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Bush Administration In State Of Denial [DNC press release......)
Democrats.org ^

Posted on 10/03/2006 4:36:23 PM PDT by Sub-Driver

Bush Administration In State Of Denial

According to Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush Administration's bungling of the war on terror and their failed Iraq policies, "State of Denial," the Bush Administration ignored warnings of Al Qaeda attacks prior to 9/11. Woodward chronicled how the White House continues to hide the true number of attacks on American soldiers in Iraq and also the attempts to have Defense Secretary Rumsfeld fired for his inept policies and disregard for post-war planning in Iraq.

The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" on 9/11

Rice Ignored Warnings From the CIA that a Terrorist Attack Was Imminent. "Woodward claims the intelligence Tenet and Black shared with Rice included communication intercepts indicating the likelihood of an Al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil. Tenet said he had hoped the meeting would shock Rice into encouraging the President to take immediate action against Al Qaeda. Black, looking back at the July 10, 2001, meeting with Rice, concludes, 'The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her [Rice's] head.'" [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]

9/11 Commissioners Didn't Know About July 2001 Meeting Between Rice and Tenet About An Imminent Al Qaeda Attack, Causing One Commissioner To Say He Was "Furious." "Members of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a July 2001 White House meeting at which George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, about an imminent attack by Al Qaeda and failed to persuade her to take action. Details of the meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.The book says Mr. Tenet hurriedly organized the meeting, calling ahead from his car as it traveled to the White House, because he wanted to 'shake Rice' into persuading the president to respond to dire intelligence warnings about a possible terrorist strike. Mr. Woodward writes that Mr. Tenet left the meeting frustrated because 'they were not getting through to Rice.' None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath, nor do we have any paper on this,' said Timothy J. Roemer, a Democratic member of the commission and a former congressman from Indiana. 'I'm deeply disturbed by this. I'm furious.'" [New York Times, 10/2/06]

The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" on Iraq

Bush Is Hiding the Number of Attacks on U.S. Troops from the American Public. "The Bush administration is concealing the level of violence against US troops in Iraq and the situation there is growing worse despite White House and Pentagon claims of progress, journalist Bob Woodward said in advance of a new book." [Reuters, 9/29/06]

Bush Administration Says U.S. Forces Are Attacked 34 Times a Day - Intelligence Says There Are 900 Attacks Per Week. "In an interview about the book to be broadcast Sunday on CBS' '60 Minutes,' Woodward charged that the White House and Pentagon were hiding the truth by classifying attack statistics as secret. The U.S. military reported 34 daily attacks in July, but Woodward charged that 'it's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces.'" [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]

Bush Received Secret Intelligence Report Saying That Insurgency Would Get Worse, While Saying Publicly It Would Get Better. Woodward has said, "there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. Four attacks an hour, attacking our forces." Chris Wallace reported, "Woodward says the government had kept this trend secret for years before finally declassifying the graph just three weeks ago. And Woodward accuses President Bush and the Pentagon of making false claims of progress in Iraq, claims contradicted by facts that are being kept secret. For example, Woodward says an intelligence report classified secret from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded that 'The Sunni Arab insurgency is gaining strength and increasing capacity despite political progress.' And 'Insurgents retain the capabilities to increase the level of violence through next year.' But just two days later, a public Defense Department report said just the opposite: 'violent action will begin to wane in early 2007.' What are we supposed to make of that?" Woodward added, "The truth is that the assessment by the intelligence experts is that next year--now, next year's 2007--is going to get worse, and in public you have the president and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better.' Now, there's public and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one's supposed to know. Why is that secret? The insurgents know what they're doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public." [CBS News, 60 Minutes, 10/1/06]

US Officials in Baghdad Said More Troops Were Needed to Quell Insurgency in 2003, But Washington Did Not Respond. "Before 2003 was out, rising violence prompted senior U.S. officials in Baghdad to press Washington for more troops, requests that went unanswered. Woodward reports that in the early summer of 2003, James Dobbins, a senior U.S. diplomat with long experience in the postwar Balkans and elsewhere, drew up a plan calling for 500,000 troops, a staggering increase over the 148,900 troops then deployed in Iraq. His plan was forwarded to Washington. There was no response, Woodward wrote. Abizaid told reporters last month that an increased U.S. military presence can set back the goal of having Iraqi security forces take over, because when American combat units show up, the Iraqis tend to step back. Despite such arguments, a review of the record shows that the Bush administration made decisions to keep troop levels low in Iraq and that in the uncontrolled chaos that followed, the insurgency took hold." [Baltimore Sun, 10/1/06]

Kissinger Advising Bush to Stay the Course in Iraq, Saying Removing Some Troops Would Only Make the American Public Want More. According to Woodward, Henry A. Kissinger "had a powerful, largely invisible influence on the foreign policy of the Bush administration," urging President Bush and Vice President Cheney to stick it out. According to Mr. Woodward, Mr. Kissinger gave the former Bush adviser and speechwriter Michael Gerson his so-called 1969 salted peanut memo, which warned President Richard M. Nixon that "withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded." On CBS, Woodward said, "Now, what's Kissinger's advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply: Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy. This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam war again because in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will, that we didn't stick to it." Asked, "So Henry Kissinger is telling George W. Bush, `Stick to it. Stay the course'?," Woodward replied, "That's right. It's right out of the Kissinger playbook." [New York Times, 9/30/06; CBS News, 10/1/06]

The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" about Donald Rumsfeld

Bush's Former Chief of Staff Says Rumsfeld Is Responsible for Postwar Problems in Iraq. "The book says Card was bitter that he had to leave when 'the man most responsible for the postwar trouble, the one who should have gone, was staying." [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]

Card Tried to Get Bush to Replace Rumsfeld, But the President Refused After Being Told It Would Look Bad. "Woodward wrote that White House chief of staff Andrew Card urged Bush to replace Rumsfeld with former Secretary of State James Baker following the 2004 election.Bush decided not to do so after Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove convinced him it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the direction of the war and expose him to criticism, according to the book. Card, with the backing of first lady Laura Bush, tried a second time to persuade Bush to fire Rumsfeld around Thanksgiving 2005, the book says. But the president again refused to act." [Reuters, 9/29/06]

Rumsfeld Kept Rice in the Dark on Iraq - Told Her She Was Not in the Chain of Command. "Rumsfeld also clashed with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose calls he sometimes wouldn't return when she wanted to know about war planning or troop deployments. Rumsfeld told her she was not in the chain of command." [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]

General Abizaid Says Rumsfeld Has No Credibility on Iraq. "The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that 'Rumsfeld doesn't have any credibility anymore' to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq." [New York Times, 9/29/06]

Rumsfeld Failed to Manage the Reconstruction of Iraq. "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq - a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon - and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls." [New York Ti


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: yap; yapyap; yapyapyapyapyap
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To: Sub-Driver

Who is Bob Woodward to pass judgment on administrations?


21 posted on 10/03/2006 5:35:52 PM PDT by popdonnelly
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To: Sub-Driver

I'm telling you, this stuff is written in pure "Clinonista", and is straight out of a Clinonian War Room someplace...


22 posted on 10/03/2006 6:04:46 PM PDT by Bean Counter (Stout Hearts!!)
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To: Sub-Driver

"Now, what's Kissinger's advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply: Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy. This is so fascinating."

So a DNC 'talking point' is that Woodward reports Kissinger advised Bush to WIN in Iraq!?!? The HORROR!

What next? An economic advisor who suggested tax cuts?


23 posted on 10/03/2006 10:34:52 PM PDT by WOSG (Broken-glass time, Republicans! Save the Congress!)
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