'Fight Smart' Update - 16 January 2005
Don't Take the Bait -
Fight Smart
ANIMATED 911 SUMMARY - CLICK HERE
Power Without Principle
Just Grateful To Have Made It
To The Top Of The Heap
The Two Faces Of Condoleeza Rice
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATRice2faces.htm
Rice Does What's She Told
Not What She Thinks
"On Tuesday, January 18th and
Wednesday, January 19th, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will appear before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a confirmation hearing for her appointment as
Secretary of State. Dr. Rice's confirmation hearing must not be a rubber stamp of
President Bush's appointment. The Senate must take its 'advice and consent' role
seriously. That's why, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I intend to stand
up and ask Condoleezza Rice the tough questions that Americans deserve to have answered.
...... I urge you to sign my petition below,
so I can take your voice with me to the committee room and the floor of the Senate in the
pursuit of the truth from Condoleezza Rice."
HOLD CONDOLEEZZA RICE ACCOUNTABLE!
Senator Barbara Boxer's PAC For A
Change
Lying To
The World
On Behalf Of The White House |
 |
"The secretary of state
is America's face to the world"
George W. Bush
following his decision to
nominate Condoleeza
Rice as US Secretary of State |
"[Rice's] intelligence, passion,
compassion, determination and
sheer brilliance; combined
with her knowledge and
experience of world affairs,
would make her one of the best
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Rumours persist that
midway through the second
Bush term VP Dick Cheney will
step aside for someone who
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Rice2008.com |
"These regimes [like North Korea
and Iraq] are living on borrowed time, so there need be no
sense of panic about them. Rather, the first line of defense
should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence -- if
they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because
any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration."
Condoleeza Rice - Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest
Council
On Foreign Relations, January/February 2000
"According to
contemporary political lore, the Bush clan exalts loyalty above every other virtue....This
is how dynasties are built to endure....But at the highest level, in the inner councils,
such feudal allegiances often require awful sacrifice and compromise. For those who now
work for George W. Bush, loyalty means surrendering professional integrity and accepting
public humiliation. Loyalty means uttering words and phrases that nobody can believe.
Loyalty means misleading the people and the press about the gravest matters of state.
Loyalty means lying. Consider the poignant case of Condoleezza Rice [click
here for details]...."
To show loyalty, Rice lies for Bush
Dr. Rice soils
previously unblemished record with string of deceptions
New York Observer, 16 July
2003
"[9/11
Commissioner] GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you, Mr. Clarke, for your testimony today. You have talked about a plan that you presented
to Dr. Rice immediately upon her becoming national security adviser, and that in response
to questions from Commissioner Gorton, you said elements of that plan, which were
developed by you and your staff at the end of 2000 – many elements – became part
of what was then called NSPD-9, or what ultimately became NSPD-9. When Dr. Rice writes in
the Washington Post, 'No Al Qaida plan was turned over to the new administration,' is that
true?
[Richard] CLARKE: No. I
think what is true is what your staff found by going through the documents and what your
staff briefing says, which is that early in the administration, within days of the Bush
administration coming into office, that we gave them two documents. In fact, I briefed Dr.
Rice on this even before they came into office....
GORELICK: Now you have just
described, then, the skeleton, if you will, of what was approved by the administration as
of September 4th. And we know that no further action was taken before September 11th.
GORELICK: And so I would read to
you – and these are questions I would have put to Dr. Rice had she been here, and I
will put to her, the White House designee, Secretary Armitage. She says our strategy,
which was expected to take years, marshalled all elements of national power to take down
the network, not just respond to individual attacks with law enforcement measures. Our
plan called for military options to attack Al Qaida and Taliban leadership, ground forces
and other targets, taking the fight to the enemy where he lived. Is that an accurate
statement, in your view?
CLARKE: No, it’s not."
Transcript From The 9/11 Commission
Washington
Post, 24 March 2004
"The
situation in the Balkans raises a number of questions, and some of these relate to the
role played by Condoleeza Rice. One such question,
particularly in the light of a report by former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia James
Bisset published in Canada's National Post 13 November 2001, was why in the weeks of high security alerts immediately prior to 911
was Rice apparently giving such high priority to protecting Muslim terrorists in Yugoslavia closely connected to
Osama Bin Laden - specifically the ethnic Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army)... From Bisset's point of view America was clearly
determined to make sure that Macedonia was forced to capitulate to these terrorists and
Condoleeza Rice played a crucial part in this concerted effort. On the face of it Rice was
prepared to travel personally to Kiev for the purpose. This she did even during the days
leading up to 911, the very period when warnings
of terrorist attacks on US targets were pouring into Washington from foreign countries
- in other words precisely the time
when intense focus on homeland security was most urgently required. Far from the priority
being counter-terrorism, the US government was in fact continuing to covertly back Islamic
militants in their strikes against a European sovereign state in whose region it had
pressing oil related geo-strategic ambitions.... The grim reality is that both the Bush and Clinton
administrations have indeed been focused on the importance of Islamic militancy, but as
often as not their interest has been in the covert co-opting of Islamic jihad as a
vehicle for pursuing US global geopolitical ambitions by proxy. Even post 911 this
tendency quietly continues in some quarters .... Ultimately had Rice's priorities been more focused on
National Security instead of US economic development, 911 might have been prevented.
More than that. There is strong evidence that certain actions of the Bush
administration in this area appear to have directly contributed to the success of the
attacks on 911. This is particularly so when taking into account (as we shall see below)
the information concerning Enron and an FBI intelligence block allegedly imposed by Vice
President Cheney that former Federal prosecutor John Loftus claims to have in his
possession. The US government was not only highly focused on securing pipeline routes
coming west out of the Caspian Sea region via the Black Sea and the Balkans, into the
Mediterranean. Just as importantly it was also focused on other routes for the
Caspian Sea region travelling east and down to the Indian ocean, a priority of particular
importance to Enron."
Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security
Priorities
'Fight
Smart', 5 April 2004
"But by the summer, policy reviews
were hardly what was needed. Intelligence services were picking up enough chatter about a
terrorist attack to scare the pants off top officials..... In mid-July, Tenet sat down for
a special meeting with [Condoleeza] Rice and aides. 'George briefed Condi that there
was going to be a major attack,' says an official ..... Tenet
couldn't rule out a domestic attack..... One date already worrying the Secret Service was
July 20, when Bush would arrive in Genoa for the G-8 summit; Tenet had intelligence that
al-Qaeda was planning to attack Bush there. The Italians ..... closed airspace around the
town and ringed it with antiaircraft guns."
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine
Online, 4 Aug 2002
"Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop
investigations into a suspected
terror cell linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the Sept. 11 attacks.... even
after the [1998 African embassy] bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no
arrests."
Called Off the Trail?
ABCNews 19 Dec 2002
"Loftus recently received an FBI
translation of a highly classified and encrypted Al Qaida document, circa 1997-1998, which
was retrieved and decrypted from a computer laptop following the Embassy bombing in
Africa. The document was written by Osama Bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed
Atef, under his nom de guerre, Abu Haf, and reveals extensive knowledge of the supposedly
secret pipeline negotiations [in Afghanistan], and their potential economic worth to the
Taliban, Pakistan and the U.S.... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the
intelligence block and expanded
it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil
connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in
disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because
of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who
originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa.
