Rice To Testify As Bush's Numbers Go Up

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Rspaight
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Rice To Testify As Bush's Numbers Go Up

Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 30, 2004 1:41 pm

Looks like Rice might testify publicly under oath after all, as long as Congress promises this isn't a "precedent." Mmm-hmmm.

In other news: Unsurprisingly, the wave of negative Bush ads has resulted in a boost for his poll numbers and an increase in Kerry's negatives. Less predictably, his approval rating has risen. Grim news.

Interestingly, Nader appears to take equal bites out of the Bush and Kerry numbers.

Finally, bringing us fill circle, Rice has a 50 percent approval rating, with 25 percent not sure. That's mind-boggling. We'll see how the sworn testimony goes.

Poll: Bush's position against Kerry strengthens
Public divided on Clarke charges, survey finds

Monday, March 29, 2004 Posted: 11:08 PM EST (0408 GMT)

(CNN) -- Despite a week of negative headlines about how his administration handled the threat of terrorism before the attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush's political position against presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry has strengthened, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

The poll results suggest that the Bush campaign's attempts to paint Kerry as a tax-raising liberal who flip-flops on the issues has affected the race more than charges by former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke that Bush and his national security team didn't pay enough attention to al Qaeda in the months leading up to 9/11.

Among likely voters surveyed, 51 percent said they would choose Bush for president, while 47 percent said they would vote for Kerry, within the margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Three weeks ago, as Kerry was cinching the Democratic nomination with a string of primary victories, he led the president by 8 points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup among likely voters, 52 percent to 44 percent.

Part of the reason for the shift is that a more equal number of Democrats and Republicans now say they are likely to vote this year. In earlier polls taken in the heat of the primary season, Democrats had expressed more enthusiasm about voting than Republicans, which buoyed Kerry's numbers among likely voters.

In a three-way race with independent Ralph Nader, Bush was the choice of 49 percent, Kerry was picked by 45 percent and Nader by 4 percent.

Bush job approval rises

In another bit of good news for the White House, Bush's job approval rating stood at 53 percent in the latest poll, the highest number recorded on that question since January. Three weeks ago, the president's job approval was at 49 percent, dipping below the 50 percent threshold considered a sign of danger for an incumbent running for re-election.

The poll found that the Bush campaign's media blitz against Kerry -- which began earlier this month after he became the presumptive nominee -- has begun having an effect on how Americans perceive the four-term senator from Massachusetts.

In the latest survey, 41 percent of respondents said they thought Kerry was too liberal, compared to just 29 percent who thought so in February. Asked if they thought their own taxes would go up if Kerry wins, 58 percent said yes, while only 29 percent said no. And 57 percent said they believe Kerry has changed his mind on issues for political reasons.

Fifty-three percent of poll respondents said they had an overall favorable opinion of Kerry, down from 60 percent in February. The number who had an unfavorable opinion of Kerry was 36 percent, up 10 points since February.

Bush, at 57 percent, now has slightly higher favorability numbers than Kerry, and his favorability rating has remained virtually unchanged since February. However, the president's unfavorability rating is higher, at 41 percent.

The Bush campaign has launched a series of ads questioning Kerry's votes on national security issues and charging that he would have to raise taxes by $900 billion to pay for the new programs he has proposed.

Kerry has hotly denied that charge, saying that while he would reverse Bush's tax cuts for higher-income Americans, he has never proposed a tax hike of that magnitude and would not raise taxes on the middle class.

The poll was taken Friday, Saturday and Sunday, after Clarke's explosive testimony in front of the 9/11 investigative commission and a vigorous White House counterattack challenging his credibility.

A slightly larger number of those polled said they were more likely to believe the Bush administration than to believe Clarke, 49 percent to 46 percent, within the margin of error. But the poll found a partisan chasm when it comes to how people view Clarke's charges.

Among Kerry voters, 80 percent said they were more likely to believe Clarke, while just 10 percent said they were more likely to believe the Bush administration. But among Bush voters, 81 percent said they were more likely to believe the administration and just 12 percent were more likely to believe Clarke.

Still, the poll found that the charges surrounding what the president and his team did or didn't do before 9/11 have raised doubts about their credibility.

A majority of those polled, 54 percent, said they don't believe the administration did all that could be expected before 9/11, and 53 percent said they believe it is covering up something about how intelligence information was handled before the attacks. An equal number said they believed Bush has misled the public for political reasons.

