http://www.infowars.com/cia-osama-helped-bush-in-04/
EXCERPT: CIA: Osama Helped Bush in ‘04
‘Something So Big’
Over the weekend of July Fourth 2001, a well-placed U.S. intelligence source passed on a disturbing piece of information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who later recounted the incident in an interview with Alternet.
“The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up,” Miller said. “The incident that had gotten everyone’s attention was a conversation between two members of al-Qaeda. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the [destroyer USS] Cole [which was bombed on Oct. 12, 2000].
“And one al-Qaeda operative was overheard saying to the other, ‘Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.’”
In the Alternet interview, published in May 2006 after Miller resigned from the Times, the reporter expressed regret that she had not been able to nail down enough details about the intercept to get the story into the newspaper.
But the significance of her recollection is that more than two months before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA knew that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack with the intent of inciting a U.S. military reaction – or in this case, an overreaction.
The CIA tried to warn Bush about the threat on Aug. 6, 2001, with the hope that presidential action could energize government agencies and head off the attack. The CIA sent analysts to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, to brief him and deliver a report entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”
Bush was not pleased by the intrusion. He glared at the CIA briefer and snapped, “All right, you’ve covered your ass,” according to Suskind’s book.
Then, putting the CIA’s warning in the back of his mind and ordering no special response, Bush returned to a vacation of fishing, clearing brush and working on a speech about stem-cell research.
“All right, you’ve covered your ass,”
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000019.php
Top 27 Pieces of Evidence that Show Rice Perjured Herself in Front of the 9/11 Commission: A Reference for Seekers of Truth
By Tom Ball
05/17/04
27 Arrows that point to perjury.
Color Coded for your safety
~ Lieutenant Bush Blue = Mindset of a Mad Woman
~ Iraq Brown = Rationalization of Incompetence
~ Elf Eared Green = Proof Al Qaeda and Terrorism were Not Bush's Top Priority
~ Security Risk Red = Proof US Knew or Should have been Aware of (the Possibility of) an Airplane Type Attack
The August 06, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, or PDB, has been declassified and released.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider
"What this [PDB] says is, the White House knew what bin Laden was capable of planning, where he intended to do it, which was New York or Washington, D.C., how he was going to do it. There was only one thing missing, which was exactly when he was going to do it, which turns out to be September 11."
1) This memo, which was central to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony, is the latest injection into the evidential warchest that targets the administration's 9/11 claims intended to shield itself from accusations of incompetence, apathy, misdirection and distraction.
Note that the citing of this memo is nothing new. On May 17, 2002, Bob Woodward wrote an article titled "Aug. Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S.":
"In earlier comments [made by] National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials, [they] stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States... Ari Fleischer told reporters [that] the headline on the document was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States.' But sources who have read the memo said the headline ended with the phrase 'in U.S.'"
In sworn testimony to the 9/11 commission, Rice acknowledged that the title of the document said 'in' the US, but went on to insist that the memo was an 'historical document' rather than a warning of general strikes on American soil.
Let's think.
Bush heartily resists calls for an independent 9/11 commission.
Bush needs (and is allowed) Cheney to hold his hand as he confronts the rather softball questions from the 911 commission.
Bush is released from public scrutiny and from the legal requirement to tell the truth in his 9/11 testimony.
Bush sends Adviser Rice, albeit quite begrudgingly, to testify in public and under oath.
And what does she do? Well, being a non-partisan, ex-Republican, I hate to say she lied, so I will simply explain the situation and let you decide.
If you watched Rice's testimony to the 9/11 Commission very carefully, you might have noticed the rare occasions when she was somehow able to refrain from smiling. True, it must have been a joyous occasion for the National Security Advisor, but for the rest of us the event was a bit more sobering. I refer specifically to Rice's artfully choreographed dance around the truth.
Indeed, the appearance by Rice was less of a bombshell and more of a politically necessary photo-op.
In general, if there is one thing that should be said about any investigation, it is that the truth will never be discovered as a result of asking those who are accused. To the contrary, truth evolves through peripheral inquiry...investigation into those who would take the blame if the accused is acquitted.
