Why Ms Rice won't testify under oath ?

I think she will take the Fifth.

She's on the board of Lies, Inc.

I'm a little confused, why is there a need for both swearing and affirming. What is the problem with swearing?

She's Liar.
Rice: "We committed more funding to counterterrorism and intelligence efforts."

But what about this, Ms. Rice? From WaPo dated 3/21:

"In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13541-2004Mar21.html



it's all one big lie...

"We now know that the real threat had been in the United States since at least 1999. The plot to attack New York and Washington had been hatching for nearly two years. According to the FBI, by June 2001 16 of the 19 hijackers were already here. Even if we had known exactly where Osama bin Laden was, and the armed Predator had been available to strike him, the Sept. 11 hijackers almost certainly would have carried out their plan. So, too, if the Northern Alliance had somehow managed to topple the Taliban, the Sept. 11 hijackers were here in America -- not in Afghanistan."

So they knew for two years before 9/11 that there was a plot to attack New York and Washington...and the FBI by June of 2001 knew that 16 of the 19 known al Qaeda members were here in the US. So if they knew that these guys were here...and that they knew for two years that a plot was in motion to attack New York and Washington...why didn't they do anything...?

She says that they recieved no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes...but yet most if not all of the hi-jackers were enrolled in flight schools learning to fly jumbo jets...according to the Pheonix memo...

If they didn't recieve a plan but yet they knew of a plot...then why didn't she have a plan put togther...after all...she is the national security adviser is she not...so I'm guessing that she is incompitent and should not be in the position that she is in...


If you ask me she has just implicated herself and the rest of the administration...that they knew of an attack was going to be carried out on this country...Namely New York and Washington...and they knew that 16 of the 19 hijackers were in this country with ties to al Qaeda and they did nothing...


Condi says: "We received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles."

What about the Aug 6 PDB (President's Daily Brief), entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."?

"The super-secret PDB has emerged in the public eye with the disclosure that President Bush was informed by the Aug. 6 version that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden might try to hijack an airplane."

- Walter Pincus, WaPo
Friday, May 24, 2002; Page A33

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Aug+6+PDB&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-...

"One PDB was given at the presidential ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 6, and dealt with the possibility that Al Qaeda might hijack airplanes."

- Michael Isikoff
Newsweek, 26 May 2003

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Aug+6+PDB&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-...

"The Aug. 6, 2001 PDB given to Bush while on vacation at his ranch in Crawford {focused} on the prospect of an upcoming Al Qaeda attack and the prospect that terrorists might seek to hijack commercial airliners ?- a warning that critics have long charged should have triggered a more vigorous response from the White House. The title of the PDB ... was more prophetic than the White House has ever acknowledged: Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Aug+6+PDB&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-

CLAIM #1: "Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to." - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says "principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11. - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #2: "The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11." - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11." Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that "It is not surprising that people make that connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said "we don't know" if there is a connection.

CLAIM #4: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11." - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's ?'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism ?'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'" - Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #5: "The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11." - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: "In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks." - Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…" - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04

FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #7: "[Bush] wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with [terrorism], and that process was in motion throughout the spring." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place." - Washington Post, 1/20/02

It was Rice, who declared after 9/11, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." Turns out she had been briefed by her predecessor about precisely that threat from al-Qaida against key sites in the United States, and against the G8 summit in Genoa - which Bush attended, sleeping aboard a Navy carrier instead of a comfy Italian hotel - in July 2001. And a 1999 report by the National Intelligence Council warned that al-Qaida terrorists could crash an airplane full of explosives into the Pentagon.

Then there's the January, 2001 report by a national security commission chaired by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. (It was the Hart-Rudman commission, tasked by Bill Clinton to come up with a 21st century security strategy for the U.S. - and not George W. Bush - that originally proposed creating a Department of Homeland Security. The Bush team shelved its recommendations before 9/11.) Hart pleaded with the Bush administration to take the al-Qaida threat seriously throughout the spring and summer of 2001, with Hart even meeting personally with Rice just one week before the Twin Towers were attacked

Many people of strong religious convictions will not take an oath of any kind, and others will not take an oath which invokes the name of god.

Lies and Damned Lies
Bushco has told damn lies. Many Americans were upset and some still are that B. Clinton lied about a sexual matter but don't seem upset that Pres. Bush, VP Cheney and the rotten bunch of his cabal lied and lied and lied about Iraq and Saddam.

I shake my head in frustration.