O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United
States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is
also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when
the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests
for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have
concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so
extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of
incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save
itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes
shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law
enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of
the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will
collapse".
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
Press Release, former
federal prosecutor, John Loftus, 31 May 2002
"Did those who died on
September 11 do so as a consequence of a wider effort by the Bush Administration to
promote Enron's overseas business interests as an integral part of emerging US energy and
foreign policy? .......
at the very least it seems clear (as reported in the Washington Post 19
and 25
January) that the US
National Security Council had established its own Enron-focused task force during 2001.
The purpose of the so-called 'Dabhol Working
Group' was to try and rescue Enron's
beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on
India's west coast. This was a power plant whose economic survival was dependent on access
to cheap gas - gas that was due to pass into the region from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan
had it not been for been for the failure of the US administration to agree terms with the
Taliban, followed by the US threatening them with war shortly before September 11. The
National Security Council is the President's nerve center for international crises and
strategy. Its direct intervention on behalf of Enron in this way is extraordinary. In the words of the Washington Post:
'The India episode demonstrates the ability of Enron -- once one of the nation's most
aggressive and innovative firms, and one of the biggest political donors -- to command the
attention, and sometimes the intervention, of the nation's highest government officials.'
It also suggests that the activities of Enron were regarded by the Bush
Administration as of key relevance to the implementation of US government foreign and trade
policy."
Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?
'Fight Smart',
8 March 2002
Dabhol-Enron Timeline - Click Here
"It is no secret that the
Administration’s energy policy was agreed in a backroom deal between the CEOs of the
big energy companies and their old mucker, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President. What remains
secret is exactly what they agreed....."
Dim view of the Bush power base
London
Times, 23 August 2003
"A senior CIA officer who has
become an outspoken critic of the fight on terrorism turned in his resignation this week,
citing a desire to speak more freely about problems in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.....
Scheuer's CIA assignments included running the bin Laden unit from January 1996 to June
1999..... Scheuer was highly critical Sunday of the Sept. 11 Commission's 'refusal' to
point fingers at senior government officials whose actions
contributed to the attacks....."
CIA agent who rips bin Laden hunt quits
Associated Press, 12
November 2004
"I'm very proud of my association with
Chevron [as one of its directors], and I think we should be very proud of the job that
American oil companies are doing in ... making certain that we have a safe energy
supply."
Condoleeza Rice
Fox News 'Sunday', 27 August 2000
".... it is clear the US authorities
did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11
countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August
2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big
operation. The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers,
none of whom was arrested... All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on
terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The
first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft
crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to
investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until
after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked
aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched
fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft. It is a US legal
requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter
planes are sent up to investigate.... The evidence again is quite clear that plans for
military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11.... Given this
background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11
attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had
clearly already been well planned in advance.... the PNAC blueprint of September 2000
states that the process of transforming the US into 'tomorrow's dominant force' is likely
to be a long one in the absence of 'some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new
Pearl Harbor'. The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in
accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible
to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and
the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies."
Michael Meacher, former Blair government
Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
Guardian, 6 September 2003
John
Pilger Exposes 9/11 'Protocolgate' In The New Statesman - 15 November 2004
To The Top Of The
Heap At All Costs
"Her rise to the top is a remarkable
story of superhuman tenacity and single-mindedness. At its heart lies an unshakeable
belief in her own ability to succeed and a ruthless dedication to advancing herself......
When last year she referred to Bush as 'my husband' it was a Freudian slip that reflected
how close Rice and the Bush clan have become."
How Condoleezza Rice became the most powerful woman
in the world
Observer,
16 January 2005
"Now that Bush has nominated her to be
his Secretary of State, the question is where she stands on the foreign policy fights of
the day. Despite four years as one of the Administration's most vocal advocates on this
front, Rice has shown few fixed ideological moorings. She has changed positions
dramatically on several issues.... Critics say that more often than not she simply has
settled into orbit around the real power centers of U.S. foreign policy: Vice President
Dick Cheney and his ally Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 'She's getting this job
because she's not a threat,' says retired Lieut. General William Odom of the conservative
Hudson Institute. When Rice tried to impose order on prewar planning, Rumsfeld ignored
her. Vice President Cheney established a broad and powerful shadow National Security
Council early in the Administration and used his close relationship with Bush to drive
White House decision making..... she shares the blame both for letting the now discredited
allegations that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa get into Bush's 2003 State
of the Union speech and for hyping the significance of high-strength aluminum tubes Iraq
tried to buy abroad..... 'She does have this vestigial desire to be loved by the
Establishment,' says a senior Administration official."
Condi Gets Her Shot
TIME,
29 November 2004
Rice Lies On
9/11 And Iraq
"According to contemporary political lore, the Bush clan exalts loyalty
above every other virtue. Other politicians envy that inviolable code, whose power is
reflected in the absence of leaks from the White House, in the lockstep obedience of
politicians in Congress and around the country, and in the enormous cash donations from
hundreds of wealthy 'friends.' This is how dynasties are built to endure. But at the
highest level, in the inner councils, such feudal allegiances often require awful
sacrifice and compromise. For those who now work for George W. Bush, loyalty means
surrendering professional integrity and accepting public humiliation. Loyalty means
uttering words and phrases that nobody can believe. Loyalty means misleading the people
and the press about the gravest matters of state. Loyalty means lying. Consider the
poignant case of Condoleezza Rice, who entered this administration as a respected academic
expert on Russian affairs and the former provost of Stanford University. Unlike some of
the figures around the President, Dr. Rice had no serious blots on her reputation when she
was appointed national security advisor. From a family that suffered the indignities and
deprivations of segregated Alabama, she has long been admired as an African-American woman
who rose by dint of personal effort and scholarly ability as well as affirmative action.
The list of honors, degrees, directorships and other achievements on her official résumé
is extraordinary. After serving in the first Bush White House on the National Security
Council, and then a stint in the 2000 campaign as a discreet adviser on foreign affairs,
she had come to be regarded by the political clan as among its most reliable members.
Sometimes she almost appeared to have been adopted by the President and his family. But
during the past two years of international crisis, Dr. Rice has been dispatched to
prevaricate repeatedly in defense of her boss. She was caught spreading a false story
about Sept. 11, claiming that Air Force One flew the President to Oklahoma after the
attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because 'intelligence' indicated that
terrorists were aiming for the White House and the Presidential jet. Later she testified
that the U.S. government had never anticipated an assault by airliner, when in fact there
had been many warnings of exactly such tactics -- most notably during the summer of 2001,
when Western intelligence services set up anti-aircraft batteries around the Genoa summit
to protect the President. Memories are short in this country, so Dr. Rice escaped those
embarrassing incidents with her reputation more or less intact. Then last year, as the
determination of the White House to wage war on Iraq became plain, she began to promote
dubious stories about Saddam Hussein's regime. As national security advisor, she had
access to all of the sensitive intelligence about Iraq, so the press and Congress took her
pronouncements seriously. More than anyone other than the President himself, Dr. Rice
stoked fears about a 'mushroom cloud' rising over an American city unless the U.S. waged
war on Iraq. To promote such dread, she warned that a shipment of aluminum tubes purchased
by the Iraqis could only be intended for a uranium-enrichment device. Long after the
International Atomic Energy Authority debunked that claim, the national security advisor
continued to insist that it must be true. Still, she had gotten away with those whoppers
as well, thanks to the complaisant national press corps. Lately, however, she has engaged
in deceptions that are too obvious and too simple to ignore. Not only is she responsible
for the false allegation about Niger uranium in the State of the Union address, but she
dishonorably forced C.I.A. director George Tenet to say that was his fault rather than
hers. Dr. Rice knew that the C.I.A. had questioned the veracity of the Niger uranium tale.
