The Lies of Rice

by Duckman GR

I think Congressman Roemer might have been the most effective questioner, and might be the biggest problem for the Bushinistas to deal with. I would have liked him to have had some of Governor O' Tool's time indeed.

Did this touch you Condi?

[ROEMER] - You're the national security advisor to the president of the United States. The buck may stop with the president; the buck certainly goes directly through you as the principal advisor to the president on these issues.

Feeling any weight Condi?

ROEMER: So, Dr. Rice, let's say that the FBI is the key here. You say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was.

We have done thousands of interviews here at the 9/11 Commission. We've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper. To date, we have found nobody -- nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices.

snip-

Nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information, on knowledge of al Qaeda in the country, and still, the FBI doesn't do anything.

Isn't that some of the responsibility of the national security advisor?

RICE: The responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility. Now, I...

ROEMER: You don't think there's any responsibility back to the advisor to the president...

And finally, this last bit about the September 4th memo that Richard Clarke gave to this political coward; in the tape on C-SPAN, Roemer is sitting there looking very intently at Rice and shaking his head, I think in disgust, but maybe just in disagreement, as she blathers about what Clarke was telling her.

ROEMER: Mr. Clarke writes you a memo on September the 4th, where he lays out his frustration that the military is not doing enough, that the CIA is not pushing as hard enough in their agency. And he says we should not wait until the day that hundreds of Americans lay dead in the streets due to a terrorist attack and we think there could have been something more we could do.

snip-

What's your reaction to that at the time, and what's your response to that at the time?

Here's her response.

No, really. Anyway, the whole Roemer/Rice part is in the continue reading thingy below. Her answer, if that how you want to characterize it, is at the very end of the transcript. It wasn't a warning or premonition, no, it was a buck up Condi, don't let those weanie bureaucrats get you down.

You see, these people (used loosely) don't think like you or I. They think in terms of the politics, all the time, how to use that for their narrow and gluttonous ends. Clarke says this, according to Roemer, we should not wait until the day that hundreds of Americans lay dead in the streets due to a terrorist attack and we think there could have been something more we could do.

And all she gets from it is buck up Condi. Fight the turf war Condi.

Jeebus.

And this is in charge of our country?

KEAN: Congressman Roemer?

ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Dr. Rice. And I just want to say to you you've made it through 2 1/2 hours so far with only Governor Thompson to go. And if you'd like a break of five minutes, I'd be happy to yield you some of Governor Thompson's time.

(LAUGHTER)

Dr. Rice, you have said in your statement, which I find very interesting, "The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not at war with them."

Across several administrations of both parties, the response was insufficient. And tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11th, this country simply was not on a war footing.

You're the national security advisor to the president of the United States. The buck may stop with the president; the buck certainly goes directly through you as the principal advisor to the president on these issues.

And it really seems to me that there were failures and mistakes, structural problems, all kinds of issues here leading up to September 11th that could have and should have been done better.

Doesn't that beg that there should have been more accountability? That there should have been a resignation or two? That there should have been you or the president saying to the rest of the administration, somehow, somewhere, that this was not done well enough?

RICE: Mr. Roemer, by definition, we didn't have enough information, we didn't have enough protection, because the attack happened -- by definition. And I think we've all asked ourselves, what more could have been done?

I will tell you if we had known that an attack was coming against the United States, that an attack was coming against New York and Washington, we would have moved heaven and earth to stop it.

But you heard the character of the threat report we were getting: something very, very big is going to happen. How do you act on "something very, very big is going to happen" beyond trying to put people on alert? Most of the threat reporting was abroad.

I took an oath, as I've said, to protect...

ROEMER: I've heard it -- I've heard you say this....

RICE: And I take it very seriously. I know that those who attacked us that day -- and attacked us, by the way, because of who we are, no other reason, but for who we are -- that they are the responsible party for the war that they launched against us...

ROEMER: But Dr. Rice...

RICE: ... the attacks that they made, and that our responsibility...

ROEMER: You have said several times...

RICE: ... that our responsibility is to...

ROEMER: You have said several times that your responsibility, being in office for 230 days, was to defend and protect the United States.

RICE: Of course.

ROEMER: You had an opportunity, I think, with Mr. Clarke, who had served a number of presidents going back to the Reagan administration; who you'd decided to keep on in office; who was a pile driver, a bulldozer, so to speak -- but this person who you, in the Woodward interview -- he's the very first name out of your mouth when you suspect that terrorists have attacked us on September the 11th. You say, I think, immediately it was a terrorist attack; get Dick Clarke, the terrorist guy.

