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Stay with CNN for reports in the run-up to the coming 9/11 commission hearings with former FBI Director Louis Freeh, Attorney General John Ashcroft and others. CNN plans live coverage beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET Tuesday.

PLANNED 9/11 TESTIMONY

Tuesday, April 13:


Louis Freeh, 9:30 a.m. ET

Janet Reno, 11 a.m. ET

Thomas Pickering, J. Cofer Black, 2 p.m. ET

John Ashcroft, 3:30 p.m. ET

Wednesday, April 14:


George Tenet, 9:30 a.m. ET

Robert Mueller, 2:30 p.m. ET

Watch CNN-USA for live coverage of these testimony sessions and ongoing analysis and updates on their impact.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Bush: Nothing in memo indicated 'imminent attack'
President cites possible changes for intelligence services
Monday, April 12, 2004 Posted: 4:03 PM EDT (2003 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...911/index.html

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- Facing questions about his administration's anti-terrorism policies, President Bush said Monday that an intelligence memo delivered to him a month before the September 11, 2001, attacks did not indicate "something is about to happen in America."

Bush also said some changes might be in order for the intelligence services.

"There was nothing there that said, you know, 'There's an imminent attack,' " Bush said during a brief news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian leader visited Bush's Texas ranch to talk about the Middle East.

The August 6, 2001, memo, called the Presidential Daily Briefing, or PDB, was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." It was released Saturday evening at the urging of the 9/11 commission investigating the attacks.

Some Democrats have suggested the memo shows the Bush administration did not take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before the attacks on New York and Washington.

But Bush -- who has made the war on terrorism a central part of his re-election campaign -- described the memo as a historical document that contained little new information. He said that the memo had come forth after he asked for an intelligence assessment.

"I read it and obviously was discomforted by the fact that Osama bin Laden hated America," Bush said. "But as I mentioned yesterday, we already knew that."

Bush's comments Monday follow similar remarks he made Sunday when he said there was no "actionable intelligence" that could have helped him thwart the 9/11 attacks.

He amplified those comments Monday, saying the FBI never presented anything that required him to act immediately. He noted that the memo cited some 70 ongoing FBI investigations into al Qaeda, bin Laden's terrorist network.

Those investigations, Bush said, "comforted me. You see, it meant the FBI was doing its job, the FBI was running down any lead."

At the same time, Bush referred to possible changes for intelligence agencies.

"Now may be a time to revamp and reform our intelligence services," Bush said. "And we look forward to hearing recommendations. We're thinking about that ourselves, and we look forward to working with the commission."

His comments came a day before the 9/11 commission is scheduled to take a critical look at U.S. intelligence and law enforcement before the terrorist attacks.

Bush is due to meet in private with the commission, accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney.

The panel already has heard from former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, also in private sessions, and received public testimony from administration figures past and present.

On another matter, Bush announced that he would hold a formal news conference Tuesday evening at the White House.

The White House said the news conference will be held in prime time.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Transcript 8/06/01 Meno :
Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Saturday, April 10, 2004 Posted: 6:51 PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...emo/index.html

The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Transcript of Rice's 9/11 commission statement
Thursday, April 8, 2004 Posted: 10:24 PM EDT

Excerpts from opening comments of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice

"Tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11, this country simply was not on a war footing."


"We ... moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda terroist network."


"We understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States."


"We wanted to ensure there was no respite in the fight against al-Qaeda. On an operational level, we decided immediately to continue to pursue the Clinton administration's covert action authorities and other efforts to fight the network."


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- National security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified Thursday under oath and in public before the independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States investigating the attacks of September 11, 2001. The White House initially refused to allow Rice's public testimony but reversed its position after pressure from relatives of 9/11 victims, commission members and politicians.

Following is a transcript of Rice's testimony before the commission:

RICE: I thank the commission for arranging this special session. Thank you for helping to find a way to meet the nation's need to learn all we can about the September 11 attacks, while preserving important constitutional principles.

