Posted on 04/13/2004 9:44:12 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The low point of Dr. Condoleezza’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission last week was the cross examination by Richard Ben-Veniste. It was not a low point for President Bush’s Security Advisor; she acquitted herself excellently. It was a low point for the Commission as one of its members, sworn to pursue the truth of the matter, revealed himself as rude and obnoxious, but more importantly as dishonest.
Commissioner Ben-Veniste used a technique known to debaters and philosophers since ancient times, but a special province of modern trial lawyers. It is to use truth to manufacture a lie. It reared its ugly head in this exchange.
BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6, [2001] PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you if you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Now the PDB . . .
BEN-VENISTE: [Interrupting] Thank you.
RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste, I would . . .
BEN-VENISTE: [Interrupting] I will get into . . .
RICE: [Interrupting] I would like to finish my point, here.
BEN-VENISTE: I didn't know there was a point.
RICE: You asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.
RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. 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.
Take this apart line by line, and you can see what Ben-Veniste was trying to do. You can also see that Dr. Rice was aware of his tactic and sought to parry his thrust. The title of this particular Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) was as Dr. Rice stated. The title, all by itself, might give the false impression that the President had some warning about the attacks on 9/11 and failed to act.
That was exactly the false impression that Ben-Veniste wanted to promote. And it was the impression that the American news media conveyed for two days, meaning two news cycles, until the text of the PDB was declassified and released. But only lazy reporters and editors, unfortunately a majority in the modern press, would make such a mistake.
In 1998 Osama bin Laden gave a TV interview which was widely reported. In it, he threatened to attack the United States on its own territory. This was right after Bill Clinton “fired a missile through a tent and up a camel’s butt,” in a totally ineffectual attack on bin Laden. We had ample reason to know for at least three years – longer than that for those paying close attention – that bin Laden INTENDED to attack us inside the United States.
But think about it. Even without the 1998 tape of bin Laden’s explicit threat, any person modestly aware of the history of war would have expected such an intention by any enemy of the United States. It is a psychological blow, in addition to the deaths and damage inflicted, for any enemy to attack America’s capitol. And only some one who is deaf, dumb, blind and stupid would fail to note that the US has two capitols. One is the political capitol in Washington; the other is the commercial “capitol” in New York City.
Last week I saw an interview with one of the few remaining veterans of Lt. Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo on 18 April, 1942. Eighty men on sixteen planes took off on that nearly suicidal mission. None of the planes could return to the carrier USS Hornet, which launched them. Even with their guns removed and extra fuel tanks added, they carried too little fuel to return. They were expected to overfly Japan and land on allied airfields in China if they could get that far. In fact, due to multiple problems in the launch, none of the planes landed where intended. Most of the crews survived by bailing out before their planes ran out of gas.
Why were these men and planes sent on this mission? To prove with bombs that the United States was capable of attacking the Japanese capitol. And this was nothing new in the history of warfare. Any combatant who can, will always carry the attack to the capitol of the enemy. And because this point is so obvious, Washington is the best defended city in the nation.
That means an attacker may pick a different, but highly visible, target elsewhere. I’ve read reports that the fire which destroyed P.T. Barnum’s Museum in New York City during the Civil War was started by Confederate arsonists. The story of the fire, even if it did not spread throughout New York, would ride on the publicity and renown of the Museum itself.
So bin Laden’s INTENTION to attack preferably New York or Washington was self-evident even without the PDB. But did bin Laden have a PLAN for such an attack? Competent journalists, which today includes something less than half of the breed, would recognize from the first day in Journalism 101 the prerequisites of such an attack: who, what, where, when, how and why?
Had the US government known all of these particulars, through spies, interception of communications, or whatever, the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented. Had US authorities known even half of those particulars, there might have been a chance of preventing the attacks. But what did the PDB actually say?
It recited prior attacks outside the US by bin Laden. It recited his INTENTION to attack within the US. It recited that the F.B.I. had some 70 on-going investigations of possible Al Qaeda associates in the US. In short, the “why” of 9/11 was both known and self-evident. But the who, what, where, when and how were all unknown.