Even before you mentioned Tenet and Rumsfeld's names, "Get Dick Clarke."

Why don't you get Dick Clarke to brief the president before 9/11? Here is one of the consummate experts that never has the opportunity to brief the president of the United States on one of the most lethal, dynamic and agile threats to the United States of America.

Why don't you use this asset? Why doesn't the president ask to meet with Dick Clarke?

RICE: Well, the president was meeting with his director of central intelligence. And Dick Clarke is a very, very fine counterterrorism expert -- and that's why I kept him on.

And what I wanted Dick Clarke to do was to manage the crisis for us and help us develop a new strategy. And I can guarantee you, when we had that new strategy in place, the president -- who was asking for it and wondering what was happening to it -- was going to be in a position to engage it fully.

The fact is that what Dick Clarke recommended to us, as he has said, would not have prevented 9/11. I actually would say that not only would it have not prevented 9/11, but if we had done everything on that list, we would have actually been off in the wrong direction about the importance that we needed to attach to a new policy for Afghanistan and a new policy for Pakistan.

Because even though Dick is a very fine counterterrorism expert, he was not a specialist on Afghanistan. That's why I brought somebody in who really understood Afghanistan. He was not a specialist on Pakistan. That's why I brought somebody in to deal with Pakistan. He had some very good ideas. We acted on them.

Dick Clarke -- let me just step back for a second and say we had a very -- we had a very good relationship.

ROEMER: Yes. I'd appreciate it if you could be very concise here, so I can get to some more issues.

RICE: But all that he needed -- all that he needed to do was to say, "I need time to brief the president on something." But...

ROEMER: I think he did say that. Dr. Rice, in a private interview to us he said he asked to brief the president...

RICE: Well, I have to say -- I have to say, Mr. Roemer, to my recollection...

ROEMER: You say he didn't.

RICE: ... Dick Clarke never asked me to brief the president on counterterrorism. He did brief the president later on cybersecurity, in July, but he, to my recollection, never asked.

And my senior directors have an open door to come and say, "I think the president needs to do this. I think the president needs to do that. He needs to make this phone call. He needs to hear this briefing." It's not hard to get done.

But I just think that...

ROEMER: Let me ask you a question. You just said that the intelligence coming in indicated a big, big, big threat. Something was going to happen very soon and be potentially catastrophic.

I don't understand, given the big threat, why the big principals don't get together. The principals meet 33 times in seven months, on Iraq, on the Middle East, on missile defense, China, on Russia. Not once do the principals ever sit down -- you, in your job description as the national security advisor, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the president of the United States -- and meet solely on terrorism to discuss in the spring and the summer, when these threats are coming in, when you've known since the transition that al Qaeda cells are in the United States, when, as the PDB said on August, bin Laden determined to attack the United States.

Why don't the principals at that point say, "Let's all talk about this, let's get the biggest people together in our government and discuss what this threat is and try to get our bureaucracies responding to it"?

RICE: Once again, on the August 6th memorandum to the president, this was not threat-reporting about what was about to happen. This was an analytic piece that stood back and answered questions from the president.

But as to the principals meetings...

ROEMER: It has six or seven things in it, Dr. Rice, including the Ressam case when he attacked the United States in the millennium.

RICE: Yes, these are his...

ROEMER: Has the FBI saying that they think that there are conditions.

RICE: No, it does not have the FBI saying that they think that there are conditions. It has the FBI saying that they observed some suspicious activity. That was checked out with the FBI.

ROEMER: That is equal to what might be...

RICE: No.

ROEMER: ... conditions for an attack.

RICE: Mr. Roemer, Mr. Roemer, threat reporting...

ROEMER: Would you say, Dr. Rice, that we should make that PDB a public document...

RICE: Mr. Roemer...

ROEMER: ... so we can have this conversation?

RICE: Mr. Roemer, threat reporting is: "We believe that something is going to happen here and at this time, under these circumstances." This was not threat reporting.

ROEMER: Well, actionable intelligence, Dr. Rice, is when you have the place, time and date. The threat reporting saying the United States is going to be attacked should trigger the principals getting together to say we're going to do something about this, I would think.

RICE: Mr. Roemer, let's be very clear. The PDB does not say the United States is going to be attacked. It says bin Laden would like to attack the United States. I don't think you, frankly, had to have that report to know that bin Laden would like to attack the United States.

ROEMER: So why aren't you doing something about that earlier than August 6th?