This commission, and those who appear before it, have a vital charge. We owe it to those we lost, and to their loved ones, and to our country, to learn all we can about that tragic day, and the events that led to it. Many families of the victims are here today, and I thank them for their contributions to the Commission's work.

The terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on September 11, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al Qaeda and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans.

The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.

Despite the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and continued German harassment of American shipping, the United States did not enter the First World War until two years later. Despite Nazi Germany's repeated violations of the Versailles Treaty and its string of provocations throughout the mid-1930s, the Western democracies did not take action until 1939.

The U.S. government did not act against the growing threat from Imperial Japan until the threat became all too evident at Pearl Harbor. And, tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11, this country simply was not on a war footing.

Since then, America has been at war. And under President Bush's leadership, we will remain at war until the terrorist threat to our Nation is ended. The world has changed so much that it is hard to remember what our lives were like before that day. But I do want to describe the actions this administration was taking to fight terrorism before September 11, 2001.

After President Bush was elected, we were briefed by the Clinton administration on many national security issues during the transition. The president-elect and I were briefed by George Tenet on terrorism and on the al Qaeda network. Members of Sandy Berger's NSC staff briefed me, along with other members of the new national security team, on counterterrorism and al Qaeda.

This briefing lasted about one hour, and it reviewed the Clinton administration's counterterrorism approach and the various counterterrorism activities then underway. Sandy and I personally discussed a variety of other topics, including North Korea, Iraq, the Middle East and the Balkans.

Because of these briefings and because we had watched the rise of al Qaeda over the years, we understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States. We wanted to ensure there was no respite in the fight against al Qaeda.

On an operational level, we decided immediately to continue pursuing the Clinton administration's covert action authorities and other efforts to fight the network. President Bush retained George Tenet as director of central intelligence, and Louis Freeh remained the director of the FBI. I took the unusual step of retaining Dick Clarke and the entire Clinton administration's counterterrorism team on the NSC staff.

I knew Dick to be an expert in his field, as well as an experienced crisis manager. Our goal was to ensure continuity of operations while we developed new and more aggressive policies.

At the beginning of the administration, President Bush revived the practice of meeting with the director of central intelligence almost every day in the Oval Office -- meetings which I attended, along with the vice president and the chief of staff. At these meetings, the president received up-to-date intelligence and asked questions of his most senior intelligence officials.

From January 20 through September 10, the president received at these daily meetings more than 40 briefing items on al Qaeda, and 13 of these were in response to questions he or his top advisers had posed. In addition to seeing DCI Tenet almost every morning, I generally spoke by telephone every morning at 7:15 with Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld. I also met and spoke regularly with the DCI about al Qaeda and terrorism.

{{{{ there are several pages more : hit the link to read entire transcript ******

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ipt/index.html

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

9/11 commission faults U.S. intelligence

Tenet, Mueller testify before panel

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Posted: 9:18 PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ion/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence gathering was fragmented and poorly coordinated before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the 9/11 commission reported Wednesday, adding that it remains unclear how such crucial information is managed.

"A question remains: Who is in charge of intelligence," reads the final line of a critical report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, as the bipartisan 9/11 panel is formally known.

The report, examining the performance of the intelligence community, described a "loose collection" of intelligence agencies that often operated independently of one another with little communication or cooperation. And it faulted CIA Director George Tenet for not having a management strategy to battle terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.

"The vision of central coordination has not been realized," the report said.

Tenet, who testified before the commission on Wednesday, called the report "flat wrong."

"By no stretch of the imagination am I going to tell you that I've solved all the problems of the community in terms of integrating and in lashing it up," said Tenet, who has led the CIA since 1997. "But we've made an enormous amount of progress."

Tenet said the agency's "plumbing" -- the infrastructure needed to train and field spies -- had been long neglected and was under repair at the time of the attacks.

But Tenet also told the 9/11 commission that it will take the U.S. intelligence community "another five years to have the kind of clandestine service our country needs" to fight terrorism.

