by Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes
March 28, 2004
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What was said on 60 Minutes last week by Richard Clarke, the Bush administration's former counterterrorism chief, reverberated like thunder this past week. On Capitol Hill, a parade of top officials from both the Bush and Clinton administrations testified publicly under oath before the commission investigating the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security advisor -- the person the commission wanted to hear from most -- the White House refused to make available citing executive privilege. But while she says she couldn't talk publicly to the commission -- Dr. Rice did talk to us this morning in Washington.
Ed Bradley met the national security advisor in the Old Executive Office building next to the White House and asked about her refusal to testify. |
ED BRADLEY:
The secretary of state, defense, the director of the CIA, have all testified in public under oath before the commission. If -- if you can talk to us and other news programs, why can't you talk to the commission in public and under oath?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify. I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle here ... it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.
ED BRADLEY:
But there are some people who look at this and say, "But this -- this was an unprecedented event. Nothing like this ever happened to this country before. And this is an occasion where you can put that executive privilege aside. It's a big enough issue to talk in public."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
It is an unprecedented event. We've said that many, many times. But this commission is rightly not concentrating on what happened on the day of September 11 ... So, this is not a matter of what happened on that day, as extraordinary as it is -- as it was. This is a matter of policy. And we have yet to find an example of a national security advisor, sitting national security advisor, who has -- been willing to testify on matters of policy.
The commission is investigating the circumstances surrounding the 9/11 attacks. The star witness was Richard Clarke, the president's former counter-terrorism chief whose new book has become a best seller. In it Clarke alleges that the Bush administration failed to take the threat from al Qaeda seriously and that the 9 /11 attacks were a pretext for the Bush administration to go to war in Iraq. The administration's reaction was immediate and ferocious. The attacks continued this morning on the Sunday talk shows.
What has the Bush administration most up in arms is the explosive allegation Richard Clarke made in his book and to Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes last week that at a meeting on September 12 in the White House situation room -- one day after the attacks -- President Bush tried to intimidate Clarke into finding a link between 9/11 and Iraq.
RICHARD CLARKE
(60 MINUTES 3/21):
I said 'Mr. President, we've done this before. We -- we've been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind, there's no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq, Saddam -- find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean, that we should come back with that answer.
ED BRADLEY:
What's your reaction to Clarke's description?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I -- I have never seen the president say an -- anything to an -- people in an intimidating way, to try to get a particular answer out of them. I know this president very well. And the president doesn't talk to his staff in an intimidating way to ask them to produce information -- that is false.
All week long, the White House said it had no recollection that the September 12 meeting ever took place, and that it had no record that President Bush was even in the situation room that day. But two days ago, they changed their story, saying the meeting did happen.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
The president asked, I believe -- though none of us recall the specific -- conversation, the president asked a perfectly logical question. We'd just been hit and hit hard. Was -- did Iraq have anything to do with this? Were they complicit in it? This was a country with which we'd been to war a couple of times, that were firing at our airplanes in -- the no-fly zone. It made perfectly good sense to ask about Iraq. I will tell you, Ed, when we went to Afghani -- to -- Camp David to plan our response to the al Qaeda attack, it was the map of Afghanistan that was rolled out on the table. It was Afghanistan that became the focus of -- the -- American response. And -- Iraq was -- put aside with the exception of -- worrying about whether Iraq might try and take -- advantage of us in some way. The president focused
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Fact Check:
Condi Rice's 60 Minutes interview
Center for American Progress
March 28, 2004
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes in an effort to quell growing questions surrounding the administration's inconsistent claims about its pre-9/11 actions. Not only did Rice refuse to take Richard Clarke's lead and admit responsibility for her role in the worst national security failure in American history, but she continued to make unsubstantiated and contradictory assertions:
RICE CLAIM:
"The administration took seriously the threat" of terrorism before 9/11.
