"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 been forced out abruptly - a strange way to handle things at a time when Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are still seeking to attack the U.S. Ironically, this all comes as Goss is suppressing a lengthy study, prepared for Congress by the CIA's inspector general, that, according to an intelligence official who has read it, names individuals in the government responsible for failures that paved the way for the 9/11 attacks....  Now, by successfully discarding those who won't buy into the administration's ideological fantasies of remaking the world in our image, the neoconservatives have consolidated control of the United States' vast military power. With the ravaging of the CIA and the ousting of Powell - instead of the more-deserving Rumsfeld - the coup of the neoconservatives is complete."
The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup
Los Angeles Times, 16 November 2004

"....the changes Bush has announced in his cabinet take on an unmistakable meaning: This is Cheney's government. Powell would have stayed on as Secretary of State for a while, but Cheney wouldn't have it. Rice would have been Secretary of Defense, but Cheney wouldn't have it. George Bush's second term is looking more and more like Dick Cheney's second term. And that is a profoundly scary development."
Not Rice's but Cheney's Triumph
The Progressive, 17 November 2004

"Rice's latest assignment is fraught with danger. She is tasked with bringing the State Department firmly in hand, stifling the barely concealed dissent that marked the tenure of Colin Powell. It will not be easy and is likely to spark the most fierce bout of Washington infighting in years. But for Bush the job is vital. The State Department must be brought to heel. It is Rice's job to win that battle for her boss. 'Can Rice transform the State Department into an obedient tool of the administration? That is the only question in town,' said Larry Haas, a Washington commentator and former official in the Bill Clinton White House. If she does, the Bush administration will at last be a united and monolithic bloc."
How Condoleezza Rice became the most powerful woman in the world
Observer, 16 January 2005

Cheney Tells Bush What To Do
And Bush Tells Rice

"The more invisible [Cheney] becomes, the more powerful he seems... He participates by videophone in the daily national security meeting held in the White House situation room with the president .... friends and advisers say the relationship between the two men is as crucial as ever, and still refer to Mr. Cheney as the president's consigliere...."
White House Letter; Shrinking From View But Still Looming Large
New York Times 26 Nov 2001

"Cheney had struggled, particularly early in the administration, not to appear to be overshadowing his boss. His true role -- the power behind the throne.... "
'We Will Rally the World'
Washington Post, 28 Jan 2002

"Rice has been his most trusted adviser on how America's actions abroad will play internationally, or how to handle the situation if they don't. She's not Bush's only adviser — Vice-President Dick Cheney is pre-eminent ..... she has changed over the past four years, analysts say. Once, she was Bush's teacher. Then, an objective broker of different views. But after the terrorist attacks and two wars, she has become an avid convert to Bush's hard-line, hyper-power philosophy. As she once put it, 'You don't understand. I don't teach him, he teaches me.' Canadian Harvard historian Michael Ignatieff says that, like many academics, 'she is bewitched by people, like Bush, who see clearly and can act.' .... 'This president has a very strong anchor and compass [called Dick Cheney, Fight Smart Ed] about the direction of foreign policy,' she said. And after 9/11, 'I found myself seeing the value of that .... It is not the orientation out of which I came.'... Rice has repeatedly shown she will promote the administration mindset; will also lie, if necessary, to protect it. Critics blasted her when she testified before the 9/11 Commission in May that there had been no inkling of an imminent terrorist attack. Rice was finally forced to admit that the presidential briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, had been titled: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.'"
The changing of Condoleezza
Toronto Star, 21 November 2004

"Standing alongside her in the White House Roosevelt Room, Mr Bush lavished praise on his most trusted aide, saying: 'The Secretary of State is America’s face to the world and in Dr Rice the world will see the strength, grace and decency of our country.' ... Her rise will have come as little surprise to her parents, John and Angelina, education evangelists who drummed into their only child growing up in segregated Alabama that to compete with white children she had to be twice as good as them, three times as good to beat them.... Black women are rare in Republican ranks .... During weekends at Camp David, where Dr Rice is treated as family, she and the President are as likely to be watching American football or baseball as they are discussing policy..... Dr Rice has had her critics as a National Security Adviser. Instead of presiding over the settling of policy disputes before presenting the President with a recommendation, she has let arguments rage between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, keeping her counsel for the President. However, it is not hard to divine what kind of Secretary of State she will make. She has flourished under the Bushes in part by living by their strict code of loyalty. There will be no 'Rice doctrine' issuing from the State Department."
The rise and rise of Bush's guru
London Times, 17 November 2004