That estimate clearly worried the panel.

"It scares me a bit that we dismantled the CIA to the point that it now takes five years to rebuild it," 9/11 commission chairman Thomas Kean told reporters after the hearing.

Vice chairman Lee Hamilton agreed. "I was personally kind of discouraged with that statement," he said. "This is not a new problem."

With its critical assessment of U.S. intelligence before 9/11, Wednesday's public hearing followed one Tuesday when the FBI was taken to task by the commission for missing "connections" with terrorist activity and not working collaboratively with other agencies.

The CIA and FBI, in particular, were blasted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by many lawmakers and experts for not sharing tips and information.

FBI 'in transition'

But the FBI found something of a respite at Wednesday's session when commission members greeted FBI Director Robert Mueller warmly with praise for his cooperation with the panel. And a separate staff report on reforming law enforcement was largely laudatory of Mueller's efforts.

It called the FBI "an institution in transition" and acknowledged progress at the agency.

"Important structural challenges remain to be addressed in order to improve the flow of information and to enhance the FBI's counterterrorism effectiveness," the report said.

Mueller testified Wednesday that the agency has broken down walls within itself -- between intelligence and law enforcement operations in particular -- and with others to better fight terrorism.

"The bureau is moving steadily in the right direction," Mueller told the 9/11 commission.


FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies before the 9/11 commission.
Turning to an idea being mulled by the commission and some lawmakers, Mueller said that creating a separate agency to collect intelligence information in the United States "would be a grave mistake."

Splitting the law enforcement and intelligence functions would leave both "fighting the war on terrorism with one hand tied behind their backs," he said.

President Bush earlier this week signaled an interest in possible changes to U.S. intelligence, saying he was looking forward to recommendations from the 9/11 commission.

"Now may be a time to revamp and reform our intelligence services," Bush said Monday, but he did not outline any ideas.

Some lawmakers have proposed a domestic intelligence agency modeled after what Great Britain has in place, and that model has been cited by some commission members as well.

"Our sense is that the commission supports reform of the intelligence community, but we have come to no judgment about the nature of reform that we will recommend," Hamilton told reporters.

Kean said he is concerned that U.S. intelligence, as structured, isn't providing the president with the kind of information he needs.

"I think there's a real question in my mind and I think of several other commissioners as to whether the president's getting decent information, as to whether the president's getting the kind of thing the president needs to make the kind of decisions that the president every day has to make," Kean said after the public hearing.

During his testimony, Tenet said that the agency's failure to stop the September 11, 2001, terror plot "haunts all of us to this day." But he defended his efforts to battle the al Qaeda terror network before the attacks. "Three thousand people died," Tenet told the 9/11 commission. "No matter how hard we worked or how desperately we tried, it was not enough. The victims and the families of 9/11 deserve better."

On another matter, Kean and Hamilton dismissed a suggestion by a Republican lawmaker that one commissioner, Jamie Gorelick, resign.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Tennessee, said Gorelick should step down because she has a "conflict of interest." It came out at Tuesday's hearing that Gorelick was the author of a memo when she was at the Justice Department that Attorney General John Ashcroft says hobbled the FBI on intelligence matters.

Kean called Sensenbrenner's suggestion a "silly statement" and said Gorelick had followed all rules about recusing herself from matters where she had either been involved or had an interest. "People ought to stay out of our business," Kean said.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Vacationing Bush Not Told of 9/11 'Clue'
By Tabassum Zakaria

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...z&idq=/ff/stor y/0002%2F20040414%2F1621811698.htm&sc=rontz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the CIA never informed a vacationing President Bush in August 2001 that a suspected Islamic extremist had been detected taking flight lessons, the panel investigating the Sept. 11 jetliner attacks on New York and Washington heard on Wednesday.

As several commission members criticized what they called a complete intelligence failure ahead of the attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed, CIA Director George Tenet also said it would take another five years to bring U.S. spying capabilities to the level the country needs.

