Richard Ben-Veniste: What Did Bush Do About The Cole?

[CatWoman]

Yesterday former 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste was on the situation room to talk about what Bush did in the months leading up to 9/11.

BLITZER: So you the asked the president in the Oval Office — and the vice president — why didn’t you go after the Taliban in those eight months before 9/11 after he was president. What did he say?

BEN-VENISTE: Well, now that it was established that al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole bombing and the president was briefed in January of 2001, soon after he took office, by George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling him of the finding that al Qaeda was responsible, and I said, "Well, why wouldn’t you go after the Taliban in order to get them to kick bin Laden out of Afghanistan?"

Maybe, just maybe, who knows — we don’t know the answer to that question — but maybe that could have affected the 9/11 plot.

BLITZER: What did he say?

BEN-VENISTE: He said that no one had told him that we had made that threat. And I found that very discouraging and surprising.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/26/what-did-bush-do-about-the-cole/

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K & R

[eShirl]

2. "no one told me, and it wasn't my job to find out anything about it" (n/t)

[bryant69]

3. No one told him?

Fascinating.

What's clear is that Clinton cared about getting Bin Ladin, so the Bush Administration didn't. They had to be the opposite of Clinton.

Bryant
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