The significance of Condi’s lie "We received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles" is hard to overstate. To understand why, we need to remember the context of that lie.
In May, 2002 FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley’s memo to Robert Mueller was published. In it, we learned the FBI headquarters went out of their way to prevent a FISA to be issued so that agents in Minnesota could examine a laptop which was later found to contain information about the 9/11 hijackers. The full memo is here:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.htmlHere’s one clip from the memo:
For example, at one point, the Supervisory Special Agent at FBIHQ posited that the French information could be worthless because it only identified Zacarias Moussaoui by name and he, the SSA, didn't know how many people by that name existed in France. A Minneapolis agent attempted to surmount that problem by quickly phoning the FBI's legal Attache (Legat) in Paris, France, so that a check could be made of the French telephone directories. Although the Legat in France did not have access to all of the French telephone directories, he was able to quickly ascertain that there was only one listed in the Paris directory. It is not known if this sufficiently answered the question, for the SSA continued to find new reasons to stall.Rowley did, however, give her bosses an out. Here’s that clip:
It's quite conceivable that many of the HQ personnel who so vigorously disputed Moussaoui's ability/predisposition to fly a plane into a building were simply unaware of all the various incidents and reports worldwide of Al Qaeda terrorists attempting or plotting to do so.
*By the way, just in the event you did not know, let me furnish you the Webster's definition of "careerism - - the policy or practice of advancing one's career often at the cost of one's integrity". Maybe that sums up the whole problem! Of course, that was how the matter was resolved:
1.) Mueller promised to make sure “careerism” would never again impede a terrorist investigation.
2.) Condi Rice told the world that no one in the Bush Administration expected terrorists to use plane as weapons.
But now, we learn that, for months, the CIA director is briefing Bush and his staff daily with an urgency described as “having his hair on fire” warning that an attack was imminent. And from Clarke we have learned that protecting key targets from “airliners as missiles” was SOP. Now, can you imagine how different May, 2002 would have been had all this been known? Condi lied. She lied to kill the “Bush Knew” story. Perhaps now we should reopen the whole Coleen Rowley incident ask again why that FISA wasn’t issued.
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