Rice testifing before 911 commish. Can't point to ANYTHING Bush admin....

[Jack from Charlotte]

did to Al Qaeda before Sept 11th.


This transcript and video should be retrieved and receive more play now.
April 9, 2004

Commissioner Bob Kerrey, former Democratic senator from Nebraska: . . . . You’ve used the phrase a number of times, and I’m hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future: You said the president was tired of swatting flies. Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to Al Qaeda prior to 9/11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was . . .

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on . . .

KERREY: No, no . . .

RICE: . . . when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah . . .

KERREY: He hadn’t swatted . . .

RICE: . . . or go after this guy . . .

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn’t . . .

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once, on the 20th of August 1998. We didn’t swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

RICE: We swatted at — I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that’s what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

She can’t cite a single example of a concrete initiative or response to terrorist threats before 9/11

[BOSSHOG]

1. But the base still loves her and bush

They love being lied to, they love that bush thinks they are good team players by excepting the lies of his administration. The revel in the abuse heeped upon them by people who don't give one flying dog fuck about them. But kinazleezy and the rovemonster are realizing that that base is getting smaller and smaller. Isn't it a shame that an American Politician would so verily fear the truth?

[maxsolomon]

4. the "base" can't be bothered with paying attention

the "base" think they were attacked on 9/11, when it was NYC, not Paducah or Branson. Secularist Global Economic Hegemony as symbolised by the WTC.

NOT the freaking Bible.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. I guess they love that the rich are getting richer while the rest of us

including those morans, struggle daily to make ends me. Stupids don't even know that they are voting against their own best interests when they vote for republiCONS who constantly danging the proverbial carrot in front of their faces to get elected while stabbing them in that back once they have their votes. They never seem to get the disconnect between what their exulted leaders say in order to secure their votes and what they actually do ONCE they are elected! Morans seems to fit them to a tee.

[The Deacon]

2. The More Telling Testimony - About The PDB

"I don't think anyone needed the PDB (Presidential Daily Brief: 'bin Laden determined to hit U.S.') to tell us bin Laden wanted to attack the U.S."
Follow up question which never came: "Then why the fuck didn't you make any plans to deal with it?"

[johnnie]

3. I would like them to show any proof they did anything at all

This administration has done nothing but lied and mislead the citizens of this country for 6 years. There has to be a time when people are going to get fed up with it enough to make them put their money where their mouths are.

They did jack-shit before 9-11 and they have done very little since. But as I said, I want this administration to provide the American people some documentation that proves they took any steps at all in regards to terrorist threats.

Here Condi, I will help you out with the first one. This was presented to your asshole boss in August of 2001. Please tell us what the Bush administration did concerning this memo. Hint, going on vacation and playing golf doesn't count as steps toward actions to prevent terrorism.

[Marie26]

5. From the 9/11 Timeline

This is pretty damning, IMO.

"Early 2001: Bush Staffers Less Concerned with Terrorism

Clinton and Bush staff overlap for several months while new Bush appointees are appointed and confirmed. Clinton holdovers seem more concerned about al-Qaeda than the new Bush staffers. For instance, according to a colleague, Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, had become “totally preoccupied” with fears of a domestic terror attack. (Newsweek, 5/27/2002) Brian Sheridan, Clinton’s outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, is astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new military leadership up to speed on terrorism are brushed aside. “I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up.” (Los Angeles Times, 3/30/2004)

Army Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, Deputy National Security Adviser and manager of Clinton’s NSC (National Security Council) staff, still remains at the NSC nearly four months after Bush takes office. He later notes that while Clinton’s advisers met “nearly weekly” on terrorism by the end of his term, he does not detect the same kind of focus with the new Bush advisers: “That’s not being derogatory. It’s just a fact. I didn’t detect any activity but what {Clinton holdover Richard) Clarke and the CSG (Counterterrorism and Security Group) were doing.” Kerrick submits a memo to the new people at the NSC, warning, “We are going to be struck again.” He says, “They never responded. It was not high on their priority list. I was never invited to one meeting. They never asked me to do anything. They were not focusing. They didn’t see terrorism as the big megaissue that the Clinton administration saw it as.” Kerrick adds, “They were gambling nothing would happen.” (Los Angeles Times, 3/30/2004) Bush’s first Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Henry Shelton, later says terrorism was relegated “to the back burner” until 9/11. (Washington Post, 10/2/2002)"

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=counterterrorismBefore911&startpos=100

[Marie26]

7. Here's another

good article, written the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Commission warned Bush

But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.

Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so."

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh. The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/