Asking Rice a bunch of blubber-bellied 'judgment' questions will get the commission nowhere. Not that the object of the commission is to trick anyone into perjury. But the objective of the questions should certainly be to force the objective truth or result in perjury. Asking someone their favorite color under oath is a waste of time. Asking someone their opinion of someone else's favorite color is an even bigger waste of time.
In any event, Rice's testimony and the August 06 PDB should be taken in context, as I'm sure Rice herself would insist. So here is the context, laid out from the inception of her stint as NSA to the POTUS:
Mindset of a Mad Woman
2) Rice equates Doing Her Job = a 'Silver Bullet'
When 9/11 Commission Member Bob Kerry confronted Rice with the fact that she failed to put the information about the terrorists-in-training at US flight schools on the Intel link when told of it weeks before 9/11, she responded:
"There is no silver bullet that could have prevented 9/11."
3) Rice Misleads About the Predator and the Hunt for Bin Laden
In an interview with Lisa Myers of NBC, Rice claimed that one reason Osama Bin Laden wasn't taken out in the summer or early autumn of 2001 prior to the 9/11 disaster is because the armed Predator surveillance craft - which had had Osama Bin Laden in its sights - was not operational. However, on September 15, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet told Bush:
"The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of Afghanistan."
4) Rice Spreads False Story
Rice "was caught spreading a false story about Sept. 11, claiming that Air Force One flew Bush 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."
5) Rice 'Never Anticipated' Airliner Attack
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.
6) Rice's 'Mushroom Cloud'
More than anyone other than Bush himself, Dr. Rice stoked fears about a 'mushroom cloud' rising over an American city unless the U.S. waged war on Iraq. In a specific quote Rice warned:
'We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.'
7) Rice's Nuclear Tubes
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."
8) Rice's 9/11 'Opportunities'
Rice said:
"I think September 11th was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen. Events are in much sharper relief...how do you capitalize on these opportunities?"
"Like Bush, she said that opposing terrorism and preventing the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction 'in the hands of irresponsible states' now define the national interest.... Rice said that she had called together the senior staff people of the National Security Council and asked them to think seriously about 'how do you capitalize on these opportunities' to fundamentally change American doctrine, and the shape of the world, in the wake of September 11th." (New Yorker, 1/4/02) In other words, the target is not terrorism. The supposed suppression of terrorism worldwide merely offers 'opportunities' for the US to pursue its strategic agenda without geographic or temporal limits." Rice's remarks are reminiscent of Bush's own morbid boasting, "Lucky Me, I Hit the Trifecta!"
9) Rice is the Victim Here
When 9/11 Commission Member Bob Kerry confronted Rice with the fact that she failed to put the information about the terrorists-in-training at US flight schools on the Intel link when told of it weeks before 9/11, she responded, "There is no silver bullet that could have prevented 9/11."
Rice's defensive posture (implying either that Kerry's assertion would not have helped the situation or that her job is not to attend to such matters) is a clear indication that she has readily adopted a victim mentality. How dare Kerry insinuate that she could have done something when clearly nothing of any effect could have.
To write-off the necessity of putting the information on the Intel link because it is not a 'silver bullet' is also iconic of the administration's all-or-nothing, black and white mentality. We'll explore this more when we 'swat some flies'.
Rationalization of Incompetence
10) Swatting Flies
Rice rationalized that the administration did nothing to address the Al Qaeda issue pre-9/11 because any non-comprehensive action would have been like 'swatting flies.' Quote:
"He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to Al Qaeda one attack at a time...He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies.'"
11) Star Wars vs. Al Qaeda
Rice claimed that defeating Al Qaeda was Mr. Bush's first national security directive after he took office in January 2001: "not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of Al Qaeda."
The truth is that Russia, Iraq and missile defense were routinely mentioned by Bush while Al Qaeda did not appear in any pre-911 statement, speech, or report. Not one.