OK, I still don't understand why? I have known some mennonites, jw's who will not pledge allegiance, go to war ect. But an elected official who will not swear an oath seems silly if not illegal. Why be in politics if this is against your religion.

Geeze, Ceili, are you tryin' to be thick?

BBB quoted this above, but, to repeat, the third paragraph of the sixth article of the constitution reads:


The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Additionally, the eighth paragraph of the first section, of the second article (which deals with the executive, and hence, the presidency) reads:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Those who are unwilling to swear an oath are not required to do so--and may make the same pledge by affirmation. Note the portions of the text above which i have presented in bold-face.

So one can either take an oath (swear) or make an affirmation. The option of making an affirmation is a concession to the religious scruples of some citizens.

Sorry set, I won't bother again.

I had no idea an oath was a test of religious beliefs, nuff said.

I was rude, Boss, please accept my apology. The standard form for such oaths is to swear before god, and this is offensive to a great many deeply religious people.

Facts
Rethuglicans are always demanding facts. When they are presented they don't respond. Rethugs are like vampires demanding wooden stakes. When the stakes are shown the blood suckers run away.

Re: She's Liar.

Both are true, PO. If you read the news report you cite, you will see that the cut they mention--in a phrase that seems almost intended to be misconstrued as you have done--was to the requested INCREASE. The request was for an increase of $1.5B, but the White House only gave them an increase of $531M. That's an INCREASE in spending of over half a billion dollars. Hardly a cut, and certainly evidence that Condi was speaking the truth in your citation above.

Re: Facts


As a certified thug, I resent this.

Ok but...
do you deny it? :wink:

Amazing stories by Condi Rice
July 25, 2003
The Amazing Stories of Condoleezza Rice


Condoleezza Rice is the nation's top national security official. After September 11th, she claimed that the White House had no prior knowledge that Al Qaeda was planning to hijack planes in a terrorist attack. That assertion was proven false. In the months before the Iraq War, Rice repeatedly reassured the public that the U.S. was seeking a peaceful resolution, and that war was not a foregone conclusion. However, it now appears that at the same time she was saying this, she was telling senior State Department officials that the decision to go to war had already been made - well before diplomatic efforts to diffuse the situation even began. Most recently, it appears that she has given three separate, incongruent stories about her role in the massive intelligence breakdown that led to the White House making false statements about Iraq's nuclear capabilities. It appears that Rice has either been misleading the public about her role in that fiasco, or alternately, has been grossly negligent in not reading the government's most important intelligence documents.

CONDI'S AMAZING SEPTEMBER 11TH STORY - FALSELY CLAIMED WHITE HOUSE HAD NO PRIOR WARNING OF HIJACKINGS

On May 16th, 2002, Rice said "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon. [No one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile,"[CBS News, 5/17/02]. But according to the bipartisan 9/11 commission report, "intelligence reports from December 1998 until the attacks said followers of bin Laden were planning to strike U.S. targets, hijack U.S. planes, and two individuals had successfully evaded checkpoints in a dry run at a New York airport," [Reuters, 7/24/03]. More specifically, "White House officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes." [ABC News, 5/16/03]

CONDI'S AMAZING PEACE STORY - PUBLICLY CLAIMED TO SEEK PEACE, WHILE TELLING STATE DEPT. WAR PRE-DETERMINED

Throughout 2002 and early 2003, Rice repeatedly insisted that the Administration sought a peaceful solution to the Iraq conflict and that war was only a last resort. In October of 2002, she said, "We're going to seek a peaceful solution to this. We think that one is possible" [CBS, 10/20/02]. Then in November of 2002, she said, "We all want very much to see this resolved in a peaceful way" [Briefing, 11/21/02]. In March of 2003, she claimed "we are still in a diplomatic phase here" [ABC, 3/9/03]. However, according to Richard Haas, Bush's director of policy planning at the State Department, the decision had already been made by July of 2002. When asked exactly when he learned war in Iraq was definite, Haas said, "The moment was the first week of July (2002), when I had a meeting with Condi. I raised this issue about were we really sure that we wanted to put Iraq front and center at this point, given the war on terrorism and other issues. And she said, essentially, that that decision's been made, don't waste your breath. And that was early July. So then when Powell had his famous dinner with the President, in early August, 2002 [in which Powell persuaded Bush to take the question to the U.N.] the agenda was not whether Iraq, but how" [New Yorker, 3/31/03]

CONDI'S AMAZING IRAQ-NUKE STORY #1 - FALSELY CLAIMED WHITE HOUSE DID NOT KNOW OF NUCLEAR MISGIVINGS

When questioned about why she did not raise objections to the bogus Iraq-nuclear claim in Bush's State of the Union speech, Rice said on June 8 that "no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery" [AP, 7/23/03] However, a month later, the White House acknowledged that "the CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa" [Washington Post, 7/23/03].

