IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

like she has something to hide...hmmmmm



Rice Rejects Calls for Public Testimony
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas - National security adviser Condoleezza Rice is waging a vigorous defense of her actions in every public forum except one: the Sept. 11 commission where she would be questioned about the government's failure to prevent the terrorist attacks.
Rice declared Sunday night that "nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify" to the commission. But, she added, "there is an important principle involved here: It is a long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress." She has appeared before panel members in closed session.

Interviewed on CBS' "60 Minutes," Rice also said she'd like to meet with the families of the Sept. 11 victims.

"I'd love to meet with (Rice) as long as it's under oath and it's live in front of television cameras," responded Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband Ronald died in New York's World Trade Center.

Rice should "come out and explain what the national security adviser knew, didn't know, what kind of information was passed to the president and didn't" get passed, said Lorie Van Auken, widow of another World Trade Center victim.

Commission member John Lehman, a Republican, called the refusal to testify "a political blunder of the first order."

The controversy stemming from the publication of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's book is in its second week, complicating President Bush's re-election campaign. Bush spent a long weekend on his Texas ranch, giving no ground, and several aides said he will not change his mind on letting Rice testify.

Rice acknowledged Sunday that Bush had asked Clarke at a meeting on the day after Sept. 11 to find out if Iraq had been involved in the terror attacks.

The president, she said, was not trying to bully Clarke or force him to give a particular answer.

"This was a country with which we'd been to war a couple of times, it was firing at our airplanes in the no-fly zone. It made perfectly good sense to ask about Iraq," Rice said on CBS.

Rice offered a rebuttal to criticism by Clarke on NBC's "Meet the Press" that President Clinton "did something, and President Bush did nothing" before Sept. 11 and that both "deserve a failing grade."

Rice responded: "I don't know what a sense of urgency - any greater than the one that we had - would have caused us to do differently."

Appearing on ABC, Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick said better coordination inside the government might have averted "disconnects."

"The CIA had not told the FBI that two bad actors it knew about were coming to this country," she said.

"If you brought people together and say, 'What do you have today? Have you talked to so-and-so?' - perhaps those connections would have been made," Gorelick added.

Rice said "the war on terrorism is well served by the victory in Iraq."

Told there have been more terrorist attacks since Sept. 11 than before it, she replied: "I think that's the wrong way to look at it."

While the terrorists will sometimes succeed, she said, in the end, "they are going to be defeated."

Clarke said his Jan. 25, 2001, memo urging steps against the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Bush administration's national security directive eight months later are "basically the same thing."

"They wasted months when we could have had some action," said Clarke, urging that his Jan. 25 memo and the Sept. 4 national security directive be declassified for comparison purposes.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "My bias will be to provide this information in an unclassified manner not only to the commission, but to the American people. ... We're not trying to hide anything."

Powell criticized Clarke, saying, "I think Dr. Rice is getting a bit of a bum rap. It's been set up as, I told her everything we needed to do and she ignored it all. That's not accurate. Condi was on this from the very beginning. She took action."

Questioned about his motives for attacking the administration, Clarke said he will make substantial donations from the profits of this book to the families of Sept. 11 victims. Making clear he won't donate everything, he said he has to take into account the fact that his enemies are saying "################ Clarke will never make another dime in this city."

Clarke said he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000, but "I'm not going to endorse John Kerry," Bush's presumptive opponent in November. "That's what the White House wants me to do. They want to say I'm part of the Kerry campaign."

___

Associated Press reporter Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this story.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...A&SECTION=HOME

__________________
Some men move mountains
Some women move men who move mountains
Most women with mountains move some men
But I...I am a woman who is moved by men who can get through the valley

Queen GodIs

First dey say Bush never met with Clarke...now "well, he did meet w/ him...but it wasn't to bully him."

She just brakesing fuh Bush and it will end up coming back to bite her in her ass. I doubt she makes it into the next administration if he gets re-elected. Smart money is on her being made the fall-guy for this whole "intelligence fiasco"...Rumsfeld dun made it clear where any blame should be laid.

Why am I not surprised, I knew that was going to happen.

guess what i think due to public and political pressure the bush administration as agreed now to allow her to testify. Does someone smell something fishy. But in all it's sad how's she will bear the brunt of the critisim if it is proven that The Bush Admin could have acted upon information to stop 9/11 based on intelligence information given to them by the Clinton Admin after he left office.

As much as I like and admire her this is a situation entirely of her own doing. In the end it might kill any political aspirations she may have harbored...but she'll be in even greater demand in private life and rich Republicans would love her for "taking one for the team"...but I'm getting ahead of myself...

All this talk about there is precendent for a sitting NSA to reject calls for testimony under oath is bull...and they know it. Not only is there precedent for her to testify, but that is a very shaky position to take, given the unprecedented nature of the 9/11 attacks. They know what's at stake politically...that's why they're starting to cave...and she'll only look like the bigger ass for having gone on "60 Minutes" and offered her half-ass defence for not testifying in the first place.

Well looking at the Big Picture, we all know elections are around the corner and Mr Bush do not want any issues which would possibly erodes his campaign...so in essence their strategy is to nip it in the bud before it become a malignant issue before Nov.

In other words...serve her ass up on a platter.

As I said before, I'd be surprised is she makes it into the next administration (God forbid he should win though...)

Gotta agree with the sentiment in this post. I really like Condie also, but she looks like she might be the fall guy. Bush Administration needs to come out of this blaming somebody.