FACTS:
President Bush himself acknowledges that, despite repeated warnings of an imminent al Qaeda attack, before 9/11 "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism. Similarly, Newsweek reports that Bush's attitude was reflected throughout an administration that was trying to "de-emphasize terrorism" as an overall priority. As proof, just two of the hundred national security meetings the Administration held during this period addressed the terrorist threat, and the White House refused to hold even one meeting of its highly-touted counterterrorism task force. Meanwhile, the administration was actively trying to cut funding for counterterrorism, and "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" despite a serious increase in terrorist chatter in the summer of 2001.
Source: "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward
Source: Newsweek & vetoed request -- LINK
Source: Refusal to hold task force meeting -- LINK
Source: Only two meetings out of 100 -- LINK
RICE CLAIM:
"I don't know what a sense of urgency any greater than the one we had would have caused us to do anything differently. I don't know how...we could have done more. I would like very much to know what more could have been done?"
FACTS:
There are many more things that could have been done: first and foremost, the administration could have desisted from de-emphasizing and cutting funding for counterterrorism in the months before 9/11. It could have held more meetings of top principals to get the directors of the CIA and FBI to share information, especially considering the major intelligence spike occurring in the summer of 2001. As 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick said on ABC this morning, the lack of focus and meetings meant agencies were not talking to each other, and key evidence was overlooked. For instance, with better focus and more urgency, the FBI's discovery of Islamic radicals training at flight schools might have raised red flags. Similarly, the fact that "months before Sept. 11, the CIA knew two of the al-Qaeda hijackers were in the United States" could have spurred a nationwide manhunt. But because there was no focus or urgency, "No nationwide manhunt was undertaken," said Gorelick. "The State Department watch list was not given to the FAA. If you brought people together, perhaps key connections could have been made."
Source: Slash counterterrorism funding -- LINK
Source: CIA knew 2 hijackers in the U.S. -- LINK
RICE CLAIM:
"Nothing would be better from my point of view than to be able to testify, but there is an important principle involved here it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisors do not testify before the Congress."
FACTS:
Republican Commission John F. Lehman, who served as Navy Secretary under President Reagan said on ABC this morning that "This is not testimony before a tribunal of the Congress…There are plenty of precedents for appearing in public and answering questions…There are plenty of precedents the White House could use if they wanted to do this." 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick agreed, saying "Our commission is sui generis…the Chairman has been appointed by the President. We are distinguishable from Congress." Rice's remarks on 60 Minutes that the principle is limited to "sitting national security advisers" is also a departure from her statements earlier this week, when she said the "principle" applied to all presidential advisers. She was forced to change this claim for 60 Minutes after 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste "cited examples of non-Cabinet presidential advisers who have testified publicly to Congress." Finally, the White House is reportedly moving to declassify congressional testimony then-White House adviser Richard Clarke gave in 2002. By declassifying this testimony, the White House is breaking the very same "principle" of barring White House adviser's testimony from being made public that Rice is using to avoid appearing publicly before the 9/11 commission.
Source: Quote from Tony Snow Show -- LINK
RICE CLAIM:
"Iraq was put aside" immediately after 9/11.
FACTS:
According to the Washington Post, "six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2-and-a-half-page document" that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq." This is corroborated by CBS News, which reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq." In terms of resources, the Iraq decision had far-reaching effects on the efforts to hunt down al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As the Boston Globe reported, "the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis."
Source: September 17th directive -- LINK
Source: Rumsfeld orders Iraq plan -- LINK
Source: Shifting special forces -- LINK
As originally published
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our energies and our attention on winning in Afghanistan, and expelling the Taliban and thereby, expelling al Qaeda.
ED BRADLEY:
But the appearance here, because there are other examples of countries with state-sponsored terrorism: Iran, Libya, Syria, he didn't ask him about that. He asked just about Iraq. The perception is, people listening to what Clarke had to say, is that the president was preoccupied with Iraq.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Given our relationship with Iraq -- which was probably the most actively -- hostile relationship in which we were involved I think that it's a perfectly -- logical question when we looked to retaliation, yes, we asked the question given that this is a global war on terrorism, should we look -- at other threats?
