Whistle Ass / George Bush 2004

"the longest presidential vacation in 32 years" - bush summer 2001

a caller on cnn this eve asked a helluva good question: "if the head of the cia was ringing warning bells about potential devastating terrorist attacks during the summer of 2001, clarke was issuing terror warnings, our allies were giving warnings about potential attacks, the attorney general was flying in private planes because of warnings about attacks using civilian airliners ... why the hell did the president decide that was an excellent time to take a 30+ day vacation " the longest presidential vacation in 32 years" back to the ranch in texas" ...

during which " For seven of his 31 working days, said McClellan, he will conduct a "Home to the Heartland Tour," to listen "to the concerns of the people across America," so as "to highlight the values that bring America together." "

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11327

bush agrees to appearance before commmission as long as cheney holds his hand

" I am authorized to advise you that the president and vice president have agreed to one joint private session with all 10 commissioners, with one commission staff member present to take notes of the session."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8312248.htm

via talking points memo

"This is a matter of policy."

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.

"To call this explanation tortured is to give human rights abusers a bad name."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_03_28.php#002776

WHITE HOUSE, April/2001: FOCUS ON BIN LADEN "A MISTAKE"

WHITE HOUSE, 4/01: FOCUS ON BIN LADEN "A MISTAKE" A previously forgotten report from April 2001 (four months before 9/11) shows that the Bush Administration officially declared it "a mistake" to focus "so much energy on Osama bin Laden." The report directly contradicts the White House's continued assertion that fighting terrorism was its "top priority" before the 9/11 attacks (1).

Specifically, on April 30, 2001, CNN reported that the Bush Administration's release of the government's annual terrorism report contained a serious change: "there was no extensive mention of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden" as there had been in previous years. When asked why the Administration had reduced the focus, "a senior Bush State Department official told CNN the U.S. government made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden." (2).

The move to downgrade the fight against Al Qaeda before 9/11 was not the only instance where the Administration ignored repeated warnings that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent (3). Specifically, the Associated Press reported in 2002 that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions" (4). Meanwhile, Newsweek has reported that internal government documents show that the Bush Administration moved to "de-emphasize" counterterrorism prior to 9/11 (5). When "FBI officials sought to add hundreds more counterintelligence agents" to deal with the problem, "they got shot down" by the White House.

http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df03262004.html

Minnesota terror expert (and former bush administration NSC official) broadly agrees with Clarke

"The Bush administration was slow to develop a counterterrorism policy, was blinded by its disdain for its predecessors, and could have done more after 9/11 to destroy Al-Qaida if it hadn't been focused on an unnecessary and counterproductive vendetta against Saddam Hussein, according to a former National Security Council official now living in Minnesota"

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4684189.html

"He (Richard Clarke) has done the country a service in focusing attention on the failures leading up to 9/11."

"The real impression gleaned from the hearings is not that the Bush administration was indifferent to the threat of terror, but that its officials had trouble fully understanding it. Ms. Rice was trained as a Sovietologist. Many of Mr. Bush's other top advisers are also former cold warriors who remained loyal to the agenda of the gulf war era, the early 1990's. Their mind-set did not allow for the possibility of an extranational threat not orchestrated by any one particular government. Once 9/11 happened, they organized an effective attack on Afghanistan, where Mr. bin Laden had been operating, but they then turned their attention to Iraq, a country that no one in Mr. Clarke's operation regarded as an incubator of international terrorism.

Despite attempts by a few commission members to paint Mr. Clarke as a disgruntled former employee trying to get publicity for his new book, the former counterterrorism chief was an impressive, reasonable witness. He has done the country a service in focusing attention on the failures leading up to 9/11. The only problem with his apology was that so few of those failures really seemed to be his."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/25/opinion/25THU1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Richard Clarke KOs the Bushies

"And so now here's Clarke, in an official, nationally broadcast forum, announcing: I failed, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Which, as one member of the panel noted, is more than any official in the Bush administration has said to any victims of the far more devastating 9/11 attacks.

I am not suggesting that Clarke's apology was cynical or purely tactical. I'm sure it was sincere."

http://slate.msn.com//?id=2097750&

via required daily reading at tpm

note - hawks chuck hagel (republican) and joe biden (dem hawk) and the rest of the crew on larry king live tonight - gave clarke a unanimous thumbs up ...

drip drip drip drip.

bye bye george

There is no terrible regime . . .

"... that does not have a major military connection to Israel. Israeli arms dealers are . . . like fish in water in the rough and tumble countries that eat Americans alive: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, China, Indonesia, these countries where Americans just cannot operate, partly because of business practices, and partly because they have [Congressional] constraints and laws.""

bill christison blows the lid off bush, the neocons and the likudnik cabal in israel

http://www.counterpunch.org/christison03052004.html

will someone on the commission ask the clowns from bush administration why a scraggly kid from marin county was able to get into the al queda camps and meet bin laden, and the CIA and defense intelligence establishment (how many billions of dollars did we give them over the last 10 years?) didn't have a clue where bin laden was?

where's the accountability? oh that's right they can't fire tenent 'cause he'll roll on whistleass.

bush's man david kay implores US to admit mistakes in Iraq

"The former chief US weapons inspector in Iraq warned yesterday that the United States is in "grave danger" of destroying its credibility at home and abroad if it does not own up to its mistakes in Iraq.

"The cost of our mistakes . . . with regard to the explanation of why we went to war in Iraq are far greater than Iraq itself," David Kay said in a speech at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/03/23/kay_implores_us_to_admit_mistakes_in_iraq/

via the always excellent: billmon.org