Condi: We were supposed to do something about bin Laden BEFORE 9/11?!

[StefanX]

Condi: We were supposed to do something about bin Laden BEFORE 9/11?!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/29/condi-we-were-supposed-to-do-something-about-bin-laden-before-911/

With George Tenet's new book coming out tomorrow, Condoleezza Rice was in full damage-control mode today, appearing on three Sunday talk shows to explain away the former DCI's claim that Rice didn't take seriously his urgent warnings about the al-Qaeda threat in the months before 9/11. When confronted with a clip from tonight's "60 Minutes" where Tenet claims he suggested taking offensive action against UBL in Afghanistan before the attacks, Condi seems surprised by the notion that the Bush administration should have done something about terrorism before 9/11.

TRANSCRIPT:

60 MINUTES: So, what {Tenet} is saying is that you just sort of brushed him off. ... 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.

===

In related news...

Condi likes to talk (not under oath) on TV -- but she's currently defying a subpoena to testify (under oath) before Congress.

If Gonzales refuses to have the cops arrest her, people are worried it could get to be a real mess a/k/a a Constitutional Crisis.

However, things aren't that complicated. The Senate itself can send its Sargent at Arms to arrest her and compel her to testify -- which would be a lot faster than impeaching Gonzales for failure to uphold the law.

Arrest Condi (the Senate has the power -- says so right here on senate.gov)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x764094

[elocs]

1. It certainly didn't stop the Neocons from doing something in Iraq before it happened. n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. plenty 'o time to appear on TeeVee, but congress? no way!

I watched (with difficulty) her ABC poorformance.
she obviously prepared long and hard, probably as long as Abu Gonzo. But her pat testimony was just a little too pat, and a little too practiced, and a little too light on fact, and too strong on her ever more irritating plaintive, "if only we had known their flight numbers, seat assignments and fly dates" whine.

stupid little ****

[Fresh_Start]

3. Condi, keep saying that. Cause it totally exonerates Clinton

and leaves the entire failure at Bush's feet

[Poiuyt]

4. Does anyone remember what Condi was focused on on 9/11?

She was supposed to give a speech that day about bringing back the Star Wars missile defense system. Bush and Condi were still fighting the Cold War

[merh]

14. She still is caught up in the cold war against the soviets

Condi Forgets the Year, Calls Out "Soviets"

We're a long time since the days when President Bush gazed into Vladimir's Putin eyes and saw true love, or whatever it was. Now, things aren't going so well. What was supposed to be a conciliatory trip by U.S. officials to discuss missile defense didn't go as planned. Not only was President Vladimir Putin uninterested in U.S. offers to share missile defense technology, but as Noah wrote yesterday, Russia plans to kill the treaty on conventional forces in Europe.

The moribund treaty is of little importance these days -- and the move was largely meant to irk the U.S., which it did. Onetime Sovietologist Condi Rice, perhaps in a flashback to 1985, had this to say: “The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it."

Note to Condi: it's 2007 and there's no Soviet Union.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/missile_defense.html

DU thread here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x782048

And her ignorance explains why the WH rejected the Taliban's offer to turn OBL over to us 7 months before 9/11/01. See the link to the youtube file of the WH Press briefing of 2/27/01 in my sig line.

[Roland99]

22. Didn't she have a speech planned for 9/11 that was about missile defense?

[merh]

23. I think she did

n/t

[Roland99]

24. Why, YES SHE DID!!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism
Rice Speech Cited Missile Defense

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40697-2004Mar31?language=printer

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

...

The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles.

"We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. " why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"

[merh]

25. My best condi impression

"Osama, who is Osama?" <<<<< :grr: :mad:

[Roland99]

31. Do you use props (volcano of lies)?

:)

[Cabcere]

35. Osama...

is that a brand of shoes? :hide: :yoiks:

(I know, I know.) :spank:

[merh]

36. Now that IS FUNNY!

:rofl: :rofl:

[petgoat]

37. "Missile Defense" was in fact a code phrase for the weaponization of space.

The US Space Command wants to build death rays in the sky that can kill
anybody anywhere any time. Rummy, Eberhardt, and Myers--the three DoD
guys who sat on their hands and let 9/11 happen, were among the strongest
advocates for increased budgets for the Space Command.

The motto of the Space Command is "In Your Face from Outer Space,"
and their goal is "full spectrum domination," that is, the control of
the land, the sea, the air, and space.

Dr. David Ray Griffin's book "The New Pearl Harbor" has a chapter on
this.

[IronScorpio5]

5. Of course Condi will blame Clintons Penis or...

anything else that doesnt involve her.

yo condi.....the teflon is wearing thin.

[MidwestTransplant]

6. So does that mean the Wingnuts can't blame Clinton anymore?

[Strelnikov_]

13. That was my first thought. Then I remembered we are talking about wingnuts

Unfazed by reality.

[Flatulo]

7. So if we had killed him... then what?

While it's obvious to me that Bush as been a notably horrible president, it is not so obvious that killing bin Laden would have prevented 9/11.

After all, the operational planning was carried out by others (KSM), and the hijackers had been here for many months. Other than shutting down our airspace for ... however long, what exactly could have been done to prevent the actual attacks?