What did Dr. Rice know as she sat there being grilled by Ben-Veniste? She had read the document in question. She knew it was an “historical” document, offering no real clues about any specific future attack. And that’s why she insisted on answering Ben-Veniste’s question about a specific attack. And she got that answer out, despite Ben-Veniste’s attempt to cut her off and shut her up.
But what did Ben-Veniste know at the same time? As a member of the Commission, he had access to that document in private. He obviously had seen it, since he knew the title word for word. So he knew, when he began his questioning, that there were no details of any future threat by bin Laden in that document.
What do we know about Richard Ben-Veniste’s background? He is a hard-wired Democrat partisan. He worked on the staff of the Watergate investigation, prosecuting Republicans. Later he was a counsel during the Whitewater hearings, defending Democrats. He also defended Terry McAuliffe, now Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, from investigation of fund-raising crimes. And, when questions were raised about White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum and others entering Vincent Foster’s office and removing materials before those investigating Foster’s death could get there, he said to the Associated Press, “I don't hear anything involved in this tragedy that leads me to suspect either Bernie Nussbaum, who himself has an impeccable reputation, or anybody else associated with the White House has done anything that is not on the up-and-up....”
In short, Ben-Veniste’s task as a lawyer is to protect Democrats and damage Republicans. He seeks to establish that all possible Republicans have committed crimes against the nation, and that no Democrats have committed crimes against the nation. That is what he was trying to do, in his cross-examination of Dr. Rice.
What is the purpose of the 9/11 Commission? It is to get the facts about all the efforts of the US government over ten years and two Administrations, to understand and deal with the threats of Al Qaeda which lead up to the attacks on 9/11. Such a Commission requires members who are willing to find and follow the facts wherever they lead, and to make responsible and non-partisan conclusions for future actions and changes.
From this telling exchange with Dr. Rice, and from the record of his career, Richard Ben-Veniste is a partisan mole within the Commission. He will sabotage its purpose to the extent that he can, for purely partisan reasons. He will, if he can get away with it, cause the Commission’s work to be poisoned to the detriment of the nation, but for the benefit of the Democrats.
A person like this has no business being appointed to a Commission like this. I am certain that there was give and take between the President and leading Congressional Democrats on the appointment of members of the 9/11 Commission. I do not know, but would very much like to know, what Democrats have their fingerprints on the recommendation lists from which Ben-Veniste was chosen.
In the exchange quoted at the beginning, Ben-Veniste showed his colors as a vicious and partisan man in a position of importance. He demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice the interests of his nation to the interests of his party trying to win the next election.
And the technique that he used in this instance was to use the truth (the accurate title of this PDB), to tell a lie (the false claim that President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance and did nothing to prevent them). His conduct in this matter is nothing short of reprehensible. But then, so is the conduct of the members of the American press who reported his manufactured lie as if it was worthy of consideration, because they were ignorant of both the history and logic of war, and could not see the difference between a general intention and a specific plan of attack.
Such behavior is, unfortunately, routine for the worst of trial lawyers. So be it. If reporters were more able, Ben-Veniste would have been immediately exposed for what he is, and what he was trying to do. And if so, this lie would not have been spread for two days before the truth of the document itself caught up with the lie manufactured from a misread of its title.
Post Script: While we are on the subject of using truth to tell a lie, some recognition is due to John Kerry, soon to be Democrat nominee for President. This week he reinvented the “Misery Index,” throwing out one statistic that had been used for decades, and adding seven others not used before, to produce the result he sought.
Is this a an indication of things to come in a would-be Kerry Administration? If the economy turns bad, would he change the calculations so the problem magically disappears? Kerry is not worse than Ben-Veniste; he is simply more obvious.
As Mark Twain said, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
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About the Author: John Armor is an author and columnist on politics and history. He currently has an Exploratory Committee to run for Congress.
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©) 2004, Congressman Billybob & John Armor. All rights reserved.
I think Freepers will appreciate this. Let me know what you think.
MoodyBlu
As you might expect, his role then was the exact opposite of his role now. He screamed "witch hunt", "innocence", "nothing to see here", and generally got out the whitewash brush at every opportunity. Now, of course, he seeks to show a conspiracy at every turn.
I found him to be obnoxious, snide and thoroughly dishonest. His contribution to the present circus does not surprise me in the slightest.
Good on you, Dr. Rice!!
What an appropriate description!
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