12) Rice Puts a 'happy face' on Bush's Failings
~ According to Rice's testimony to the 9/11 Commission:
~ Bush's obsession with finding a way to invade Iraq from day one is called "part of a broad global strategy"
~ Ignoring Al Qaeda before 9/11 simply reflected a more "comprehensive strategy" for going after the terrorist group.
~ Bush's attitude toward the Taliban in the summer of 2001 was 'intolerant' and 'determined to uproot them'….But wait, as late as August, 2001, Bush was describing the Taliban as a great "source of stability in Central Asia" that would aid them in building an oil pipeline.
Proof Terrorism was not Bush's Top Priority
13) Because it Warrants Repeating: Al Qaeda Never Mentioned
Rice Testified that Bush Had Pre-9/11 Anti-Al Qaeda Plans, yet Al Qaeda was never Mentioned by the administration prior to 9/11? If Al Qaeda was truly an ongoing priority, then why doesn't any statement from any Bush administration member prior to 9/11 mention the group?
~ There is no mention of Al Qaeda in the 2001 report: "Patterns of Global Terrorism"
~ There is no mention of Al Qaeda in the April 30th statement by Colin Powell on the state of global terrorism (even though mentions Osama Bin Laden in passing)
~ This disconnect between claim and reality is illustrated most clearly by the fact that Rice, herself fails to mention Al Qaeda or Bin Laden in a speech on national security she was to have given on Sept. 11, 2001.
Correction: "In fact, Al Qaeda was mentioned in passing once. "...Usama Bin Ladin's al-Qaida organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups that focus on US and Israeli targets escalated their efforts to conduct and promote terrorism..." Note that it mentions only targets in the Middle East (US and Israeli). The interesting thing about this is no mention of attacks on US targets in the United States. Based on several sources, this is an evasion - there was a prolific memo mentioning US targets in the US. Hmmm..."
Credit to Dave M. for the catch.
14) Administration Out of Touch
"On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address 'The threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday' - but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals. The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text."
15) Top Government Officials site Bush Administration Apathy to the Terrorism Threat Prior to 9/11
~ "Brian Sheridan, President Clinton's outgoing assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, was astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new Pentagon leadership up to speed on terrorism were brushed aside. 'I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up.'
~ "A three-star general, [Donald] Kerrick had served at the end of the Clinton administration as deputy national security advisor, and he spent the final four months of his military career in the Bush White House. He sent a memo to the NSC's new leadership on 'things you need to pay attention to.' He wrote about Al Qaeda: 'We are going to be struck again.' But he never heard back." According to Kerrick:
'candidly speaking, I didn't detect' a strong focus on terrorism. 'That's not being derogatory. It's just a fact. I didn't detect any activity but what Dick Clarke and the CSG [the Counterterrorism Strategy Group he chaired] were doing.'
~ "The most damaging remarks came from Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until Oct. 1, 2001. Shelton told us that in the Bush administration terrorism had moved 'farther to the back burner."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40697-2004Mar31.html
16) Bush diminished the Office of National Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Sidney Blumenthal writes:
"One of the first official acts of the incoming Bush administration in Jan. 2001 was to demote the office of national coordinator for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, a position held by Richard Clarke... Under Clinton, signifying the importance the president attached to the issue, Clarke was elevated to Cabinet rank, which gave him a seat at the Principals Meeting, the decision-making group of the highest figures involved in national security. By demoting the office, Bush and his team sent a signal... about the salience they assigned to terrorism -- below issues they regarded as truly serious, like Star Wars and the military threat of China. By removing Clarke from the table, the Bush administration put him in a box where he could only speak when spoken to. No longer would his memos go to the president; instead they had to pass though a chain of command of Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley, who bounced every one of them back."
