Reply #11: I am in full agreement, salin [View All]

[w4rma]

'Al-Qaida' didn't rush to Bush's lips
Marie Cocco
March 30, 2004
…
Because Rice isn't president of the United States. George W. Bush is. And so we must read his lips.

Here is what those lips said publicly about al-Qaida between Jan. 1, 2001, just before Bush was sworn in as president, and Sept. 10, 2001: Nothing.

There were zero references to al-Qaida during these months. That's according to Federal News Service, which transcribes every presidential utterance - speeches, news conferences, impromptu musings at photo ops, off-the-cuff remarks made striding toward a helicopter, official comments with foreign dignitaries. The search was conducted including the phrase "al Q" - to capture every possible spelling or translation for al-Qaida. Still nothing.

Of course, the president did mention terrorism, terrorists and counterterrorism 24 times before 9/11. But eight of these comments referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another eight involved a range of terrorist threats, including ethnic terrorism in Macedonia and Basque separatists in Spain.

In the remaining eight references to terrorism, the new president offered his idea for how to combat it: the Reagan-era missile-defense system formerly known as Star Wars.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpcoc303729094mar30,0,6418173,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=488938

How Clarke 'Outsourced' Terror Intel
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 4:08 p.m. ET March 31, 2004

March 31 - As White House counterterror czar, Richard Clarke was so frustrated by the FBI’s inability to identify Islamic radicals within the United States that he turned for help to a freelance terrorism researcher whose work was deeply resented by top bureau officials.

Clarke’s secret work with private researcher Steven Emerson is among a number of revealing disclosures in the ex-White House aide’s new book, “Against All Enemies,” that has been all but obscured by the furor over the author’s politically charged allegations against President George W. Bush.

As recounted by Clarke in his book, and confirmed by documents provided to NEWSWEEK, Emerson and his former associate Rita Katz regularly provided the White House with a stream of information about possible Al Qaeda activity inside the United States that appears to have been largely unknown to the FBI prior to the September 11 terror attacks.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4639986/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1325096