Sen. Clinton Fires Back At Rice

(CBS/AP)  New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has struck back at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the escalating political bickering over which president — Bill Clinton or George W. Bush — missed more opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sen. Clinton took aim at President Bush and Rice over their roles in 2001 before the attacks, part of a growing argument that ignited after former President Clinton gave a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday" in which he defended his efforts to kill Osama bin Laden.

"I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take these attacks," Hillary Clinton said Tuesday. "I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team."

The senator was referring to a classified brief given to Mr. Bush in August 2001, one that Democrats say showed the Bush administration did not do enough to combat the growing threat from al Qaeda.

When the brief was delivered, Rice was the president's national security adviser, and Clinton's response was clearly designed to implicate her in the same criticisms that have been made of Mr. Bush.

Clinton's response came a day after Rice denied President Clinton's claim in the television interview that the Bush administration had not aggressively pursued al Qaeda before the attacks of 2001.

"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice said during a meeting with editors and reporters at the New York Post. "The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false, and I think the 9/11 commission understood that."

Rice also took exception to Mr. Clinton's statement that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left office.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," she told the newspaper, which is owned by News Corp., the company that owns Fox News Channel.

President Bush declined to comment on the controversy when asked about it Tuesday. "I don't have enough time to finger point," he said at the White House.

Mr. Clinton was angered during the television interview when asked by Fox News' Chris Wallace why he didn't do more to fight al Qaeda.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Mr. Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try."

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Public Eye: The Clinton-Fox News Tussle
Calculated Strategy or Genuine Outrage? What Do You Think?

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The war of words has sparked a firestorm online, and led some to speculate that Mr. Clinton, in the Fox interview, was trying to demonstrate that the Democrats are tough on terror.

Sen. Joe Biden, a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, doesn't think that was his motivation.

"I think he's frustrated and angry," Biden, D-Del., told Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "I don't think he went onto the show to say I am going to help the Democrats. I think it was, look, I am going to make my case."

Asked about Sen. Hillary Clinton's comments, Biden said, "I don't think it will have any impact. She's also a powerful figure in our party, a very capable senator, but look, the Clintons are in a class by themselves. They are the best known people in the country, if not the world and anything they say or do is going to be hyped.

"They have a very long record dealing with those on the right. And, you know, I don't blame them for their frustration. I don't think it has much impact," Biden said.

[wardparkway2]

thgdriver:

Would you rather have a $350k scandal over a private real-estate deal or a $300B (that's billion) scandal over a public real-estate deal masquaraded as a War on Terror with innocent people dying daily and private campaign contributors reaping extreme amounts of money?

Would you rather have a person show his lack of morals by failing his matrimonial vows with his wife or have a person show his TOTAL lack of morals by failing his oath of office (which states to Protect and Uphold the Constitution of the United States... it never says protect the American People) by conjuring lies and inuendos to strong-arm Congress into allowing him to arrange an invasion of a sovereign country.

Speaking of distractions, Pres Bush would possibly not go down in the history books as the biggest failure had he not had such distractions (web-of-lies) on his mind.

When it comes to the US Constitution, failure is not an option and that is exactly what Dubya has done... failed the cornerstone document of our democracy. Read it sometimes... I have a copy within hands reach nearly 24/7.

Sometimes I think both-sides of the aisle need to read that document (some probably for the first time)... and get rid of the NRCC and DRCC and all the rest of the political party PACs. They are not serving the Constitution or the People in any way, shape or form... they are only feeding "The Machine"...

[energyecon]

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/

[energyecon]

How Rice blew off Richard Clarke and Al Qaeda before 9/11 with link:

snip

The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."

Two days after Rice's March 22 op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, "there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options -- but all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February."

snip

Clarke asked on several occasions for early principals meetings on these issues, and was frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled. No principals committee meetings on Al Qaida were held until September 4th, 2001.

snip

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm

[ausmatt-2009]

Clinton is lying, he did not have a comprehensive strategy for Al-Qaeda and Rice is completely justified by saying "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda,". Refer to this interview with *** Clarke in 2002, the person that Clinton on numerous occassions refers to throughout the interview. It completely contradicts every Clinton says http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html

[lestb35]

It was not lumped in with the war on terror. They gave the president full authority to do whatever he wanted without having to get approval first. What idiot democrat would go for such a thing.

[getcentered]

In congress, how can a minority (the dems) over power the majority (republicans)? They can't.

Even if every Democrat voted no on the authorization to use military force against our terrorist threats, they would have lost that vote. Most Democrats, if not all, want to destroy terroism. Who wouldn't?

Then the war in Iraq was lumped in with the "war on terror", so the authorization was already in place for those who were advocates of attacking.

Having that said, many Dems did vote for the use of military force, and did so without knowing that the "truths" they were being fed by the MAJORITY were UNTRUE.

Lestb35, we are not on the same page.
Take off the GOP goggles.
They are blinding you to the facts.

[lestb35]

The Democrats could have stoped the war resolution and they didn't. I respect the ones that voted no, like my Senator but the Dems that sold out should be removed.

[getcentered]

to lestb35:

What part of the Republican majority throughout our government don't you understand?

With the MAJORITIES the GOP/Republicans hold over Congress, they get to control everything!

Dems couldn't win a vote on anything without Republicans giving up votes, but the Republicans, with their majorities, can pass laws without a single vote from the Democrats side of the aisle. That means every law passed and every WAR resolution made in Congress, is mostly cooked up by the GOP/Republicans.

So now that you know, what do you think of your GOP/Republican friends now?

What makes them so special?

[lestb35]

What? Should I have said Richard Cheney?

[lestb35]

If the Democrats think for one minute that we don't remember who gave this president a green light and a blank check they're nuts. They had an opportunity to stop this war. What did they think George Bush and *** Cheney were going to do after we had just suffered the worst attack in history. If they didn't see that this was going to be a big bad war then they're too dumb to be in office. I'd rather support the Republicans.