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CONDI RICE: A MONUMENTAL NATIONAL SECURITY FAILURE GETS PROMOTED BY BUSH
FEBRUARY 10, 2005: On a national level, an interesting historical memo, from Richard Clarke to Condi Rice, dated JANUARY 25, 2001, was released only today, February 10, 2005. The memo documents Clarke's claim that he "urgently" requested a meeting of the principals on the serious threat posed by al-Qaeda at the very beginning of the Bush administration. Clarke's urgent meeting request and repeated follow-ups were ignored for 7 months by our Great Protectors in the Bush administration, with the meeting not taking place until SEPTEMBER 4, 2001.
Now I grant that the 9/11 attacks could not have been predicted with accuracy, and hindsight is 20-20. But what were the priorities at the White House and the National Security Agency and in the Bush administration prior to 9/11/01? Rice has never been able to explain what she was focusing on, as director of National Security, that was so much more important than al-Qaeda. The only detectable Bush agenda at the time was making backroom deals with Enron and Unocal for energy policies, focusing primarily on Iraq, the natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Oh, and cutting federal funding for stem-cell research, to ensure that already-aborted embryos are chucked in the garbage rather than used to save lives.
Review Condi Rice's dissembling and back-pedaling to the 9-11 Commission. Read her disturbingly anti-prescient January 23, 2003 column "Why We Know Iraq is Lying". Three things are now painfully obvious. Dangerous irresponsibility is rewarded in this administration; Accountability is rejected by all of the principals; Loyalty and Power are the only thing that matters to these people. We saw this also with the purveyors of false propaganda about Iraq; the promoters of Iraqi war as a first resort; and the architects of the Iraq post-invasion chaos. Thank goodness we live in a Blue State that was smart enough to see through this administration's lies and distortions.
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