The White House refused to provide contents of the president's daily brief. This would clear up questions about how much specific information President Bush received about an impending attack during the spring and summer of 2001 - a period in which the intelligence community was reporting with alarm that a "spectacular" attack against the United States involving "mass casualties" was in the works.
"Ultimately, this bar was extended to the point where CIA personnel were not allowed to be interviewed regarding the simple process by which the (brief) is prepared," the panel said.
The committee managed, "inadvertently," it says, to get some contents of a key briefing Bush received in August 2001. It included "FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks; as well as information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of Bin Ladin (sic) supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives." In an extraordinary footnote, the panel cites public statements by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that characterized the August briefing as general and having provided historical perspective on Osama bin Laden's methods of terror.
The lawmakers, though, were barred from interviewing Rice. They sought to "obtain a better understanding of the development of counterterrorism policy in the Bush administration before September 11, 2001." The panel was forced to submit written questions to a deputy. ...
The inquiry's report devotes 15 pages to describing a pattern of Bush administration denials and delaying tactics that prevented a fuller account of national failure before the attack. Last month the independent 9/11 commission still probing the attack issued a similar compendium of complaint.
This is a "team" blog. We are a bunch of
Americans, whose rising distress
in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.
As Bush said, he's a "uniter." Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves." - John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
More Sites we often
like:
more coming...
"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.
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