Powell admits they wanted to bomb Iraq right after 9/11. (Lehrer)

[JoFerret]

On the Lehrer Newshour right now.
Powell says he OPPOSED the advice but the advice was given.

First he says he is regretful (re 9/11. (They have learned from Clarke)
Waffles on the failure issue.
On the urgent priority - we knew they were a threat, we knew Clinton knew that. Met with Clarke four days after 9/11. I knew something was going to happen. We acted on this heightened info. We did not know it was an internal threat. Something was up. We knew that.Powell recommended the focus had to be AlQaeda, Taliban, Afghanistan NOT Iraq. Wolfowitz pushed Iraq.
On Clarke: I would say to the American people let the commission do its work

On another note (which might explain it.)

According to an article in the Guardian they are Running Scared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1178658,00.html

The Bush administration fears voters will believe Richard Clarke's allegations, writes Philip James

Friday March 26, 2004

The swiftness and ferocity of the Bush White House's attack on Richard Clarke tells you two things: his story may be largely true, and the Bush administration is terrified that the American people will believe it.
The central allegation - that Mr Bush was so obsessed with going after Saddam Hussein that he openly challenged his counter-terrorism adviser to find a link between September 11 and Iraq the day after the attacks took place - is serious.

It threatens the fundamental platform of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign: that you are safer with them than you are with the Democrats.

The White House did not let a single news cycle go by before questioning that the alleged encounter between the president and Clarke had ever taken place, assigning dark motives to a man who has served four presidents, three of them Republicans.

But you don't have to be Bob Woodward to check Clarke's story out. There were other witnesses to this meeting, one of whom spoke to me.

"The conversation absolutely took place. I was there, but you can't name me," the witness said. "I was one of several people present. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the president had Iraq on his mind, first and foremost."

This former national security council official was too terrified to go on the record - he knows how vengeful this administration can be.

<more>

[boobooday]

1. What was that sound?

Could it be the sound of old mush-head Chimp-face fungus-brain self destructing?

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[BadGimp]

2. wow..as in WOW

Powell let's it fly.

The more the they attack Richard Clarke, his book, and his testimony before the 9/11 Commissioin, the more they end up causing the full attention of millions of Americans to focus on the book and what's in it. This will cause the sales of the book to explode. We are looking at Stupid White Men all over again.

The main difference this time is the author is a Republican with 30 years of government service under 3 GOP administrations. They will never succeed in taking this guy down.

With the blood already in the water from the failure of the administration to find WMDs in Iraq, the false veneer of credibility of this administration has already been removed. This will make it more likely they will suffer real damage this time.

This might just be the real tipping point.

[Malva Zebrina]

3. It is all well and good, but I do not believe that Bush had anything

to do with any decisions at all.

I continue to believe that he is quite a stupid, less that intelligent man, who left everything and every decision to others .

He had not a clue as to what was going on because he was not in the loop.

He was the poster boy as well as the pickles frump fat assed Laura.


They were both playing a role that was ascribed to them by the manufactureres of the spin.

I suspect that after he goes down , in a landslide defeat in the next electin, he will take his "library" and his "museum" that will be constructed by his die hard cronies, as proof that he was indeed, a
war president that did unique and profound things for the good of this country. HEE HEE HEE

The library and the museume will be full of his "costumes" that he wore when he llied to the American people, and he will think that is certainly proof that he was a great president. LOL
:puke:

[The Stranger]

4. It was PNAC.

Maybe Powell will say what we have known all along. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol and the Project for the New American Century.

[displacedtexan]

5. In Clarke's book, CONdi comes off just as stupid.

Clarke and his staff had to run the meetings in the sit room on 9/11 because CONdi just stood there and wouldn't (couldn't) run things.

[mouse7]

10. Don't want to think about result if Clarke and Matalin weren't in room

Richard Clarke and Mary Matalin were clearly the only two people in the situation room the morning of 9/11 with an ounce of grey matter in their heads.