Commissioner Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked Tenet if he had ever mentioned to Bush the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in mid-August 2001 after he had been detected behaving suspiciously in a Minnesota flight school.

Tenet said he had not spoken to the president that month, when Bush was staying at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, nor did he bring it to the attention of other senior officials, saying simply it did not fit the agenda. "He's in Texas and I'm either here or on leave for some of that time," he said. "In this time period, I'm not talking to him, no."


But a CIA spokesman later said that Tenet had flown to Texas to brief Bush on Aug. 17 and resumed regular briefings on Aug. 31 after the president returned to the White House. Tenet said he was briefed about Moussaoui on Aug. 23 or 24. The briefing to Tenet and other top CIA officials was titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," a commission report said.

A CIA briefer was with the president during his time in Texas and gave him the now-famous Aug. 6 report, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." The CIA director did not bring up the Moussaoui case at a meeting of top administration officials to discuss Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization on Sept. 4, a week before the attacks.

Tenet said they were discussing the Predator unmanned aircraft. "All I can tell you is just it wasn't the appropriate place. I just can't take you any farther than that." A commission report on Tuesday said Tenet had told the panel no connection between Moussaoui and al Qaeda was apparent before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Moussaoui, originally detained for immigration violations, was later charged with conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and faces a possible death penalty if convicted. He is often cited as a key missed clue for unraveling the plot because he was in custody before the attack.

'PROBLEM OF WARNING'

A commission staff report issued at the start of the day's hearings said the United States had developed defenses against surprise military strikes after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 but never applied them to potential terrorist threats. "With the important exception of attacks with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, the methods developed for decades to warn of surprise attacks were not applied to the problem of warning against terrorist attacks," the report said.

Republican commissioner John Lehman called the staff report a "damning evaluation of a system that is broken." Other commission members called for an intelligence "revolution."

But Tenet said the report was wrong to state he had no strategic plan to manage the war on terrorism or to integrate and share data across the intelligence community.
However, he did acknowledge that his and other agencies failed to devise an effective defense against bin Laden's al Qaeda operatives in 2001.

"We all understood bin Laden's attempt to strike the homeland. We never translated this knowledge into an effective defense of the country," Tenet said. "No matter how hard we worked, or how desperately we tried, it was not enough. The victims and the families of 9/11 deserved better."

The bipartisan commission, which is due to report to the nation in July at the height of the presidential campaign, has issued a series of highly critical reports on what it sees as a succession of failures leading up to the attack.

A second staff statement issued on Wednesday said that despite efforts to overhaul the system since Sept. 11, "it is clear that gaps in intelligence sharing still exist ... We found there is no national strategy for sharing information to counter terrorism."

U.S. officials insist there was no single piece of information that would have revealed the plot in time to stop it. But the commission staff report said the CIA failed to foresee or analyze how a hijacked aircraft or other explosives-laden aircraft might be used as a weapon.


04/14/04 16:21

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Poll: Bush Vulnerable, but Kerry Undefined
By WILL LESTER

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...&idq=/ff/story /0001%2F20040414%2F1350804799.htm&sc=1131

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush appears vulnerable on several fronts, including support for whether he deserves re-election and worries about the country's direction, but Democratic rival John Kerry has been unable to capitalize on those weaknesses, a bipartisan poll suggests.

The result six months before the Nov. 2 presidential election is a tight race between a vulnerable incumbent and a challenger who has not yet defined himself, according to the Battleground 2004 poll released Wednesday. The survey was conducted by Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and sponsored by George Washington University.

Bush and Kerry were virtually tied in the survey, with Kerry at 49 percent support and Bush at 48 percent. When the pollsters asked an open-ended question on who voters supported for president, Bush had a slight lead.

When people were asked who they support but given no choices, 15 percent said they were undecided. That's the same level of undecided voters on that question right before the 2000 election, Goeas said.


``We are starting this campaign right where we finished the last campaign,'' said Goeas.