However, two-third of respondents said they do not believe the Bush administration could have prevented the attacks, and 62 percent said they don't think the Clinton administration did all that could be expected to prevent them.

War on terror

On the question of whether they approve of how Bush is handling the war on terrorism, 58 percent said yes -- down from 65 percent in December but still a majority.

Among Clarke's charges was that Bush and other administration officials were distracted from the pursuit of al Qaeda by their campaign against Iraq. Asked whether they thought that was the case, 49 percent of those polled said no, while 46 percent said yes, within the margin of error.

Poll respondents were also equally divided on whether the war in Iraq was part of the war on terrorism, but 56 percent said they still think the situation there was worth going to war.

Clarke has been particularly critical of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, his former boss and one of Bush's closest confidants. He has charged that she didn't "do her job" before 9/11; she has called his charges "scurrilous."

Asked about Rice, 50 percent of those polled said they have a favorable opinion of her, compared to 25 percent with an unfavorable opinion and 25 percent who were unsure.
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Postby Ron » Tue Mar 30, 2004 4:01 pm

So she's going to testify under oath? This just in from the Village Voice:

To cite but one recent example [of a civil servant standing up ala Clarke]: Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator with a top secret clearance, said in an interview last week with Salon that the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before September 11. Edmonds dismissed Condoleezza Rice's assertion in a Washington Post op-ed piece that the White House had no specific information on a domestic threat or one involving planes as "an outrageous lie. And documents can prove it's a lie." Edmonds, a Turkish American, has been a citizen for 10 years and speaks Farsi, Turkish, and Arabic. The FBI assigned her to translate documents seized by agents in its post-9-11 probe.

"President Bush said they had no specific information about Sept. 11, and that's accurate," says Edmonds. "But there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001. They should've alerted the people to the threat we were facing."
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:06 pm

So she's going to testify under oath?


Take a look at this from the actual letter sent to the 9/11 Commission re: letting Condi testify:

Second, the Commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice. The National Security Advisor is uniquely situated to provide the Commission with information necessary to fulfill its statutory mandate. Indeed, it is for this reason that Dr. Rice privately met with the Commission for more than four hours on February 7, fully answered every question posed to her, and offered additional private meetings as necessary. Despite the fact that the Commission will therefore have access to all information of which Dr. Rice is aware, the Commission has nevertheless urged that public confidence in the work of the Commission would be enhanced by Dr. Rice appearing publicly before the Commission. Other White House officials with information relevant to the Commission's inquiry do not come within the scope of the Commission's rationale for seeking public testimony from Dr. Rice. These officials will continue to provide the Commission with information through private meetings, briefings, and documents, consistent with our previous practice.


As you point out, Condi's got some, um, discrepancies in her previous statements that suggest testifying under oath might be risky. The above condition tells me one of two things is going to happen:

1) Condi is going to lie her ass off and Bush is betting the commission won't press the issue and possibly trigger a Constitutional crisis by attempting to force more testimony and/or demand more documents. (In case you hadn't noticed, the GOP likes to bluff big.) They whole thing will literally become "he said/she said", and since polls show more people believe Bush than Clarke anyway, it will go away.

2) Condi is going pull a "buck stops here" maneuver a la Poindexter in Iran-Contra and take one for the team (and protect everyone else who suddenly doesn't have to publicly testify). She might lose her job, but she's said she'll resign after this term (whichever way the election goes) anyway. The administration will then say "case closed." Heck, it worked in '87, and Poindexter still finds gainful employment with BushCo.

I'm not sure which option I like the odds on.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Re: Rice To Testify As Bush's Numbers Go Up

Postby czeskleba » Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:49 pm

Rspaight wrote:In another bit of good news for the White House, Bush's job approval rating stood at 53 percent in the latest poll, the highest number recorded on that question since January. Three weeks ago, the president's job approval was at 49 percent,


The most annoying thing about the media's fascination with polls is their complete inability (or is it unwillingness) to understand the concept of margin of error. For example, look at the above result. The margin of error is not given, but I would guess it's probably 3 to 5 percentage points. Which means, statistically speaking, it's quite possible there has been no change whatsoever in Bush's approval rating. Many of the other supposed "changes" in public attitudes cited in the above article also fall within the margin of error, and are thus meaningless. But the media of course reports every poll result as though it is 100% truth, with NO margin of error. Bleh.