"At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, 'As I was telling my hus--' and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, 'As I was telling President Bush.' Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, 'No comment.'"
Armani's Exchange...Condi's Slip...Forget the Alamo
New York Metro, 26 April 2004

But Don't Worry - It's All In A Good Cause

"I'm very proud of my association with Chevron, 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

".... for the foreseeable future oil will remain an essential commodity. Greater attention must therefore be given to increasing supplies of oil in ways that diversify supplies from areas other than the Persian Gulf. The most promising new source of world supplies is the Caspian region, which appears to contain the largest petroleum reserves discovered since the North Sea."
Commission on America's National Interests, July 2000
Co-Authored by Condoleeza Rice

"'We can't live without oil' -- nearly any member of George W. Bush's administration might be given to such a declaration, which seeks to place our favorite fossil fuel in the rarefied company of food, water, and air. The speaker in this case was National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, responding matter-of-factly to the revelation last summer that Chevron, on whose board of directors she served for nine years, had named an oil tanker in her honor. Capable of carrying 130,000 tons of cargo, the Condoleezza Rice, whose certificate of survey is pictured here, is one of more than 3,400 oil tankers operating worldwide; these tankers generally run from the Third World, where most oil is located, to the First World -- presumably the 'we' in Rice's formulation where most oil is consumed. Seen from the stem of the Condoleezza Rice, the world would doubtless seem more distressed by its life with oil than by the thought of a life without it..... 'I'm very proud of my association with Chevron, 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,' Rice continued last summer, in her (and Chevron's) defense. Perhaps she did not care to contemplate her namesake's pernicious wake, as it were -- the oil spills, labor exploitation, and political destabilization endemic to the global oil trade, not to mention the smog, global warming, and other consequences of the West's reliance on hydrocarbon fuels. At any rate, the mutual pride in Rice's association with Chevron appears to have dimmed; in late April, Chevron quietly renamed the ship, gracing it with the pleasingly generic moniker Altair Voyager. Henceforth, it seems, Condoleezza Rice's good name will have to serve the interests of Big Oil in person."
A Crude Likeness - oil tanker named for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
Harpers Magazine, July 2001

It's The Oil Stupid!

"Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the government of George W. Bush initially blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim. In the book "Bin Laden, la verite interdite" ("Bin Laden, the forbidden truth"), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction. The two claim the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime 'as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, 'the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that'. But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, 'this rationale of energy security changed into a military one', the authors claim. 'At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs',' Brisard said in an interview in Paris....The last meeting between U.S. and Taliban representatives took place in August, five weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington, the analysts maintain.....Bush's family has a strong oil background. So are some of his top aides. From the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, through the director of the National Security Council Condoleeza Rice, to the Ministers of Commerce and Energy, Donald Evans and Stanley Abraham, all have for long worked for U.S. oil companies. Cheney was until the end of last year president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for oil industry; Rice was between 1991 and 2000 manager for Chevron; Evans and Abraham worked for Tom Brown, another oil giant.... The book confirms earlier reports that the U.S. government worked closely with the United Nations during the negotiations with the Taliban.....These meetings, also called '6+2' because of the number of states (six neighbours plus U.S. and Russia) involved, have been confirmed by Naif Naik, former Pakistani Minister for Foreign Affairs. In a French television news programme two weeks ago, Naik said during a '6+2' meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around 'the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid. And the pipe lines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come,' he added. Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan. 'Simons said, 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation', Naik claimed.".
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
Inter Press Service, 15 November 2001

"A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July [2001] that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin."
US 'planned attack on Taleban'
BBC Online, 18 September 2001

"The Bush Administration began making plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 -- not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks, as has been previously reported. That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider.... In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. 'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,' says O'Neill in the book.... "
Saddam Ouster Planned Early '01?
CBS News, 10 January 2003

"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

Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security Priorities
Did US Quest For Oil And Gas Come Before Counter-Terrorism?

