This should be big news: Gary Hart says he met with Condolezza Rice on 9/6/01 to talk about the imminent threat of terrorism.

Hart was co-chair (with former Sen. Warren Rudman) of the U.S. Commission on National Security, a bipartisan panel that conducted the most thorough investigation of U.S. security challenges since World War II. After completing the report, which warned that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent and called for the immediate creation of a Cabinet-level national security agency, and delivering it to President Bush on January 31, 2001, Hart and Rudman personally briefed Rice, Rumseld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. But, according to Hart, the Bush administration never followed up on the commission's urgent recommendations, even after he repeated them in a private White House meeting with Rice just days before 9/11.

Hart, who is now advising the Kerry campaign on national security issues, spoke with Salon this week about the Bush administration's failures to heed his warnings and why he feels the country is still at grave risk. Even at this late date, says Hart, Bush has failed to sufficiently coordinate federal, state, local and private sector security efforts, leaving open American ports as possible entry points for weapons of mass destruction and exposing such prime targets as petrochemical facilities located near major urban areas. ....The Bush White House, he charges, is locked in a strange and delicate dance with intelligence officials, maneuvering to place blame on the CIA but fearing if it does so too blatantly, the Bush team's own failings will be exposed.

In Hart's own words:

by TChris

Every day brings a fun new question to ask the Bush administration.

Today's question: Why did the White House block "thousands of pages of classified foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from former President Bill Clinton's White House files from being turned over to the [9/11] panel's investigators?"

Answer: withholding information is the default response in the Bush Administration.

The White House confirmed on Thursday that it had withheld a variety of classified documents from Mr. Clinton's files that had been gathered by the National Archives over the last two years in response to requests from the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law enforcement failures before the attacks.

Scott McClellan said that the administration withheld "sensitive" documents but gave the commission everything it needed to do its job. Everything it needed? Or everything the administration wanted it to have?

Annie Nelson, wife of singer Willie Nelson, writes this letter to the editor in today's Maui News about Richard Clarke.

by TChris

One question the 9/11 commission will want to ask Condoleezza Rice: Apart from its preoccupation with Iraq, was the Bush administration more interested in implementing its "unproven, money-munching missile defense system" than in protecting the country from Osama bin Laden?

The question arises from a speech that Rice never had the chance to give.

A speech that was due to be delivered on the day planes crashed into the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center is getting particular attention: The Washington Post reports national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was due to make remarks that day that discussed national security threats, but never mentioned al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. Instead, the remarks focused on the need for missile defense.

Although the Bush administration contends that the President was privately concerned about bin Laden, CBS reports that none of Bush's speeches or public remarks before September 11 mentioned the al Qaeda threat.

A new poll by the Los Angeles Times shows that a majority of Americans believe Richard Clarke's charges against Bush.

Nearly three-fifths of those surveyed echoed the contention by Clarke that Bush placed a higher priority on invading Iraq than combating terrorism. And a smaller majority agreed with the charge by the onetime White House counterterrorism chief that Bush did not focus enough on the terrorist threat before the Sept. 11 attacks.

What does this portend for the presidential race? Still a statistical dead heat, says the Times:

Indeed, while the new questions about Bush's initial response to the terrorist threat could pose a long-term problem for him, the poll suggests the controversy has not significantly changed the dynamics propelling the country toward another close presidential race. The survey found presumed Democratic nominee John F. Kerry holding a 49% to 46% advantage over Bush among registered voters, a difference within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Not suprisingly, more Democrats than Republicans agreed with Clarke's charges:

By 57% to 37%, those polled agreed with Clarke's contention that "President Bush was more focused on attacking Iraq than dealing with terrorism." Almost four in five Democrats agreed with the claim, while two-thirds of Republicans disagreed.

Strangely, a majority of those polled thought Bush has made this country more secure. Good news: The economy still is a negative factor for Bush --53% disapproved. His overall approval rating: 51%, with 44% disapproving Both of these numbers are down since November.

by TChris

Did the White House counsel feed questions for Richard Clarke to Republican members of the 9/11 commission?

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.

Waxman believes such ex parte contacts would be improper because "the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the commission."

In fairness, let's hear the other side of the story:

White House spokesmen were unable to get a response from Gonzales. Fielding did not return phone calls seeking comment. Thompson declined yesterday to say whether he spoke with Gonzales.

Maybe we'll hear their story when they've got one ready.

by TChris

A new survey by the Council on Excellence in Government points to the difficulty that Americans have reconciling their concerns about terrorism with their concerns about privacy.