The poll found Bush retains an advantage on personal qualities like strong leadership, and on such issues as his handling of the campaign against terrorism and the war in Iraq. Kerry holds a slight edge on such qualities as compassion, and leads Bush on handling the economy and health care.


But on the intensity of those feelings, Bush has the advantage, with 38 percent saying they feel strongly for Bush and 26 percent saying the same about Kerry.


That intensity of feeling helps Bush stay close to Kerry despite mixed feelings about his re-election and Kerry's advantage on the economy, health care and Social Security.


``With advantages like this, we should be way ahead,'' Lake said. ``How do we translate Kerry's issue advantages into a lead against Bush?''


The poll was taken before the recent spike in violence in Iraq.


GOP pollster Goeas said it's important for Bush's re-election campaign to define Kerry and turn his softer supporters into opponents. In some other polls, as many as four in 10 people say they don't know enough about Kerry to decide how they feel about him.


The poll suggested Bush supporters feel more intensity in their backing for the president so Democrats will be under pressure make sure Kerry supporters go to the polls.


The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken from March 28-31 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.


On the Net:
Battleground 2004 poll: www.tarrance.com

04/14/04 13:50


Kerry Says There Is 'Better Way' in Iraq
[size1]By John Whitesides [/size]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...z&idq=/ff/stor y/0002%2F20040414%2F1716814975.htm&sc=rontz

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic White House challenger John Kerry said on Wednesday President Bush's "stubborn" Iraq policy was costing U.S. lives and money and renewed calls for a broader diplomatic effort to share the burden.

The day after Bush defended his policy in a prime-time news conference and vowed to stay the course, Kerry promised to find "a better way" in Iraq by creating a partnership with the United Nations to rebuild the country and government.

"The approach of this administration has been consistent and stubborn in the way that they persist in the American occupation and in proceeding down its own road," Kerry told reporters after an appearance at City College. "It has made that mistake from day one and it is costing us money and I think it is costing us lives," he said.

Kerry, locked in a tight election battle with Bush in which Iraq has become a key issue, said "we should embrace a much more significant effort of outreach and diplomacy" to build international support and enter a full U.N. partnership. That partnership would save U.S. lives and money and create a more stable government for Iraqis, he said.
"We shouldn't only be tough, we have to be smart," Kerry said. "There is a smarter way to accomplish this mission."

Asked if foreign governments had hardened their opposition to the U.S. role in Iraq too much to rebuild their trust, Kerry said a change in direction would help. "It may take a new president to be able to change the atmosphere in order to be able to accomplish what we need to. I hope not," said Kerry, who denied he was playing politics with the issue.

"I believe there is a better way to share the responsibility for this burden," Kerry said. "I believe it is possible to reduce the costs and the burden and the risk to American soldiers."

Kerry, who voted to authorize the war in October 2002 but has regularly criticized Bush's conduct of it, was confronted at a town hall meeting at City College by Walter Daum, a math professor who said the Massachusetts senator had taken the same approach as Bush.

Protesters held a banner behind Kerry during the event, reading: "Kerry Take a Stand, Troops Out Now."


PULLING TROOPS CAUSES CHAOS

Kerry said pulling troops out of Iraq immediately would lead to further chaos and endanger Americans and Iraqis, and said he would be willing to commit more troops if the Pentagon said it was necessary.

Reacting for the Bush campaign, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said "Kerry's policy is not a policy" but just a political means of attacking the president. "It's just a lot of criticism and pessimism," Weinberger said. "The United Nations is totally incapable of doing any kind of job as pacifying or removing terrorism from a country like Iraq."


Kerry came to New York for three fund-raisers and to unveil details of his plan to pay for college tuition for students who commit to two years of national service after their education. Kerry's program would give up to 200,000 students who agree to perform key community service jobs four years of free tuition at public universities, and partial breaks to 300,000 students who would work part-time.

