorism was not a priority for the administration. “I don’t know what a sense of urgency would have caused us to do differently,” she said. Legal stance questioned It is rare for White House advisers to testify publicly before Congress or congressionally appointed panels like the Sept. 11 commission. But there are exceptions, and legal scholars said they called Rice’s argument into question. “The whole idea of executive privilege is that the president’s advisers should be able to give advice in confidence,” said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American University. “That means the advice should be kept confidential. But she’s talked to everybody under the sun. “What is the difference between appearing before the commission privately, telling them her story, and saying it publicly under oath? She can’t have it both ways,” Schwartz asked. But Charles Fried, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, said previous instances involving testimony by White House staffers were special situations involving criminal prosecutions or closed-door testimony. He noted that Cabinet officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, unlike presidential advisers, had leeway to testify before Congress because their appointments were confirmed by the Senate. “If the Bush administration caved, it would open the door to not only this president, but future presidents’, Democrat and Republican, being forced” to have close advisers testify in non-criminal matters relating to confidential political advice, said Fried, who was solicitor general, the government’s chief lawyer, in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Answering an insider Clarke, meanwhile, renewed his claims in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying President Bill Clinton was more aggressive than Bush in trying to confront al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden’s terror network. “He did something and President Bush did nothing prior to Sept. 11,” Clarke said. Clarke said he expected the White House’s fierce attempt to discredit him and his book, “Against All Enemies.” “The word is out in the White House to destroy me professionally” he said. “One line that somebody overheard was, ‘He’s not going to make another dime again in Washington in his life.’” But Clarke said he was prepared to withstand the pressure and would not object to Republican demands that separate testimony he gave Congress in 2002 be declassified. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., suggested that Clarke might have committed perjury because it was likely that his statements to the House and Senate intelligence committees two years ago contradicted his testimony before the Sept. 11 commission last week.
Condi Rice was in over her head ever since GW appointed her as NSA. While she was a very highly esteemed professor, she has no business in charge of heading up our National Security.
I love how Bush is portraying Kerry as a flip flopper. It will damage him when Kerry points to a long list of Bush flipflops while President, this one being the latest.
Too bad the article (a good one) that starts this thread is from americanprogress etc etc. Progressive articles don't tend to make it into national papers, and this one, where it cites Rice's claims, then refutes them with evidence, would be good for everyone to see....on pages 1 of national newspapers, not buried (if it should appear at all).
A pretty funny post from the DailyKos www.dailykos.com Under oath by Tom Schaller Tue Mar 30th, 2004 at 15:30:53 GMT So now Condi Rice will testify, and the president and vice president will testify in front of all 10 members (in private) rather than just the chair and vice chair. Clearly, because the president doesn't need polls or focus groups to tell him how to make up his mind, here's what must have unfolded during the past week: The president and his top advisers spent hours discussing various theories of the constitutional separation of powers, examining the precedents, and generally ruminating on the significance and standards for claiming executive privilege, both for the immediate as well as long term. They brought constitutional scholars to Crawford as the president vacationed, and in long, tedious sessions weighed the merits of the various and competing theories related to the separation of powers, never for a moment averting their eyes from the broader goal of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution. When they came out on the other side, this always-humble, self-effacing Administration arrived at a reasoned, measured, high-minded conclusion that, in order to uphold the country's highest principles, their initial resistance to allowing Rice to testify in public and under oath was bad for the country and our Constitution, and reversed their position accordingly. This is the sort of thoughtful, bold, decisive leadership we've come to expect from our president. Isn't it comforting to know that the people running our country are the sort of principled "adults" George Will assured us from the very start of the Bush Administration had now risen to power?
9/11 allegations press on Rice from all sides Undelivered speech and claims of translator fuel row over whether terror threat was taken seriously Julian Borger in Washington Friday April 2, 2004 The Guardian The US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was due to deliver a national security speech on September 11 2001 that dwelt not on terrorism but on the proposed Star Wars missile defence system. Details of the speech, coupled with fresh allegations that the Bush administration knew of plans to attack the US, piled the pressure on the beleaguered Ms Rice last night, as it was announced that she would testify under oath and in public next Thursday. A former FBI translator who gave testimony to the commission investigating US preparedness for the September 11 terror attacks said the US should have had an "orange or red type of alert in June or July of 2001. There was that much information available". Sibel Edmonds, who worked on the FBI's investigation into 9/11, told the online magazine salon.com: "President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that's accurate. "But there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001. They should've alerted the people to the threat we're facing." Ms Edmonds, an American of Turkish descent who speaks fluent Farsi, Arabic and Turkish, gave three and a half hours of testimony in closed session last week. She also took issue with recent assertions by Ms Rice that the White House lacked information about the possible nature of an attack. "That's an outrageous lie," she said. "And documents can prove it's a lie." The White House has con firmed the existence of the draft of Ms Rice's speech from September 11, first reported by the Washington Post, but refused to release the full text. A spokesman said that one speech focusing on missile defence did not mean the White House was ignoring the terrorist threat. But details of the draft have quickly become ammunition in the bitter election-year fight over whether the Bush administration took al-Qaida seriously enough before the 2001 attacks. After a constitutional tussle, the White House reluctantly agreed last week to allow Ms Rice to give sworn public testimony to the commission. She will almost certainly be questioned about the speech. "She's obviously a very important witness who will be able to share the facts that pertain to the counter-terrorism policy in the Bush administration, particularly in its earliest months," commission spokesman Al Felzenberg told the Associated Press last night. The address, which was to have been given at a university in Washington, adds weight to allegations in a book by a former White House counter-terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, that the incoming administration was fixated on Iraq and issues inherited from the cold war such as missile defence and relations with China and Russia in the critical months before al-Qaida's attacks. The draft mentions terrorism, but only in the context of the threat posed by "rogue states" armed with weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. Neither the September 11 text nor any other Bush administration speech from that era mentions al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden. The Rice speech argued for the need to confront "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday", and then went on implicitly to criticise the Clinton administration's preoccupation with terrorist groups at the expense of building defences against ballistic missiles. "We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," the text of the speech argues, according to the Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of Mace and then decide to leave your windows open?" Scott McClellan, chief White House spokesman, shrugged off calls for the text of the Rice speech to be published, argu ing that it was not delivered and therefore not in the public domain. He added that missile defence and counter-terrorism were not "either-or choices". "We must act on all fronts to make America safer. These threats are not mutually exclusive, either. Confronting one helps address the other," he said. Ivo Daalder, a member of the national security council staff under President Clinton, argued that senior officials in the Bush White House took office with the same foreign policy concerns and outlook they had had eight years earlier working for the first President Bush. "When they left in January 1993, they hit the pause button. The intervening eight years were missing," said Mr Daalder, who is now a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution. "They left believing ballistic missile defence was the way to secure America, and came in believing ballistic missile defence was the best way to secure America." http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1184158,00.html
Because it exposes people who claim that we should live in a color blind society as hypocrites, just like when people post articles from those same 2-3 black conservative intellectuals, and say "See, this BLACK GUY right here opposes affirmative action and HE'S A BLACK GUY!!!!" I don't expect you to understand though.
How is hypocrisy being exposed? Isn't the greater hypocrisy coming from people who say we should be living in a color-blind society but support the imposition of laws and quotas that assure we are never color blind? I don't expect you to understand though.
