Top Secret Conference Call on Sept. 11 Could Shed New Light On Terrorist Attack (Shoot Down Orders)

US News and World Report ^ | September 8, 2003 | Mark Mazzeti and Chita Ragavan

[prarie earth]

The (executive privledege review) transcripts may also shed light on the military's repsonse to President Bush's unprecedented order to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane.

Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order to Vice President Dick Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration, for the first time ever, ordered all domestic flights grounded.

'There are unanswered questions,' said Richard Ben-Veniste, a comission member and former federal prosecutor, as to whether the shoot down order had been rehearsed for, whether it had been prepared for, and what measures were in place to protect the Capitol,' believed to be the hijackers original target for Flight 77.

Some of the questions may be raised in the comissions second interim report, due out in about two weeks.

The report will offer a substantive summary of the comissions top priorities and offer an updated report card on agency cooperation.

[prarie earth]

Thanks.

[Republican Red]

Sounds to me like they are trying to pin a "they knew it was going to happened" on President Bush.

This guy is trying to say that if the President and Vice PResident were so quick and decisive in their actions they must have had some heads-up and thus were prepared to act immediately.

What a fool. Democrats cannot accept the fact that President Bush is a born leader and reacted instinctively. Shame on them.

[tubebender]

If there was a shoot down over Pa a radar somewhere would have caught it...

[mtbopfuyn]

Whatever Bush said to whomever whenever doesn't matter to me. We were all naive on 9/10 but should thank our lucky stars we had Bush and Cheney leading our country on 9/11. I never doubted for a second Bush was hiding out. Cheney and other leaders were in Washington DC and could very well have been a victims so of course they kept Bush a safe distance away. That doesn't mean he wasn't on the phone getting confirmation of the situation and making quick decisions. I doubt the military could have acted any faster but I don't believe for a minute the PA flight was shot down because too many people were on phones. I'm also of the opinion there are many actions taken by our government that day which should be kept secret.

Thanks be for Bush and Cheney. If we'd had Gore there would be no US of A today.

[prarie earth]

Wasnt the last liberal spin is that Cheney and Bush were incommunicado?

[Republican Red]

as to whether the shoot down order had been rehearsed for, whether it had been prepared for

Dem's are going to try the "Bush Knew" tactic again, if I am reading this correct. Idiots.

[null and void]

Dem's are going to try the "Bush Knew" tactic again, if I am reading this correct. Idiots.

Clinton knew, and did nothing - 12 times!

[mhking]

Is it really that difficult for you to follow the link, or are you just that lazy!

In three days when you can't read the article, then you won't have anything to reference. Posting the article comes under "fair use," and it (provided it is not covered under any of the known exclusions) is common courtesy.

You can keep your insults. No one asked for them.

[Core_Conservative]

too lazy

Too lazy, the same could be said to you for not going to the site to find out more. I find it more convienient to see a protion of the article, and if I'm interested, then I'll go read the rest. Get a life and get off your dead arse!

[11th Earl of Mar]

Seeing how nobody here agrees with you, we know who the dead arse is!

[null and void]

So I'm NOBODY!?!?!


HARUMPF!

[Core_Conservative]

Ok - so you be lazy your way and I'll be lazy my way - I have alsways found it harder to post partials than the whole thing, but I will continue to post partials - maybe just to get your guys goat, now that I know that ya don't like it!

[Sal]

Dem's are going to try the "Bush Knew" tactic again...

It could blow up in their faces. Laura Bush was at one of the intended targets (the Capitol) that AM and she was there to address one of Hillary's committees.

Hillary's location OTOH could not be tracked down by freepers until 4PM...

I don't know if anybody knew or not, but, if someone did, it wasn't Bush!

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Never, never trust anything that comes out of the mouth of Richard Ben-Veniste.

He is a coolaid drinking Demonrat of the highest order!

Amen, to that Seeking, and that was the first impression I had on reading this article. This piece of dog excrement had his hands deep into the impeachment of Nixon in '74 and was a particularly loathsome defender of clinton in 98-99. Ben-Veniste oozes sleaze out of every pore and is not to be believed or trusted, ever. To describe him as a "former federal prosecutor" is misleading, at best. That would be like describing Ken Starr as a "former law professor" or OJ as a "former running back".

[Maria S]

A few words about Richard Ben-Veniste:

www.madcowprod.com

“I did my part by launching Barry Seal into the arms of Vice
President Bush, who embraced him as an undercover opera-
tive,” Ben-Veniste said to reporters who questioned his ethics in
sitting as Democratic co-counsel on the Whitewater Commission
after being a lawyer-participant in matters being investigated. Ben-
Veniste said he’d “‘read’ of the Seal-Lasater link,” intimating he
knew nothing more. But the attorney defending Barry Seal, a key
figure in the drug angle of the Whitewater probe, surely knew far
more than that.

