Playing Ball with Dr. Rice
President Bush finally gave the word to allow one of his top advisers to testify publicly under oath before the 9/11 Commission. Actually it’s a trade-off, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will submit to questioning from the ten-member panel in private, and not under oath. What does this tell you? Bush and Dick can say anything, while National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice is bound to tell the truth. There are those who fear for Rice’ job as a possible result of such scrutiny. Not if you examined the way Rice handled herself during the actual media questioning just to see if she’ll testify under oath. Save your concern for the Kean Commission panel.
A couple weeks back, as a reply to why she only wanted to testify behind closed doors, she said no National Security Adviser has ever been asked to testify publicly. Of course no other National Security Adviser has seen so many presidential officials depart either, not only should Rice testify in public, she should consider taking it to the Springer show. But it didn’t end there, she was then quoted as saying that she really wanted to meet with the families of 9/11 because she knows they were disappointed. During a 60 Minutes interview she further dissected her gag-order, “I’m not going to say anything in private that I wouldn’t say in public.” That line reminds me of the time a Black Minister once said on the radio; “just because I’m driving a $100,000 Lincoln Navigator doesn’t mean that’s what I paid for it.” Translated ‘I didn’t pay s—t for it.’ Now that’s game, folks, game. Understand the caller asked why so many Black preachers drive such expensive cars, not what he paid for it. Pure in-your-face evasiveness if I ever heard it. Game. And Dr. Condoleeza Rice has got plenty of it. That’s why I don’t worry about her in relation to her upcoming testimony, hell no she won’t spill the beans, but she promises to give up the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk.
I say Dr. Rice because I’ve been recently reminded that Rice has a P.hd but you never hear people call her doctor. They’re right of course, shame on us, shame on me. From now on I will call Condoleeza doctor in the same manner that I call former NBA star Julius Erving (Dr. J) doctor. I stand corrected. Which would you prefer Condi, Dr. C or Dr. R? For some reason I find Dr. C more appealing.
The issue with Dr. C. is Richard Clark’s assertion that he tried to warn her of the impending terrorist attacks, and according to his now-publicized memoirs “Against All Enemies,” all he got was a demotion and a lousy T-shirt that said ‘hit the bricks Dick,’ terrorist attacks? Al who? Ha! Next thing you know, you’ll be telling us they’ll be blowing up trains in Spain.’ Of course that was my version, Clark really said that he wrote to Rice on 1/24/01 asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending al-Qaeda attack, and got the impression that she never even heard of al-Qaeda. So Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and other defense and security officials seemed more happy spending their time in a cold war started by George W’s father the former president George H. W. Bush.
I have yet to read Clark’s book, but his information would have to be consistent with other sources eyeing the administration. During that same period, the Associated Press tracked 100 formal meetings by Bush’s national security leadership in the months prior to 9/11 according to a 3/20/04 AP report: “Yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions… the last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the Security Council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush’s approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.” There is also the report of the “presidential daily brief” that Bush received one morning August 2001, roughly a month before 9/11 that mentioned the possibility of al Qaeda hijacking US passenger planes, the one where CNN.com quotes Rice dismissing the report as analysis rather than warning. Reportedly any terror dialogue among Clark’s peers was either Iraq or nothing.
So strident was Bush against Iraq, that Clark alleges that he all but told him to cook the books against them for 9/11. Clark didn’t play ball, so he was left out of the loop. Conspicuous to me is the refusal to deal with bin Laden and his network, my suspicion is that Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rove and co., actually do and have known more than perhaps even Clark is privy to, and if that’s the case, then someone even larger than the Bush administration is pulling the strings. Don’t expect that to come out in the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks hearings (known commonly as the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Panel, and now the Kean Commission), to be perfectly honest, no news of these hearings on what the Bush administration knew before the suicide plane bombings of 9/11 should be mentioned without first acknowledging former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney; the first to bring the issue to light. But no-doubt McKinney would want little to do with the way the Commission has handled the Bush administration, or even the suspicious nature of the “Independent “ Commission itself. There has been controversy regarding the panel’s membership ever since the issues that lead to the departure of former Chairman Henry Kissinger.
According to the 7/8/03 New York Times, the Commission-a part of the legislative branch of the federal government-require that its members be free of conflicts of interest. This among others prohibits individual ties to senior Bush officials and officers in key government agencies, and no ties of any kind to alleged perpetrators or financiers of 9/11. Though outcry from the surviving family members of 9/11 victims (the Family Steering Committee) lead to the resignation of both Kissinger and George Mitchell because they belonged to groups that had links to Saudi financiers, the efforts to handpick such questionable officials to the panel has been so persistent, the families just got tired of complaining. So virtually every one on the ten-member panel is in conflict in some way of another. Thomas Kean former NJ Governor, and Commission Chair is head and shareholder of a firm (Delta Oil Ltd) that has business ties to Osama’s brother in law. Lee Hamilton, Vice Chair, David Marcus, a Legal Counsel and partner of a firm that counts one of the top alleged financiers of 9/11 as a client, John F. Lehman a Kissinger crony and current member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Philipp D. Zelikow, part of Bush’s intelligence team, and co-author of a book with Rice. How hard can he question Bush or Rice, when he works right under them? Jamie S Gorelick, serves on the CIA’s National Advisory Panel and the President’s review on intelligence.
These are the most clear panel provocateurs along with James Thompson, Richard Ben-Veniste, Max Cleland, Fred F Fielding, Timothy J Roemer, Slade Gorton and Christopher Kojm. Of course this is nothing more than good theater and damage control, Rice is just another one of the players, the doctor is in.