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Postby lukpac » Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:51 pm

Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Patrick M » Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:29 am

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

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Postby Ron » Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:34 pm

As regards any Rice testimony, I wonder if maybe we all aren't chasing our tails. Bush's performance rating has remained relatively unchanged over the last year even in light of Iraq [no WMD, soldiers dying daily and the current constitution/democracy fantasy] and Clarke's testimony. All to say, the lines have already been drawn: those in the Bush camp aren't going to jump ship regardless of the facts and those on the left don't need any further convincing regarding Bush's incompetence and pathology. Any testimony Rice gives won't change anyone's mind.

The real fight, in terms of the upcoming election, is for the "middle"--a group not particularly issue driven but rather one that wants to feel good--feel good about America, the president and most of all, feel good about the prospects of a weekly paycheck arriving on time. Should the economy pick up in the coming months--or show signs of picking up--Bush will probably be reelected. From what I've seen so far, Kerry has done nothing to reach these people. Sound bites like "The president has given us 3 million in lost jobs and gas at 3 dollars a gallon!" come off, I believe, as empty rhetoric to this group. The time has passed for Kerry to preach to the converted--they're on board for keeps. He's got to reach those in the middle who will decide the November election.
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Postby czeskleba » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:33 am

Ron wrote:As regards any Rice testimony, I wonder if maybe we all aren't chasing our tails. Bush's performance rating has remained relatively unchanged over the last year even in light of Iraq


True. Kerry is not going to win the election on the issue of the war in Iraq being a mistake, regardless of how much evidence surfaces proving that it was. I bet even if the Democrats had a videotape of Cheney saying beforehand "hey, let's invade Iraq to help my Halliburton buddies get richer" it wouldn't matter. The majority of Americans are never going to buy into the idea that the war was a mistake, because they are too invested in supporting the troops and demonizing Saddam.

Kerry's best strategy would be to pick a few simple messages and keep repeating them. This always works for the Republicans. They say "Kerry's going to raise your taxes" over and over, and people start believing it. Kerry should be saying over and over "Bush is going to cut your social security benefits and/or eliminate social security." That would be a good issue for him to latch onto. It matters to voters, and in order to address the charges, Bush would have to talk about the deficit, which he doesn't want to do. Kerry should also steal Reagan's old line about "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" That is simple and effective.

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Postby Rspaight » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:14 am

Kerry's best strategy would be to pick a few simple messages and keep repeating them. This always works for the Republicans. They say "Kerry's going to raise your taxes" over and over, and people start believing it. Kerry should be saying over and over "Bush is going to cut your social security benefits and/or eliminate social security." That would be a good issue for him to latch onto. It matters to voters, and in order to address the charges, Bush would have to talk about the deficit, which he doesn't want to do. Kerry should also steal Reagan's old line about "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" That is simple and effective.


That one paragraph is a better campaign strategy than anything I've seen from Kerry yet.

Ryan
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Postby Rspaight » Wed Apr 07, 2004 9:13 am

This just gets stupider and stupider. Now the WH is refusing to release a *public speech* to the 9/11 commission just because it's politically damaging. Do these guys know how to do anything but stonewall?

White House withholds Rice speech
9/11 panel barred from seeing text of pre-attack address MSNBC News Services

Updated: 9:10 p.m. ET April 06, 2004

WASHINGTON - The White House has refused to provide the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a speech that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was to have delivered on the night of the attacks touting missile defense as a priority rather than al-Qaida, sources close to the commission said Tuesday.

With Rice scheduled to publicly testify Thursday before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the commission submitted a last-minute request for Rice’s aborted Sept. 11 address, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. But the White House has so far refused on the grounds that draft documents are confidential, the sources said.

A spokesman for the commission would neither confirm nor deny the request, or the administration’s response.

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, said only: “The White House is working with the commission to ensure that it has access to what it needs to do its job.”

The Washington Post, citing former U.S. officials who have seen the Rice speech, reported last week that the speech was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy. It said the speech included no mention of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups.

Rice’s testimony was ensured only after President Bush changed course last week under pressure and decided to allow her to appear publicly and under oath. She has testified in a private session in February.

Bush said Monday that he was looking forward to his own meeting with the commission, a joint session with Vice President Dick Cheney that will be private.

9/11 report to be completed in July

The commission is due to complete its report July 26. Security specialists from the CIA, the FBI and other agencies first must review it, under White House supervision, for possible security leaks.