She knew because Mr. Tenet had warned her deputy, Stephen Hadley, of its dubious quality
three months earlier. Yet she permitted that sentence to be uttered by the President. Now
she tells us that those 16 words were 'accurate' because the information was attributed to
British intelligence. She wants us to believe that until last month she had never heard
about the mission to Niger undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who
reported back to the C.I.A. and the State Department that the Niger uranium story was a
fake. But neither she nor the President, nor anyone else in authority, ever cared whether
that story was true. It merely served a purpose, like the 'aluminum tubes' allegation, and
the assertion that Saddam was assisting Al Qaeda, and the other prewar 'intelligence'
myths designed to excite belligerence and undermine the U.N. inspection process. Dr. Rice
played her role in that campaign with consummate loyalty indeed. She continues to do so,
and in the process she has damaged herself permanently for an unscrupulous family of
politicians. I hope they're grateful."
Dr. Rice soils
previously unblemished record with string of deceptions
New York Observer, 16 July
2003
"It also emerged yesterday that the FBI had
been aware for several years that al-Qa'ida was using US flying schools to train its
pilots and, as early as 1996, it was told of a specific threat to use a plane in a suicide
attack against the CIA's headquarters.The latest revelations could prove very damaging to
Mr Bush, who has insisted that, had he known al-Qa'ida was planning such an attack, he
'would have done everything in [his] power to protect the American people'. Earlier last
week, Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters that the
information given to the President was not specific."
Bush told in August of specific threat to US
Independent,
17 May 2002
"Former counterterrorism chief Richard
Clarke on Sunday challenged the White House to declassify documents related to the Sept.
11 attacks, as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice came under increasing pressure to testify publicly about the
administration's efforts to thwart terrorism. Clarke, whose credibility has come under
attack from numerous administration officials, sought to gain the upper hand by calling
for the release of Rice's
closed-door testimony to the commission that is investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice has refused to answers the panel's
questions in public, citing the need to protect the confidentiality of her advice to
President Bush. Clarke also challenged the administration to release his communications
with Rice when he was the top
White House adviser on counterterrorism. 'Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the
memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to
September 11th, and let's declassify all of it,' Clarke said on NBC's 'Meet the
Press.'"
Clarke calls for public disclosure in White House's war on terror
Knight Ridder, 28 March
2004
"On July 27,
[Richard] Clarke informed Rice and Hadley that the spike in intelligence about a
near-term al Qaeda attack had stopped. He urged keeping readiness high during the August vacation period, warning that another report suggested an attack had just been
postponed for a few months 'but will
still happen.'.."
THE 9/11COMMISSION REPORT (p.260)
"FBI information
since that time [1998] indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country
consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent
surveillance of federal buildings in New
York.... "
'Bin Ladin Determined To Strike
in US'
Presidential Daily Brief received by President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001
THE 9/11COMMISSION REPORT (p.262)
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has
said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the United
States last summer that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S.
targets."
Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks
Fox News, 17 May 2002
"Israeli intelligence officials say
that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale
terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the
American mainland were imminent. The Telegraph has
learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service,
were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many
of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big
operation...."
Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of
large-scale terror attacks
Daily
Telegraph, 19 September 2001
"On Sept. 10.... a group of top Pentagon
officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of
security concerns."
Bush: ‘We’re At War’
Newsweek,
24 September 2001
"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources,
senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly
by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence
Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the
defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the
patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon
and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.
The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the
official payroll and beyond congressional oversight....In the days after September 11, Mr
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war
against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq
and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully....The OSP was an open
and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House.... The OSP absorbed this heady brew of
raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a 'product', a prodigious
stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers
were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security
council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy."
The spies who pushed for war
Guardian
17 July 2003
"A British
television report
22 September by award winning investigative journalist John Pilger revealed that US
Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had
been disarmed and was no threat. Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on
February 24, 2001 where he stated 'He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant
capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbours.' Powell's remarks were posted on
the US State Department's web site at the time. Two months later Rice reportedly said 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His
military forces have not been rebuilt.'...Pilger adds 'Contrary to Blair's denials at the
time, the decision to attack Iraq was set in motion on September 17 2001, just six days
after the attacks on New York and Washington. On that day, Bush signed a top-secret
directive, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning 'military options' for an invasion of
Iraq. In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice told another Bush official who had voiced doubts
about invading Iraq: 'A decision has been made. Don't waste your breath.'.....' .....Why
had the claim about uranium from Africa been allowed into the President's State of the
Union address in January 2003 if nearly a year earlier [Ambassador] Wilson has already
established on behalf of the US government that the principal evidence in relation to
Niger was false? The fault either lay with the White House or with the CIA. As a result a
row broke out between the two, with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice attempting to lay the blame at the door of the CIA.
Eventually Tenet was forced to 'fall on his sword'. He took responsibility for the claim's
inclusion in the President's speech, but whilst doing so he also confirmed the CIA's
earlier warning to Britain [not to include the African uranium claim in its September 2002
dossier]........Meanwhile a report in the Washington Post
27 July confirms that 'The CIA official, Alan Foley, said he told a member of Rice's staff, Robert Joseph, that the CIA objected to mentioning a
specific African country -- Niger -- and a specific amount of uranium in Bush's State of the Union
address. Foley testified that he told Joseph of the CIA's problems with the British report
and that Joseph proposed changing the claim to refer generally to uranium in Africa. White
House communications director Dan Bartlett last Monday called that a 'conspiracy theory'
and said Joseph did not recall being told of any concerns'..... According to the Washington Post
24 July '[Stephen] Hadley is [National
Security Adviser Condoleezza] Rice's top aide. He says he forgot about the warnings
from Tenet -- two memos and one phone call -- and did not tell her. If that's the case,
he's in the wrong job. If it's not the case -- and a reasonable man could have reasonable
doubt -- is it possible Rice said nothing to Bush? Maybe not. But if not, why
not? That's her job. By now it is clear that the White House was so desperate to buttress
its unsupportable claims of an imminent Iraqi nuclear threat that it was willing to
include the most questionable of evidence. That happened not only with the uranium
reference but also with another piece of supposedly significant evidence -- those aluminum tubes
that turned out to play no role in any nuclear weapons program. Who was behind this? Rice? Dick Cheney? The president himself? The uranium reference kept
turning up like a bad penny. It had a sponsor -- someone awfully high up. Each time the
buck passes, another level of incompetence -- or shenanigans -- is exposed. Now in the
chain of supposed bumblers we have Hadley and, by extension, Rice. Either they did not do their jobs or the jobs they did were so
frankly political that they both ought to move over to the Republican National Committee,
where, on a given day, spin and exaggeration are the sole product.'. Hadley is also 'former Pentagon aide to Vice President Cheney' according
to Senator Bob Graham...The claim by Tenet of simply a 'mistake' having been made on
the matter rings hollow. Referring to the Africa uranium claim in the President's State of the Union speech
National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice told the press 11 July that 'the CIA cleared the speech in its
entirety... The agency did not say they wanted that sentence out.'..... In addition the
Washington Post reports 8 August that 'in the days before and after the president's State of the Union
address, the [uranium] allegation was repeated by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and in at least two documents sent
out by the White House'. The inclusion of the claim in the President's speech does not
look like being simply 'a mistake' as Tenet had claimed in his statement of 11 July. So
far Cheney and Tenet have been singing from the same hymn sheet as far as the Niger
Uranium episode is concerned. This they seem to have achieved at a time when Condoleezza Rice had already been forced into what amounted to an embarrassing 'not
me, sir' self-defence. This she attempted during her trip to Africa with
Bush in July when she blamed the CIA on the uranium issue.......By the second half of
July the blame picture was changing on an almost daily basis. As we now know, shortly
after he 'fell on his sword' Tenet then pointed in the direction of an official at the
White House during a session at
the Senate Intelligence Committee. The next week, with some Senators now knowing the
name of the person concerned, the White House
then stepped forward in the form of an admission from Stephen Hadley. The Washington Post 23
July reported that 'The new information
amounted to an on-the-record mea culpa for a White House that had pointed fingers at the
CIA for vetting the speech, prompting an earlier acceptance of responsibility by Tenet.