"In the view of many the probability is high that Cheney sits at heart of why US defences were so easily breached on 911. His failure to testify in public reinforces the impression of a cover-up in motion. So what has the White House got to hide? Certainly there are many things left to investigate. There have been claims that no one envisioned hijacked airplanes being used as weapons. But we now know that several pre-911 intelligence reports were concerned with precisely that. Moreover a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCS1 3610.01A) on procedures relating to military response to hijackings was issued 11 June 2001. The 'Instruction' specifically envisions the possibility of the hijacking of US military aircraft carrying weapons of mass destruction - an even more extreme scenario than actually took place on 911..... It is, of course, also interesting that someone felt there was a need to review procedures for military responses to hijackings just three months before 911."
Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security Priorities
'Fight Smart', 5 April 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

"The efforts to get an audience with Indian officials for [Enron's] Lay and the bankers over the company's Dabhol power plant were detailed in documents released last week by the government-funded Overseas Private Investment Corp. under a Freedom of Information Act request. They provide a glimpse of a government function normally conducted in secret to avoid political embarrassment for foreign governments that face U.S. pressure on behalf of American corporations. Susan Schwab, a Commerce Department official from the first Bush administration and now dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, said she was surprised that the commercial advocacy has become 'one where it's not the State Department or Commerce Department but the NSC [National Security Council] leading the working group.' Daniel Tarullo, a Georgetown University law professor who oversaw international economics issues for President Bill Clinton's National Economic Council, concurred that 'the norm would have been NSC participation in a discussion rather than NSC chairing it.' That change is symbolic of the heightened government priority on aiding commercial interests overseas. The effort, which expanded in the first Bush administration and in the Clinton administration, is evolving to a more explicit link to national security as the Bush administration elevates ties between the NSC and economic and commercial considerations. 'It's a new definition of national interest that embodies the national economic interest,' Schwab said. 'It's not as blatant as 'what's good for General Motors is good for America,' but it's the globalized version of that.'... The administration correspondence released last week suggested various overlaps between Enron and U.S. efforts in India. A July 30 memo to the 'Dabhol Working Group' in the administration listed among the actions taken in July that 'Enron Chairman Ken Lay visited India' and met various government officials. The Dabhol working group's plans in August included an 'Enron trip' to a location that was blacked out on the document before the government released the information. September's actions by the Dabhol group were to include a visit by U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick to India; Zoellick had been a paid consultant to Enron before joining the administration. Zoellick has since said he did not raise the issue. The group also planned to make use of a visit to the United Nations in September by Vajpayee. The NSC working group coordinated a push at the highest levels of government. Vice President Cheney, as reported, brought up the matter with Sonia Gandhi, leader of India's Congress Party."
NSC Aided Enron's Efforts
Washington Post, 25 January 2004

"Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show. 'Good news is that the veep mentioned Enron in his meeting with [Indian opposition leader] Sonia Gandhi yesterday,' a National Security Council aide wrote in a June 28 e-mail....  The documents obtained by The News showed that the National Security Council had given the Overseas Private Investment Corp. high hopes that Bush would raise the issue with Vajpayee in a Nov. 9 meeting. The investment corporation had sent the White House 'talking points on Dabhol prepared for the President's meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee,' according to a Nov. 1 e-mail. But a Nov. 8 e-mail [on the day Enron filed for bankruptcy protection], whose sender and recipient are blacked out, warned, 'President Bush cannot talk about Dabhol.' White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who was previously paid $50,000 a year as an Enron adviser, also 'was advised that he could not discuss Dabhol.' National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, however, was still expected to raise the issue — but did not, another e-mail says."
Veep Tried to Aid Enron
New York Daily News, 18 January 2002

What Were Rice's Oil Ambitions In The Ukaine
A Few Weeks Before 9/11?