Members of the commission are not expecting the White House to order major changes.

Democratic commission member Tim Roemer, a former U.S. representative from Indiana, said Rice’s testimony should help clear up discrepancies in her public positions and those in public testimony before the commission by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke.

Other members said Rice would be asked why the government’s anti-terrorism effort became so flawed that it allowed terrorists to strike and how the administration planned to fix the problems.
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Postby Rspaight » Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:19 pm

Looks like they went with option #1 (from my post above). That whole hearing was a blurred mess of obfuscation, filibustering, non-answers and evasions. She was spinning like the Tasmanian Devil.

Here's the sound-bite exchange from the transcript, bolding mine:

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.

Now, the ...

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste ...

BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the ...

RICE: I would like to finish my point here.

BEN-VENISTE: I didn't know there was a point.

RICE: Given that - you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.

BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.

RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.


Um, OK.

Later (from the transcript, bolding mine):

KERREY: ... this is what the August 6th memo said to the president: that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking. That's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of August.

RICE: And that was checked out and steps were taken through FAA circulars to warn of hijackings. But when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur, under what circumstances -- I can tell you that I think the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before to think about what you could do for instance to harden cockpits. That would have made a difference. We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike. The really difficult thing for all of us, and I'm sure for those who came before us as well as for those of us who are here, is that the structural and systematic changes that needed to be made -- not on July 5th or not on June 25th or not on January 1st -- those structures and those changes needed to be made a long time ago so that the country was in fact hardened against the kind of threat that we faced on September 11th. The problem was that for a country that had not been attacked on its territory in a major way in almost 200 years, there were a lot of structural impediments to those kinds of attacks.

RICE: Those changes should have been made over a long period of time. I fully agree with you that, in hindsight, now looking back, there are many things structurally that were out of kilter. And one reason that we're here is to look at what was out of kilter structurally, to look at needed to be done, to look at what we already have done, and to see what more we need to do. But I think it is really quite unfair to suggest that something that was a threat spike in June or July gave you the kind of opportunity to make the changes in air security that could have been -- that needed to be made.


Well, first off, that FBI advisory sure sounds like a warning to me. But Condi sez there were no warnings in the PBD. I presume Bill Frist is going to accuse her of perjury from the floor of the Senate shortly.

But what *really* fascinates me is the statement that hardening cockpits wouldn't have done any good because there were only three months between the "threat spike" in June and the attack in September, and that wouldn't have been enough time to "harden" all the cockpits.

Does that make any sense to anybody?

She keeps going on and on about how they couldn't have stopped the attacks because they didn't know exactly where and when they were happening. But then she says they didn't harden cockpits because there wasn't time. Which leaves two possibilities:

1) They knew the hijacking threats were coming in a few months, and that they couldn't harden the cockpits in time. So all the "we had no warning" stuff is a lie.

2) They had no idea when the hijackings they were warned about were coming, and decided not to harden cockpits because it was too much trouble. Which means Clarke was exactly right and they weren't taking the warnings seriously, and all the "we did all we could" stuff is a lie.

Either way, it's transparently bullshit. A nine-year-old couldn't use this sort of logic on her parents without getting caught. How can our National Security Advisor get away with it?

Then there was this interesting exchange (which is long, sorry, but important):

LEHMAN: In a way, one of the criticisms that has been made -- or one of the, perhaps, excuses for an inefficient hand-off of power at the change, the transition, is, indeed, something we're going to be looking into in depth. Because of the circumstances of the election, it was the shortest handover in memory. But in many ways, really, it was the longest handover, certainly in my memory. Because while the Cabinet changed, virtually all of the national and domestic security agencies and executive action agencies remained the same -- combination of political appointees from the previous administration and career appointees -- CIA, FBI, JCS, the CTC, the Counter-Terrorism Center, the DIA, the NSA, the director of operations in CIA, the director of intelligence. MORE

LEHMAN: So you really up almost until, with the exception of the INS head leaving and there be an acting, and Louis Freeh leaving in June, you essentially had the same government. Now, that raises two questions in my mind. One, a whole series of questions. What were you told by this short transition from Mr. Berger and associates and the long transition leading up to 9/11 by those officials about a number of key issues? And I'd like to ask them quickly in turn. And the other is, I'm struck by the continuity of the policies rather than the differences. And both of these sets of questions are really directed toward what I think is the real purpose of this commission. While it's certainly a lot more fun to be doing the, Who struck John? and pointing fingers as which policy was more urgent or more important, so forth, the real business of this commission is to learn the lessons and to find the ways to fix those dysfunctions. And that's why we have unanimity and true nonpartisanship on this commission. So that's what's behind the rhetoric that's behind the questioning that we have. First, during the short or long transition, were you told before the summer that there were functioning Al Qaida cells in the United States?