• "nearly 60 percent of adults in the survey said government should have access to personal information that companies collect about consumers if there is any chance it will help prevent terrorism," but ...

• "72 percent of adults have only some or very little trust in government to use personal information properly," while ...

• only 16 percent "endorsed creation of a national identification card."

The survey also shows that Americans have become less worried about terrorist attacks (at least in their own neighborhoods) after 9/11, but most believe that the United States will be targeted in another major attack, at home or abroad, in the next few months. However, "84 percent of Americans don't change their daily routine when the nation's color-coded threat level rises."

Arthur of Light of Reason expounds today on Bush's attempt to eviscerate the time-honored writ of Habeas Corpus, and what that means for America.

The Bush administration believes habeas corpus is a luxury the United States cannot afford in its war on terror. The profound and immensely disturbing importance of these developments appears to be unappreciated by the great majority of Americans.

In an about face for the White House, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will be allowed to testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The official said the decision is conditioned on the Bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step does not set a precedent, said the official speaking on condition of anonymity. It appeared the administration already had such assurances verbally in private and is confident it will get them in writing.

by TChris

Is Richard Clarke credible? Not if you believe the Bush administration and its supporters.

In an extraordinary assault last week, they portrayed him as a disgruntled job seeker, a self-promoter looking to sell books, a hidden Democratic partisan (who somehow concealed his loyalties while working for presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush), and an unreliable witness whose past praise of President George W. Bush undermined his current criticism.

Here's a different view, from former intelligence professional Larry Johnson. He thinks Clarke is arrogant, but he believes Clarke is a dedicated professional who is justly criticizing both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Johnson happens to be a Republican who supported Bush in 2000.

[comments now closed]

by TChris

Republicans seeking to discredit the testimony of Richard Clarke about the Bush administration's inattention to the Al Qaeda threat prior to 9/11 have called for Clarke's July 2002 testimony before the Senate and House Intelligence committees to be declassified. They contend that his testimony in 2002 contradicts his testimony this year.

Clarke's response: bring it on. But he doesn't want the testimony to be declassified selectively to remove individual statements from their larger context in an effort to mislead.

"I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Clarke wants Condoleezza Rice's testimony declassified, as well, and he wants the White House to release all of his emails, not merely those that, taken out of context, can be used to attack his credibility.

"The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it," he said.

Having whacked the ball firmly back into the Republican court, we now have the chance to see whether the Bush administration and its Congressional supporters will respond to Clarke's challenge.

We all know "Married to the Mob"--now it's time for Married to the Jihad. This is a very bizarre article, in the truth is stranger than fiction department, particularly in its depiction of the wives' approval of their children becoming fighters. It consists of interviews with two women, Maha and Zaynab, Canadian mother and daughter married to al Qaeda fighters. The teaser:

They may be rich, cultivated and beautiful; but when the West steps up its 'war on terror', their husbands and sons are in the firing line. Jan McGirk meets some remarkable women.

A couple of tidbits:

Abdurahman and Omar were captured by the Americans and imprisoned at Guantanamo. Abdurahman, who liked to posture around the bazaar, swigging from an imported bottle of tabasco sauce to impress his buddies, has blamed greedy Kabul acquaintances for "selling" him to the Americans for a bounty. Omar, who was only 15 at the time, hunkered down with some fleeing Arab fighters in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, until American troops attacked the hideout. Despite being described by his mother as the most sensitive of the brothers, he is reported to have killed an American medic during the gunfight before taking a bullet himself, in the eye. He was soon whisked off to Guantanamo, where he was not allowed to speak with his incarcerated brother and where he remains under interrogation.

Maha describes how proud she is of her martyr husband, now dead. As to her teenage son:

Abdul Karim was also cornered and besieged that day. Described by his mother as a dreamy boy with a taste for Harry Potter and Matrix DVDs, he had been exploring the fields surrounding their new hide-out with a 16-year-old Arab friend, looking for hazards. They had left their weapons behind so as not to arouse the locals' suspicions, only to be ambushed by Pakistani soldiers lying in wait.

Abdul Karim was struck by a bullet that ripped through his spleen, liver and kidney and nicked his spinal cord. He later told his sister Zaynab that no water or first aid was offered to the bleeding boys for at least three hours, while Cobra helicopters attacked his father and comrades in the house. Pakistan army sources say the ensuing battle raged for 12 hours, and left nine foreign fighters dead. They showed Abdul Karim a photograph of his father's charred corpse while he lay recovering in a military cot. Now being held incognito in a basement somewhere near Islamabad, he is paralysed from the waist down.

Maha and Zaynab say it took them five months to find Abdul.