(APPLAUSE)

RICE: The threat reporting to which we could respond was in June and July about threats abroad. What we tried to do for -- just because people said you cannot rule out an attack on the United States, was to have the domestic agencies and the FBI together to just pulse them and have them be on alert.

ROEMER: I agree with that.

RICE: But there was nothing that suggested there was going to be a threat...

ROEMER: I agree with that.

RICE: ... to the United States.

ROEMER: I agree with that.

So, Dr. Rice, let's say that the FBI is the key here. You say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was.

We have done thousands of interviews here at the 9/11 Commission. We've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper. To date, we have found nobody -- nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices.

We have talked to the director at the time of the FBI during this threat period, Mr. Pickard. He says he did not tell the field offices to do this.

And we have talked to the special agents in charge. They don't have any recollection of receiving a notice of threat.

Nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information, on knowledge of al Qaeda in the country, and still, the FBI doesn't do anything.

Isn't that some of the responsibility of the national security advisor?

RICE: The responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility. Now, I...

ROEMER: You don't think there's any responsibility back to the advisor to the president...

RICE: I believe that the responsibility -- again, the crisis management here was done by the CSG. They tasked these things. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it. In fact, as I've...

ROEMER: But don't you ask somebody to do it? You're not asking somebody to do it. Why wouldn't you initiate that?

RICE: Mr. Roemer, I was responding to the threat spike and to where the information was. The information was about what might happen in the Persian Gulf, what might happen in Israel, what might happen in North Africa. We responded to that, and we responded vigorously.

Now, the structure...

ROEMER: Dr. Rice, let me ask you...

RICE: ... of the FBI, you will get into next week.

ROEMER: You've been helpful to us on that -- on your recommendation.

KEAN: Last question, Congressman.

ROEMER: Last question, Dr. Rice, talking about responses.

Mr. Clarke writes you a memo on September the 4th, where he lays out his frustration that the military is not doing enough, that the CIA is not pushing as hard enough in their agency. And he says we should not wait until the day that hundreds of Americans lay dead in the streets due to a terrorist attack and we think there could have been something more we could do.

Seven days prior to September the 11th, he writes this to you.

What's your reaction to that at the time, and what's your response to that at the time?

RICE: Just one final point I didn't quite complete. I, of course, did understand that the attorney general needed to know what was going on, and I asked that he take the briefing and then ask that he be briefed.

Because, again, there was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it.

ROEMER: I think we should make this document public, Dr. Rice. Would you support making the August 6th PDB public?

RICE: The August 6th PDB has been available to you. You are describing it. And the August 6th PDB was a response to questions asked by the president, not a warning document.

ROEMER: Why wouldn't it be made public then?

RICE: Now, as to -- I think you know the sensitivity of presidential decision memoranda. And I think you know the great lengths to which we have gone to make it possible for this commission to view documents that are not generally -- I don't know if they've ever been -- made available in quite this way.

Now, as to what Dick Clarke said on September 4th, that was not a premonition, nor a warning. What that memorandum was, as I was getting ready to go into the September 4th principals meeting to review the NSPD and to approve the new NSPD, what it was a warning to me that the bureaucracies would try to undermine it.

Dick goes into great and emotional detail about the long history of how DOD has never been responsive, how the CIA has never been responsive, about how the Predator has gotten hung up because the CIA doesn't really want to fly it.

And he says, if you don't fight through this bureaucracy -- he says, at one point, "They're going to all sign on to this NSPD because they won't want to be associated -- they won't want to say they don't want to eliminate the threat of al Qaeda." He says, "But, in effect, you have to go in there and push them, because we'll all wonder about the day when thousands of Americans" and so forth and so on.

So that's what this document is. It's not a warning document. It's not a -- all of us had this fear.

I think that the chairman mentioned that I said this in an interview, that we would hope not to get to that day. But it would not be appropriate or correct to characterize what Dick wrote to me on September 4th as a warning of an impending attack. What he was doing was, I think, trying to buck me up, so that when I went into this principals meeting, I was sufficiently on guard against the kind of bureaucratic inertia that he had fought all of his life.

ROEMER: What is a warning, if August 6th isn't and September 4th isn't, to you?

RICE: Well, August 6th is most certainly an historical document that says, "Here's how you might think about al Qaeda." A warning is when you have something that suggests that an attack is impending.

And we did not have, on the United States, threat information that was, in any way, specific enough to suggest that something was coming in the United States.

The September 4th memo, as I've said to you, was a warning to me not to get dragged down by the bureaucracy, not a warning about September 11th.

ROEMER: Thank you, Dr. Rice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.