RICE: In the memorandum that Dick Clarke sent me on January 25th, he mentions sleeper cells. There is no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them. And the FBI was pursuing them. And usually when things come to me, it's because I'm supposed to do something about it, and there was no indication that the FBI was not adequately pursuing the sleeper cells.

LEHMAN: Were you told that there were numerous young Arab males in flight training, had taken flight training, were in flight training?

RICE: I was not. And I'm not sure that that was known at the center.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the U.S. Marshal program had been changed to drop any U.S. marshals on domestic flights?

RICE: I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the red team in FAA -- the red teams for 10 years had reported their hard data that the U.S. airport security system never got higher than 20 percent effective and was usually down around 10 percent for 10 straight years?

RICE: To the best of my recollection, I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that INS had been lobbying for years to get the airlines to drop the transit without visa loophole that enabled terrorists and illegals to simply buy a ticket through the transit-without- visa-waiver and pay the airlines extra money and come in?

RICE: I learned about that after September 11th.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that the INS had quietly, internally, halved its internal security enforcement budget?

RICE: I was not made aware of that. I don't remember being made aware of that, no.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that it was the U.S. government established policy not to question or oppose the sanctuary policies of New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Diego for political reasons, which policy in those cities prohibited the local police from cooperating at all with federal immigration authorities?

RICE: I do not believe I was aware of that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware -- to shift a little bit to Saudi Arabia -- were you aware of the program that was well established that allowed Saudi citizens to get visas without interviews?

RICE: I learned of that after 9/11.

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the activities of the Saudi ministry of religious affairs here in the United States during that transition?

RICE: I believe that only after September 11th did the full extent of what was going on with the ministry of religious affairs became evident.

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the extensive activities of the Saudi government in supporting over 300 radical teaching schools and mosques around the country, including right here in the United States?

RICE: I believe we've learned a great deal more about this and addressed it with the Saudi government since 9/11.

LEHMAN: Were you aware at the time of the fact that Saudi Arabia had and were you told that they had in their custody the CFO and the closest confidant of Al Qaida -- of Osama bin Laden, and refused direct access to the United States?

RICE: I don't remember anything of that kind.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that they would not cooperate and give us access to the perpetrators of the Khobar Towers attack?

RICE: I was very involved in issues concerning Khobar Towers and our relations with several governments concerning Khobar Towers.

LEHMAN: Thank you. Were you aware -- and it disturbs me a bit, and again, let me shift to the continuity issues here. Were you aware that it was the policy of the Justice Department -- and I'd like you to comment as to whether these continuities are still in place -- before I go to Justice, were you aware that it was the policy and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?

RICE: No, I have to say that the kind of inside arrangements for the FAA are not really in my...

LEHMAN: Well, these are not so inside. Were you aware that the FAA up until 9/11 thought it was perfectly permissible to allow four-inch knife blades aboard?

RICE: I was not aware.

LEHMAN: OK. Back to Justice. I was disturbed to hear you say on the continuity line that President Bush's first reaction to 9/11 and the question of Al Qaida's involvement was we must bring him to justice, because we have had dozens and dozens of interviewees and witnesses say that a fundamental problem of the dysfunction between CIA and Justice was the criminal -- the attitude that law enforcement was what terrorism was all about and not prevention and foreign policy. I think that there was at the time a very strictly enforced wall in the Justice Department between law enforcement and intelligence and that repeatedly, there are many statements from presidents and attorneys general and so forth that say that the first priority is bring these people to justice, protect the evidence, seal the evidence and so forth. MORE

LEHMAN: Do you believe this has changed?

