Why Ms Rice won't testify under oath ?

You believe the current administration was so callous to LET 9/11 happen to prove a point? I simply don't understand that kind of hatred. Mistakes were made yes. But to think that the current administration, husbands/parents/siblings and patriots all, would be capable of intentionally putting thousands upon thousands of innocent citizens at risk? This is unconscionable.

What hatred? I don't hate them.

Consider well though, these people sent bombers against innocent people (okay, they were foreigners, but that should still count for something, no?) and killed 10,000 of them.

Foxfyre, read your own post again, and reverse the nationalities, and see how you feel then.

"A terrorist is a man with a bomb, but no air force"

9/11 was an intentional, unprovoked, and unconscionable act of war targeting innocent civilians. There is no intelligent way to equate that with going after military targets in Iraq no matter how much you believe the war in Iraq was ill advised or even illegal. To the best of my knowledge there is not one shred of evidence that we targeted civilians at any time.

Were you as indignant when the previous administration dropped bombs or fired missiles at Middle Eastern targets?

Military targets schmilitary targets. As I recall, the final defence of Baghdad was by pits full of tyres and burning oil.

And, you bet I consider it was illegal, as well as immoral.

Your question about the previous administration is an insult to the meanest intelligence, since you insultingly bring up the question of intelligence. I remember the previous administration attacked an Aspirin factory with a cruise missile. For the record, yes, I was against that too.

Correct, I agree, but it was not done by, nor planned by, Iraqis.



Going after military targets in a sovereign country without the sanction of the UN is illegal, and is in fact international terrorism writ large. How intelligent is that? I dealt with intelligence in previous post. It is useful.



Your knowledge is poor and your statement is disingenuous. The bombs are not closely controllable, despite fanciful claims to the contrary, and were used indiscriminately and with callous disregard. The proof? The casualty figures, and hundreds of hours of TV reportage. To take only one example out of thousands, do you remember the "smart" bomb which was aimed at a house in a town where Saddam was supposed to be staying? It killed tens of people, none of whom was Saddam. But hey, they were in the wrong place, right?

I don't think the administration let 9/11 happen for an excuse to go to war. In my opinion those kinds of wild theories do the other side a favor.

All I am saying is that because of their own agenda of things that considered more important they didn't concentrate on the threat posed by Bin Laden and terrorist groups as much as they should have. And by going to Iraq in the middle of fighting those who did the crime of 9/11 they allowed the Bin Laden and other terror groups to regroup and other terror groups to form in part fueled anew by the objection of the invasion of Iraq. I think that is the gist of Clark's assertions and most people already thought that anyway and having another credible guy from the administration confirm it only strengthens our original beliefs.

As for why Rice won't testify under oath in public when others already have done so is a complete mystery. After all she is only going to say the same things that Rumsfield and Powell said isn't she?

Nobody has said that yet, not here anyway. There's no proof yet, but things are unfolding. I just think it's a possibility which would explain a few anomalies.

Here's something quite germane, from The Independent today: What Did Bush Know Beforehand About 9-11?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=505463

Why won't Ms. Rice testify under oath?

Because of contradictions like this:


--Condoleeza Rice, May 2002 press briefing


-- Bush, this week


NBC News, 9/10/02


LA Times, 9/27/01; ABC News, 5/16/02

When they say they didn't know or didn't suspect, they're lying.

How do you suppose that Rice can speak to all five morning talk shows about this matter but cannot speak under oath to the 9/11 commission?

Well, apparently she is going on another talk show to be aired this Sunday. More than likely she will spin things around to where they make sense to most average people that really don't get into this kind of stuff unless something sensational is going on.

Why can't she just say what she has been saying on TV; that she misspoke with those statements under oath? There must be more to it or it would be silly for her not testify given how it looks if she don't.

I only hope the person on 60 minutes won't be so worried about appearing to favor democrats that they won't ask tough questions. Let Fox say what they want to say about them, who cares really except for Fox fans who are against CBS and viocom anyway.

This is what the military bring with them. Read this, then write to me some more about military targets and bleeding hearts.