The group of people in the situation room the morning of 9/11 was like the Star Trek negative Universe version of the Kennedy Cuban Missile Crisis X-Com team. Everything Kennedy's X-Com team was, this groups of idiots wasn't. For God sake, what the fuck was Lynn Cheney doing in that room? She was screaming at people to shut up the whole "order giving" process so she could watch TV, for Gawd's sake.

Without Clarke and Matalin and in the situtation room, the neo-cons might have nuked half the world as a response.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. What the hell was Cheney's wife doing there

and why the hell was she allowed to interfere? Does a VP's wife even have the security clearances to be in that room? Could you imagine the outrage if this was Hillary or Tipper?

[calimary]

6. It doesn't matter. He is the "president." All roads lead to Rome.

All roads, in this case, lead right to the White House. To the Oval Office. NOTHING of this could have come to pass without his explicit or implicit approval. Because it's all done, basically in his name and at his behest and according to the overall "vision" that HE sets out as the much-ballyhooed "commander-in-chief" that the President of the United States is supposed to be.

Harry Truman said it first and best - "the buck stops here" at the Oval Office. And whether he was just the poster boy or not, all those other operatives and potential felons COULD NOT BE THERE IN THOSE POSITIONS TO DO THOSE THINGS AND OPERATE AS THEY DID, were it not for HIS taking the office. They all rode in because of, and along with, HIM. They sure didn't arrive with Al Gore, okay?????? And it's a CLINTON - and bush 1 and reagan holdover who's blowing the whistle. Note that none of those who are telling the truth or coming clean are current operatives of this White House. They're FORMER operatives, or straight-up outsiders.

And after he goes down, I wonder how badly HIS people really will trash the White House and Air Force One? These are VINDICTIVE, SNIPPY, PETTY, and EXTREMELY LITTLE PEOPLE. Who knows what they'll do before the door slams against their asses on their way out?

It's done in his name and with his authorization. Just like with Nixon.

[belle]

11. Right. He took the credit; he gets the blame.

The buck stops there.

[pinto]

7. hi JoFerret, in the interest of accuracy (I didn't see the News Hour)

do you remember the exchange when Powell said they wanted to bomb Iraq right after 9/11? I believe it, have seen it from other admin folks in earlier news accounts. I'm just interested in how Powell put it...I hear he's also leaving at the end of the year..

also, the Guardian piece is an opinion column from a former Dem strategist. You could have noted it as a "commentary". Folks may take your post as LBN, you know?

That said, I think his take is spot on.

The stakes are high in this election, I'm just urging us to be accurate along the way. The facts will turn the tide.

Thanks for your posts, you're out there running through sources.

[0007]

8. Can 'ya believe this piece of news

Bill Frist can go screw himself


(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((BONG))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[daleo]

9. Sounds like Powell is trying to put some daylight between him and *

But it is too late. The lies told to the U.N. will stick to him forever. It is devilishly difficult to buy your soul back - just read Faust.

[pinto]

12. kick

I liked his comments, which were eloquent, about the role affirmative action played in his life, and the life of his family...now he's a Bushco apologist.

[AlCzervik]

13. The Enabler speaks

Holy shiite, are those actually his words???? I'm on the west coast so it doesnt come on here for almost 2 more hours.

[AlCzervik]

14. ok i just watched the enabler speak

And now more than ever Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld should be canned, of course they never should have been confimed but it's too late for that.

[Momof1]

15. READ the book

I am almost done with it, if every voter reads this book. We will get a totally restructured FBI, CIA, and Pentagon.

Clarke doesn't just put this on Bush, he spreads it around.

[DrBB]

16. "You don't have to be Bob Woodward"?????

"But you don't have to be Bob Woodward to check Clarke's story out"??? Actually, you have to NOT be Bob Woodward. Woodward is so far up the Chimp's ass he's looking out of his nostrils.