RICE: I certainly believe that that has changed, Commissioner Lehman. Let me just go back for one second, though, on the long list of questions that you asked. I think another structural problem for the United States is that we really didn't have anyone trying to put together all of the kinds of issues that you raised, about what we were doing with INS, what we were doing with borders, what we were doing with visas, what we were doing with airport security. And that's the reason that, first, the Homeland Security Council, and then Tom Ridge's initial job, and then the Homeland Security Department is so important, because you can then look at the whole spectrum of protecting our borders from all kinds of threats and say, what kinds of policies make sense and what kinds of policies don't? And they now actually have someone who looks at critical infrastructure protection, looks at airport security, understands in greater detail than I think the national security adviser could ever understand all of the practices of what is going on in transportation security. That's why it is important that we made the change that we did. As to some of the questions concerning the Saudis: I think that we have had, really, very good cooperation with Saudi Arabia since 9/11, and since the May 12th attacks on Riyadh even greater cooperation, because Saudi Arabia is I think fully enlisted in the war on terrorism. And we need to understand that there were certain things that we didn't even understand were going on inside the United States.

RICE: It's not terribly surprising that the Saudis didn't understand some of the things that were going on in their country. As to your last question, though, I think that that's actually where we've had the biggest change. The president doesn't think of this as law enforcement. He thinks of this as war. And for all of the rhetoric of war prior to 9/11 -- people who said we're at war with the jihadist network, people who said that they've declared war on us and we're at war with them -- we weren't at war. We weren't on war footing. We weren't behaving in that way. We were still very focused on rendition of terrorists, on law enforcement. And, yes, from time to time we did military plans, or use the cruise missile strike here or there, but we did not have a sustained systematic effort to destroy Al Qaida, to deal with those who harbored Al Qaida. One of the points that the president made in his very first speech on the night of September 11th was that it's not just the terrorists, it's those who harbor them, too. And he put states on notice that they were going to be responsible if they sponsor terrorists or if they acquiesced in terrorists being there. And when he said, I want to bring them to justice, again, I think there was a little bit of nervousness about talking about exactly what that means. But I don't think there's anyone in America who doesn't understand that this president believes that we're at war, it's a war we have to win, and that it is a war that cannot be fought on the defensive. It's a war that has to be fought on the offense.

LEHMAN: Thank you. Are you sure that the...

KEAN: Last question, Secretary.

LEHMAN: As a last question, tell us what you really recommend we should address our attentions to to fix this as the highest priority. Not just moving boxes around, but what can you tell us in public here that we could do, since we are outside the legislature and outside the executive branch and can bring the focus of attention for change? Tell us what you recommend we do.

RICE: My greatest concern is that, as September 11th recedes from memory, that we will begin to unlearn the lessons of what we've learned.

RICE: And I think this commission can be very important in helping us to focus on those lessons and then to make sure that the structures of government reflect those lessons, because those structures of government now are going to have to last us for a very long time. I think we've done, under the president's leadership, we've done extremely important structural change. We've reorganized the government in a greater way than has been done since the 1947 National Security Act created the Department of Defense, the CIA and the National Security Council. I think that we need to -- we have a major reorganization of the FBI, where Bob Mueller is trying very hard not to just move boxes but to change incentives, to change culture. Those are all very hard things to do. I think there have been very important changes made between the CIA and FBI. Yes, everybody knew that they had trouble sharing, but in fact, we had legal restrictions to their sharing. And George Tenet and Louis Freeh and others have worked very hard at that. But until the Patriot Act, we couldn't do what we needed to do. And now I hear people who question the need for the Patriot Act, question whether or not the Patriot Act is infringing on our civil liberties. I think that you can address this hard question of the balance that we as an open society need to achieve between the protection of our country and the need to remain the open society, the welcoming society that we are. And I think you're in a better position to address that than anyone. And I do want you to know that when you have addressed it, the president is not going to just be interested in the recommendations. I think he's going to be interested in knowing how we can press forward in ways that will make us safer. The other thing that I hope you will do is to take a look back again at the question that keeps arising. I think Senator Gorton was going after this question. I've heard Senator Kerrey talk about it, which is, you know, the country, like democracies do, waited and waited and waited as this threat gathered.

RICE: And we didn't respond by saying, We're at war with them. Now we're going to use all means of our national assets to go against them. There are other threats that gather against us. And what we should have learned from September 11th is that you have to be bold and you have to be decisive and you have to be on the offensive, because we're never going to be able to completely defend.