"We cannot be a country where all we do is take care of ourselves," he said, adding there was great value in community service and "we need a president who sees that."
He said the estimated $13 billion program would be paid for by overhauling the student loan system, requiring banks to win student loan contracts at auction and reducing their profits.

Kerry was joined at City College by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Charles Rangel. Clinton, who later joined Kerry on a visit to a Manhattan pre-school, said Kerry had the right combination of "grit and imagination, of understanding and tenacity" for the White House.



04/14/04 17:16

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

9/11 Panel Member Faults Clinton Inaction
By HOPE YEN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...&idq=/ff/story /0001%2F20040409%2F1818625505.htm&sc=1151&photoid=2 0040408JWE135

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Sept. 11 commission Democrat disagreed Friday with President Clinton's assessment there wasn't enough intelligence linking al-Qaida to a deadly attack on a Navy ship to justify an attack on the terrorist organization.

Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey said he believes Clinton should have launched a military strike against al-Qaida following the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors.


``I think he did have enough proof to take action,'' Kerrey said on ABC's ``Good Morning America.

The commission interviewed Clinton behind closed doors Thursday for nearly four hours, with many of their questions focused on the Cole attack.


A person familiar with the Clinton session said the former president told the commission he did not order retaliatory military strikes because he could not get ``a clear, firm judgment of responsibility'' from U.S. intelligence before he left office the following January.


U.S. intelligence didn't conclude that al-Qaida had sponsored the attack on the ship in the harbor at Aden, Yemen, until after the Bush administration took office.


Bush officials have said they didn't retaliate because they didn't want an inadequate ``tit-for-tat'' response that would embolden the terrorists.


The commission held a private session with former Vice President Al Gore on Friday. The three-hour session was described by the panel as ``candid and forthcoming.''


``He answered all our questions. We talked a lot about airline safety and security, the Cole, and the Clinton White House attitude toward terrorism,'' said Republican commissioner James R. Thompson, a former Illinois governor. He declined to give specifics.


A preliminary report on airline security that the panel released in January noted Gore had chaired a 1996 presidential Commission on Aviation Safety and Security that focused on the danger of explosives on aircraft rather than potential foreign hijackings.


``It's too soon to be making assessments at this point,'' Thompson said.


President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also will meet privately with the full panel in a joint session in coming weeks. They initially restricted the interview to one hour with two panel members, but under mounting public pressure agreed last week to a joint session without time constraints.



04/09/04 18:17

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

by Gary D. Halbert
April 20, 2004

So, have you been watching the 9-11 Commission hearings recently? Not much. That’s probably good. Not at all. That’s even better. The 9-11 Commission hearings have ranged from highly energized exchanges to utter boredom. The Commission’s public hearings (10 so far) have included an embarrassing amount of grandstanding and partisan spectacles, especially on the part of the Democrats.

Several of the commissioners seem much more intent on advancing their personal agendas and careers than they do about seeking the truth about 9-11. It is clear that some of the commissioners are jockeying for positions in a Kerry administration should he be the next president. Conflicts of interest abound on the Commission.

The Commission claims to have interviewed over 1,000 witnesses and yet little, if any, new information has been gleaned. Nevertheless, the Commission is expected to release a final report in late July which reportedly will claim that the 9-11 tragedy could have been prevented.

We’re not quite sure how the terror attacks could have been prevented, or even how the Commission has already drawn such a conclusion. We don’t understand how the CIA and the FBI, which were legally prohibited from sharing certain information going all the way back to 1978, would have or could have collaborated and connected all the dots pertaining to the 9-11 attacks. Even if they had, could we have prevented it? Apparently, the 9-11 Commission wants us to believe that the answer is yes.

It’s called the Blame Game. It is becoming increasingly clear that a majority of the members of the Commission wants to lay the blame for the 9-11 tragedy on President Bush. This week, we will examine the 9-11 Commission, its penchant for blaming Bush and its many conflicts of interest.