ED BRADLEY:
Let -- let's move on. Clarke has alleged that the Bush administration underestimated the threat from -- from al Qaeda, didn't act as if terrorism was an imminent and urgent problem. Was it?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Of course it was an urgent -- problem. I would like very much to know what more could have been done -- given that it was an urgent problem. We were looking for a more comprehensive plan to eliminate al Qaeda. But we weren't sitting still while that plan was developing. We were continuing to pursue the policies that the Clinton administration had pursued.
ED BRADLEY:
But even the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, has said that the Bush administration pushed terrorism, and I'm quoting here, farther to the back burner.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I just don't agree. I don't know, Ed, how after -- coming into office, inheriting policies that had been in place for at least -- three of the eight years of the Clinton administration, we could've done more than to continue those policies while we developed more robust policies.
ED BRADLEY:
After 9/11, Bob Woodward wrote a book in which he had incredible access and interviewed the president of the United States. He quotes President Bush as saying that he didn't feel a sense of urgency about Osama bin Laden. Woodward wrote that bin Laden was not the president's focus or that of his nationally security team. You're saying that the administration says fighting terrorism and al-Qaeda has been a top priority since the beginning.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I'm saying that the administration took seriously the threat -- let's talk about what we did.
ED BRADLEY:
You'd listed the things that you'd done. But here is the perception. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at that time says you pushed it to the back burner. The former Secretary of the Treasury says it was not a priority. Mr. Clarke says it was not a priority. And at least, according to Bob Woodward, who talked with the president, he is saying that for the president, it wasn't urgent. He didn't have a sense of urgency about al Qaeda. That's the perception here.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Ed, I don't know what a sense of urgency -- any greater than the one that we had, would have caused us to do differently.
ED BRADLEY:
We've had this war on terrorism since -- concentrated, since 9/11. But it's been reported that if you look at the 30 months since 9/11, there have been more attacks by al Qaeda than in the 30 months prior to 9/11. So, what effect is this taking out two-thirds of their leadership --
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
We are being attacked by them because they know that we're at war with them. And they're going to continue to attack.
ED BRADLEY:
But here -- here -- here's what I'm saying. You -- you have a 30-month period leading up to 9 /11 in which you have fewer attacks than the 30 months after, is when you had this war.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Ed, I think that's the wrong way to look at it, with -- with all due respect. I think you have to look back to -- the '80s, and most certainly the '90s, when what was happening was that the terrorist attacks were getting bolder. They were getting more imaginative. They were getting more daring. These attacks were getting bolder and they were getting more daring. And that's because the terrorists were getting a sense of inevitability of their victory. We were not aggressively going after them. They believed that they were going to win. They saw us cut and run in Somalia. They go all the way back to the fact that the Marines left Beirut after the bombing of the -- barracks. They believed that if we took -- casualties, we would not respond. And what they've been surprised by is the fact that this has, this time, been a -- a launching of an all-out war on them. And yet, they're going to continue to try to attack. They're going to succeed sometimes. But they are going to be defeated.
ED BRADLEY:
The decision to go to war with Iraq -- Nearly 600 American soldiers had died, thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed. Given the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and there's no proof that Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11 or al Qaeda, the country is split about why we're even in Iraq and if we're fighting the right war.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
The war on terrorism is a broad war, not a narrow war. And Iraq, one of the most dangerous regimes, I think the most dangerous regime in the world's most dangerous region, in the Middle East -- is a big reason, or was under Saddam Hussein, a big reason for instability in the regions, for threats to the United States. He had used weapons of mass destruction. He had the intent and was still developing the capability to do so. Saddam Hussein's regime was very dangerous. And now that Iraq has been liberated and that Iraq has a chance to be a stable democracy, the world is a lot safer. And the war on terrorism is well served by the victory in Iraq.
Amidst all the testimony last week about the facts surrounding 9/11, Richard Clarke took a moment to apologize to the families of those who were killed in the attacks.
