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

This is a composite photo using photos of American service men and women killed in Iraq. The creator is Joe at American Leftist (see April 4 and 7 entries). Images can also be found at Photo Matt » Moving Image

[By way of NewMexiKen (thanks!)]

Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings
Reports Preceded August 2001 Memo
By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

By the time a CIA briefer gave President Bush the Aug. 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief headlined ”Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al Qaeda’s intentions. So had Vice President Cheney and Bush’s top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In April and May 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports ”Bin Laden planning multiple operations,” ”Bin Laden network’s plans advancing” and ”Bin Laden threats are real.” …

Without knowing when, where or how the terrorists would strike, the CIA ”consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil,” according to one of two staff reports released by the panel yesterday.

”Reports similar to these were made available to President Bush in the morning meetings with [Director of Central Intelligence George J.] Tenet,” the commission staff said.

”The system was blinking red,” Tenet told the commission in private testimony, the panel’s report noted.

Ashcroft’s Efforts on Terrorism CriticizedBy Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers

The former acting director of the FBI testified yesterday that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft rejected any further briefings on terrorist threats in the weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and did not view combating al Qaeda as ”a top item on his agenda.”

Thomas J. Pickard, who ran the FBI for several months before the attacks, also told the commission investigating the terrorist strikes that Ashcroft rejected a plea that summer for an extra $58 million to combat al Qaeda. Pickard testified that he received the formal denial on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attacks. …

The allegations came during another day of dramatic and often tense testimony before the panel. They prompted an aggressive defense from Ashcroft, who denied barring Pickard from offering him threat reports and said he was highly focused on the dangers posed by terrorists that summer.

Ashcroft sought to blame the Clinton administration for many of the shortcomings in counterterrorism strategies before the attacks….

One day after telling the Senate that combating terrorist attacks was his highest priority, Ashcroft issued a memo on May 10, 2001, outlining the Justice Department’s strategic goals that contained no mention of counterterrorism. Dale Watson, the FBI’s terrorism chief at the time, told the commission staff that he “almost fell out of his chair” when he read it.

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: The 9-11 Commission Staff statements from the hearing are available online in PDF format.

Media access limited during Scalia’s speeches By Antoinette Konz

While U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to high school students on Wednesday about the importance of protecting the rights provided by the Constitution, the recording devices of two reporters were confiscated by a federal marshal.

”You may wonder what makes our Constitution so special. I am here to persuade you that our Constitution is something extraordinary, something to revere,” Scalia told students at Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg.

During Scalia’s speech at the high school, U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter with The Associated Press erase a tape recording of the justice’s remarks. Rube also took a tape recording made by a reporter with the Hattiesburg American.

Rube said Scalia had asked that his appearance not be recorded. But there was no prior announcement that electronic recordings of Scalia’s speech were prohibited.

At an earlier appearance at William Carey College, Scalia talked about the religion clauses contained in the Constitution. At a reception honoring the Supreme Court justice, television reporters with WDAM-Channel 7 were told by Scalia to leave and newspaper photographers were initially not allowed to take photographs. …

Scalia, named to the high court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, has long barred television cameras from his speeches, but does not always forbid newspaper photographers and tape recorders. …

Last year, Scalia was criticized for refusing to allow television and radio coverage of an event in Ohio in which he received an award for supporting free speech.

[Originally published Thursday, April 8, 2004]

Scalia continues to show his hypocrisy and contempt for real freedom. If Bush is elected in November, Scalia will become the Chief Justice of the United States and will poison the land for a generation. Impeach Scalia! mjh

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Scalia’s Lawrence dissent followed speech before anti-gay group By ADRIAN BRUNE, Friday, March 19, 2004

Congressman Barney Frank accuses Supreme Court justice of ”very vigorous prejudices”

One month before writing a stinging dissent in the Lawrence vs. Texas Supreme Court decision, which overturned state sodomy laws, Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a keynote address to an anti-gay advocacy group in Philadelphia.

While going largely unnoticed last May, the appearance now has some experts questioning Scalia’s objectivity in the Lawrence case as well as in future gay civil rights lawsuits brought before the Supreme Court.

Scalia spoke at a $150 per plate dinner given by the Urban Family Council, a social conservative group that has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Philadelphia’s domestic partner benefits for city employees. The case is now pending in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and could appear on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket in the future, sources said. …

Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) took issue with Scalia’s objectivity during a recent speech on the House floor, saying the justice’s actions only supported the biased views already written in most of his decisions.

”Questioning Justice Scalia’s impartiality is like questioning Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the speech. ”You cannot call into question that which does not exist. In fact, if you read Justice Scalia’s opinions, they are singularly devoid of impartiality.

”Here is a man of very vigorous prejudices, and he does not see any reason why he should not write them into various opinions.”