Exactly: <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>The White House tapes every recorded conversation between the President and his advisors...look at all the stuff that's been declassified in recent years. LBJ & his SecDef on Vietnam, Nixon's comments on Reagan, etc.<p><hr></blockquote><p><br>It's exactly how Clarke put it. "Your government failed you" Democrats, Republicans and Naders alike. Forgiveness is ours to give but not theirs to expect. At the very least, they should ask for it.<br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>[color:blue]NOTE: This Avatar Has Been Changed To Protect The Innocent</font color=blue>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>To be fair, something of that nature would be more memorable to you or I, considering how much less hectic our lives are compared to someone in Dr. Rice's position. That event for you could have been written in a datebook somewhere, a calendar, or in iCal for that matter.<p><hr></blockquote><p>to be fair to us, we didn't have some great tragedy happen while we were on guard...you have to imagine that rice has replayed all of those days up to 9/11 in her head over and over and over. the dubya admin claims they didn't have much time to make a difference, so surely they can remember "not much time." additionally, there is no doubt in my mind that condi has been studying every detail over and over leading up to these hearings. she knew the title of a secret memo from 8/6/01 and the details written in it as well as the implications for gosh sakes. of course she was prepared for those kinds of questions and she should be.<br><br>----<br>"even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is 2 years 2 late. Al Qaeda is a very different org now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job." Leverett, former Bush Nat’l Security Cncl staff specialist.

do you not trust anyone on anything ever?<br><br>No, I thought that was *your* angle...<br><br>I'm specifically mentioning Clarke and his timing with his book...I didn't say I never trusted ANYONE... <br><br>As far as her memory goes, the part I heard in the car this morning pertained to whether or not Dr. Rice remembered having conversations *before* 9-11 about Al Qeida and Bin Laden, and whether or not she had discussed with the president or any other high-ranking officials any possible plans being made to use airliners as weapons or 'bombs', as it were. <br><br>Dr. Rice said, in effect, that she remembers no specific conversations regarding such specific Al Qeida plans, and I for one am leaning towards believing that notion.<br><br>Yes I believe there were a lot of signs and a lot of 'chatter' that pointed to an attack, but they did not signal *where* the attacks would take place and in what capacity. IMO the events of 9-11 were just so far out of our scope that it would have taken some pretty sharp (and quick) intelligence work to prevent it 100%. <br><br>Intelligence that we obviously need to improve on quite a bit.<br><br><br>[color:red]You slap my back, I'll slap yours!</font color=red>

i trust clarke. i trusted condi's testimony under oath today as well; however, she really didn't say much today and did her best to avoid answering questions while giving long-winded responses to fill time. i have no reason to disbelieve anything clarke said under oath and condi did not say anything under oath today to make me think otherwise. did you get a different impression or are you going off of what the vice president said to rush limbaugh the day after clarke's testimony? everyone associated with clarke has only had good things to say about the man (sans the admin who currently has the most to lose...though, condi only said good things today -- under oath and the whole admin has backed away from attacking clarke these days).<br><br>as for the timing of clarke's book. you do know that he finished the book last year don't you? the white-house sat on it for 3 months before they cleared it and then clarke's publisher had the power to release it whenever the *publisher* deemed it to be the best time. obviously, they chose that timing when they did for a reason; not clarke. my guess is that they were going to wait until closer to the election to draw on the politicized atmosphere of that time, but then this 9/11 commission came along and presented the perfect timing for them. again, clarke turned the finished book in last year.<br><br>as for condi saying that she doesn't remember talking about the terrorists organization that had declared war on the US and using an airline as a bomb...those warnings were present...she is the national security advisor to the president. doesn't it concern you that she cannot remember something as grave as that?<br><br>----<br>"even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is 2 years 2 late. Al Qaeda is a very different org now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job." Leverett, former Bush Nat’l Security Cncl staff specialist.

Give her a break. She was too busy playing Minesweeper or something.<br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>[color:blue]NOTE: This Avatar Has Been Changed To Protect The Innocent</font color=blue>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>did you get a different impression or are you going off of what the vice president said to rush limbaugh the day after clarke's testimony? everyone associated with clarke has only had good things to say about the man (sans the party who currently has the most to lose...though, condi only said good things today -- under oath).<br><br>as for the timing of clarke's book. you do know that he finished the book last year don't you? the white-house sat on it for 3 months before they cleared it and then clarke's publisher had the power to release it whenever the *publisher* deemed it to be the best time. obviously, they chose that timing when they did for a reason; not clarke. my guess is that they were going to wait until closer to the election to draw on the politicized atmosphere of that time, but then this 9/11 commission came along and presented the perfect timing for them. again, clarke turned the finished book in last year.<p><hr></blockquote><p>I'm going by my own judgment based on the fact that I heard a portion of Clarke's testimony, and that I heard from another source that he had a book that had recently or was about to come out. Obviously some pundits would tie the two together, but I had my doubts before I heard anyone in the Bush administration talk bad about him.<br><br>And the fact that he was disputing his own earlier statements under oath just smells afoul to me. He had to be twisting the facts at *some* point- just not sure at which point it was. My guess is that he probably had a falling out with the Bush admin., so now he decides to take the high road. <br><br>Just saying I question his motivation for speaking out when he did.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>as for condi saying that she doesn't remember talking about the terrorists organization that had declared war on the US and using an airline as a bomb...those warnings were present...she is the national security advisor to the president. doesn't it concern you that she cannot remember something as grave as that?<br><p><hr></blockquote><p>Where did you pick that up from? I don't recall anyone contradicting her testimony when she said there were *no* warnings about planes as weapons...<br><br>Like I said, I only heard what I heard (from 9-9:45), and I didn't hear any commentary or read any articles to further influence my opinion..<br><br>[color:red]You slap my back, I'll slap yours!</font color=red>