But that abruptly changed yesterday after the CIA furnished evidence that it had fought
the inclusion of the charge. The disclosures punctured claims made by Rice and others in the past two weeks. Rice and other officials had asserted that nobody in the White House
knew of CIA objections, and that the CIA supported the Africa accusation generally, making
only technical objections about location and quantity. On Friday, a White House official
mischaracterized the CIA's objections, saying repeatedly that Tenet opposed the inclusion
in Bush's [earlier] Oct. 7 speech 'because it was single source, not because it was
flawed.'...'. In addition to Hadley himself this development was especially
embarrassing for his principal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. On the day that Tenet had announced his own responsibility for
the inclusion of the uranium claim in the President's State of the Union
address the BBC reported
that 'George Bush's national security adviser has said the CIA approved a speech the US
president made in January, including a sentence that claimed Iraq was trying to buy
uranium from Niger. The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety,' Condoleezza Rice told reporters on Air Force One, en route from South Africa to
Uganda. US media reported on Thursday that the White House had ignored a CIA request to
remove the accusation from Mr Bush's State of the Union
address on 28 January'. On CBS's 'Face The Nation' 13 July Rice had claimed that 'had there been even a peep that the agency did
not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the
director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone.' So this red
hot buck was being passed around very quickly. In another bulletin on the same day the BBC reported that
'If anyone had any doubts about the uranium claim, 'those doubts were not communicated to
the president,' Ms Rice told reporters...'...... Eventually Bush himself
attempted to absorb some of the ricocheting flack. Alongside a photograph of a
particularly unconfident looking President the London Times 31 July
reported that 'Staging a hastily arranged, end-of-term news conference in the White House
Rose Garden, Mr Bush also tried to end the rancorous finger-pointing about who was
responsible for erroneous claims in his pre-war State of the Union
address. 'I take personal responsibility for everything I say,' he said. The remark was
designed to take the heat off George Tenet, the CIA Director, and Condoleezza Rice, the President’s National Security Adviser. Both had been
accused of negligence or manipulation in allowing claims that Iraq had tried to obtain
uranium from Niger into the most important speech of the presidential
year.'.......Wolfowitz's role at the Office of Special Plans (OSP) within the Pentagon is
an interesting one. A report in the Guardian 17 July
describes the OSP as follows: 'According to former Bush officials, all defence and
intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon
analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military
counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special
Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA
information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of
the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick
Cheney..... The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain
disinformation and made it a 'product', a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed
readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their
closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley,
Condoleezza Rice's deputy.'............"
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special
Report, October 2003
"U.S.
President George W Bush's nomination of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin
Powell consolidates the control over U.S. foreign policy of the coalition of hawks that
promoted the war in Iraq, led by Vice President Dick Cheney. The promotion of Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, to take her place in the White House
also confirms Cheney's pre-eminence in Bush's second term. A major booster of national
missile defence and the development of 'usable' mini-nuclear weapons, Hadley held a key policy position under the vice president when Cheney served as
Pentagon chief under Bush's father, from 1989 to 1993. Growing speculation that another
Cheney ally, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John
Bolton, will be nominated to serve as deputy secretary of state under Rice is adding to the impression that the
hawks are on the verge of a clean sweep.... Although
Rice began her tenure as Bush's national security adviser a traditional 'realist',
stressing the importance of bolstering U.S. alliances and of committing U.S. troops
overseas only in cases where vital national interests were threatened, she was careful
from the outset to avoid alienating right-wing forces, particularly Cheney and Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Hawks flying high with Rice posting
Asia Times, 16
November 2004
Condoleeza
Rice And The Mysterious Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmad
"If the 9-11 Commission is really looking for
a smoking gun, it should look no further than at Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, the
director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at the time. In early October
2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered flamboyant Saeed Sheikh - the
convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts
in Florida.... Mahmoud's involvement in September 11 might be dismissed as only Indian
propaganda. But Indian intelligence swears by it, and the US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) has confirmed the whole story: Indian intelligence even supplied
Saeed's cellular-phone numbers. Nobody has bothered to check what really happened. The
9-11 Commission should pose very specific questions about it to FBI director Robert
Mueller when he testifies this month. In December 2002, Graham said he was 'surprised at
the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities
of at least some of the [September 11] terrorists in the United States ... It will become
public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from
now.' He could not but be referring to Pakistan and Mahmoud. If Mahmoud was really
involved in September 11, this means the Pakistani ISI -'the state within the state' -
knew all about it. And if the intelligence elite in Pakistan knew it, an intelligence
elite in Saudi Arabia knew it, as well as an intelligence elite in the US..... On
September 10, the Pakistani daily The News reported that the Mahmoud visit to the United
States 'triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon
and National Security Council'. If he'd been to the National Security Council, he had
certainly met Rice. Mahmoud did
meet with his counterpart, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet. Tenet
and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had been in Islamabad in May, when Tenet
had 'unusually long' meetings with Musharraf. Armitage for his part has countless friends
in the Pakistani military and the ISI. Mahmoud also met a number of high officials at the
White House and the Pentagon and had a crucial meeting with Marc Grossman, the under
secretary of state for political affairs. Rice maintains she did not meet Mahmoud then.... Million-dollar questions
remain. Did Mahmoud know when and how the attacks of September 11 would happen? Did
Musharraf know? Could the Bush administration have prevented September 11? It's hard to
believe high echelons of the CIA and FBI were not aware of the direct link between the ISI
and alleged chief hijacker Mohammed Atta. On October 7, Mahmoud was demoted from the ISI.
By that time, Washington obviously knew of the connection between Mahmoud, Saeed Sheikh
and Mohamed Atta: the FBI knew it.... as Asia Times Online has reported, Mahmoud did
disappear. He lives in near seclusion in Rawalpindi....The families of September 11
victims, US public opinion, the demonized Islamic world, the whole world for that
matter, all everybody wants to know is what really happened on September 11.... The genie
- the crucial information - is still in the bottle. "
9-11 AND THE SMOKING GUN
Asia Times, 8 April
2004
"Omar Sheikh... has... been
named as one of the key financiers of Mohammed Atta, the pilot of one of the jets that hit
the World Trade Centre on September 11."