CONDI'S AMAZING IRAQ-NUKE STORY #2 - ADMITTED WHITE HOUSE KNEW MISGIVINGS, FALSELY CLAIMED CIA APPROVED

Rice told reporters on July 11th that the CIA "cleared the speech in its entirety." As AP reported, "if Tenet, the CIA director, had any misgivings, he never shared them with the White House, she said." However, "Stephen Hadley, Rice's top aide, said on July 23 that in fact he received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from Tenet last October warning him that evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa was not reliable. One memo was also directed to Rice." [AP, 7/23/03]

CONDI'S AMAZING IRAQ-NUKE STORY #3 - ADMITS CIA OBJECTED, THEN CLAIMED THAT SHE SIMPLY DIDN'T READ MEMO

Facing questions over Rice's changing stories, the White House then attempted to deflect criticism by claiming that Rice and Bush both failed to even fully read the intelligence documents they were given - as if negligence obviates responsibility for misleading the nation. As the Washington Post reported, on the eve of war, "President Bush and his national security adviser did not entirely read the most authoritative prewar assessment of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, including a State Department claim that an allegation Bush would later use in his State of the Union address was ?'highly dubious,' White House officials said." That assessment, called the National Intelligence Estimate, is considered the U.S. government's most important intelligence document and contained "a classified, 90-page summary that was the definitive assessment of Iraq's weapons programs by U.S. intelligence agencies" [Washington Post, 7/19/03]. When asked about Rice's new claim to not have read critical CIA memos sent directly to her that debunked the Iraq-nuclear claim, Stephen Hadley, Rice's top aide, admitted "I can't tell you she read it. But in some sense, it doesn't matter. Memo sent, we're on notice." [AP, 7/23/03]

-- 8/1/03 UPDATE --

CONDI'S AMAZING IRAQ-NUKE STORY #4 - CLAIMS NO ONE SAID IRAQ POSED A NUCLEAR THREAT WITHIN A YEAR

CLAIM:

"He's trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year."
- Condoleeza Rice in PBS interview, 7/30/03

FACT:

"[Iraq] could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
- George Bush, 10/8/02

"This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
- George Bush, 9/28/02

"Today Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."
- George Bush, National Radio Address, 9/14/02

"Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."
- George Bush, speech to U.N., 9/12/02

"The intelligence community also had high confidence in the judgment that, and I quote, 'Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material,' end quote."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 7/23/03

Interview of Dr. Condoleezza Rice by Tom Brokaw, NBC
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 24, 2004
Interview of Dr. Condoleezza Rice by Tom Brokaw, NBC
6:30 P.M. EST

Q Let's begin with that statement by Mr. Clarke, apologizing to the families, taking responsibility, asking for forgiveness. Will the President ever consider making such a statement?

DR. RICE: Tom, everybody feels that what happened to us on September 11th was clearly a deep tragedy. The President has encountered a multitude of families and families of the victims. He has talked about their loss being our loss. This was a terrible loss for the country. But we need to recognize that good people in the Clinton administration and in the first 200-plus days of the Bush administration were doing what we knew how to do to try and protect the country.

Since September 11th we have been able to do things in an all-out war on terrorism that the President has launched, that we hope will prevent further attacks on the United States. We are safer now, but not yet safe. But the events of September 11th, while tragic, probably could not have been prevented by the kinds of steps that were being discussed today. That's the hard fact.

Q Let me ask about executive privilege. You've been meeting with the commission in private, but you will not go before this very public meeting, citing separation of powers, executive privilege. But your predecessors have gone before Congress in the past. Even President Ford testified about his pardon of Richard Nixon. Executive privilege is really a flexible concept. Why not go to the President on this issue that is so profoundly important to America, and say, I should be testifying?

DR. RICE: Tom, I would like nothing better than to be able to testify before the commission. I have spent more than four hours with the commission. I'm prepared to go and talk to them again, anywhere, any time, anyplace, privately. But I have to be responsible and to uphold the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature. It is a matter of whether the President can count on good confidential advice from his staff.

