Condoleezza Rice, A Powerful Woman at the Service of The President by SHINYGOODGUY

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Condoleezza Rice, A Powerful Woman at the Service of The President

POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 02:54
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Sunday, August 21, 2016 3:52 AM

As Secretary of State, a powerful position within the president's cabinet,
one has the power of life and death in her hands. Hilary Clinton has been
vilified as the devil incarnate because of Benghazi and the death of 4 Americans. A tragedy beyond compare, without question.

Speaking of failing the American public and blood on her hands, let's take a trip in the way back machine, shall we?

Condoleezza Rice. Sound familiar!? An accomplished and capable politician
in every right. No one would ever questioned her credentials as perhaps the most powerful woman in Washington during her service to the president, and
to the people, of the United States, during the Bush Administration.

Until..........................

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

In 2001, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, President Bush and then-CIA Director George J. Tenet ................ (By Eric Draper -- White House Via Associated Press)

Sunday, October 1, 2006

On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.

For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden. Perhaps a dramatic appearance -- Black called it an "out of cycle" session, beyond Tenet's regular weekly meeting with Rice -- would get her attention.

Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence he'd seen. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming. He and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.

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He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems. Two weeks earlier, he had told Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director: "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."

But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the National Security Agency intercepts and other intelligence. Could all this be a grand deception? Rumsfeld had asked. Perhaps it was a plan to measure U.S. reactions and defenses.

Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."

Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.

The United States had human and technical sources, and all the intelligence was consistent, the two men told Rice. Black acknowledged that some of it was uncertain "voodoo" but said it was often this voodoo that was the best indicator.

Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

As they all knew, a coherent plan for covert action against bin Laden was in the pipeline, but it would take some time. In recent closed-door meetings the entire National Security Council apparatus had been considering action against bin Laden, including using a new secret weapon: the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, that could fire Hellfire missiles to kill him or his lieutenants. It looked like a possible solution, but there was a raging debate between the CIA and the Pentagon about who would pay for it and who would have authority to shoot.

Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.

Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long. "Adults should not have a system like this," he said later.

The July 10 meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice went unmentioned in the various reports of investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, but it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the starkest warning they had given the White House on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn't want to know about.

Philip D. Zelikow, the aggressive executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and a University of Virginia professor who had co-authored a book with Rice on Germany, knew something about the July 10 meeting, but it was not clear to him what immediate action really would have meant. In 2005 Rice hired Zelikow as a top aide at the State Department.

Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, but she just didn't get it in time, Tenet thought. He felt that he had done his job and had been very direct about the threat, but that Rice had not moved quickly. He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.

Black later said, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head."

Editor's Note: How much effort the Bush administration made in going after Osama bin Laden before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, became an issue last week after former president Bill Clinton accused President Bush's "neocons" and other Republicans of ignoring bin Laden until the attacks. Rice responded in an interview that "what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years."

Decisions, decisions............makes you think, don't it!?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006
093000282.html

SGG

Ah, History!

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Monday, August 22, 2016 7:20 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
As Secretary of State, a powerful position within the president's cabinet,
one has the power of life and death in her hands. Hilary Clinton has been
vilified as the devil incarnate because of Benghazi and the death of 4 Americans. A tragedy beyond compare, without question.

Condoleezza Rice. Sound familiar!? An accomplished and capable politician
in every right. No one would ever questioned her credentials as perhaps the most powerful woman in Washington during her service to the president, and
to the people, of the United States, during the Bush Administration.

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Rice responded in an interview that "what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years."

Fortunately she framed the historical context accurately.
Selective memory with your history, is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bill-clinton-osama-bi
n-laden-20140801-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/16/bill-cl
inton-and-the-missed-opportunities-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237764/clinton-admits-he-passed-killin
g-bin-laden-mark-tapson

And of course this includes the Co-President, Hilliary - before officially codifying their Crminal Interests in The Clinton Crime Family Foundation scam.

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Monday, August 22, 2016 8:16 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hilary (sic) Clinton has been vilified as the devil incarnate because of Benghazi and the death of 4 Americans.

I've vilified Hillary plenty, but never because of 4 Americans dying at Benghazi. Her hands are far bloodier, with the blood of thousands of people far more innocent.

As for Rice getting a pass, I honestly couldn't tell you who I despised more - Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, or Cheney. But as a gesture towards being non-partisan, Clinton and Clinton are both in that group too.

Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016 2:42 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

Did Bill Clinton's decision, or lack of one, contribute to the loss of more than 3000 lives. And yet, Hillary is the only one bearing the brunt of scorn and hatred because 4 Americans died.

Somehow there is a disconnect there. Bush and company did nothing, stood silent and ignored the alarm by experts in the field, and proceeded to start
a unnecessary war. And for what?

President Clinton failed to get Osama. Yes, he admitted as much and expressed regret. Tell me, can you find a president with a perfect record?
Who among them hasn't fucked up at some point during their presidency?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/16/bill-cl
inton-and-the-missed-opportunities-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

I know...........the darling of the conservative party...........

Go ahead, it's okay, we know.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
As Secretary of State, a powerful position within the president's cabinet,
one has the power of life and death in her hands. Hilary Clinton has been
vilified as the devil incarnate because of Benghazi and the death of 4 Americans. A tragedy beyond compare, without question.

Condoleezza Rice. Sound familiar!? An accomplished and capable politician
in every right. No one would ever questioned her credentials as perhaps the most powerful woman in Washington during her service to the president, and
to the people, of the United States, during the Bush Administration.

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Rice responded in an interview that "what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years."

Fortunately she framed the historical context accurately.
Selective memory with your history, is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bill-clinton-osama-bi
n-laden-20140801-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/16/bill-cl
inton-and-the-missed-opportunities-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237764/clinton-admits-he-passed-killin
g-bin-laden-mark-tapson

And of course this includes the Co-President, Hilliary - before officially codifying their Crminal Interests in The Clinton Crime Family Foundation scam.

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016 2:51 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

BTW, if I was being selective, I would have left out that last part - the editor's note.

Ah, fuck it. Look who I'm talking to.

Go ahead fire away..................at least you are consistent in that department.

SGG

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016 2:54 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

Yes, blood on their hands...........correct-o-mondo! And that's just the ones we know about. Rice's pass that I speak of is not so much from everyday plain folk like you or I, but in general from the media and
in the overall political spectrum.

The conservatives such as Rice, Bush and Cheney have been awful quiet lately.

All are guilty, and like MacBeth, could never get their hands clean.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Hilary (sic) Clinton has been vilified as the devil incarnate because of Benghazi and the death of 4 Americans.

I've vilified Hillary plenty, but never because of 4 Americans dying at Benghazi. Her hands are far bloodier, with the blood of thousands of people far more innocent.

As for Rice getting a pass, I honestly couldn't tell you who I despised more - Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, or Cheney. But as a gesture towards being non-partisan, Clinton and Clinton are both in that group too.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

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