Makeup Of The Commission

The “National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” (aka, the 9-11 Commission) was created as a result of congressional legislation and was signed into law by President Bush in November 2002. The Commission was supposed to be a bipartisan group consisting of five Republicans and five Democrats, with a mandate to investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001” and a budget (so far) of $15 million taxpayer dollars.

The chairman is Thomas Keen (Rep.), former New Jersey governor and longtime political insider. The vice chairman is Lee Hamilton (Dem.), who previously spent 34 years in the House of Representatives from Indiana.

The four Republican commissioners are Fred Fielding (former US attorney), Slade Gorton (former Senator and attorney), John Lehman (former Navy Secretary) and Timothy Roemer (former House member). The four Democratic commissioners are Richard Ben-Veniste (former US attorney), Bob Kerrey (former Senator), James Thompson (former IL governor and US attorney) and Jamie Gorelick (more details on her below).

The 9-11 Commission also has a staff of apprx. 80 people, over half of which are attorneys.

What We Have Learned – Nothing New

So what have we learned so far from the “blue ribbon” Commission? The media would have us believe that the following are new revelations, but they aren’t. For example, Bush received a briefing (PDB) from Condi Rice on August 6, 2001 which warned that Osama bin Laden was intent on attacking the US, possibly including the hijacking of commercial airliners. Yet this news generated a firestorm in the media back in May 2002.

We are also led to believe it is new news that the CIA had serious concerns about Zacarias Moussaoui (the 20th hijacker) after his suspicious behavior in a Minnesota flight school, but didn’t pass this information on the Bush administration. Ditto for the fact that the FBI knew that two of the other 9-11 hijackers were in the US, but they did not attempt to locate and arrest them due to federal restrictions on such activity. This is all old news.

Jamie Gorelick & The CIA/FBI “Wall”

One of the biggest controversies arising from the 9-11 Commission hearings – which is also not new news - has to do with the so-called “wall” between the CIA and the FBI, which prevented the sharing of information. 9-11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick, who served as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno in the Clinton administration, came under fire from the current Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft made public a classified memo that Gorelick sent to the FBI and others in the intelligence community, warning the agencies about sharing information.

The Gorelick memo was entitled, “Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations.” It contained new directives to the agencies regarding intelligence sharing and included the following: While many believed that Ashcroft was trying to lay the blame for the 9-11 tragedy on Gorelick, and in particular her 1995 memo, he did point out that the intelligence sharing wall had existed for years prior to 1995. Here are some excerpts from Ashcroft’s testimony before the Commission: Ashcroft’s testimony sparked a firestorm of criticism directed at Jamie Gorelick, and many groups called for her resignation from the Commission. As this is written, she has not stepped down, and I don’t expect she will. I have linked below an editorial she wrote in her own defense last week in the Washington Post.

The truth is, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was signed into law in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter. It placed restrictions on the sharing of so-called “foreign intelligence” (such as the CIA allegedly had on certain of the 9-11 hijackers) with other government agencies and/or law enforcement.

The point is, the information sharing wall existed long before Jamie Gorelick became Deputy AG under Clinton/Reno. This is not new news. It jumped into the spotlight, however, shortly after 9-11 when it became clear to the public that the CIA and the FBI were not communicating.

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

What We Seem To Have Forgotten

Former President Bill Clinton was interviewed in private by the Commission in early April. Had I been on the Commission, I would have asked him about the following events as described in my E-Letter dated May 24, 2001 (better skip this part if you are a big Clinton fan):


There were other terrorist attacks against the US overseas which were admittedly the work of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The Khobar Towers in June 1996; the US embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania in August 1998; and the USS Cole in October 2000. Hundreds were killed including dozens of US citizens and service men and women. Still there was no major overhaul of national security or our intelligence agencies. We did bomb an aspirin factory in Sudan and a deserted al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 1998 at the height of the Monica Lewinski scandal.


Blaming Bush & Advancing Their Careers

The Democrats on the Commission clearly want to lay the blame for 9-11 on the Bush administration. Clinton would get a “pass” if they have their way. Even Commission chairman Thomas Keen – who is a Republican – seems willing to play along. He was one of the first to say publicly that he believes 9-11 could have been prevented.