London
Daily Telegraph, 27 Jan 2002
"Dr. [Condoleeza] Rice's statement regarding the ISI chief at her May 16 press
conference, is an obvious cover-up. While General Ahmad was
talking to U.S. officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, he had allegedly also been in
contact (through a third party) with the September 11 terrorists. What this suggests is
that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about these
ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist ‘ring leader', Mohammed Atta, and failed
to act. But this conclusion is, in fact, an understatement. Everything indicates that CIA
Director George Tenet and ISI Chief General Mahmoud Ahmad, had established a close working
relationship. General Mahmoud had arrived a week prior to September 11 for consultations
with George Tenet. Bear in mind that the CIA's George Tenet, also has a close personal
relationship with President Bush. Prior to September 11, Tenet would meet the President
nearly every morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp, for about half an hour. A document, known as the
President's Daily Briefing, or PDB, 'is prepared at Langley by the CIA's analytical
directorate, and a draft goes home with Tenet each night. Tenet edits it personally and
delivers it orally during his early morning meeting with Bush.' This practice of 'oral
intelligence briefings' is unprecedented. Bush's predecessors at the White House, received
a written briefing.... Did Bush, with his minimal understanding of foreign policy issues,
know all the details regarding General Mahmoud and the 'ISI connection'? Did Tenet and
Cheney distort the facts, so as to get
the Commander-in-Chief's 'thumbs up' for a military operation which was already in the
pipeline? In a bitter irony, a meeting between Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and General Mahmoud, the 9-11 'money
man', was scheduled at the State Department for the morning after September 11 to discuss
their strategy."
CIA Overshadows the Presidency
Political Deception: The Missing Link behind 9-11
Global Outlook, No.
2. Summer 2002
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG)
"The 911 connection with Mahmoud was
in fact raised by an accredited Indian journalist on 16 May at a White House press briefing run
by US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice. The briefing was about what the Bush administration knew pre-911. The
journalist asked with whom the head of the ISI had been meeting in Washington around the
time of the attacks. Rice denied
knowledge and swiftly moved on. Ominously both White House and CNN transcripts of the
press briefing omit this reference to Mahmoud in the journalist's question. They simply
leave out the relevant words in the case of the White House version, or insert 'inaudible'
in the case of CNN. However, the wording is audible on the official video recording of
the briefing. If such embarrassing connections were to have real implications, then
the execution of Sheikh would certainly be useful in dealing with the CIA's problem of how
to limit further investigation into any wider role it may have played in the events
surrounding 911 via its involvement with the ISI. In that area Sheikh is the prime witness
after Mahmoud himself, who no doubt is now enjoying a comfortable pension in return for
his silence. In this respect the clamour from the Bush administration to spare Sheikh's
life so that he can give evidence as to General Mahmoud's and his own involvement in the
transfer of 911 money to Mohammed Atta is deafening by virtue of its total absence. Would
the White House not like to know the details of that? Would the families of those who died
in the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon not like to know too? When are those families
going to sue the Bush administration over this?"
What Did Britain Know About 911?
'Fight Smart', 28 August 2002
"Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco attorney and
former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a $7 billion lawsuit in U.S. District Court on June
3rd. The class-action suit names ten defendants, among whom are George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald
Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta. Hilton's suit charges Bush and his administration with
allowing the September 11th attacks to take place so as to
reap political benefits from the catastrophe.... Hilton's
plaintiffs in this case are the families of 14 victims of 9/11, numbering 400 people
nationwide. These are the same families that rallied in Washington recently to advocate
for an independent investigation into the attacks. The current 9/11 hearings are being
conducted by Congress behind closed doors, a situation these families find
unacceptable.... "
All Along the Watchtower
Truthout, 20 June
2002
"On the eve of a Republican National
Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City
residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders 'knew in advance that
attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to
act,' according
to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New
York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004....
The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding
U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political
implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of
those who described themselves as 'very conservative' supported the claim...... Less than
two in five (36%) believe that the 9/11 Commission had 'answered all the important
questions about what actually happened on September 11th,' and two in three (66%) New
Yorkers (and 56.2% overall) called for another full investigation of the 'still unanswered
questions' by Congress or Elliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General."
Zogby Poll: Half of New
Yorkers Believe U.S. Had 9/11 Foreknowledge
NewsMax, 31 August 2004
Why
Was Rice So Reluctant To Give Testimony
Before The 911 Commission?
"Poised to convene its first
hard-hitting hearings in January, the federal commission investigating the 9/11 attacks
continues to be at odds with the White House over access to key information and witnesses.
Two government sources tell TIME that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground
rules for her appearance in part because she does not want to testify under oath or,
according to one source, in public....One Republican commissioner says a comment by Rice last year—that no
one 'could have predicted that they would try to use a…hijacked airplane as a
missile'—was 'an unfortunate comment . . . that was, of course, a wrong-footed
statement on its face,' given that there was years of intelligence about Al Qaeda's
interest in airplane attacks."
Condi and the 9/11 Commission
TIME, 20 December
2003
"The congressional report on
pre-Sept. 11 intelligence calls into question answers that National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice gave the public last year about the White House's knowledge of terrorism
threats....The president's daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, contained 'information acquired
in May 2001 that indicated a group of bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the
United States with explosives,' the [congressional] report stated....the congressional
report [also] states that 'from at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the
Intelligence Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating,
among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons.' ''
9-11 Report Questions Rice's Statements
Associated Press, 28 July 2003
"The
top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, 'Bin
Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'... New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6
memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political
firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S.
airliners.... Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a
July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as
having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside
agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said.
The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could
have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass
for Middle Eastern aviation students.... Under growing criticism for a failure to act on
the Phoenix memo and other
potential warning signs, Bush administration officials have said repeatedly that U.S.
intelligence analysts never envisioned the possibility that terrorists would use jetliners
as suicide missiles and slam them into such buildings as the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon..... But a 1999 report prepared for the
National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated
with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA
headquarters. The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a
1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South
Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley."
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S.
Washington Post, 18 May 2002
"But by the summer [of 2001], policy
reviews were hardly what was needed. Intelligence services were picking up enough chatter
about a terrorist attack to scare the pants off top officials..... In mid-July, Tenet sat
down for a special meeting with [Condoleeza] Rice and aides. 'George briefed Condi that there was going to be a major
attack,' says an official .... "
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine
Online, 4 Aug 2002
"President Bush and his top advisers
were informed by the CIA early last August that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden
had discussed the possibility of hijacking airplanes, according to reliable
sources....White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Bush had been told about the
possibility of hijackings but he declined to say what had been revealed during his
intelligence briefings.... The intelligence briefing on al Qaeda hijackings, first
reported last night by CBS News, marks the most detailed disclosure of what Bush was told
about the possibility of terror attacks before Sept. 11. It also represents a shift in the
official version of events surrounding the attacks on New York and Washington, which Bush
and other administration officials have generally characterized as a sneak attack that
could not have been foreseen by U.S. intelligence....The new information adds to the
debate over whether more could have been done to halt the attacks.... The information
provided to Bush was included as part of the president's daily briefing, a highly
restricted classified document prepared by the CIA. The document is seen by only a handful
of people, White House officials said: Bush, Vice President Cheney, CIA Director George J.
