Posted on 04/12/2004 6:36:07 AM PDT by ConservativeMajority
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The document at the heart of the most contentious moment of National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission last week was released by the White House on Saturday. The two-page Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001 was made public as requested by all members of the panel.
Former Watergate Prosecutor and high-powered Democratic lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste took Rice to task during her sworn testimony, demanding that she say the title of the PDB, which was "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." He tried to cut her off before she explained that the seemingly damning title was misleading considering the content.
At the time, Rice said, "It did not warn of attacks inside the United States, it was historical information based on old reporting, there was no new threat information and it did not in fact warn of any coming attacks inside the United States."
The memo appears to bear out the National Security Advisor's assertions, saying, "After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told his followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington..."
The only other similarity between the memo and the events of 9/11 was a reference to hijacking, but in a different context.
It read, "We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [redacted] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shakyh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists."
Prior statements supported Rice's contention as well.
Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Human Events in 2002, "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old. ... It was not a contemporary piece of information."
During a background briefing following the release of the memo, a senior administration official said, "The release of this PDB should clear up the myth that's out there that somehow the President was warned about September 11th."
President Bush responded to reporters' questions about the memo on Sunday saying, "And the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. It said Usama bin Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that."
He added, "Had I known there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack. I would have done everything I can. My job is to protect the American people."
The 9/11 Commission will shift its focus to the Clinton administration this week when it hears the testimony of former Attorney General Janet Reno. She may be asked to explain why she recommended that no action be taken against Usama bin Laden after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania but at the same time prepared for a response to an attack in the United States.
A Time magazine article from December 1998 told how Reno organized an exercise at FBI headquarters in Washington that October to plan for a possible terror attack by bin Laden.
It said, "The 200 Washington policemen at the exercise, code-named "Poised Response," discussed four scenarios including an assassination attempt on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a car bombing, a chemicals weapon strike on a Washington Redskins football game and an explosive device in a federal building."
None of these events bore any similarity to the 9/11 attacks that would occur three years later.
The partisanship evident during last week's questioning of Rice may again be seen considering the significant conflict of interest that Commissioner Jamie Gorelick has with Reno. Gorelick directly served under Reno as deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration.
Time also reported that in 1996, the CIA was planning to snatch bin Laden from a foreign country and bring him to trial in the United States. But no plan of preemption was developed despite the statement of a State Department aide who at the time told the news magazine, "We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours."
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