Meeting Rice denies DID take place

[irishgrl]

State Dept. confirms Rice-Tenet meeting

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did receive a CIA briefing about terror threats just about two months before the Sept. 11 attacks, but the information was not new, her chief spokesman said.

In doing so, Sean McCormack confirmed a meeting — on July 10, 2001 — that his boss had said repeatedly she could not specifically recall. She had said earlier that there were virtually daily meetings at the time.

A new book by reporter Bob Woodward of Watergate fame describes the White House meeting as an emergency wakeup call that Rice had brushed off. Rice was President Bush's national security adviser at the time and was promoted to the top diplomatic job last year.

Although spokesmen for the State Department and the National Security Council indicated Sunday that such a meeting had taken place, Rice was still saying Monday that she was not sure about it. She said she would have remembered the sort of forceful warning the book claims was conveyed there. (apparently not)

"We can confirm that a meeting took place on or around July 10, 2001," McCormack said late Monday.

"The information presented in this meeting was not new, rather it was a good summary from the threat reporting from the previous several weeks," he added.

Woodward's book "State of Denial" recounts the meeting among then-CIA Director George Tenet, Rice and the CIA's top counterterror officer. The book said the session stood out in the minds of the CIA officials as the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his network.

McCormack said that after the meting, Rice had asked that the same material be given to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Materials from this meeting were made available to the independent Sept. 11 Commission, and Tenet was asked about the session when interviewed by the commission, McCormack said.

The meeting is not part of the commission report. WHY NOT???

Meanwhile, Ashcroft said Monday that he should have been notified of any such report dealing with a pending attack on the United States. "It just occurred to me how disappointing it was that they didn't come to me with this type of information," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"The FBI is responsible for domestic terrorism," Ashcroft said. He said both Tenet and Black should have been aware that he had pressed for a more aggressive policy in going after bin Laden and his followers in the United States and should have briefed him as well. Rice knew of this advocacy, he suggested.

According to the Sept. 11 Commission, Ashcroft was briefed on July 5, 2001, "warning that a significant terrorist attack was imminent." The report noted that the briefing addressed only threats outside the United States.

Woodward wrote that the meeting among Tenet, Rice and Black stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his network.

Tenet asked for the meeting after receiving a disturbing briefing from Black, according to the book.

A former intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Sept. 11 Commission and an earlier joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were both informed of Tenet's and Black's meeting with Rice, when Tenet warned Rice that a significant attack was coming.

In a closed, classified session at CIA headquarters, Tenet told Sept. 11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, the commission's executive director Phil Zelikow and other commission staff about Rice's meeting with Tenet and Black, the official said.

The former intelligence official said the commission kept a transcript of that Jan. 28, 2004, session. A second official familiar with the document, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed its existence.

[SuzeQuze]

Another interesting article on this.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...387256,00.html

Memo contradicts Rice on 9/11 claim from Woodward
From Tom Baldwin in Washington

Condoleezza Rice was today at the heart of the US Administration’s escalating battle with a former CIA head and Washington’s most revered journalist over who should shoulder the blame for failing to anticipate the 9/11 attacks.

The State Department has admitted that a review of records has shown that George Tenet, the then CIA director, did brief Dr Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from al-Qaeda.

This appears to undermine comments made by Dr Rice to reporters this week when she claimed not to remember any such meeting. She added that it was “incomprehensible” that she ignored terrorist threats two months before the September 11 attacks.

Dr Rice’s aides have fought back, saying that records show she told Mr Tenet to take his concerns to, among others, John Ashcroft, the then Attorney-General.

Mr Ashcroft said: “Frankly, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing. I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by and tell me.”

The meeting was first disclosed by Bob Woodward in his book, State of Denial, who said Dr Rice - who was then President Bush’s national security adviser - had given Mr Tenet the “brush off”.

Woodward’s account appears to have forced the Administration on to the back foot over the issue of national security which Mr Bush had previously hoped would be the Republicans’ trump card in November’s Congressional mid-term elections.