Tenet, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and, less frequently, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. Sen. Bob Graham
(D-Fla.) said yesterday that he has been told of a CIA document that reached Bush in
August, warning him of a more specific al Qaeda attack involving an airliner. Graham,
chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said he had not yet read the document, but
that congressional staffers have."
Bush Was Told of Hijacking Dangers
Washington
Post, 16 May 2002
"Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco
attorney and former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a $7 billion lawsuit in U.S. District
Court on June 3rd. The class-action suit names ten defendants, among whom are George W.
Bush, Dick
Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta.
Hilton's suit charges Bush and his administration with allowing the September 11th attacks
to take place so as to reap political benefits from the catastrophe.... Hilton's
plaintiffs in this case are the families of 14 victims of 9/11, numbering 400 people
nationwide. These are the same families that rallied in Washington recently to advocate
for an independent investigation into the attacks. The current 9/11 hearings are being
conducted by Congress behind closed doors, a situation these families find
unacceptable...."
All Along the Watchtower
T r u t h o u t, 20 June, 2002
"On the eve of a Republican National
Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City
residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders 'knew in advance that
attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to
act,' according
to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New
York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004....
The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding
U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political
implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of
those who described themselves as 'very conservative' supported the claim...... Less than
two in five (36%) believe that the 9/11 Commission had 'answered all the important
questions about what actually happened on September 11th,' and two in three (66%) New
Yorkers (and 56.2% overall) called for another full investigation of the 'still unanswered
questions' by Congress or Elliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General."
Zogby Poll: Half of New
Yorkers Believe U.S. Had 9/11 Foreknowledge
NewsMax, 31 August 2004
Bush
And Rice Suffer Implausible Simultaneous 'Clintonesque' Memory Failure
"Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic
member of the 9/11 Commission, was once a key aide to Watergate special prosecutor
Archibald Cox and served as Democratic counsel in the Whitewater probe into the finances
of President Clinton. His question provoked the first burst of applause from victims’
families in the hearing room: It was the classic: 'Did you tell the President?' Dr
[Condoleeza] Rice, a famed perfectionist who rises at 5am so that she can pound her
treadmill before her daily briefings begin, had clearly prepared for the biggest
performance of her career, like the concert pianist she had once wanted to become. Until
Mr Ben-Veniste’s intervention, her pitch had been perfect and she had not missed a
note. But the question of whether she had alerted President Bush to the suspected presence
of al-Qaeda cells within the US left her rattled and claiming a suspiciously Clintonesque
memory lapse. 'I really do not remember whether I discussed
this with the President,' she stumbled. 'I remember very well
that the President was aware that there were issues inside the United States.' The
Democrats and some of the victims’ families believe they have found a 'smoking gun'
in the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) for August 6, 2001, just a month before the
9/11 attacks. Even the document’s title remained secret until yesterday, when the
wily Mr Ben-Veniste tricked it out of Dr Rice by asking her if she remembered its name.
She repeated its explosive heading: 'Bin Laden determined
to attack inside the United States.' Bob Kerrey, another
Democrat on the panel, declassified a portion by reading out one tantalising sentence:
'The FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with
preparations for hijacking' It is a fundamental lesson of Watergate that it is the
cover-up that gets you in the end. That is something that should hit home for Dr Rice. She
lives in the Watergate complex."
Lessons of Watergate relived at inquiry
London
Times, 9 April 2004
"....[there] was
an article in the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief titled 'Bin Ladin Determined to Strike
in US.' It was the 36th PDB item briefed so far that year that related to Bin Ladin or al
Qaeda, and the first devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States....[When
interviewed by the Commission the President] did not recall discussing the August 6 report
with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so...... No CSG [Counterterrorism
Security Group] or other NSC [National Security Council] meeting was held to discuss the
possible threat of a strike in the United States as a result of this report. We have found
no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his
top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States.
DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford,Texas, on August 17 and participated in PDB
briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to
Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President
of the domestic threat during this period. Most of the intelligence community recognized
in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented.
Many officials told us that they knew something terrible was planned...."
THE 9/11COMMISSION REPORT (p.260 - 262)
Rice Gets The
Cover She Needs From The Executive Director Of 9/11 Commission
"The families of some of the
victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings are calling for the staff director of
the commission set up to investigate the attacks to be removed from a large part of the
inquiry. They say he has a conflict of interest in investigating the National Security
Council, because of his previous relationship with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. 'We believe staff
director (Philip) Zelikow should remove himself from any and all portions of the
investigation addressing the NSC,' the Family Steering Committee wrote in a letter sent to
the commission Friday. The families say that Zelikow, who was a part of the Bush
transition team, drafted a memo for Rice on reorganizing the NSC. Finding out why that body failed to
anticipate or defend against the Sept. 11 attacks is a major part of the commission's
mandate. 'Really, if he's looking at the NSC, he's investigating himself,' said Lorie Van
Auken, whose her husband died in the attack on the World Trade Center and one of the
authors of the letter. Zelikow did not return calls Sunday. 'We knew he was on the
transition team,' said one commission member, who declined to be named. 'I don't know
about this memo, but we'll be looking into it.' Zelikow worked with Rice in the NSC during the first
Bush administration, and subsequently collaborated with her on a book. In October 2001, he
was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of private
citizens who advise the White House on intelligence matters...... relatives also indicated
that they were unhappy with Zelikow's role in and in negotiating with the NSC about access
to classified documents."
9-11 Panel Director May Have Conflict of Interest
United
Press International, 6 October 2003
What Condoleeza Rice Did About US
Security
* She Did Nothing About The 911 Attacks When Warned In
Advance *
* She Then Lied About The Pre-9/11 Intelligence *
"A senior CIA officer who has become
an outspoken critic of the fight on terrorism turned in his resignation this week, citing
a desire to speak more freely about problems in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.....
Scheuer's CIA assignments included running the bin Laden unit from January 1996 to June
1999..... Scheuer was highly critical Sunday of the Sept. 11 Commission's 'refusal' to
point fingers at senior government officials whose
actions contributed to the attacks....."
CIA agent who rips bin Laden hunt quits
Associated Press, 12
November 2004
"But by the summer [of 2001], policy
reviews were hardly what was needed. Intelligence services were picking up enough chatter
about a terrorist attack to scare the pants off top officials..... In mid-July, Tenet sat
down for a special meeting with [Condoleeza] Rice and aides. 'George briefed Condi that
there was going to be a major attack,' says an official .... "
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Time Magazine
Online, 4 Aug 2002
"A former translator for the FBI with
top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating
the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack
the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened. She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice,
that there was no such information was 'an outrageous lie'. Sibel Edmonds said she
spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators
providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001
suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in
place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a
gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used 'state secrets privilege'. She told
The Independent yesterday: 'I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation
files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the
investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is
not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very
easily.' She added: 'There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to
be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in
place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that
were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers.' ...... 'President Bush said they had no
specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11
September,' she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes
and that an attack was just months away.... in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on
22 March, Ms Rice wrote:
'Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were
preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts
speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists.' Mrs
Edmonds said that by using the word 'we', Ms Rice told an 'outrageous lie'. She said: 'Rice says 'we' not ' I '. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA
and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities
with aeroplanes'
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
Independent,
2 April 2004
Full interview with Sibel Edmonds, former
F.B.I. Wiretap Translator - 'Democracy Now' - Click
Here
"The
top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, 'Bin
Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'... New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6
memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political
firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S.
airliners.... Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a
July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as
having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside
agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said.
