Condi under oath
Current Affairs, Politics 04/08/2004 |So National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared under oath before the 9-11 commission this morning. While I haven’t had the opportunity to go through the transcript, the Center for American Progress issued a statement regarding the contents of her deposition, and posted a page fact-checking some of Condi’s claims against prior news reports, government documents, and even some of Condi’s own statements:
CLAIM: There was “nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S.” in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste]
FACT: Rice herself confirmed that “the title [of the PDB] was, ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’” [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]
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p>(via Atrios)
[See also: Bush: ‘…the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat.’ | Why does [Pres. Bush] want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis? | Iraq on the Record | Twenty Questions | 9/11 commission: Everything we knew was wrong ]
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3 Responses to “Condi under oath”
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fpz
Gavriel
medhat abbas
Ryan Waddell
Sponge Bob
April 9th, 2004 at 8:56 am
Wow, you got one… how about the books people are going to write about clarkes contradictions
April 9th, 2004 at 10:15 am
This was under penalty of perjury. You know, like “I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I’ve never had an affair with her.”
Nitpicking Clark’s book is more analogous to nitpicking her interviews, etc.
April 9th, 2004 at 10:31 am
C’mon, Andrew, follow through on that.
While I won’t try to argue that there aren’t any contradictions in Clarke’s testimony — I haven’t read the transcript, nor do I keep a close enough eye on things to necessarily see any contradictions right off the bat — everything I’ve seen and read so far leads me to place a lot more trust in Clarke than in Condi.
When people tried to point out supposed “contradictions” between his testimony and prior statements, he replied that the earlier, more optimistic statements had been made at the behest of the White House under the direction to emphasize the positive, and de-emphasize the negative in his report. When the Republicans, incensed over Clarke’s testimony, demanded that his earlier closed testimony be declassified so that they could go through it with a fine-tooth comb in order to find contradictions, Clarke not only wasn’t shaken, but added his voice to the people asking for his prior testimony to be declassified and made public.
After Clarke’s testimony, when the White House was in full damage control mode, rather than trying to deny or counter any of what Clarke actually said, they instead started a smear campaign designed to undermine Clarke’s credibility. If what he said was so horrible, why didn’t they refute his claims, instead of trying to damage the reputation of the man?
Overall, given a choice of trusting Condi or trusting Clarke, I don’t even need to think about which I’d prefer to trust.