17) Bush vs. Clinton
"Contrast December '99 with June and July and August 2001. In December '99 we get similar kinds of evidence that al-Qaeda was planning a similar kind of attack. President Clinton asks the national security advisor to hold daily meetings with attorney-general, the CIA, FBI. They go back to their departments from the White House and shake the departments out to the field offices to find out everything they can find. It becomes the number one priority of those agencies. When the heads of the FBI and CIA have to go to the White House every day, things happen and by the way, we prevented the attack. Contrast that with June, July, August 2001 when the president is being briefed virtually every day in his morning intelligence briefing that something is about to happen, and he never chairs a meeting and he never asks Condi rice to chair a meeting about what we're doing about stopping the attacks. She didn't hold one meeting during all those three months."
18) Bush Ignored Al Qaeda Warnings
"Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation - and how the new administration was slow to act. They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others. One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in intelligence briefings that he led."
19) Security Experts: Bush Failed to Take Al Qaeda Seriously
"[Terrorism expert Roger] Cressey and other witnesses have told the 9/11 commission of long gaps between terrorism meetings and greater time and energy devoted to Russia, China, missile defense and Iraq than al-Qaeda." In the spring of 2001, Bush learned bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors. "Why was there no retaliation? 'You would think after an attack that almost sank a U.S. destroyer there would have been [a mandate] for some type of action. Yet we never saw that from the Pentagon,' Cressey says." In the MSNBC story, Condi Rice said no attack occurred because "we didn't have good military options." Yet NBC's sources say the United States at that time had opportunities to strike active Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, taking out many terrorists.
20) Clinton Warned Bush that Bin Laden was Nation's Biggest Threat
In his traditional "exit interview" with the incoming president, Clinton warned Bush that Osama Bin Laden was the number one threat to national security. However, Bush, even then, was obsessed with Iraq. Clinton said Bush's failure to heed the warning was "one of the two or three biggest disappointments that I had'." A detailed assessment of the Al-Qaeda network and ways to disarm it was given to Condoleezza Rice in January 2001 and sat gathering dust until just a few days before the 9/11 attacks.
21) Bush's Top Security Advisers Met Just Twice on Terrorism Before 9/11 Attacks
"Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions, officials say. The White House acknowledged the dearth of top-level meetings devoted to the subject of terrorism by the 'principals committee' of the National Security Council, [led by Condoleezza Rice with Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Colin Powell, and Richard Myers]... 'What were the principals doing to bring this to the attention of the president?' asked P.J. Crowley, council spokesman for the Clinton administration... 'They just didn't seem to get it.' Clinton officials said their council principals met every two to three weeks to discuss terrorist threats after mid-1998... Bush himself said in February 2001 that the nation hadn't done enough to prepare for possible terrorist attacks, and he pledged: 'I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil.'" Talk is...worthless.
22) Bush Ignored Clinton's Plan to Attack Al Qaeda Until 9-4-01
The Clinton administration's counter-terrorism czar on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke, presented Condoleezza Rice with a plan to attack Al Qaeda during special transition briefings in the first week of January 2001. Rice ignored this plan - and urgent warnings from her predecessor, Sandy Berger - until late April 2001. And, despite continued warnings from Clarke and CIA director George Tenet -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Ashcroft did not review the plan until 9-4-01. Why not? Because terrorism was NOT a priority for the administration.
Proof US Knew or Should have been Aware of (the Possibility of) an Airplane Type Attack
23) 10 Months before 9/11 the Military District of Washington, D.C Conducted Simulation of Plane Crashing into Pentagon
National Security Adviser Rice asserted that no one ever expected the Pentagon to be hit by a civilian airliner. In fact, the official government Web site of the Military District of Washington explains how the Pentagon itself planned in detail how it would respond to just such a scenario from October 24-26 2000. And, this exercise took place in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room, dispelling any myths that this was not a high level endeavor.
24) Rice Never Could have Imagined that Terrorists Could have Taken Commercial Airliners and Ram Them into US Targets
"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 Qaeda'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."
