Ben Veniste - Bush, Cole, 9/11 testimony

[sandnsea]

Read this thread people. Did anybody see it, has Veniste been on any other programs, can we dig more on this, etc. Says Bush told the 9/11 Commission he DIDN'T KNOW about the Taliban or the Cole, nobody TOLD HIM. There was a 5 year wait for releasing any info on their testimony and the 5 years are up.

:shrug:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2846293

[beachmom]

1. Holy toledo -- can we get that info before 11/7?

It's just that Norfolk, VA was hit very badly with the Cole. It still hurts around here. I once heard a survivor from the Cole say in response to someone asking why they didn't go after bin Laden then, "I guess we weren't important enough to them". He probably blamed Clinton. That and Somalia was the best part of Bill Clinton's interview -- he explained that he did NOT have confirmation from the FBI/CIA that it was definitely al Qaeda/bin Laden in order to go into Afghanistan. Then he left office. And Bush did . . . nothing.

This could be explosive, Sandnsea, for this region. Nobody told me? WTF is that BS answer?

[sandnsea]

2. Here's the actual transcript

Not quite what the linked poster heard... but still quite interesting. I'm going to read it again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2221699

[sandnsea]

3. Okay, I read it again

Bush says nobody told him that we threatened Afghanistan if bin Laden launched any attacks, Afghanistan knew there was a threat of an attack on them. So Bush says he didn't retaliate for the Cole because nobody told him there had been an official US threat to Aghanistan in that regard. (What, is that like count to 3 before timeout?)

The Cole is very important to me too, I was stunned that we didn't retaliate. The reason is because they wanted Saddam, they were absolutely convinced he was the real threat. That's what all that poopooing Clinton on Bin Laden was about, hahaha, he's going after the pot dealer while the kingpin is on his yacht. If you go back and read some of what they were saying summer of 2001, it's very clear. I can't remember if I found them on the State site, or Dod; but there's a few pressers with references to Saddam. That was where their attention was, they thought Bin Laden was a joke. I remember the morning of 9/11 and my daughter asked me what was going to happen and my immediate thought was to the fact we did nothing about the Cole. I was personally very upset about that at the time so you can at least know some of us were deeply concerned.

Anyway, this is interesting, but not quite what the OP had said. Still, these are questions that I still want answered.