"Rice, U.S. President George W. Bush's in-house specialist on the former Soviet Union, was in Kiev on a two-day working visit.... She hinted U.S. aid might be forthcoming to maintain stability in the former Soviet republic during the run-up to the election. 'The administration of the United States understands the importance of financing civil society in Ukraine, especially on the eve of elections,' she said.... Rice also discussed .... an oil pipeline across Ukraine connecting the Black Sea to Europe with her Ukrainian counterpart."
U.S. Security Advisor Rice Hits Ukrainian on Journalist Deaths
Deutsche Presse Agentur, 26 July 2001

And Cheney's Driving This Tanker All The Way

"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

"The US Supreme Court has refused to order Vice President Dick Cheney to release secret papers detailing the administration's energy policy.... the issues involved have recently been overshadowed by a conflict of interest dispute involving one Supreme Court judge. Justice Antonin Scalia refused to step down from hearing the case, despite having taken a hunting vacation with Mr Cheney while the court was considering his appeal. "
Cheney papers to be kept secret
BBC Online, 24 June 2004

"Rice has been his most trusted adviser on how America's actions abroad will play internationally, or how to handle the situation if they don't. She's not Bush's only adviser — Vice-President Dick Cheney is pre-eminent ..... she has changed over the past four years, analysts say. Once, she was Bush's teacher. Then, an objective broker of different views. But after the terrorist attacks and two wars, she has become an avid convert to Bush's hard-line, hyper-power philosophy. As she once put it, 'You don't understand. I don't teach him, he teaches me.' Canadian Harvard historian Michael Ignatieff says that, like many academics, 'she is bewitched by people, like Bush, who see clearly and can act.' .... 'This president has a very strong anchor and compass [called Dick Cheney, Fight Smart Ed] about the direction of foreign policy,' she said. And after 9/11, 'I found myself seeing the value of that .... It is not the orientation out of which I came.'... Rice has repeatedly shown she will promote the administration mindset; will also lie, if necessary, to protect it. Critics blasted her when she testified before the 9/11 Commission in May that there had been no inkling of an imminent terrorist attack. Rice was finally forced to admit that the presidential briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, had been titled: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.'"
The changing of Condoleezza
Toronto Star, 21 November 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

Why They Are Really Doing It

'PEAK OIL'
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
Click Here For More Information
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/energycrisis.htm

"Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner—within the next five or six years. The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources.... Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool's game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above."
James Woolsey, former US Director of Central Intelligence
Council On Foreign Relations, 1999

"Our industry can certainly be proud of its past achievements. Yet the challenges we will face in the coming years will be every bit as great as those encountered in the past, due in part to ever-increasing global energy use. For example, we estimate that world oil and gas production from existing fields is declining at an average rate of about 4 to 6 percent a year. To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million oil-equivalent barrels a day of new production. That's equal to about 80 percent of today's production level. In other words, by 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to eight out of every 10 barrels being produced today."
John Thompson, President of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company
The Lamp (published for ExxonMobil shareholders), 2003, Vol. 85 No.1


Graph from ExxonMobil report 4 February 2004, p4 (2004 marker added for illustration)
'A Report on Energy Trends, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Alternative Energy'

"The energy crisis we are in today is entirely different from the temporary problems we experienced in 1973-74, 1979-86, 1990-91 and 2000..... There was always sufficient worldwide geological capacity to produce additional barrels of crude oil to meet the world's needs. No longer. In the next major energy crisis, that capacity will likely be eroded. So the crisis should have a severe impact, be global in scope, and be difficult to solve. Plainly, it will be unprecedented.... Over the next 25 years, a new world energy economy will arrive in three waves. We are near the top of the first and smallest one, a warning wave. A second more powerful wave likely will hit in the 2009-2010 period when the non-OPEC world may reach its all-time highest output of crude oil, subsequently declining to become ever more dependent on OPEC for incremental barrels of production. The final wave should break around 2020, or earlier, as even OPEC's vast reserves are tapped at a maximum rate of production. After that, oil volume should head down and keep falling, never to revive..... An international economic disturbance of this magnitude will create potential conflicts between nations and civil competition within societies. These could be a trial for us and for our children, made worse in the early years by our lack of preparation and our failure to understand what is already happening to us."
 The Gathering Storm
Energy Bulletin, 15 November 2004