25) Bush Lied About 9/11 Warnings
"At his press conference [of December 15, 2003], Bush was asked about charges that he had received warnings prior to the September 11th attacks that a terrorist incident was imminent. He answered that even asking such a question was 'an absurd insinuation.' It was the same sentiment expressed by Condoleezza Rice, who said in May of 2002 that '[no one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane.' The problem for the president and the administration is that the White House has previously admitted that the president had personally received such specific warnings. As ABC News reported in May of 2002, 'White House officials acknowledge that U.S. intelligence officials informed Bush weeks before the September 11th attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes.' ... [And Bush] specifically received an 'analytic report' on August 6th, 2001 that 'talked about Osama bin Laden's methods of operation' and 'mentioned hijacking.'"
26) Warning To Ashcroft Proves Threat Was Known Before 9/11
Harley Sorensen writes:
"Bush knew something was going to happen involving airplanes, John Ashcroft, knew... Condoleezza Rice, knew. They all knew... they [even] told us... On July 26, 2001, cbsnews.com reported that John Ashcroft had stopped flying on commercial airlines... The FBI did advise Ashcroft to stay off commercial aircraft. The rest of us just had to take our chances... Ashcroft demonstrated an amazing lack of curiosity when asked if he knew anything about the threat. 'Frankly, I don't,' he told reporters. So our nation's chief law enforcement officer was told that flying commercial was hazardous to his health, and yet he appeared not to care what the threat was, who made it, how, or why."
27) 1993 Department of Defense 'Terrorism 2000' Report Predicted the Scale, Targets, and Means of WTC-type Attacks
In 1998, an article appeared in the LA Times describing a $150,000 study that was undertaken in 1993 by a panel of 41 experts, including reps from the CIA, FBI, State Dept., Mossad, and the KGB, to anticipate possible terrorist scenarios likely to occur in the future. The report has been available to all who should concern themselves with such things. The report predicted multiple simultaneous attacks, the use of airplanes as weapons, targeting of large landmarks and financial centers, etc.
Conclusion
Today's release of the August 06, 2001 Presidential Brief will no doubt be spun by the administration as somehow being less than it most certainly is (A 'historical document'??). Of course, when put in the context of these 26 'historical events', there is little doubt that administration heads must roll. However, in an administration that prides itself on never feeling that they have to say "I'm sorry" along with the philosophy that the "Buck stops there", you can bet that the heads will not roll any time soon.
I leave you with this key sentence from Alberto Gonzales' letter about Condoleezza's testimony:
"The Commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice."
That means President Bush can never be called by the commission to testify under oath, nor can Cheney, Ashcroft or any other administration member. This means that any subsequent discoveries by the Commission cannot be vetted with the administration under oath.
So did Rice perjure herself? Certainly not in the court of politics. Probably in the court of law. Certainly in the court of humanity.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CondiGate
9/11 and the August 6, 2001, PDB
Referencing the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing Memo, Max B. Sawicky wrote: [8]
"I don't want to belabor the point, but the most damning aspect of Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission was her almost accidental admission that she, along with the rest of the foreign policy team within the administration, blinded themselves to the threat posed by Al Qaeda due to their preoccupation with virtually nonexistent state-sponsored terrorism. Their continued focus on Iraq even after 9/11, despite Saddam's consistent efforts to avoid outright war with the United States, only further demonstrates how dangerously the Bushies were disconnected from reality. While maybe it was just their poor luck that their incompetence was so thoroughly exploited so early in their term, that doesn't excuse them from blame. Not for 9/11, but for gross incompetence itself."
9/11 Commission Testimony
In his April 13, 2004, article CondiGate, William Jelani Cobb opined regarding Rice's April 8, 2004, testimony before the 9/11 Commission: [7]
"Rice's appearance before the 9/11 commission on April 8 was the definition of a Catch-22: a public failure on her part would invariably be read as yet another example of black incompetence. And a virtuoso political performance from Rice would be a victory for an administration that has squandered international goodwill, undermined the United Nations, used the horror of September 11th as a political trump card, run the economy into long-term recession and started a war to protect us from non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
"For what it matters, Rice was convincing -- even as her testimony was starkly at odds with the historical record, her own previous claims and those of other members of the administration. And the underlying point is this: In the long, tangled history of black people in the United States, we have at last reached the point where black politicians have earned the right to be just as dubious and questionable as their white counterparts."
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