Silent Genocide

By Robert C. Koehler

03/25/04 "Tribune Media Services" -- "After the Americans destroyed our village and killed many of us, we also lost our houses and have nothing to eat. However, we would have endured these miseries and even accepted them, if the Americans had not sentenced us all to death."

This will not be easy to read, especially if you've projected evil out of your own heart, into some cave in Afghanistan or a spider hole in Iraq, and reduced the age-old question it inspires to this one: How can we bomb it off the face of the earth?

Before the damage we inflict grows greater, before history's judgment gets worse, before we contaminate the whole world - even before we vote in the next election - we must stop what we're doing. We must stop now.

It's time to listen for a moment not to defense analysts briefing officers, pols or pundits, but to people like Jooma Khan, a grandfather who lives in a village in Laghman Province, in northeastern Afghanistan, who is quoted above. Surely he deserves 30 seconds of our undivided attention. "When I saw my deformed grandson," he told an interviewer in March of 2003, "I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good. (This is) different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape."

We're waging war-plus in Afghanistan and Iraq - in effect, nuclear war, with our widespread use of depleted-uranium-tipped shells and missiles. This is no secret. DU, with its extraordinary penetrating power and explode-on-impact capability, helps assure our military dominance everywhere we go. But people like Jooma Khan and his grandson reap its toxic legacy.

So, of course, do our own troops.

Kahn's words are only a sliver of the damning testimony contained in the documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan, a Japanese citizens' initiative that recently concluded its two-year inquiry into the first phase of the Bush Administration's war on terror. But they say everything that we cannot hear. If we could hear Jooma Khan, and others who are sounding the alarm about DU, such as former Livermore Labs geologist Leuren Moret, who testified at the tribunal, there would not be mere thousands of people in the streets of American cities demanding that we stop the war, but hundreds of thousands, or millions - the sort of numbers that turn out in other parts of the world. The use of DU weaponry is not the extent of our criminal irresponsibility in Afghanistan and Iraq, which led to the tribunal's guilty verdict against George Bush on charges of war crimes, but it's the most chilling. (You can check out the full report at, among other places, www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm )

As Moret testified, depleted uranium turns into a infinitesimally fine dust after it explodes; individual particles are smaller than a virus or bacteria. And, "It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment."

And DU dust is everywhere. A minimum of 500 or 600 tons now litter Afghanistan, and several times that amount are spread across Iraq. In terms of global atmospheric pollution, we've already released the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs, Moret said. The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse. DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code.

Thus, birth defects are way up in Afghanistan since the invasion: children "born with no eyes, no limbs, tumors protruding from their mouths ...deformed genitalia," according to the tribunal report. This ghastly toll on the unborn - on the future - has led investigators to coin the term "silent genocide" to describe the effects of this horrific weapon.

The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator.

But blame is beside the point. Surely even those who still await "conclusive proof" that DU is the cause, or a factor, in the mystery illnesses and birth defects emanating from the war zones, can see the logic in halting its use now.

Global terrorism? Listen to Jooma Khan. Then look in the mirror.

- - -
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. Tribune Media Services, Inc.

911 Attack Unprovoked?
"9/11 was an intentional, unprovoked, and unconscionable act of war targeting innocent civilians."

It was intentional.
It was a military tactic.
It was not unprovoked.

Al Q. and Osama bin Laden are not stupid, insane men. They are waging war. I agree that they should only attack military targets, such as the ship Cole, Embassies, Military posts etc. and not economic centers. The Pentagon was a legitimate target.

I am not pro Al Q. but I do understand that they have legitimate reasons to wage war on the US and Western powers.

pistoff

good post with plenty to back up all the claims made around here about Bush and Rice by folks like yourself. (I am talking about your post where you have all the quotes and facts listed)

Thanks
Do you feel that my statements about Al Q. are unpatriotic?

Do you feel that my statements about Al Q. are unpatriotic?

Well, I am not sure if I would go so far as to say your statements are unpatriotic, I am a bit tired of that word anyway. It is just that over 3000 innocent people died that day. It is unjustifiable. While I kind of see some of the Arabs points concerning western actions I think the millitant's solutions are worse than anything done to them.