The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could
have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass
for Middle Eastern aviation students.... Under growing criticism for a failure to act on
the Phoenix memo and other
potential warning signs, Bush administration officials have said repeatedly that U.S.
intelligence analysts never envisioned the possibility that terrorists would use jetliners
as suicide missiles and slam them into such buildings as the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon..... But a 1999 report prepared for the
National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated
with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA
headquarters. The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a
1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South
Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley."
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S.
Washington Post, 18 May 2002
"President Bush and his top advisers
were informed by the CIA early last August that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden
had discussed the possibility of hijacking airplanes, according to reliable
sources....White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed that Bush had been told about the
possibility of hijackings but he declined to say what had been revealed during his
intelligence briefings.... The intelligence briefing on al Qaeda hijackings, first
reported last night by CBS News, marks the most detailed disclosure of what Bush was told
about the possibility of terror attacks before Sept. 11. It also represents a shift in the
official version of events surrounding the attacks on New York and Washington, which Bush
and other administration officials have generally characterized as a sneak attack that
could not have been foreseen by U.S. intelligence....The new information adds to the
debate over whether more could have been done to halt the attacks.... The information
provided to Bush was included as part of the president's daily briefing, a highly
restricted classified document prepared by the CIA. The document is seen by only a handful
of people, White House officials said: Bush, Vice President Cheney, CIA Director George J.
Tenet, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and, less frequently, Chief of Staff
Andrew H. Card Jr. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said yesterday that he has been told of a CIA
document that reached Bush in August, warning him of a more specific al Qaeda attack
involving an airliner. Graham, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said he had
not yet read the document, but that congressional staffers have."
Bush Was Told of Hijacking Dangers
Washington
Post, 16 May 2002
"Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco
attorney and former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a $7 billion lawsuit in U.S. District
Court on June 3rd. The class-action suit names ten defendants, among whom are George W.
Bush, Dick
Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta.
Hilton's suit charges Bush and his administration with allowing the September 11th attacks
to take place so as to reap political benefits from the catastrophe.... Hilton's
plaintiffs in this case are the families of 14 victims of 9/11, numbering 400 people
nationwide. These are the same families that rallied in Washington recently to advocate
for an independent investigation into the attacks. The current 9/11 hearings are being
conducted by Congress behind closed doors, a situation these families find
unacceptable...."
All Along the Watchtower
T r u t h o u t, 20 June, 2002
"On the eve of a Republican National
Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City
residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders
'knew in advance that
attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to
act,' according
to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New
York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004....
The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding
U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political
implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of
those who described themselves as 'very conservative' supported the claim...... Less than
two in five (36%) believe that the 9/11 Commission had 'answered all the important
questions about what actually happened on September 11th,' and two in three (66%) New
Yorkers (and 56.2% overall) called for another full investigation of the 'still unanswered
questions' by Congress or Elliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General."
Zogby Poll: Half of New
Yorkers Believe U.S. Had 9/11 Foreknowledge
NewsMax, 31 August 2004
What Condoleeza Rice Really Thought
About Iraq
"Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council
unanimously passed a resolution demanding yet again that Iraq disclose and disarm all its
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, 'Has Saddam
Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?' Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and
resounding no."
Condoleeza Rice - 'Why We Know
Iraq is Lying'
New York Times, 23 January 2003
Why We Know Rice Was Lying
* As at Jan 2000 Iraq had no WMDs - If Iraq gains them they
'will be unusable' - Rice *
"One thing is clear: the United States
must approach regimes like North Korea resolutely and decisively. The Clinton
administration has failed here, sometimes threatening to use force and then backing down,
as it often has with Iraq. These regimes are living on borrowed time, so there need be no
sense of panic about them. Rather, the first line of defense should be a clear and
classical statement of deterrence -- if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be
unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration."
Condoleeza Rice - Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest
Council
On Foreign Relations, January/February 2000
* As at early 2001 Iraq had no WMDs - Rice
*
"Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has
evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony
Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them. A television report
by Pilger aired on British screens last night said US
Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in
early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September
11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US 'must move to take advantage of these new
opportunities' to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil. Pilger uncovered video footage
of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, 'He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any
significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to
project conventional power against his neighbours.' Two months later, Rice reportedly said, 'We are able to keep
his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.'"
Sydney Morning
Herald, 23 September 2003
"Both Colin
Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser,
made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe
or the Middle East. In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: 'He (Saddam Hussein) has
not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He
is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours'. This is the very opposite
of what Bush and Blair said in public. Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of
'containment' that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite
of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that
Saddam Hussein had not been able to 'build his military back up or to develop weapons of
mass destruction' for 'the last 10 years'. America, he said, had been successful in
keeping him 'in a box'. Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided
and militarily defenceless Iraq. 'Saddam does not control the northern part of the
country,' she said. 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not
been rebuilt.'"
The Big Lie
Mirror,
22 September 2003
"But now his National Security
Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has given a round of interviews in which she acknowledges
possible flaws in pre-war intelligence. The central argument used by the United States for
invading Iraq was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. But more than nine
months after Baghdad fell to US forces, no such weapons have been found. Ms Rice's
comments follow calls from the former senior US weapons inspector, David Kay, for an
independent inquiry. Mr Kay - who resigned last week - has said that in his view there
were no significant stockpiles in Iraq before the war."
US admits Iraq intelligence flaws
BBC Online, 30 January
2004
"There was no
imminent threat [from Iraq]. This was made up in Texas... This whole thing was a
fraud."
Senator Edward Kennedy
Interview with Associated Press,
18 September 2003
I'll Do
Anything You Say Mr President... er, Mr Vice President
"Although
Rice began her tenure as Bush's national security adviser a traditional 'realist',
stressing the importance of bolstering U.S. alliances and of committing U.S. troops
overseas only in cases where vital national interests were threatened, she was careful
from the outset to avoid alienating right-wing forces, particularly Cheney and Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Hawks flying high with Rice posting
Asia Times, 16
November 2004
"Now that Bush has nominated her to be
his Secretary of State, the question is where she stands on the foreign policy fights of
the day. Despite four years as one of the Administration's most vocal advocates on this
front, Rice has shown few fixed ideological moorings. She has changed positions
dramatically on several issues, shifting from a hard-nosed student of realpolitik to a
true believer in Bush's vision of spreading democracy from Morocco to Afghanistan.... In
2000 she scorned the use of U.S. troops for nation building, but has undertaken monumental
military reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq.... Critics say that more often
than not she simply has settled into orbit around the real power centers of U.S. foreign
policy: Vice President Dick Cheney and his ally Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 'She's
getting this job because she's not a threat,' says retired Lieut. General William Odom of
the conservative Hudson Institute. When Rice tried to impose order on prewar planning,
Rumsfeld ignored her. Vice President Cheney established a broad and powerful shadow
National Security Council early in the Administration and used his close relationship with
Bush to drive White House decision making..... she shares the blame both for letting the
now discredited allegations that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa get into
Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech and for hyping the significance of high-strength
aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy abroad..... 'She does have this vestigial desire to be
loved by the Establishment,' says a senior Administration official."