ED BRADLEY:
How -- how did you feel when he made that apology?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Well, I don't think that there is anyone who is not sorry for the terrible loss that -- these families endured. And indeed, who doesn't feel the deep tragedy that the country went through on September 11? I do think it's important that we keep focused on who did this to us. Because after all this was an act of war.
ED BRADLEY:
But my question is, how did his apology make you feel? Did you think he was grandstanding? Did you think it was sincere?
CONDOLEZZA RICE:
I -- I'm not going to -- to question what -- Dick Clarke was or was not feeling. I think from my point of view, the families need to know that -- everybody understands the deep loss.
ED BRADLEY:
Will the families of those people who were killed hear an apology from you? Do you think that would be appropriate?
CONDOLEZZA RICE:
The families, I think, have heard from this president that -- and from me, and from me personally in some cases in that field in Pennsylvania or at the World Trade Center, how -- deeply sorry everyone is for the loss that they endured. You couldn't be human and not feel the horror of that day. We do need to stay focused on what happened to us that day. And the best thing that we can do for the memory of the victims, the best thing that we can do for the future of this country, is to focus on those who did this to us.
As originally published
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In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.
"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.
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Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis?
To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck.
If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever expect for terrorists not to get lucky again?
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Amazingly, Air Force One took off [from Florida after the attacks of September 11] with no military protection. It remained unprotected in the sky for more than an hour, though Florida is filled with Air Force bases just minutes away with planes that are supposed to be on twenty-four-hour alert.
Bush's aides later offered, and retracted, the excuse that he spent the day flying around the country because of threats to Air Force One believed to have been received at the White House. What nobody has ever explained is this: If you think Air Force One is to be attacked, why go up in Air Force One?
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The fact that top officials, at a time of extraordinary crisis and public anxiety, lied to protect the president's image has immense implications. If, within 24 hours of the terror attacks, the White House was giving out disinformation to deceive the American public and world opinion, then none of the claims made by the government from September 11 to the present can be taken for good coin.
If Bush lied about his activities on the day of the attacks, why should anyone assume he has not lied about the government's investigation, the identity of the perpetrators, the motives and aims of US war preparations, and the intent and scope of expanded police powers demanded by his administration to wiretap, search and seize, and detain suspects?
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The 9/11 investigation was originally given a budget of $3-million, later increased to $12-million. Some reports say the budget is now $14-million.
By comparison, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated during its descent in February 2003, $50-million was budgeted for an investigation, which began about an hour and a half after the disaster.
Another $305-million was spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), searching for shuttle debris.
The investigation into the shuttle accident began publicly releasing its findings within several weeks, and concluded its work with an exhaustive report about six months later.
Even the Warren Commission, the U.S. government's widely-disbelieved investigation of Pres. Kennedy's 1963 assassination, was budgeted at $5.5-million -- in 1963 funds.
Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $32-million in 2003 dollars.
You might think it would cost substantially more to thoroughly investigate a complicated event -- nineteen foreign hijackers commandeering four passenger jets and obliterating the World Trade Center, damaging the Pentagon, and killing thousands of Americans -- than to investigate the shooting of the president in a parade.
The Bush Administration seems to disagree. They think it should cost substantially less.
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CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq -- even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.
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"We've been fighting for nearly 21 months -- fighting the administration, the White House," says Monica Gabrielle.
Her husband, Richard, an insurance broker who worked for Aon Corp. on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center's Tower 2, died during the attacks. "As soon as we started looking for answers we were blocked, put off and ignored at every stop of the way. We were shocked. The White House is just blocking everything."
Another 9/11 family advocate -- a former Bush supporter who requested anonymity -- was more blunt: "Bush has done everything in his power to squelch this [9/11] commission and prevent it from happening."
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President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11, congressional and White House sources told CNN.
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Why did the US military, with the most powerful arsenal in world history, fail to prevent or at least try to stop a series of hijackings and crashes that went on for nearly two hours?
Where was the Air Force?