The only thing that I can think of that the United States have done to anger Muslims and Arabs before Iraq is to support Israel more than Palestine and provide Israel with weapons which kill Palestines. However, there are more productive ways to change things in this day and age without resorting to violence which doesn't ever solve anything in my opinion. Furthermore, I am not convinced that Bin Laden's gripe is Palestine. I think it is more or less our presence in general in the Arabic part of the world.

Osama bin Laden's Gripe
Osama wrote a letter to the USA. I will post it.

Kerry Calls on Rice to Testify
Kerry Calls on Rice to Testify
Mar 28, 4:02 AM (ET)
By NEDRA PICKLER

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - John Kerry said Saturday the White House is committing character assassination with its treatment of former counterterror chief Richard Clarke to avoid responding to questions about national security. Kerry also said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, should testify in public before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do '60 Minutes' on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath," Kerry told reporters. "We're talking about the security of our country."

The White House has said that presidential staff advisers, such as Rice, cannot testify publicly before congressional bodies. The bipartisan, independent commission was created in 2002 by congressional legislation and Bush's signature.

Rice has been interviewed privately by commission members.


(AP) Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry. D-Mass., and former rival Howard Dean take part...
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Bush campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish said Kerry and other Democrats are trying to politicize the work of the commission.

"John Kerry seeks to distract Americans from his own failed ideas for protecting America from future attacks," she said in a statement. "John Kerry's backward-looking approach would return us to the failed policies of treating terror as a law-enforcement matter."

Kerry said the constitutional separation of powers could be protected despite the White House's objections.

"Certainly we can find a way to respect executive privilege, not to have it be an opening to the door, but nevertheless to accomplish America's needs to protect the security of our country," he said.

A poll released Saturday shows two-thirds of Americans say Clarke's testimony hasn't affected their view of the president. But public views supporting Bush's handling of terrorism have dipped from 65 percent to 57 percent in the last month, according to the Newsweek poll.


(AP) Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., right, and former rival Howard Dean,...
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Half those surveyed in the poll after Clarke's testimony Wednesday said they thought he was acting for political and personal reasons, while a quarter said they feel he's acting as a dedicated public servant.

While 65 percent said Clarke's testimony has not affected their views of Bush, 17 percent said it made them view him less favorably and 10 percent said more favorably.

Two-thirds said the Clinton administration did not take the threat of terror seriously enough, while six in 10 said the Bush administration has taken the threat as seriously as it should.

The poll found the presidential race between Bush and Democrat John Kerry tied and found Bush's job approval was 49 percent.

The poll of 1,002 adults was taken Thursday and Friday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.


(AP) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., gives a TV interview in his plane on...
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On Clarke, Kerry said: "Every time somebody comes up and says something that this White House doesn't like, they don't answer the questions about it or show you the truth about it. They go into character assassination mode."

Besides Clarke, Kerry cited the examples of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Medicare accountant Richard Foster.

"It is entirely inappropriate and almost hysterical of the White House to engage in this massive character assassination," Kerry said later in an interview with Kansas City television station KMBC.

O'Neill was fired as Treasury secretary in December 2002 after publicly questioning the need for additional tax cuts, a core campaign issue for Bush. Foster said he was prohibited by his superiors from sharing with Congress a much higher but more accurate cost estimate for the administration's Medicare program.

Kerry said until the commission completes its report, he will comment neither on Clarke's testimony nor on whether Bush did enough to protect Americans before the attacks. Kerry, who spent much of the past week on vacation in Idaho, said he had not heard or read any of the testimony before the commission.

He nevertheless criticized the administration for having "stonewalled" the investigation. Bush originally opposed the panel's creation, then opposed its request for a two-month extension of its work, but eventually relented on both counts.

Time article exposes Bush lies
Time Magazine August 2002 article exposes Bush Administration lies:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,333835,00.html

BBB

I remember that piece, but it seems to have gone nowhere. Now Bush has readmitted PR maitresse Hughes to his campaign, to complement Bully-boy Rove. THe truth was the first casulaty of the Bush presidency. our freedom will be the first casualty of the second.