Over time, there have been cases, mostly related to -- they've been related to allegations of wrongdoing of one kind or another. This is not that kind of case. It would set a bad precedent. But I want the American people to know the story. That's why I'm here. After all, this President has a very good story to tell about the first 230-plus days of his administration and what he did in the war on terrorism, and certainly since September 11th, the war on terrorism that he has launched since they launched war on us on that terrible day.

Q Dr. Rice, with all due respect, I think a lot of people are watching this tonight saying, well, if she can appear on television, write commentaries, but she won't appear before the commission under oath. It just doesn't seem to make sense.

DR. RICE: Tom, I would like nothing better, but there is a constitutional principle at stake here. I'm here before the American people. We're not hiding anything. You can ask me anything that you want; any journalist can ask me anything that you want. The commission can ask me anything that it wants in private. It can put it in its report. The public will know everything that I know. This is a matter of constitutional principle. It is not a matter of personal preference for me.

Q Mr. Clarke said today that terrorism was the highest priority of the Clinton administration. It was important to you, but it was not the highest priority. Any student, I think, of the early days of your administration might have thought that China, Russia, Iraq, missile defense systems were probably higher on the President's agenda.

DR. RICE: Tom, I just don't think that the record bears out Dick Clarke's assertion. In fact, on January 25th, in response to a question from me to my staff to tell me what we should be worrying about, what we should be doing, he sent us a set of ideas that would perhaps help to roll back al Qaeda over a three-to-five-year period. We acted on those ideas very quickly. And what's very interesting is that, while Dick Clarke now says that we ignored his ideas, or we didn't follow them up, in August of 2002, in a press interview, he said that we had, in fact, acted on those ideas. So he can't have it both ways.

We were acting on issues like arming the Predator, so that we could have a reconnaissance plane that could also strike the target, cutting down the time between sighting a target and being able to hit it. The President increased counterterrorism funding several-fold in order to be more aggressive.

And most importantly, the President set out a new direction for American policy in the war on terrorism, to give us stronger, more coherent policies, and policies that were more robust, to eliminate al Qaeda, not just to roll it back. That strategy really did not take very long. In the interim, the administration was pursuing all of the avenues that the Clinton administration had been pursuing before. So it's just not right to say that this President was not focused on terrorism.

He met every morning with his Director of Central Intelligence and some 46 of his daily briefings were about issues related to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. So we were very active in the fight against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and preparing a strategy to become even more active.

Q Dr. Rice, I hope we'll have an opportunity to go over these issues again in the future, whether or not you appear before the commission. I do thank you for being here tonight.

DR. RICE: Thank you very much, Tom.

END 6:40 P.M. EST

I've not read all the available stuff on this, so would apologise in advance if question answered elsewhere, but the following interests me:

Could it be that the Bush administration knew enough about the coming 9-11 strike (but maybe did not have all the details or understand the severity or extent of potential damage), but did nothing DELIBERATELY so as to be able to win Congressional approval to mount a military campaign against Iraq (a pre-selected target) as a "retaliation"?

Is anyone investigating that possibility?

Re: She's Liar.

I'm sure not reading this the way you are. I interpret the above quotation as saying:

1. "We NOW know that the real threat had been in the US since at least 1999. The plot to attack New York and Washington had been hatching for nearly two years."

So, since she says we know NOW that the plot had been hatching for two years, why do you interpret it to mean that she knew for two years?

2. "According to the FBI, by June 2001 16 of the 19 hijackers were already here...."

You say, "So if they knew that these guys were here...and that they knew for two years that a plot was in motion to attack New York and Washington...why didn't they do anything...?"

The above quotation I have labelled as #2, says that the highjackers were already here, not when they knew it and understood its significance.

I believe that some of the basic facts that could have been put together to predict 9/11 were among the tons of intelligence in our possession before 9/11, but they were just bits of a huge volume of intelligence covering many topics and many real and potential conspiracies. It's probably true that the government should have done a better jobof processing its raw intelligence data, but I don't see anything in these quotations to indicate that the demon Bush and his satanic minions knew the highjackers were here, who they were, and what they were planning in advance of the event.

Yes, it could be. It could also be true that I'm Ludwig II, Mad King of Bavaria, however, it isn't true. Before investigating a conspiracy charge against the president, one would think there would have to be some specific evidence, as opposed to might be's and might have beens. Or, we could just call Ken Starr back and keep investigating a succession of unrelated possible conspiracies until something is found.

In all seriousness, I am still waiting for somebody to give a plausible reason as to why Dr. Rice refuses to testify before America at the 9/11 commission. Anybody?