Condi In Peril?

[RedEarth]

It's hard to disagree with some of the sentiments in this piece by Greg Mitchell, following the bombshell revelation in Bob Woodward's book that Condi Rice had been warned on July 10 in very graphic terms about the threat from al Qaeda. Here's why the July 10, 2001 meeting matters:

Woodward describes the meeting, and the two officials' plea that the U.S. "needed to take action that moment - covert, military, whatever - to thwart bin Laden." The result? "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off….Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long....

"Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, Tenet thought, but she just didn't get it in time. Black later said, 'The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head.'"

And yet Rice has no recollection whatever of such a dramatic meeting and strongly denies it ever took place in the manner described:

Responding to the Woodward book, Rice told The Washington Post for Monday's edition that an aide was checking on the meeting, but added, "What I am quite certain of, however, is that I would remember if I was told--as this account apparently says--that there was about to be an attack in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible."

So someone's wrong. If Condi is, and she never told the 9/11 Commission, she's in deep doo-doo.

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/10/condi_in_peril.html

[CJCRANE]

1. Rice didn't want to "swat at flies".

Much easier to sit back, do nothing and let the big one happen.

[blm]

2. She was IGNORING it ON PURPOSE because BushInc WANTED the attack so

they could push their fascist agenda under the guise of a WAR effort.

[burythehatchet]

9. To me the interesting question is

Did they know the extent of the attack and the damage it would do?

To me its a given that they prevented all governemnt assets from responding to the red flags that were popping up all over the place. But did they realize the scale, or was that just a bonus?

[blm]

11. I think they didn't CARE.

.

[greenman3610]

3. Perjury?

How do we square Black’s account (in the Woodward book) of that July 10, 2001, meeting -- "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head"—and Rice’s statement to the 9/11 Commission, “There was no threat reporting of any substance about an attack coming in the United States”?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003189623

[tularetom]

4. For such an educated person she sure has a shitty memory

and a troubling lack of imagination ("No one could have envisioned that they would fly planes into buildings"). But I think we're the ones in peril as long as such an incompetent remains in such a critical position.

[xchrom]

5. bushco LET it happen.

how many warnings did rice, bush, cheney etc need before they did something.

they LET it happen.

this simply exemplifies that rice and all the others sat on their hands.

[speedoo]

6. Condi will soon be as much a liability for * as Rummy is.

The two most important cabinet officers. Both incompetent liars. And * himself is an unstable, stupid psycho. And then we have Cheney, the hating, sneering puppeteer.

Reassuring, huh?

[hlthe2b]

7. Maybe it is because I am female... and thus so very angry

and disappointed at her squandering this opportunity to pave the way for other women (and minorities)in the future...



Bottom line, even more so than Rumsfeld, I want Rice to GO DOWN HARD... It should be humiliating so that others start to learn that incompetence will not be forever rewarded, no matter how loyal a sycophant...

[Contrary1]

8. Look closely at the quote...

"What I am quite certain of, however, is that I would remember if I was told--as this account apparently says--that there was about to be an attack in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible."

No lies there. She's not saying she doesn't remember, and I have to agree with her...
the idea that she ignored the warning is "incomprehensible".

Rovespeak at its finest.

[CJCRANE]

12. Yes, it's all conditional:

"...I would remember if I was told...". Clever.

"Incomprehensible" is one of those words that politicians use - like "absurd", "ridiculous", "outrageous" - to convey righteous indignation that one would even think of accusing them of ________ {insert scandal here}!

[GliderGuider]

14. Clever indeed...

I've rarely seen such a carefully parsed utterance. "I would remember If I was told" - she never says she doesn't remember. My bet - she in fact does remember the warning perfectly, and knows that her subsequent inaction is "incomprehensible" to anyone who doesn't know the orders she received about it.

[npincus]

10. Condi's IN a mushroom cloud!

[Justice Is Comin]

13. Link that with Abramhoffs knowledge

that the war was on long before 9-11. Also that Kerry had to pull the information out of her about the Bin Laden PDB. Drip, drip, drip.

Also note how quick they rushed her out of town. :popcorn:

[warrens]

15. She's a Republican

Laws don't apply to them.