Reply With Quote
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
The Meeting That Was
Is the White House downplaying the significance of a meeting that took place two months before 9/11, in an effort to cover up its deficient response to terror threats?
See yesterday's column for background.
It turns out this secret meeting wasn't quite so secret after all.
Dan Eggen and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post: "Former CIA director George Tenet told the 9/11 Commission that he had warned of an imminent threat from al-Qaeda in a July 2001 meeting with Condoleezza Rice, adding that he believed Rice took the warning seriously, according to a transcript of the interview and the recollection of a commissioner who was there.
"Tenet's statements to the commission in January 2004 confirm the outlines of an event in a new book by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that has been disputed by some Bush administration officials. But the testimony also is at odds with Woodward's depiction of Tenet and former CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black as being frustrated that 'they were not getting through to Rice' after the July 10, 2001, meeting. . . .
"According to the transcript, Tenet told Rice there were signs that there could be an al-Qaeda attack in weeks or perhaps months, that there would be multiple, simultaneous attacks causing major human casualties, and that the focus would be U.S. targets, facilities or interests. But the intelligence reporting focused almost entirely on the attacks occurring overseas, Tenet told the commission. . . .
"Rice added to the confusion yesterday by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all -- even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had. A State Department spokesman said later that while the meeting definitely happened, Rice and Tenet disputed Woodward's characterization of her response."
Philip Shenon and Mark Mazzetti write in the New York Times: "A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday."
So what's the finger-pointing all about? Shenon and Mazzetti suggest it's all "further evidence of an escalating battle between the White House and Mr. Tenet over who should take the blame for the failure to stop the Sept. 11 attacks and assertions by Bush administration officials that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al Qaeda."
But Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning."
( what the did in reponse? ing obvious, not enough, and I'm pretty sure it will be demonstrated that the Repugs did NOTHING at all about Tenet's warnings that almost exactly describe the 9/11 attack )
A Little History
The fact that the White House was warned, and warned, and warned again is not exactly new.
As Dana Priest wrote in The Washington Post in April 2004: "By the time a CIA briefer gave President Bush the Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief headlined 'Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,' the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al Qaeda's intentions. So had Vice President Cheney and Bush's top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"In April and May 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports 'Bin Laden planning multiple operations,' 'Bin Laden network's plans advancing' and 'Bin Laden threats are real.'"
=================
The Repugs did NOTHING in the way raising high, general alert to all FBI/CIA/FAA/NSA and all intelligence + law enforcement agencies.
Now the Repugs are trying to the blame on Tenet/CIA, and Tenet is fighting back.