If President Bush and his cabinet were not, at this very moment, still trying to censor, suppress and delay the publication of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, if there had been honest disclosure and straight stories from the beginning, perhaps all these "dark questions," as the Post puts it, would never have arisen.
The great majority of people, sickened and overwhelmed by the horror of the attacks, unquestioningly accepts the White House version.
Many thousands, however, are patiently stitching together the documented evidence and noting the huge holes in the fabric of that official story.
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On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.
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Do we know the answers to these questions about September 11?
Of course not. Nobody will know the answers until there's an open and honest investigation.
But anyone courageous enough to think can see that the pertinent questions for any serious "investigation" were never asked, let alone answered.
--Helen & Harry, Unknown News
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You know, in a courtroom, when a witness is shown to be clearly lying about one detail, it calls that witness's entire testimony into doubt.
If it worked that way with presidents, we'd have ample grounds to doubt everything the Bush administration has told us about September 11, 2001.
After all; every newspaper and television account is directly or indirectly based in large part upon what the Bush administration has announced -- that they had no prior warning, that they knew immediately Osama bin Laden was to blame, that exactly 19 hijackers were aboard those four planes, that each hijacker has been posthumously identified, etc.
So our shared public perception of what happened on September 11, and why it happened, is really built on just one assumption, universally agreed: That the Bush administration is comprised of honest people, telling the truth.
But I don't see any evidence to support such an allegation.
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At his press conference yesterday, President Bush was asked about charges that he had received warnings prior to the September 11th attacks that a terrorist incident was imminent.
He answered that even asking such a question was "an absurd insinuation."
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The United States allowed members of Osama bin Laden's family to jet out of the US in the immediate aftermath of September 11, even as American airspace was closed.
Former White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke said the Bush administration sanctioned the repatriation of about 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians, including relatives of the al-Qaida chief.
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A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qaida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".
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Yet one week, one week after 9/11, in response to initial reports that the military failed to defend our domestic airspace during the hijacks NORAD issued an official chronology that stated that the FAA notified NORAD of the second hijacking at 8:43 -- wrong. FAA notified NORAD of the third hijacking at 9:24, according to your report, wrong, FAA notified NORAD of the fourth hijacking at an unspecified time and that prior to the crash in Pennsylvania Langley F-16 combat air patrol planes were in place, remaining in place, to protect Washington, D.C..
All untrue.
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At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said in a report today.
That manager crushed the cassette in his hand, shredded the tape and dropped the pieces into different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.
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Although American and British officials say they have "no doubt" that Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist organization were behind the crimes of Sept. 11, so far no actual evidence has been made public.
... During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States publicly released photographs that made a convincing case that the Soviets were lying about the missiles in Cuba. This tangible evidence helped retain support from allies and isolated the Russians diplomatically. Our situation today calls for similar action. President Bush should not let a blanket concern about protecting intelligence sources dissuade him from releasing enough intelligence to make our case.
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"The report is incomplete at best," said Breitweiser.
"Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi. We have clear and convincing money trails linking the Saudi princes to the terrorists. Why that's not finding its way into the report, I don't know."
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One day before two American Airlines jets were hijacked and crashed, for example, 1,535 contracts changed hands on options that let investors profit if AMR stock falls below $30 per share before Oct. 20. That was almost five times the total number of those October $30 put options traded before Sept. 10, according to Bloomberg data. AMR shares fell $11.70 today to $18.
Those 1,535 contracts were worth $1.6 million at today's closing price compared with $337,700 at the end of trading on Sept. 10, according to Bloomberg data. A contract represents options for 100 shares.
Similarly, October $30 put options for UAL soared, with 2,000 contracts traded on Sept. 6, three trading days before the attack. A total of 27 contracts had traded previously.
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A Saudi citizen who provided help to two of the September 11 hijackers may have been an agent for the Riyadh government, a congressional report will highlight this week.
The explosive allegation in the report, which is understood to be highly critical of the FBI, is likely to reignite the controversy over Saudi Arabia's links with al-Qa'eda and has already led to accusations that the Bush administration is covering up for the House of Saud.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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