Claim vs. Fact: Condoleezza Rice’s Opening Statement – Center for American Progress

CLAIM: ”We increased funding for counterterrorism activities across several agencies.”

FACT: Upon taking office, the 2002 Bush budget proposed to slash more than half a billion dollars out of funding for counterterrorism at the Justice Department. In preparing the 2003 budget, the New York Times reported that the Bush White House ”did not endorse F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators” and ”proposed a $65 million cut for the program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants.” Newsweek noted the Administration ”vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism.” [Sources: 2001 vs. 2002 Budget Analysis; NY Times, 2/28/02; Newsweek, 5/27/02] …

CLAIM: “When threat reporting increased during the Spring and Summer of 2001, we moved the U.S. Government at all levels to a high state of alert and activity.”

FACT: Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush Administration “did not give terrorism top billing in their strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI.” Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until Oct. 1, 2001, said during the summer, terrorism had moved “farther to the back burner” and recounted how the Bush Administration’s top two Pentagon appointees, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, “shut down” a plan to weaken the Taliban. Similarly, Gen. Don Kerrick, who served in the Bush White House, sent a memo to the new Administration saying “We are going to be struck again” by al Qaeda, but he never heard back. He said terrorism was not “above the waterline. They were gambling nothing would happen.” [Sources: Washington Post, 3/22/04; LA Times, 3/30/04]

”Watch what we do, not what we say.” — John Mitchell, Dick Nixon’s Attorney General, another disgraced and incarcerated conservative