The nature of all military type organizations is to promote from within. Killing bin Laden would have been a demoralizng but non-lethal blow to al Quaeda.

[magellan]

15. Um, the point is not that we should have pre-emptively hit Afghanistan

A WARNING to the airlines and increased security would have been appropriate. Basically, the administration could have showed a little interest in the information and disseminated it instead of giving it the brush off and then acting all surprised on 9/11, don't you think?

[Flatulo]

16. Tenet seems to be saying that all the alarm bells were going off...

re Afghanistan and that pre-emptive military action would have been justified to destroy the training camps there.

It seems to me that by July 2001 the plan was so far along that there was no practical way to stop it.

I have yet to hear a reasonable course of action that could have prevented the strikes. I am really not being a wise-ass here. If anyone knows how this could have been accomplished without violating US law, I would like to hear it.

I am certainly not defending this administration. I think that they are one of the most incompetent in recent memory. W populated his ranks with cold warriors. Condi was a student of Soviet culture. They had no one, except Clarke (who was marginalized) who was paying any attention to al-Quaeda.

[magellan]

18. I apologize then for reading wise-assiness into what you wrote

I agree, 9/11 probably could not have been prevented, even based on what we know the administration knew beforehand. And an attack on Afghanistan training camps would have changed nothing. But the scale of the attack very likely could have been reduced if they'd simply put the proper agencies on alert. They certainly knew enough to warn their own off flying commercial during that time period.

Tenet is lying through his teeth to make himself look the victim and sell books, but the only victim here continues to be The Truth.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Flatulo]

21. Oh, I agree completely - Tenet is pure scum...

...trying to cover his sorry ass, like everyone else. I hope his book sputters. I know I for one would never buy it.

Thanks for the welcome.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi Flatulo!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Richard Steele]

8. Everyone else was. What made YOU so goddamn indifferent?

Seems that just about everyone else knew that al-Quaida
was a serious group that had had a few successes, and was
planning an operation that would make everything before it
pale in comparison.

Our agencies were warning you, holding SPECIFIC meetings to
warn you, using phrases like "10 on a scale of 1-10", and
"every light on the board is blinking red"....

The French Intelligence Service had agents so far up Osama's
organization that they knew his daily lunch menu, and they
tried to warn you about 9/11.....

And you sat by and did NOTHING, Condi. Not a perfectly-manicured
finger did you raise to prevent one of the most PREVENTABLE
disasters in US history. In fact, it seems that several opportunities
to prevent 9/11 were inexplicably HINDERED by the B*sh Administration
without justification or explanation.

INQUIRING minds want to know WHY.

[valerief]

9. Waterboard! Waterboard! Hey, it's not torture. It's encouragement. nt

[WinkyDink]

10. Don't we have operatives who can find and detain an OBL? Why did she use the word "strike"?

[Flatulo]

11. The problem with getting OBL is now geopolitical, not military...

When he escaped at Tora Bora, we really blew any chance to easily take him.

Musharraf is an ally of convenience and is on very thin ice in his own country. If he let US forces onto Pakistani soil in a very public way, his tenuous government would collapse, and we'd be faced with yet another hard-line hostile Islamic regime.

I still don't think that killing OBL would have stopped the 9/11 attacks. I'm willing to listen to any theories that demonstrate critical thinking over sheer hatred of Bush. I'm afraid I don't know what could have stopped the attacks without massive violations of civil liberties and restrictions against gathering intelligence on US soil.

I don't blame Clinton, nor do I blame Bush. I blame religeous fundamentalist loonies. Notwithstanding conspiracy theories that bin Laden is a useful bogeyman and that there is no radical Islamist threat, I think the current administration would love to bag him.

[bdamomma]

12. I hope Waxman tells Condi she can take that letter and shove

it, for not cooperating to meet with his committee. She is just a loyal dog for bushie, or as she calls him her "husband".

[Madspirit]

17. K&R...n/t

[nebenaube]

19. frog march the b*h n.t

[Kool Kitty]

20. Oh, for God's sake Condi-

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU IMBECILES DID IN IRAQ!!!!!!! Do they ever, ever think before they open their mouths?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

26. Condi's boss joked about Clinton's camel butt hitting missiles

and likened striking Osama to "swatting at flys".
So Condi had the Bush anti-terrorism strategy pretty much down 100%.

[youthere]

27. And yet they still argue that CLINTON was supposed to have stopped him.

Oh you silly, silly repukes.

[tavalon]

29. They seem to think they can have it both ways.

Silly Wabbits!

[barbtries]

28. when the WH changed hands

the incoming crew was briefed at length re al qaeda and with suggestions for dealing with the threat. they were such hot shit and so contemptuous toward the previous administraton they ignored the information provided.

then they claimed surprise. and they get away with these lies to this day. fuckin incrediblel.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. They obviously did something.

Some of their own officials stopped taking commercial flights.

[Supersedeas]

33. some secrets Condi intends to take to the grave--the truth main be too painful

[CGowen]

34. You could have destroyed his kidney dialysis machine

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a031700binladenweak#a031700binladenweak

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a070201renal#a070201renal

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a091001rawalpindi#a091001rawalpindi