Condi Gets Her Shot
TIME,
29 November 2004
"At the same time the vice president,
Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice,
in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and
partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state. 'Words like
'incoherent' come to mind,' one top state department official told me about Rice's effort
to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a
sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next
four years.... Rice's radio silence when her former mentor, Scowcroft, was defenestrated
was taken by the state department professionals as a sign of things to come. Bush has long
resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more
than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush 'did not receive
it well', said a friend of Scowcroft. "
A state of chaos
Guardian,
30 December 2004
"The head of the CIA's analysis unit
is being forced from her job as part of the shake-up being carried out by the agency's new
director..... Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, said Ms Miscik was the 'Condi Rice of
the CIA'. He added: 'She just went along with whatever she was told and kept her mouth
shut. She is a person who is tarred by the inescapable conclusion that she was either
extremely incompetent or else a tool of the administration."
Head of CIA analysis unit joins exodus of top officials in shake-up
Independent,
30 December 2004
"For the world
as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset
our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand.
By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil
demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in
production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an
additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from?
Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per
cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of
the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's
oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies
are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton,
now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London
Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999
Cheney's
Coup D'Etat
Rice At The State Department And Goss At The CIA
Dissent Is Being Crushed 1930s Germany Style
By 'We Control The Helicopters' Cheney
"[On 911] In the [bunker access]
tunnel below the White House, Cheney stopped to watch a television
showing the smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center towers, heard the report about
the plane hitting the Pentagon and called Bush again.... There were secure video links
[from the bunker] to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies and military
installations ... orders were given to remove Daschle, Lott, Gephardt and other members of
the [Congressional] leadership to a secure location outside Washington. When they arrived for the trip at the West Front of the Capitol, Gephardt
[leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives] recalls an 'unimaginable' scene:
helicopters ringed by black-suited SWAT teams carrying automatic weapons, as other SWAT
team members looked down from atop the Capitol. At the secure location outside Washington,
there were too few phone lines for the congressional leaders. Communication with Cheney was frustrating. Coordinating with lawmakers left behind in Washington
was difficult, sometimes contentious. Desperate for information, [other members of
Congress] set up a conference call with their sequestered leaders. ...... The leaders [of
Congress] agitated to get out of their bunker and back to Washington, but Cheney resisted. ..... Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) protested. We're a separate
branch of government - why do we need the approval of the White House, he complained.
'Don,' the vice president replied, 'we control the
helicopters.'..."
America's Chaotic Road to War
Washington Post, 27 Jan 2002
"Most Democrats, and many Republicans,
remain in a state of shock at the neoconservative putsch after 9/11. A small group round
Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld seized first the Pentagon, then the
presidency and then America’s foreign policy. They went to war against a distant
country, Iraq, which offered American no threat, against the will of the Chiefs of
Staff.... Mr Bush put himself among dangerous — in Mr Cheney’s case very
dangerous — men."
The slogan 'It's security, stupid' has poisoned American
politics
London
Times, 30 October 2004
"I just wake up in the morning and
tell myself, 'There's been a military coup,' and then it all makes sense,' said one
veteran US foreign service officer."
Diplomats on the Defensive
Los Angeles Times, 9
May 2003
"There is an unusual feature to the
second Bush Administration that is extraordinarily important but has been almost entirely
overlooked. For the first time in a half-century, a two-term presidency will end without
sending out its Vice President to seek a mandate for succession at the next election. Vice
President Cheney will not run for the presidency, and everyone knows it. When these eight
years are over, the Bush-Cheney Administration will simply close up shop. Nothing like that has happened since the
1950s..... Bush is fully aware of his situation. Hence the remarkable alacrity with which,
after the election, he seized the moment. No two-month vacation to unwind. No waiting for
the January Inauguration to set the agenda. He waited but two days to lay claim not just
to victory but to a mandate..... Most important, Bush turns over the State
Department—foreign-occupied territory in the view of most White Houses—to his
closest foreign-policy confidant, Condoleezza Rice. Then he gives her job, National Security Council chief, to her deputy.
Not since Nixon moved Henry Kissinger from the White House to the State Department has a
President so seized the foreign-policy apparatus. You don't
need the CIA—where Bush's new appointee is cleaning house in another hotbed of
insurgency—to connect the dots: the President is taking control of his government...... That means unrelenting pursuit of the war on terrorism and no
flinching on Iraq. Those who thought a re-elected Bush might reverse course and seek an
exit strategy have been sobered by everything that has happened since Election Day. This
is no accidental presidency. Bush intends his to be a consequential presidency. And he
knows that in January 2009 it all ends. This is a man on a mission, indeed several
missions. And very little time. If that scares the Democrats who tried everything to
defeat him—and those around the world who were desperately hoping for his replacement
and repudiation—it should."
Why Bush Has No Fear
Since Cheney won't be his heir, the President can spend his capital
freely
TIME,
22 November 2004
"The President
wasted no time after his re-election reining in the two other agencies that haven't always
been on the White House's page - the State and Justice Departments - by naming longtime personal aides to run them
for the next for years. The CIA overhaul had actually begun a few months earlier, when
Bush named Goss, 65 to succeed George Tenet.... The agency had repeatedly warned both the
curent Administration and it predecessor about bin Laden, they said; the agency's doubts
about the existence of WMD were not hidden (if you looked deeply enough into the
foot-notes of the intelligence community's official estimates on Iraq); and although the
details of the CIA's warnings have not been made public, there are indications that it
predicted that a postwar Iraq would be something other than a walk in the park..... The
backbiting got more vicious in the final days of the presidential campaign, when the Bush
camp began to mutter that the CIA was trying to undermine the President's re-election...
Imperial Hubris, written anonymously by Michael Scheuer, a CIA analyst and former chief of
the bin Laden unit, .... accused the Administration of botching the war on terrorism...
Imperial Hubris hit the stores in July, and that was enough for some in the Bush campaign
to conclude that the agency was trying to undermine the President. Not everyone in the
White House was bothered by the book, but those who were included Vice President Dick Cheney, who had tangled
with the CIA endlessly over Iraq and had long grown impatient with the agency's rigid
devotion to rules. 'What the White House has decided, particularly Cheney' a campaign veteran told TIME, 'is
that the agency has been leaking on us for a year. So we don't have much to lose by
cutting them loose.'.... Within days of Goss's arrival, a number of top CIA officials
began to contemplate retirement, including acting Director John McLaughlin and Executive
Director A.B Krongard .... some at the agency believe that Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld
and Vice President Cheney not
only oppose the [9/11] commission's recommendations [on intelligence reforms] but also
want to carve up the CIA, take away it clandestine arm altogether and move it to the
Pentagon..."
In Your Face At The CIA
TIME (European print edition), 29
November 2004
"Despite the words of
cooperation and moderate sounding promises, this
administration is planning a right wing assault on values and
ideals we hold most deeply. Healthy debate and diverse opinion are being eliminated from
the State Department and CIA....."
Senator John Kerry, US Presidential Candidate 2004
Statement for Democrat Supporters
TruthOut, 19 November 2004
"The bloodletting has begun.... I'm
not referring to the latest attempt to reconquer Iraq, but rather the wholesale political
revenge campaign being waged by the hard-liners in the Bush administration against anybody
and everybody inside the government who challenged the way the second Persian Gulf war in
a decade was marketed and run..... So far, half a dozen of the nation's top spymasters
have bee
