RICE'S TESTIMONY: CLAIM vs. FACT

This doesn't make sense. She said in 2002 and 2004 that she didn't know about planes as missiles in 2001. So this paragraph backs up the statements she made this morning.


And anyone who listened to the briefing heard that the title meant bin Laden had the desire to someday attack the US. It wasn't a threat warning, it was merely an item on someone's wish list.


This statement was taken out of context.



Yes, the Bush administration decided to eliminate Al Qaeda instead of continuing the Clinton policy of responding to each terrorist attack and doing nothing else. This is what she testified today, and again that quote was taken out of context.


Stupid quote, since the previous paragraph stated that the FBI field offices went into action as a result of the warnings.


This is a lie.




She said this morning that there was a long list of actions and threats that were considered after 9/11. One item, way down near the bottom of the list (or "to the side" if you will) was a consideration of whether our avowed enemy Iraq might do something to attack us during the recovery period. There was no mention of war with Iraq at that time, it was nothing more than putting them on a precautionary watch list.

EDIT - Here's the direct quote:



I don't know who wrote all that stuff but they didn't do a very good job of it if I can easily disprove most of it just from what I heard today. It won't be too long before the whole transcript is out and we can more easily dismiss rants like this.

Who ever wrote it was really reaching for substance, but Condi pressed their face in dough and made jackass cookies.

One of the recurring Free Republic quotes goes as follows:

What strikes me about these hearings that, although the republicans in congress and the Bush campaign are trying to brand Clarke as a liar. No one has be able under oath to give a lie to anything he has written. IMO opinion both Bush and Rice were asleep at the switch. However, expecting them to own up to it is beyond imagination.

One can only hope that as promised Rice returns to Academia and Bush to ---------

Well Condi's testimony suggested Clarke's memory is extremely faulty or he lied. So far there has been no shred of evidence to prove she lied. But one of them did.

Foxfyre
The opposite is true neither she nor any of those testifying before her were able to put a lie to Clark's contentions. In fact most of those testifying seemed to corroborate his statements.

You must have been listening to a very different three hours of testimony than what I listened to this morning.

I don't recall if I told President Bush
"I don't recall if I told President Bush" was one of the biggest evasions of truth telling I heard during Condi Rice's testimony. She couldn't lie under oath, she just couldn't remember. Rascals through the years have used the excuse I don't recall or remember to avoid lying about something they did or didn't do.

The most interesting tactic I saw during her testimony was Rice's skillful filibustering of the time allotted to questioners. When asked a question she wanted to evade, she just kept her motor mouth running, ignoring the questioner's insistence that she answer the specific question and prattling on. It was a successful tactic in squandering Democrat commissioner questioner's time and limiting them to far fewer questions than they wanted to ask. I was amazed and disappointed that the panel let her get away with it.

BBB

Hi au1929:

I always suspected GOP ears were different from the rest of us.

LOL!!!

If Rice had truly been prepared, she would've steered clear of the August 6th, PDB which reached Bush at the pig farm where he is 50% of the time.

I agree with you, BBB, that people use the 'I don't recall' for CYA purposes, but no matter how much time was alloted to any questioner, the questions may have sounded simple but one point she drove home is in a buraucracy nothing is simplistic.

All that running her motor mouth as you put it was answering questions which is what the hearings are about.

BBB wrote:


And what I saw were partisan Democrats asking intensely complicated and inflammatory questions in a way to make them appear more fact than inquiry and then not wanting to allow her time to answer the questions. Kerry spent the first five minutes of his ten minutes making a speech about Iraq and then complained because he didn't have enough time.

Exactly, and if she did lengthen her answers from the Dem's I wouldn't balme her because of their Witch Hunt motive.

Brand X
Brand X, Condi Rice went beyond answering questions and appeared to deliberately use up the time to limit the questioning time. Hence my use of "motor mouth" was an accurate description of the old tried and true tactic she used. You could tell the questioners were frustrated and annoyed with her scheme to squander their 10 minute question time. It was a smart tactic, but did nothing to add to the commission's knowledge of what happened.