Pressure building for Rice to testify
Pressure building for Rice to testify
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published March 29, 2004

The pressure on National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public and under oath before the September 11 commission grew yesterday, with Republicans on the panel renewing calls for her to answer questions about President Bush's counterterror strategy before and after the attacks.

"We do feel unanimously as a commission that she should testify in public," Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and former Republican governor of New Jersey told Fox News. "We feel it's important to get her case out there."

"I think the White House is making a huge mistake," commission member and Reagan-era Navy Secretary John F. Lehman told ABC's "This Week."
"She has nothing to hide, and yet this is creating the impression for
honest Americans all over the country, and people all over the world, that the White House has something to hide," Mr. Lehman said. "It's a political blunder of the first order."

Meanwhile, a new poll shows that many Americans are skeptical of former counterrorism official Richard A. Clarke's criticism of the administration's policy.

A Newsweek poll released Saturday showed that 50 percent of those who have been following the story suspect Mr. Clarke has some personal or political agenda. A quarter of those questioned in the survey of 1,000 Americans say they see Mr. Clarke as a selfless public servant, while another 25 percent don't know what to make of his accusations. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.

Miss Rice has faced questions this week about discrepancies between her public statements on the administration's policy toward al Qaeda and what warnings it had about the terrorists' plans, and Mr. Clarke's statements under oath.

In an interview broadcast last night, Miss Rice said she had met with commissioners privately, and was willing to do so again, but that constitutional precedent made it impossible to testify publicly.

Members of both parties on the bipartisan commission have said repeatedly that Miss Rice's responses to their questions at that private meeting Feb. 7 were articulate and convincing.

But that was before the highly publicized charges from Mr. Clarke that prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration was insufficiently focused on the al Qaeda threat. Mr. Clarke said that failure deprived the administration of "at least ... a chance" of apprehending the plotters in the United States and stopping the attacks.

The administration has come under criticism for allowing Miss Rice to rebut these charges repeatedly in television and newspaper interviews while denying her the chance she says she wants to testify publicly before the commission itself.

"Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify," Miss Rice told CBS' "60 Minutes." But she added that the constitutional principle of the separation of powers made it impossible for her to testify before a body that "derives its authority from the Congress."

Commissioners argue that the administration needs to make an exception for an inquiry that is "sui generis" -- one of a kind -- in the words of commission member and former Democratic Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.

"We recognize there are arguments having to do with separation of powers," Mr. Kean said yesterday. "We think in a tragedy of this magnitude that those kind of legal arguments are probably overridden."

The calls from Mr. Kean and Mr. Lehman cap a turbulent week for the White House, during which it sought to fight off Mr. Clarke's accusations by questioning his motives and saying he had told a different story before he left the administration.

"He's taken advantage of the circumstances this week to promote himself and his book," Vice President Dick Cheney told Time magazine.

Others went further, with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, suggesting that Mr. Clarke might be guilty of perjury.

"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath," Mr. Frist said on the Senate floor Friday, calling for the declassification of Mr. Clarke's July 2002 testimony on the attacks before a joint congressional panel.

Mr. Clarke said yesterday he would welcome the declassification of his July testimony, and called for the administration to release several of the documents at the heart of the dispute, including a proposal he said he sent to Miss Rice in the first few days of the new administration, and the policy the White House eventually adopted more than seven months later.

"And what we'll see ... is that they are basically the same thing, and they wasted months when we could have had some action," Mr. Clarke told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Mr. Clarke accused his White House critics of launching a taxpayer-funded smear campaign to destroy him.

"Dozens of people ... are engaged in a campaign to destroy me personally and professionally," he said, "because I had the temerity to suggest that the American people should consider whether or not the president had done a good job on the war on terrorism. The issue is not me. The issue is the president's job on the war on terrorism."
--------------------------------------------

• Audrey Hudson of The Washington Times contributed to this report.

Re: Osama bin Laden's Gripe

Actually, in the letter you are probably referring to, his primary objection to us was that we have refused to convert to Islam. I cannot really regard this as a legitimate reason for targetting and murdering thousands of non-combatants.