But Woodward, the investigative journalist who helped break the Watergate scandal, has had to defend himself against concerted White House criticism of his reporting methods.

Dan Bartlett, the president’s adviser, has implied that the journalist had an agenda, saying it was clear he “approached this book different” than he had with two earlier volumes which were attacked by liberals for being too supportive of the Administration.

For instance, in his book, Bush at War, Woodward describes Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, as “handsome, intense, well-educated with an intellectual bent”. In State of Denial, Mr Rumsfeld is described as an “arrogant control freak whose micromanaging is almost comic”.

Woodward told CNN’s Larry King programme that both views were accurate at different times.

He compared writing the three books to reporting three baseball games involving the same team but which each had a different result. “This is a book about the people who made the decisions. These people aren’t Democrats - these are insiders,” he said.

State of Denial suggests Mr Tenet developed a particular dislike for Ms Rice over time, and that the former CIA director was furious when she publicly blamed the agency for allowing President Bush to make false claims about Iraq’s WMD.

He resigned from the CIA in 2004 and was honoured with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during a White House ceremony, even though he has since been heavily criticised for providing faulty intelligence on Iraq’s WMD.

He is now completing work on his memoirs in which he is expected to claim the CIA has been made the scapegoat for the war. In his book The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind claims Mr Tenet saying he wished he “could give that damn medal back”.

Indeed, Woodward’s book is only the latest in a string of new literature documenting the Bush Administration’s alleged use of bad intelligence and flawed planning, as well as an apparent disregard for dissenting opinions.

Others include:
Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell by Karen DeYoung, which details the former Secretary of State’s doubts about the 2003 Iraq invasion, and describes the infighting between himself, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in developing a strategy for the war on terror.

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind which claims that in August 2001, Mr Bush ignored CIA warnings of an impending al-Qaeda attack, telling an intelligence analyst: “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”

Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a first-hand account on Americans in Iraq which shows how inept bureaucrats, appointed for their Republican loyalty rather than administrative ability, grotesquely mismanaged post-invasion rebuilding.

Blind Into Baghdad: America’s War in Iraq by James Fallows, a collection of prescient essays which unpick many of the arguments for war, the faulty intelligence used to justify the invasion and the Administration’s failure to anticipate the difficulties of occupation.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E Ricks, which castigates Mr Rumsfeld for ignoring expert advice by invading Iraq with a “lean” force or coherent plan for rebuilding the country afterwards, arguing that dissolving the Iraqi army, as well as overly-aggressive tactics by the US military, enflamed the insurgency.

Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, which quotes David Kay, chief weapons inspector, describing Mr Bush on being told that no WMDs had been found in Iraq: “I’m not sure I’ve spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive.”

Tenet, the head of the CIA at that time, is just about finished with his memoirs. Could be very interesting.

[BlackWidow]

I hate Condi Rice!
she is a global disgrace and an Uncle Tom puppet!

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by BlackWidow

I hate Condi Rice!
she is a global disgrace and an Uncle Tom puppet!

yes how she can live with herself is beyond me....

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

yes how she can live with herself is beyond me....

I know! It is SHOCKING!!!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by BlackWidow

I hate Condi Rice!
she is a global disgrace and an Uncle Tom puppet!

I think the use of Uncle Tom is inappropriate. There is no evidence the Bush Administration, though loathesome, is in any way a horribly or comparatively racist regime I mean I hate their policies, think they are inept, etc. - but that hardly means Sec. Rice is working with people who openly or in effect hate black people

Perhaps you are using Uncle Tom because you think any black person who is not a D is a de facto Uncle Tom. I just do not see it that way.

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I think the use of Uncle Tom is inappropriate. There is no evidence the Bush Administration, though loathesome, is in any way a horribly or comparatively racist regime I mean I hate their policies, think they are inept, etc. - but that hardly means Sec. Rice is working with people who openly or in effect hate black people

Perhaps you are using Uncle Tom because you think any black person who is not a D is a de facto Uncle Tom. I just do not see it that way.

She is incapable of speaking for herself or doing the right thing or taking responsibility for her own actions!

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I think the use of Uncle Tom is inappropriate. There is no evidence the Bush Administration, though loathesome, is in any way a horribly or comparatively racist regime I mean I hate their policies, think they are inept, etc. - but that hardly means Sec. Rice is working with people who openly or in effect hate black people

Perhaps you are using Uncle Tom because you think any black person who is not a D is a de facto Uncle Tom. I just do not see it that way.

Maybe you can think of a better term to describe someone who is not only working against the best interests of this country but has apparently forgotten her own roots and seems to be doing her best to blend into the Good Old Boys enclave

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

Maybe you can think of a better term to describe someone who is not only working against the best interests of this country but has apparently forgotten her own roots and seems to be doing her best to blend into the Good Old Boys enclave

^5..THANK YOU!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

Maybe you can think of a better term to describe someone who is not only working against the best interests of this country but has apparently forgotten her own roots and seems to be doing her best to blend into the Good Old Boys enclave

Merriam Webster defines "Uncle Tom" as --

Main Entry: 1Uncle Tom
Pronunciation: -'täm
Function: noun

Etymology: Uncle Tom, pious and faithful black slave in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

1 : a black who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals)

2 : a member of a low-status group who is overly subservient to or cooperative with authority
_________________________________________________________

Sec. Rice fulfills none of those criteria. So, the use of that term, though visually interesting, is incorrect.

I suggest a more appropriate adjective would be a dangerously incorrect woman with a deliberately incorrect view of how to handle the global threat of terrorism.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by BlackWidow

^5..THANK YOU!

You're welcome

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Merriam Webster defines "Uncle Tom" as --

Main Entry: 1Uncle Tom
Pronunciation: -'täm
Function: noun

Etymology: Uncle Tom, pious and faithful black slave in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

1 : a black who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals)

2 : a member of a low-status group who is overly subservient to or cooperative with authority
_________________________________________________________

Sec. Rice fulfills none of those criteria. So, the use of that term, though visually interesting, is incorrect.

I suggest a more appropriate adjective would be a dangerously incorrect woman with a deliberately incorrect view of how to handle the global threat of terrorism.

Strand...why do you feel compelled to stir this pot?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by BlackWidow

Strand...why do you feel compelled to stir this pot?

Because it urks me when people use that term incorrectly. Sec. Rice is in no way seeking approval from white people. Rather, she is far more sinister and dangerous in that she does what she does because she truly believes she is doing the right thing

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Merriam Webster defines "Uncle Tom" as --

Main Entry: 1Uncle Tom
Pronunciation: -'täm
Function: noun

Etymology: Uncle Tom, pious and faithful black slave in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

1 : a black who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals)

2 : a member of a low-status group who is overly subservient to or cooperative with authority
_________________________________________________________

Sec. Rice fulfills none of those criteria. So, the use of that term, though visually interesting, is incorrect.

I suggest a more appropriate adjective would be a dangerously incorrect woman with a deliberately incorrect view of how to handle the global threat of terrorism.

I disagree, I think Rice is a "black" sock puppet for this Administration, and I think she has incontrovertably demonstrated her willingness to cooperate (overly subservient?? you BETCHA!!!) with this warmongering group to the degree that she will LIE to the media, to the American people without flinching. She is a sociopath. She has sold out her people (who I would bet money are disproportionately represented in the fighting forces) and sold out this country.

this: "uncritical acceptance of white values and goals" is the new definition of Condi Rice. as of now.

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Because it urks me when people use that term incorrectly. Sec. Rice is in no way seeking approval from white people. Rather, she is far more sinister and dangerous in that she does what she does because she truly believes she is doing the right thing

I hate everything she stands for..I dont care what color her skin is. It is not a race issue! I think she is a MORAL SELLOUT!