So, just who is Richard Ben-Veniste? Richard Ben-Veniste has
made a career of defending political crooks, specializing in cases
that involve drugs and politics. The gray-haired lawyer who defended Bill Clinton on the
Whitewater Committee first entered the limelight as a Watergate
prosecutor in 1973. He was the point man in prosecutions of
Nixon aides Mitchell, Haldeman and Erlichman; displaying to-
tal recall of the facts. He led the successful fight to secure the
secret Nixon White House tapes. “Watergate will probably al-
ways be the most important thing in my career in terms of its
national scope and impact,” he has said.

In the wrangling over Nixon’s tapes he worked with Hillary
Rodham and Bernard Nussbaum. The three would later find them-
selves working together again, though this time on the defense
side, in the Whitewater scandal, where, during Ben-Veniste’s tour
of duty as minority special counsel to the Senate Whitewater com-
mittee, he served up enough disdain, contempt, and indignation
to fortify the Democratic contention that the whole investigation
was an overblown load of partisan mud-slinging.

But we also discovered this curious fact: Ben-Veniste has regu-
larly been referred to
in print as “a Mob lawyer,” and even as a “Mob figure,” as well
as “a very close associate of the notorious Mobster Alvin Malnik...”
Curious, indeed, for someone defending the President of the United
States. But when Ben-Veniste defended Clinton on the Whitewater
panel the media ignored his Mob connections.
In the early 1980’s he represented both Barry Seal and Bill
Clinton at the very time when, after Clinton was elected for a
second term as Governor of Arkansas, Mob money reportedly
really started pouring into Arkansas. “That was the election when
the Mob really came into Arkansas politics, the dog-track and
racetrack boys, the payoff people who saw a good thing,” a former
U.S. attorney told Roger Morris and Sally Denton. “It wasn’t
just Bill Clinton, and it went beyond our old Dixie Mafia, which
was penny-ante by comparison. This was Eastern and West Coast
crime money that noticed the possibilities…just like the legiti-
mate corporations did.”

When Whitewater hovered into view Ben-Veniste responded
with his trademark humor, claiming that it was a flare-up of his
“hydrotropic” affliction. “Every couple of decades I get involved
in something with the word ‘water’ in it. It’s a condition only
seen in fungi.”

Ben-Veniste, the quintessential Washington lawyer, has the huge
house, the million-dollar partnership bonuses, the Rolodex with
everyone’s private number, and the ego to go with it all. He even
played a “commentator’s” role in the Iran Contra Scandal. “My
feeling is that the American people, within the next six months or
so, will have a pretty good idea of what’s occurred,” he said, when
he was hired by NBC News to do commentary. When two former
national security officials asserted their Fifth Amendment rights
during the hearings he defended their refusal to talk, saying, “In
common parlance you would say things might be bad enough with-
out getting hit with your own bat.”

During the ABSCAM trials into Congressional bribes, where
he acted as a defense attorney, he asked the jury to believe that
what was shown on videotapes secretly made during the investiga-
tion was not what really happened, that his clients were play-act-
ing and had intended to provide no service in return for a $50,000
payoff. He had explained, “No matter how thin you make a pan-
cake… it still has two sides.”

When House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) was caught accept-
ing bribes camouflaged as book sales, he turned to fixers Clark
Clifford… and Richard Ben-Veniste. Clifford himself was later
caught up in the BCCI scandal but “mysteriously” escaped pros-
ecution by the Bush Justice Department.


This could go on and on, but I think you get the general idea.

[Marysecretary]

After soiling his Depends....

[new cruelty]

My two cents on the whole excerpt commotion:

I agree with mhking. If the article is not a part of the Related Publications in the LAT/WP vs Free Republic Settlement Agreement then it is a matter of common courtesy to post the entire article. Mhking did the appropriate thing by requesting to "Please post the entire article when not covered by WP/LAT exclusion" and then posting the article for others to read. He was considerate and proactive without taking an acrimonious tone.

Ironically, there are those that would rather expend what must be crucial energy by typing out a bitter comment to the messenger of the article than actually make the backbreaking effort to click on a link to read the full article.

I've been guilty of posting an excerpt of an article(s) that would have served the reader better had I posted the entire article. Fortunately, there are those that take the time to instruct and inform. It is through the helpful guidance of some very thoughtful FReepers that I am taking the time to become more familiar with LAT/WP v. FR when posting an article.

[Pagey]

In the wrangling over Nixon’s tapes he worked with Hillary Rodham and Bernard Nussbaum. The three would later find them- selves working together again, though this time on the defense side, in the Whitewater scandal, where, during Ben-Veniste’s tour of duty as minority special counsel to the Senate Whitewater committee, he served up enough disdain, contempt, and indignation to fortify the Democratic contention that the whole investigation was an overblown load of partisan mud-slinging.

What a great guy to have on a 9-11 panel,eh? So this Ben veniste fellow, is also a Saul Alinsky follower, planning the confrontational attacks against anyone who attempts to call them on their B.S.And he knew Hillary back in the Nixon Era.Oh yeah,a great non-partisan human.<=====sarcasm

[Ciexyz]

Most interesting.