Right it was really comforting that Clark apoligized for over 200 years of government failure. That made it all better. Of course in the age of Oprah I guess that all anyone really wants now days.<br><br>Bottom line was (if you listened to all the testomony today) that that the US was not in a domestic terriorist state of mind before 9/11.<br>There were no credible current threat reports that at that time in our nations history warrented any different reaction than what we did.<br><br>Dean Davis

why aren't the majority of 9/11 families criticizing clarke for his apology? MSNBC had a bunch of 9/11 widows on today and one woman said that she voted for dubya and was his biggest fan, but since 9/11 he has been her biggest adversary in that he's fought everything these widows have tried to have happen with regard to the 9/11 commission. i thought that spoke volumes. anyway, they all said they appreciated the apology from clarke because they really needed to hear someone admit that the gov't wasn't doing all it could do to prevent 9/11. he didn't claim that they could have stopped 9/11, in fact, he pretty much said the opposite, but he did say that we didn't have the right priorities in place prior to 9/11. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>There were no credible current threat reports that at that time in our nations history warrented any different reaction than what we did.<br><p><hr></blockquote><p>while this is true for the public in general, the gov't was taking things seriously enough to have a summer of spikes in terror alerts behind the scenes that are now pretty well documented. in fact, one memo even stated that osama wanted to attack on american soil. let's hope they declassify this memo. unfortunately, channels of communications broke down pretty badly during these crises. the final report is going to point fingers at everyone from the reagan admin all the way to the current admin and the various intelligence agencies as well. there will be a lot of fixes recommended. i can't wait. <br><br>----<br>"even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is 2 years 2 late. Al Qaeda is a very different org now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job." Leverett, former Bush Nat’l Security Cncl staff specialist.

They will declassify the memo and you'll find out it says absolutly nothing.<br><br>To paraphase but not taking anything out of context...<br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p><br>BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?<br><br>RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."<br><br>RICE: It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.<br><br>BEN-VENISTE: Well, did you not -- you have indicated here that this was some historical document. And I am asking you whether it is not the case that you learned in the PDB memo of August 6th that the FBI was saying that it had information suggesting that preparations -- not historically, but ongoing, along with these numerous full field investigations against Al Qaida cells, that preparations were being made consistent with hijackings within the United States?<br><br>RICE: The fact is that this August 6th PDB was in response to the president's questions about whether or not something might happen or something might be planned by Al Qaida inside the United States. He asked because all of the threat reporting or the threat reporting that was actionable was about the threats abroad, not about the United States.<br><br>This particular PDB had a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98; that he had, in fact, liked the results of the 1993 bombing.<br>It had a number of discussions of -- it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States -- Ressam. It reported that the FBI had full field investigations under way.<br><br>And we checked on the issue of whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings, and we were told, I believe, that the issue was the courthouse in which this might take place.<br><br>Commissioner, this was not a warning. This was a historic memo -- historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions about what we knew<br><br>BEN-VENISTE: Now, was the president, in words or substance, alarmed or in any way motivated to take any action, such as meeting with the director of the FBI, meeting with the attorney general, as a result of receiving the information contained in the PDB?<br><br>RICE: I want to repeat that when this document was presented, it was presented as, yes, there were some frightening things -- and by the way, I was not at Crawford, but the president and I were in contact and I might have even been, though I can't remember, with him by video link during that time.<br><br>The president was told this is historical information. I'm told he was told this is historical information and there was nothing actionable in this. The president knew that the FBI was pursuing this issue. The president knew that the director of central intelligence was pursuing this issue. And there was no new threat information in this document to pursue.<p><hr></blockquote><p>Dean Davis

I'm paraphrasing, but what Dr. Rice said in her opening statement is something I happen to wholeheartedly agree with:<br><br>As a nation we are very reactive when it comes to national defense and security. Look how long it took us to jump into WW1–– approx. 2 years AFTER the Germans sunk the Lusitania. Then we only involved ourselves in WW2 after Pearl Harbor was attacked- and if you believe what you read about the events leading up it, you'll discover we didn't do much then either about the signs of an impending attack by the Japanese...<br><br>And I'm sure if there were message boards like these back in 1941, there'd be a lot of folks who would be railing President Roosevelt for not doing more to save the lives of all those poor boys sitting in the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona to this day.<br><br>And now as we look back on 9-11, we find that we acted no differently than we did in every other situation similar to that one. Each occurrence, though, has caused our government to rethink the way we conduct our national security. <br><br>The 9-11 attack was unprecedented...I ask you, just how were we supposed to envision something of this magnitude? Every bit of evidence shows that any time planes were used in terrorist attacks in the past, it was some sort of hostage scenario where only people in danger were the ones on the plane itself.<br><br><br><br>[color:red]You slap my back, I'll slap yours!</font color=red>