Story just up on the
New York Times website "Rice Received Qaeda Warning Before 9/11".
Seems that Condi does lie. Surprise surprise!
Money quote below the fold.
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 -- A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did indeed brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001 about looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said on Monday evening.
The account by the spokesman, Sean McCormack, came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall such a meeting and said it was "incomprehensible" she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. McCormack also said the Bush administration had determined that the Sept. 11 commission had been briefed about the meeting, even though no mention of it appears in the commission's report.
The question of whether such a meeting took place and what may have occurred has emerged as central since an account of it appeared in "State of Denial," the new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. The book said that Mr. Tenet and his top counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, believed that Ms. Rice had not taken their warnings seriously.
Ms. Rice told reporters aboard her plane on Sunday evening, as she began a trip to the Middle East, that she regarded that account as "simply ludicrous." Mr. McCormack, in confirming later that the meeting had taken place, said that the White House review had found that Ms. Rice had asked Mr. Tenet to provide the same briefing to Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, and John Ashcroft, the attorney general. Among those who attended the meting, Mr. McCormack said, was Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser.
Read the whole thing.
What next??