Yahoo! News – EXIT STRATEGY: FIRE THEM ALL By Richard Reeves
As smart and alone as she is in her job, [Condoleezza Rice] made a huge mistake in answering questions from commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, the combative little lawyer who was a majority (Democratic) counsel during the Watergate hearings 30 years ago.
Ben-Veniste questioned her about the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) of Aug. 6, 2001, and in her nervous answer she blurted out the classified title: ”Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Ben-Veniste knew that, but could not say it because he and other commissioners had been allowed to see parts of the memo on condition that they not reveal its title or contents. Rice, in effect, declassified that title on her own. Many reasonable people will interpret the lack of follow-up — she lamely said follow-up was not part of her job — as stupidity and incompetence.
But that is now the hallmark of this administration: stupidity and ignorant incompetence — in gathering, interpreting and following up pre-9/11 intelligence, and in going to war in Iraq. …
There are a lot of patriots in this administration who should be fired for their incompetence and unwillingness to recognize it, admit it, adjust to reality — and then move on. That list includes National Security Adviser Rice; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, whose Iraq analyses now look laughable or deliberately deceptive; Dynamic Don Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, whose mind and mouth move too fast for his own good; Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has shown himself to have no significant policy input; and Vice President Richard Cheney, a huckster with contempt for the rights and consent of the governed, a man who feels he has no responsibility to facts. …
9/11 Hoax: Media Shock over PDB bin Laden Warning
According to Mr. Clinton’s public comments two years ago, he knew bin Laden wanted to strike America as far back as 1996.
Explaining why he declined an offer from Sudan for bin Laden’s extradition, Clinton revealed, “At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him — though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.”
If President Clinton was so unconcerned about the prospect that bin Laden wanted to commit crimes against America that he couldn’t be bothered to extradite him, how was a PDB briefing that merely restated that ancient fact supposed to set Bush’s hair on fire?
Still, don’t look for the press to come clean on the earlier Clinton warning. They’ve kept his tape-recorded confession on the topic bottled up for more than two years now. No point in spoiling a perfectly good election year hoax with the truth.
Note how a conservative ”news” site undermines this story with words like ”hoax” — how is this information a ‘hoax’? That same site tries to equate Clinton in 1996 with Bush in 2001, though in the 5 intervening years the attack on the USS Cole and various ”millenium threats” occurred.
Don’t forget: Bush was on a 5 (FIVE!) week vacation before 9/11. Time to retire him to the ranch permanently. mjh