Fact vs. Fiction

National:
Yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that she did not attend a meeting on July 10, 2001 with then-CIA director George Tenet and his deputy Cofer Black in which she was warned of an impending attack on U.S. interests. Rice said, "I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond." Actually, there was a meeting and Rice was warned. The New York Times reports, "A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda." Tenet and Black requested the emergency meeting with Rice because they "were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack."

The revelation deals a severe blow to Rice's credibility at a time when she is trying to convince the public that "what we did in the eight months (before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks) was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years." his new book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward reports that Tenet and Black "felt the brush-off" from Rice during their meeting. Richard Ben-Veniste, a 9/11 Commissioner who learned about the meeting during an interview with Tenet, stated, "Tenet never told us that he was brushed off. We certainly would have followed that up.” In any event, it's clear not much was done. Woodward reports that, "though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk." Yesterday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the meeting "'was not new' and didn't amount to an urgent warning. Rather, it was a good summary from the threat-reporting from the previous several weeks." McClatchy reports, "One official who helped to prepare the briefing...described it as a '10 on a scale of 1 to 10' that 'connected the dots' in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again."

The State Department's downplaying of the briefing mirrors Rice's approach to the President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Rice and President Bush described that document as "historical." [isn't "determined" a sign of future tense vs. past tense]

John Ashcroft’s & Donald Rumsfeld’s Roles?

Yesterday, McCormack said Rice "

requested that Mr. Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft." Ashcroft told the New York Times that he was "disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing. I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by and tell me.” Actually, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld were briefed. According to the State Department, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft "received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target" within a week of Rice's briefing. A Pentagon spokesman said he had "no information 'about what may or may not have been briefed' to Rumsfeld at Rice's request." According to officials, at the time, Rumsfeld "was focused mostly on his plans to remake the Army into a smaller, high-tech force and deploy a national ballistic missile defense system."

THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT?

This meeting HAS to be in there right? That’s the most comprehensive and accurate report on what led up to, and happened on 9/11 right?

The July 10 meeting, which was potentially damaging for Rice and the Bush administration, was not mentioned in 9/11 Commission report. The report's main author, Philip Zelikow

co-authored a book with Rice earlier in thier careers and is now a top aide in the State Department. Yes, believe it or not, Zelikow now works for Condi. Yesterday, Zelikow "didn't respond to e-mail and telephone queries" asking why the meeting was kept secret.

"Would have, could have, should have," Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said yesterday, "responding to questions about whether Republicans should have done more" about Mark Foley. "Flanked by about 30 children of supporters," Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) yesterday defended his decision to not inform authorities when he learned of Mark Foley's inappropriate emails last spring. "When a reporter suggested to Reynolds that the children step outside in order to have a frank discussion of the sexually charged case, Reynolds declined."

While the stock market and corporate profits have rebounded, many Americans' paychecks haven't grown fast enough to keep up with rising prices. A recent WSJ/NBC poll found the "

gap between rich and poor" ranked as the No. 2 economic issue -- after gas prices and energy costs.

Hastert dismisses calls for shakeup
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert brushed aside any suggestion of resignation today as House Republican leaders tried to contain the fallout from an election-year scandal involving sexually explicit messages from a disgraced lawmaker to underage male pages.

Mr. Hastert issued a written statement as Majority Leader John A. Boehner said Mr. Hastert had assured him months ago the matter had been taken care of. "It's in his corner. It's his responsibility," Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said in an interview on radio station WLW in Cincinnati. You can read the entire article

here.

International:

"

North Korea said Tuesday that it will conduct a nuclear test to bolster its self-defense capability amid what it calls increasing U.S. hostility toward the communist regime," the AP reports. World leaders "acted with alarm."

"The US, Russia, the UK, France and Germany remain the world's top arms exporters, accounting for about 82% of the market in 2005," a new report shows. The weapons fuel conflicts around the world, including in Darfur and Uganda.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is close to being named the U.N.'s next secretary-general, after winning the support of all five permanent Security Council members in an informal poll Monday. Ban said in an interview last week that he wanted "to make the U.N. relevant again."

From The Right: Today’s article is from Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. entitled States of denial. In this article, he states how he feels that Bob Woodward has become the latest journalist to try to influence the upcoming mid-term congressional elections with a new book, State of Denial – a harsh critique of the President and senior members of his administration whom he contends are in such a state with respect to Iraq. Woodward alleges as evidence a refusal by Mr. Bush to: recognize the magnitude of the problem there; adjust course; level with the American people; or fire Donald Rumsfeld for his supposed singlehanded responsibility for most of the difficulties we now face. Read this one

here

From The Left: Today –William Rivers Pitt’s article entitled Condi Rice, 9/11 and Another Nest of Lies. He writes on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and how she may have committed perjury in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission in May of 2004. At a minimum, her testimony was a convenient mishmash of half-truths and omissions which served to paint the White House as innocent bystanders as the attacks of 9/11 unfolded. Certainly, her testimony omitted the fact that the two most senior intelligence officials in the nation delivered a stern warning regarding an impending terror attack two full months before 9/11. Read it here

Thought To Ponder:
Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by Federal Aviation Administration managers. The tapes were destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by the manager crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said. Full story here...

(Sources: AP, TownHall, LA Times, WSJ, Int’l Herold Tribune, NY Times, USA Today, Washington Times, Bloomberg, CNN, RealCities, Harvard U, TruthOut, US Dept of State)