Whew. BTW, Lehman's a Republican. So, what have we learned here? (I mean, aside from that we should blame Gore for asking for a recount and not giving Bush time to assemble a competent national security team.) As far as I can tell, this whole line of questioning is intended to set up the fact that Condi knew absolutely nothing about Saudi terror activity, al Qaeda activity and air travel security loopholes prior to 9/11 (here's the punchline) because we didn't have the Patriot Act. Campaign talking points, anyone? Yet, somehow, Clinton was able to foil the 2000 plots without the Patriot Act. (Yes, I know Rice is spinning the milennium plots as a "lucky break" based on the Ressam capture, but I'm not sure what the difference is in red-flag terms between the Ressam capture and the Phoenix memo/Moussaui interrogation reports coming out of the FBI, aside from the fact that the gov't sprang into action after the Ressam capture and ignored the flight-training/Moussaui warnings. The Moussaui capture *should* have been the "lucky break" for 9/11.) I also thought her plugging of the Homeland Security Department was rather disingenuous, considering Bush opposed its creation.

All that said, though, the media will surely spin this as "Condi stands up to tough questioning and defends the Prez" since she didn't, I don't know, break down in tears or sprout a scaly tentacle or something.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

Ron
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Postby Ron » Thu Apr 08, 2004 9:06 pm

Rspaight wrote:Looks like they went with option #1 (from my post above). That whole hearing was a blurred mess of obfuscation, filibustering, non-answers and evasions. She was spinning like the Tasmanian Devil.

As good as some of the questions were [as were dozens of other possible questions that have been written in op-ed pieces during the week], it all was for naught. Given the time constraints on each member I guess there should have been no doubt that Rice would merely chew up time with non answers.

LEHMAN: Were you told that there were numerous young Arab males in flight training, had taken flight training, were in flight training?

RICE: I was not. And I'm not sure that that was known at the center.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the U.S. Marshal program had been changed to drop any U.S. marshals on domestic flights?

RICE: I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the red team in FAA -- the red teams for 10 years had reported their hard data that the U.S. airport security system never got higher than 20 percent effective and was usually down around 10 percent for 10 straight years?

RICE: To the best of my recollection, I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that INS had been lobbying for years to get the airlines to drop the transit without visa loophole that enabled terrorists and illegals to simply buy a ticket through the transit-without- visa-waiver and pay the airlines extra money and come in?

RICE: I learned about that after September 11th.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that the INS had quietly, internally, halved its internal security enforcement budget?

RICE: I was not made aware of that. I don't remember being made aware of that, no.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that it was the U.S. government established policy not to question or oppose the sanctuary policies of New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Diego for political reasons, which policy in those cities prohibited the local police from cooperating at all with federal immigration authorities?

RICE: I do not believe I was aware of that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware -- to shift a little bit to Saudi Arabia -- were you aware of the program that was well established that allowed Saudi citizens to get visas without interviews?

RICE: I learned of that after 9/11.

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the activities of the Saudi ministry of religious affairs here in the United States during that transition?

RICE: I believe that only after September 11th did the full extent of what was going on with the ministry of religious affairs became evident.

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the extensive activities of the Saudi government in supporting over 300 radical teaching schools and mosques around the country, including right here in the United States?

RICE: I believe we've learned a great deal more about this and addressed it with the Saudi government since 9/11.

LEHMAN: Were you aware at the time of the fact that Saudi Arabia had and were you told that they had in their custody the CFO and the closest confidant of Al Qaida -- of Osama bin Laden, and refused direct access to the United States?

RICE: I don't remember anything of that kind.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that they would not cooperate and give us access to the perpetrators of the Khobar Towers attack?

RICE: I was very involved in issues concerning Khobar Towers and our relations with several governments concerning Khobar Towers.

LEHMAN: Thank you. Were you aware -- and it disturbs me a bit, and again, let me shift to the continuity issues here. Were you aware that it was the policy of the Justice Department -- and I'd like you to comment as to whether these continuities are still in place -- before I go to Justice, were you aware that it was the policy and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?

RICE: No, I have to say that the kind of inside arrangements for the FAA are not really in my...

LEHMAN: Well, these are not so inside. Were you aware that the FAA up until 9/11 thought it was perfectly permissible to allow four-inch knife blades aboard?

RICE: I was not aware.

Now whereas I suppose that Lehman was merely providing Rice with an opportunity to document for the record her lack of accountability on the above issues, I read her responses as rather damning testimony from someone entrusted with the obligation to help secure America's safety.
Dr. Ron :mrgreen:TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester