Rice: ‘I Don’t Know What We Were Supposed To Preemptively Strike In Afghanistan’ In July 2001

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/29/rice-afghanistan-attack/

Rice: ‘I Don’t Know What We Were Supposed To Preemptively Strike In Afghanistan’ In July 2001

This evening, 60 Minutes will air its discussion with former CIA Director George Tenet. In one exchange, Tenet elaborates on a briefing that he and former his former aide Cofer Black delivered to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in July 2001 warning of an “urgent threat” from al Qaeda. In the 60 Minutes interview, Tenet says this is the message he delivered to Rice two months prior to 9/11:

We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, a perplexed and stunned Rice said, “The idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact.” Rice then said, “I don’t know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan. Perhaps somebody can ask that.” Watch it at link~

Note to Rice: The intelligence community was trying to tell you to take the action President Clinton took — that is, make an effort to kill this guy:



Transcript:

SCOTT PELLEY, CBS NEWS (voice-over): By the summer of 2001, Tenet was alarmed by repeated, specific intelligence warning that an attack was coming. He asked for an immediate meeting to brief then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

GEORGE TENET, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Essentially the briefing says there are going to be multiple, spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent. Mass casualties are likely.

PELLEY (on camera): You are telling Condoleezza Rice in that meeting, in the White House, in July, that we should take offensive action in Afghanistan now.

TENET: We need…

PELLEY: Before 9/11?

TENET: We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive.

PELLEY (voice-over): In his book, Tenet says that even though he told Rice an attack on Americans was imminent, she took his request to launch preemptive action in Afghanistan and delegated it to third tier officials.

SCHIEFFER: So, what he is saying is that you just sort of brushed him off.

RICE: Well, it’s very interesting, because that’s not what George told the 9/11 Commission at the time. He said that he felt that we had gotten it. And, in fact, the very next day or the day after, Steve Hadley, hardly a third tier official, sat with the intelligence agencies to try and determine what more we could do.

We were concerned for instance, could we go after Abu Zubaydah, who might have some information. But the idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact, and I will have to…

SCHIEFFER: Well, why would he say something like that?

RICE: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan. Perhaps somebody can ask that.

[indie_voter]

1. Psst: Condi. Remember?

bin Laden determined to strike in America? He was in Afghanistan. You were supposed to preemptively strike HIM.

Does that help?

[rodeodance]

3. errr-----who??

[goclark]

2. K and R How can she straight out LIE ike that ~~nt

[snappyturtle]

4. Lying is habit forming. nt

[rodeodance]

5. Practice makes perfect.

[Fridays Child]

8. Love. nt

[jimshoes]

11. Not under oath... she doesn't need to

fall back on the "I do not recall recalling that memory I have no memory of" defense ....yet.

[MichiganVote]

6. Interesting choice of sentence structure......said the fence to the straddle

[journalist3072]

7. Let's ask Condi Rice if she remembers January 25, 2001

On January 25, 2001, just days after you assumed office as Natl Security Adviser, Richard Clarke sent you a memo "urgently" asking for a principles-level meeting to discuss the threat from Al Qaeda. To that memo, he also attached 2 strategy papers from the Clinton Administration: the 1998 strategy (known as the Delenda Plan) plus the year-end 2000 strategy. Richard Clarke was rebuffed in his request for an urgent principles-level meeting. Finally, a meeting took place just DAYS before 9/11.

You had people like Richard Clarke shouting from the rooftop about the threat posed by Al Qaea, Mrs. Rice.

Yet, you wonder what you were supposed to pre-emptively strike in Afghanistan?

[dweller]

9. on today's FTN, she was also asked

about the $$ not gettting to Katrina victims, and in her answer, Scheiffer responded to something she said 'that's is just false' ... it stunned her for a moment.

I hope someone else heard it, i was only half listening and would be interested in what it was she said that he called her on ...
(no tivo, etc)


dp

[Grandrose]

10. Condi in over her head!

:dunce: They would not continue anything left by the Clinton administration.

[Botany]

12. Sandy Berger in Jan. of 2001 sat in her office and tried to tell her about "this"

He talked of al Qaeda, bin Laden, the Taliban, the U.S.S. Cole, and other
hard and fast links to terror. Rice was reportedly very dismissive of him
and his knowledge.

[journalist3072]

19. Not only that, but there was Richard Clarke's January 25, 2001 memo to her

I keep going back to the memo that Richard Clarke sent Condi Rice on January 25, 2001. I don't think she's ever been called to account for her lack of an adequate response to that memo.

On January 25, 2001, just days after the new Administration took office, Richard Clarke sent a memo to Condi Rice "urgently" asking for a principle's-level meeting to discuss the threat from al Qaeada. And to that memo, he attached 2 strategy plans that the Clinton Administration had developed, re: al Qaeda. He attached the 1998 Delenda Plan, and the year-end 2000 strategy.

Also, Richard Clarke was rebuffed in his request for an urgent principle's-level meeting. Finally, a meeting took place in September 2001 just days before the 9/11 attacks.

[rosesaylavee]

13. Ask her what shoes

she was wearing that summer. Bet she'll remember that. Why does she still work there? O, right. Incompetence and fierce unquestioning loyalty to *co rewarded with power and money. What was I thinking...

[bleever]

14. Turns out the "smoking gun" was a giant hole in New York

where 3000 people died.

[Straight Shooter]

15. "I don't know what we were supposed to ... strike. Perhaps somebody can ask that."

Condi, you unmitigated idiot. It was your responsibility to ask if you didn't know. How about looking at the intelligence reflecting terror cells in Afghanistan. Start there.

Criminal negligence runs rampant in the bush administration, yet so many people remain duped by a sociopath who bellowed empty rhetoric into a bullhorn on the smoking ruins of ground zero.

[StefanX]

16. If you don't know this kind of basic stuff, Condi...

...maybe you're not qualified to be Secretary of State.

F*cking idiot.

[CJCRANE]

17. Didn't Clinton try to take out bin Laden

back when the Republicans were crying "wag the dog"?

[journalist3072]

18. Yes, and this is what his Republican Secy of Defense Bill Cohen said

Note to the DU Mods: I know I'm breaking the 4 paragraph rule here, but I consider this an important data dump, so please indulge me.

Cohen criticizes 'wag the dog' characterization
Former defense secretary testifies before 9/11 panel
Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Posted: 10:01 PM EST (0301 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Defense Secretary William Cohen on Tuesday defended President Clinton's use of the military to protect national security interests, returning to a sharp GOP-led criticism of Clinton at a time when he was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

At that time, some GOP lawmakers used the phrase "wag the dog" to describe Clinton's military actions, saying he was using conflicts abroad to deflect attention from the domestic scandal. A movie of the same name came out in 1997, and the plot involves a presidential administration that launches a war as a political ploy.

Testifying before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Cohen said the U.S. military was prepared to kill or capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden whenever there was "actionable intelligence."

But he also said trying to capture bin Laden and his associates was like "mercury on a mirror."

Clinton came under intense criticism in 1998 by the GOP after he launched an attack on suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. Intelligence indicated bin Laden and his top associates were meeting at a training camp when U.S. missiles were fired at it, just weeks after al Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

The attack was launched on the same day Lewinsky, a former White House intern, wrapped up her testimony before a grand jury investigating whether Clinton lied under oath about their relationship or encouraged anyone else to do so.

"During that time when the attack was launched in Afghanistan and Sudan, there was a movie out called 'Wag the Dog,' " Cohen testified Tuesday. In the movie, an administration launched a fake war as a political ploy. "There were critics of the Clinton administration that attacked the president, saying this was an effort on his part to divert attention from his personal difficulties.

"I would like to say for the record under no circumstances did President Clinton ever call upon the military and use that military in order to serve a political purpose."

Cohen served as a Republican U.S. senator from Maine before Clinton appointed him to the defense post.

Cohen said the the military objective on August 20, 1998, was "to kill as many people in those camps as we could" and to "take out" a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was believed to have been used by terrorists.

"We went after as many as we could and as high as we could. We didn't know whether would be there for sure. We hoped he would be there. He slipped away apparently."

A few months later, the accusations of Clinton's use of the military arose anew when the United States and Britain launched Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombing campaign against Iraq. That operation came as House debated Clinton's impeachment.

Cohen testified he was called to the House on the day the operation began to defend Clinton against a "boiling" rage.

"I put my entire public career on the line to say that the president always acted specifically upon the recommendation of those of us who held the positions of responsibility to take military action," he said. "And at no time did he ever try to use it or manipulate it to serve his personal ends."

He added: "I think it's important for that to be clear because that 'wag the dog' cynicism that was so virulent , I'm afraid is coming back again."

In the wake of the twin embassy bombings, Cohen said Clinton gave the military the authority to kill bin Laden if the opportunity arose.

"Whenever there was 'actionable intelligence,' we were prepared to take action to destroy bin Laden or the targets," he said.

But he said he didn't think a large military action was realistic -- even after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole -- because Congress most likely wouldn't have supported it and neither would Pakistan, Tajikstan and other key nations in the region.

Commissioner Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, blasted Cohen's responses.

"We had a round in our chamber and we didn't use it. That's how I see it," he said. "I don't buy it."

Cohen again reiterated he thought an invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2000 was "unrealistic."

"We can be faulted for that," Cohen said. "I just don't think it was feasible."

Kerrey then responded: "I'll just say for the record, better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all."

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/23/wag.dog/