I believe it would have been next to impossible for the Bush administration to have prevented 9-11. Yet from what we read, the final report from the Commission (which is already being drafted before all the witnesses are heard) may indeed lay much of the blame on President Bush and his advisors.

Dare we look at some of the motivations behind certain of these 9-11 commissioners? Yes, we do. Former Senator Bob Kerrey has been perhaps the most vocal and fiery member of the Commission. Rumor has it that Kerrey is on the short list of possible VP running mates for John Kerry (“Kerry/Kerrey” – wouldn’t that be interesting), or if not, possibly Secretary of State in a John Kerry cabinet.

Richard Ben-Veniste is a long-time power broker in Washington, along the lines of Vernon Jordan during the Clinton years. Ben-Veniste was, among other things, a Special Prosecutor and chief of the Watergate Task Force back in the 1970s. He was also chief counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee. He could be positioning for a general counsel spot in a Kerry White House.

And Jamie Gorelick? Presumably, she would love to be Attorney General in a Kerry administration.

The point is, all of the Democrats on the Commission have conflicts of interest and/or strong motivations to see Bush defeated by Kerry in November. Maybe this explains some of their behaviors and actions while supposedly being non-partisan.


Richard Clarke – The Most Damning Evidence?

Richard Clarke’s testimony before the 9-11 Commission is cited as being perhaps the most damning evidence of the Bush administration’s lack of concern about national security and a terrorist attack. Though his book seems to go further in blaming the Bush administration than he did under oath, it was still clear that Clarke expected Bush to do in eight months what he himself had failed to do in his long career as the nation’s counter-terrorism czar.

However, the liberal press failed to mention how Clarke’s 9-11 testimony (not to mention his book) directly contradicted his comments during an August 2002 press conference. Perhaps Clarke has provided the most damning evidence of all, but not of Bush’s complacency. His evidence helps to prove that most of those who have been most critical of the Bush Administration's handling of the threat of a terrorist attack have definite ulterior motives, as I have discussed above. Mr. Clarke held his tongue on any criticism of Bush until an election year in which his expose' was to be published. Remarkable timing, wouldn't you say?


Conclusions :

As I have written before, the Democrats and the liberal media are in an all-out effort to see that Bush is not re-elected. The politicization of the 9-11 Commission, sadly, is little more than a last-ditch effort to bring Bush down. As a result, most of the rhetoric you hear coming from this Commission is much ado about nothing. It is more about defeating Bush at all costs and about advancing their personal agendas.

I predict that the work of this Commission is going to be disregarded as a flawed piece of political propaganda, rather than a constructive review of the intelligence process. They have forgotten their mandate to review the events that led up to the 9-11 attacks and to recommend how security and the intelligence community can be improved to prevent future attacks.

The truth is, there have been security failures and lapses in all recent administrations. I would argue that the most egregious failures occurred on Bill Clinton’s watch, but we will never hear that admitted (or even hinted) by the 9-11 Commission or the media.

As noted earlier, I don’t believe the Bush administration could have prevented the 9-11 attacks. Certainly, there was intelligence that was not shared or didn’t make it into the right hands. Even if it had, it is doubtful that most of the hijackers could have been stopped.

This also raises the question of whether or not lawmakers and the American people would have tolerated – in advance - the extreme measures that would have been necessary to prevent the 9-11 tragedy. But I will leave that question, and discussion of same, for another time.

The good news is, a great deal has already been done to increase our security, largely at the initiative of President Bush. I have no doubt that the terrorists would have already struck us again if they could. Rather than playing the blame game, the 9-11 Commission should carry out its mandate and provide the administration and our intelligence agencies the information they need.

Very best regards,
Gary D. Halbert

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Should 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick be forced to step down from the commission due to her conflict of interest?

Yes 99%

No 1%



Total Votes: 741

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?