BBB

Brand X
Rather than answer the questions she was asked directly she constantly answered them with a preface. And in fact at times answered imaginary ones.
She also blamed every thing on the system. I wonder how many times she used the word systemic.
She would have garnered more respect if she just admitted that the administration simply bet on the wrong horse.

"It was a smart tactic, but did nothing to add to the commission's knowledge of what happened." Bumble Bee

Agreed!

Le Rice basically filibustered the tough questioners like Commissioner Ben-Veniste, but she replied succinctly to Republican Commissioners.

What a tactician![/color]

Like I said, I must have sat through a very different three hours than the Democrats did. I have reserved my opinion on Clarke's testimony until I heard Condi's. Now seeing them side by side, I know who is more credible. And it isn't Clarke. But then I listened to both with an open mind and without looking for something wrong with either. That's hard to do when your mind is made up going in.

Transcript of Condi Rice's testimony
Transcript of Condi Rice's testimony:

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,116563,00.html

"Now seeing them side by side, I know who is more credible. And it isn't Clarke." foxfyre

No? You don't say? LOL!!!

Gosh foxfyre, I'm really surprised by your take. [/color]

Rice shifts blame for intelligence lapses to CIA & FBI
Apr 8, 2004
Rice Seeks to Shift Blame for Intelligence Lapses to CIA and FBI
An AP News Analysis By Tom Raum
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Condoleezza Rice offered little new information about the days leading up to Sept. 11, and instead determinedly shifted blame from the White House to a two-decade failure in the way U.S. intelligence fought terrorism.

From her opening statement to the occasional clashes with members during three hours of testimony Thursday, President Bush's national security adviser stuck closely to her message that blame for America's worst terror attack rested with administrations dating to Ronald Reagan.

The FBI and CIA failed to talk to share intelligence. Administrations had an "allergy" to doing the type of domestic intelligence gathering needed to thwart attacks on U.S. soil. Military solutions weren't aggressively considered.

"The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them," Rice told the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

That was precisely the message the White House wanted as Bush heads into a tight election campaign in which he is touting his role as commander of the war on terror.

No matter how commission members pressed questions suggesting Bush had enough warning signs to see Sept. 11 coming, Rice did not yield and did not fluster. Her performance earned praise from the panel's Democratic vice chairman, Lee Hamilton.

"I don't think we asked her any questions that threw her at all. She was very articulate," Hamilton said. "I especially appreciated the tone of her statement. She was not in any way vindictive. She was constructive."

Following a little over a week after her former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke portrayed the Bush administration as slow to reacting to the terrorist threat, Rice did not personally attack him.

Instead, she often drew different conclusions about the same sets of facts. Most frequently, she pointed to problems inside the FBI and CIA.

"What we do know is that we did have a systemic problem, a structural problem between the FBI and the CIA," the president's national security adviser told the commission investigating the 2001 terror attacks.

"This country, for reasons of history and culture and therefore law, had an allergy to the notion of domestic intelligence, and we were organized on that basis," she said. "It just made it very hard to have all of the pieces come together."

In her three hours on the hot seat, Rice offered little new information on actions taken - and not taken - by the Bush administration in the weeks and days leading up to the attacks in New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But it is unlikely that her appearance will cause additional political damage to the White House.

"She has survived, which was her main goal. She's done more than that," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "The average American in looking at this will have a favorable impression of her that's going to override whatever contradictions may remain."

Rice's initial refusal to testify drew heavy criticism from Democrats and many Republicans.

Rice disputed Clarke's claim that Bush pressed him to find a link to Iraq on the day after the terror attacks.

She said she did not recall such a discussion between Bush and Clarke, but "I'm quite certain the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts."

"It is not surprising that the president would say 'What about Iraq?'" she added.

Her testimony did nothing to challenge information developed by the panel that the administration "was a little lax" in dealing with terrorism threats before Sept. 11, said Michael O'Hanlon, a scholar with the Brookings Institution.

"Let's face it, it was not their finest hour," he said. But he added that there is also no evidence that anything proposed by Clarke or the Clinton administration would have prevented the attacks.
------------------------------------------

EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA3BKDDTSD.html