Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the 9/11 Commission, takes George Bush to task on his "keeping America Safe" meme. In a book, The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11, due to be released May 26, Ben-Veniste slams Bush for not responding to the August 6, 2001 PDB about "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
Ben-Veniste reveals in the new book more of what transpired in the three-hour 'interview' with Bush and Cheney on April 29, 2004. It took several months for the 9/11 Commission to get them to provide any information about what they knew about 9/11. Bush and Cheney finally agreed to be 'interviewed' in a meeting behind closed doors, but refused to say anything under oath.
According to Ben-Veniste, Bush said the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." PDB was the only notice he received on Bin Laden's domestic threat. He says he asked Bush "why he had not met with the FBI director after getting the PDB," to which Bush replied that there were concerns "about politicizing the FBI and interfering in pending cases." Ben-Veniste says "This was no pending case subject to claims of political interference." And, of course, we know that Bush had no problem with politicizing the Justice Department. So it appears Bush's response to the question was total B.S. - but since he "wasn't under oath" it is OK to lie. Ask any Republican who prosecuted Bill Clinton's impeachment.
In the 'interview,' Bush said he couldn't recall whether he asked Condoleezza Rice to contact the FBI regarding the PDB. Here we have another Republican president experiencing loss of memory about one of the most significant events in American history. Rob Saliterman, a spokesman for Bush referred all questions to statements Bush made on April 11, 2004:
I asked for the Central Intelligence Agency to give me an update on any terrorist threats. And the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. It said Osama bin-Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was, is there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to?
I looked at the Aug. 6 briefing; I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into. But that PDB said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America. Well, we knew that.
The Aug. 6, 2001 PDB was declassified by the Bush administration in April 2004. It stated "the FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden related." In his "interview," Bush said the mention of the 70 pending investigations was a good thing and helpful, but that if "there had been ’a serious concern’ in August 2001, he would have known about it."
Ben-Veniste said,
Being on my best behavior, I didn’t come out and ask him what he thought a briefing from the CIA titled ’Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ was, if not a serious concern. Instead, I asked whether the president had discussed the Aug. 6 PDB with either the attorney general or the secretary of the treasury, the two cabinet officers who oversaw the FBI and other federal agencies charged with domestic law enforcement. Had he discussed the PDB with Attorney General Ashcroft to ensure the FBI was doing everything necessary? The president said that he could not recall, nor could he say whether Rice had any such discussion with Ashcroft.
"CIA analysts had written a report for the president’s eyes to alert him to the possibility that bin Laden’s words and actions, together with recent investigative clues, pointed to an attack by al-Qaida on the American homeland," but Bush did "absolutely nothing to follow up."
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Ben-Veniste previously discussed some of details of the April 29, 2004 'interview' with Bush and Cheney. In a September 25, 2006 interview on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked him about their 'interview' of Bush, "what he and his administration were doing to kill bin Laden, because by then it was certified, it was authorized. It was, in fact, confirmed that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in December of 2000."
Ben-Veniste said,
... one of the questions we had and I specifically had was why President Bush did not respond to the Cole attack. And what he told me was that he did not want to launch a cruise missile attack against bin Laden for fear of missing him and bombing the rubble.
And then I asked him, "Well, what about the Taliban?" The United States had warned the Taliban, indeed threatened the Taliban on at least three occasions, all of which is set out in our 9/11 Commission final report, that if bin Laden, who had refuge in Afghanistan, were to strike against U.S. interests then we would respond against the Taliban.
(...) now that it was established that al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole bombing and the president was briefed in January of 2001, soon after he took office, by George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling him of the finding that al Qaeda was responsible, and I said, "Well, why wouldn't you go after the Taliban in order to get them to kick bin Laden out of Afghanistan?" Maybe, just maybe, who knows -- we don't know the answer to that question -- but maybe that could have affected the 9/11 plot.
(...)
He said that no one had told him that we had made that threat. And I found that very discouraging and surprising.
Blitzer said that he had not seen "anything about this exchange that you had with the president in this report."
Ben-Veniste replied that he had hoped that the Commission's report "would have made both the Clinton interview and the Bush interview a part of our report, but that was not to be. I was outvoted on that question."
When asked by Blitzer if he thought "the Republican members trying to protect the president and the vice president?"
Ben-Veniste said:
I think the question was that there was a degree of confidentiality associated with that and that we would take from that the output that is reflected in the report, but go no further. And that until some five years' time after our work, we would keep that confidential. I thought we would be better to make all of the information that we had available to the public and make our report as transparent as possible so that the American public could have that.
Ben-Veniste also made a point to say there had been a lot of politicization over the issue, of "why didn't President Clinton respond" to the Cole bombing. He said:
... I think that was a question of whether a president who would be soon leaving office would initiate an attack against a foreign country, Afghanistan. And I think that was left up to the new administration. But strangely, in the transition there did not seem to be any great interest by the Bush administration, at least none that we found, in pursuing the question of plans which were being drawn up to attack in Afghanistan as a response to the Cole.
He added that a number of people continued to work on the terrorism issues, including Richard Clarke. "So that information was there and available, but the question of why we did not respond to the Cole, I think it was an important lapse, quite frankly."
Maybe this latest revelation of George Bush's incompetence will get some traction. I am tired of hearing how Bush "kept us safe."