Live 9/11 Commission Thread [testifying today Freeh, Reno, Ashcroft]

I'm sure; they're a set, aren't they?

1,841 posted on 04/13/2004 2:32:54 PM PDT by Howlin

Ramesh was doing a little needless handwring over the possible backlash over the declassification of the Gorelick memo

FGS, somebody slap him! Has he not seen the crap being ladled out by this commission? Geeze.

1,842 posted on 04/13/2004 2:32:57 PM PDT by cyncooper

Unfortunately, the mainstream media frame the way much of the public perceive the issues; indeed, to a certain extent, the mainstream media CREATE the issues. So it's not a matter of indifference how the media treat things.

1,843 posted on 04/13/2004 2:32:58 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")

If an MON falls in the woods and nobody hears it, what's the point?

1,844 posted on 04/13/2004 2:33:25 PM PDT by Puddleglum (The Dems seem to have no problem in outsourcing America's oil production.)

To: isthisnickcool

I was just ranting the same opinion. I swear to God, the liberals are nutcases. God help this country if a dem is our next president.

1,845 posted on 04/13/2004 2:33:57 PM PDT by Lovergirl (Her name is Terri Schindler and she's alive. www.terrisfight.org)

Wow, I hadn't seen that before. I didn't know they'd talked at Mylroie. What a performance by Ben-Veniste. Loved that cr@p about Walter Pincus. Boy, Ben-Veniste could sleep comfortably on a corkscrew, couldn't he?

1,846 posted on 04/13/2004 2:34:07 PM PDT by mewzilla

To: pragmaticgal; Howlin

Also, doesn't this so-called MON violate his own policy of no assassinations? I don't think this dog will hunt.

1,847 posted on 04/13/2004 2:34:28 PM PDT by LisaFab

OMG...a caller is now saying that Reno was much more natural and forthcoming than Achcroft. Heck, Reno was fumbling around for words just to complete her sentences. This is woman who even supported Condi's contention that the Millennium resolution was "luck"....even as Roemer tried to put words in he mouth.

1,848 posted on 04/13/2004 2:35:47 PM PDT by cwb (Kerry: Sadr is a legitimate voice in Iraq being silenced by America..and Hamas are sorta terrorists.)

How did someone who sounds like a Kennedy ever become the Governor of N.J.?

1,849 posted on 04/13/2004 2:35:48 PM PDT by surrey

If he left a MON, why doesn't THIS administration know about it?

It was marked "President Clinton - Eyes Only"

1,850 posted on 04/13/2004 2:35:48 PM PDT by jackbill

If you are boycotting MSNBC, then you missed Chris agreeing with Howard Fineman's assertion that Bush "isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, and hasn't read all the books in the library."

I have developed a healthy dislike for Fineman of late, and thank you for this anecdote that tells me I am indeed healthy and of sound mind. Matthews earned my utter disdain last week. Before that I was willing to tolerate a lot of nonsense from him, but NO MORE.

1,851 posted on 04/13/2004 2:36:06 PM PDT by cyncooper

Good Grief. There is no MON. clintoon would even arrest him for heaven's sake. He was a scardy cat, not a warrior. He only attacked women behind closed doors.

1,852 posted on 04/13/2004 2:36:15 PM PDT by tioga

To: Steve_Seattle

Have you seen the mainstream's ratings and circulation figs? It's a matter of indifference to a growing share of their former customer base :) That's a good thing.

1,853 posted on 04/13/2004 2:36:59 PM PDT by mewzilla

Ashcroft's revelation about the Gorelick memo was a bombshell, devastating on more than one level: (1) it locates the CAUSE of the firewall between the CIA and FBI as going back to Clinton administration regulations; and (2) it reveals that the author of those regulations is a Democratic member of the commission. This would normally be headline stuff, and I'll bet the ranch that the media play it down.

1,854 posted on 04/13/2004 2:37:24 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")

"Clinton ordering assassination of OBL"........

what the hell difference does it make if their was a MON? (Probably forged).....but even if there was one.....hasn't their already been testimony to the fact that the CIA/FBI/MILITARY guys were too frightened to do anything but capture OBL because of all the legal mumbo jumbo attached to the capture/kill order? And didn't he have the opportunity to get the sob FOUR times? Why does this make a difference?

1,855 posted on 04/13/2004 2:37:33 PM PDT by bornintexas (..Release your military records, John F'n Kerry!)

1,856 posted on 04/13/2004 2:37:43 PM PDT by Jrabbit

BTW, in case you're wondering, Chrissy's guests tonight are - tada -- BV and "The Wives," as he now calls them. Oh, barf! Are they all going out for drinks after?

What, no D. Clarke? He's not invited to the lovefest???

1,857 posted on 04/13/2004 2:38:21 PM PDT by NYC Republican

NRO has become rather emasculated and often irrelevant, of late. The Corner often strikes me as an elitist self-adulating social club.

1,858 posted on 04/13/2004 2:38:43 PM PDT by Cosmo (If Iraq is Bush's Vietnam, then Ted Kennedy is Bush's Jane Fonda)

To: Steve_Seattle

Now we just need to know WHY the firewall was put there. Seems to me the only people who cui bonoed were the bad guys...

1,859 posted on 04/13/2004 2:38:59 PM PDT by mewzilla

the secret legal authorizations Clinton signed after this failed missile strike required the CIA to make a good faith effort to capture bin Laden for trial, not kill him outright.

Beginning in the summer of 1998, Clinton signed a series of top secret memos authorizing the CIA or its agents to use lethal force, if necessary, in an attempt to capture bin Laden and several top lieutenants and return them to the United States to face trial.

snip

Tenet and his senior CIA colleagues demanded that the White House lay out rules of engagement for capturing bin Laden in writing, and that they be signed by Clinton. Then, with such detailed authorizations in hand, every one of the CIA officers who handed a gun or a map to an Afghan agent could be assured that he or she was operating legally.

This was the role of the Memorandum of Notification, as it was called. It was typically seven or eight pages long, written in the form of a presidential decision memo. It began with a statement about how bin Laden and his aides had attacked the United States. The memo made clear the president was aware of the risks he was assuming as he sent the CIA into action.

Some of the most sensitive language concerned the specific authorization to use deadly force. Clinton's national security aides said they wanted to encourage the CIA to carry out an effective operation against bin Laden, not to burden the agency with constraints or doubts. Yet Clinton's aides did not want authorizations that could be interpreted by Afghan agents as an unrestricted license to kill. For one thing, the Justice Department signaled that it would oppose such language if it was proposed for Clinton's signature.

The compromise wording, in a succession of bin Laden-focused memos, always expressed some ambiguity about how and when deadly force could be used in an operation designed to take bin Laden into custody. Typical language, recalled one official involved, instructed the CIA to "apprehend with lethal force as authorized."

At the CIA, officers and supervisors agonized over these abstract phrases. They worried that if an operation in Afghanistan went badly, they would be accused of having acted outside the memo's scope. Over time, recriminations grew between the CIA and the White House.

It was common in Clinton's cabinet and among his National Security Council aides to see the CIA as too cautious, paralyzed by fears of legal and political risks. At Langley, this criticism rankled. The CIA's senior managers believed officials at the White House wanted to have it both ways: They liked to blame the agency for its supposed lack of aggression, yet they sent over classified legal memos full of wiggle words.

1,860 posted on 04/13/2004 2:39:09 PM PDT by kcvl

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794