Asleep At The Switch

Asleep At The Switch

Yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that she did not attend a meeting on July 10, 2001 with then-CIA director George Tenet and his deputy Cofer Black in which she was warned of an impending attack on U.S. interests. Rice said, "I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond." Actually, there was a meeting and Rice was warned. The New York Times reports, "A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda." Tenet and Black requested the emergency meeting with Rice because they "were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack." The revelation deals a severe blow to Rice's credibility at a time when she is trying to convince the public that "what we did in the eight months (before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks) was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years."

WHAT DID RICE DO?: In his new book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward reports that Tenet and Black "felt the brush-off" from Rice during their meeting. Richard Ben-Veniste, a 9/11 Commissioner who learned about the meeting during an interview with Tenet, stated, "Tenet never told us that he was brushed off. We certainly would have followed that up.” In any event, it's clear not much was done. Woodward reports that, "though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk."

IGNORING URGENT THREAT REPORTING: Yesterday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the meeting "'was not new' and didn't amount to an urgent warning. Rather, it was a good summary from the threat-reporting from the previous several weeks." McClatchy reports, "One official who helped to prepare the briefing...described it as a '10 on a scale of 1 to 10' that 'connected the dots' in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again." The State Department's downplaying of the briefing mirrors Rice's approach to the President's Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Rice and President Bush described that document as "historical."

WHAT DID ASHCROFT AND RUMSFELD DO?: Yesterday, McCormack said Rice "requested that Mr. Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft." Ashcroft told the New York Times that he was "disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing. I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by and tell me.” Actually, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld were briefed. According to the State Department, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft "received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target" within a week of Rice's briefing. A Pentagon spokesman said he had "no information 'about what may or may not have been briefed' to Rumsfeld at Rice's request." According to officials, at the time, Rumsfeld "was focused mostly on his plans to remake the Army into a smaller, high-tech force and deploy a national ballistic missile defense system."

WHY WASN'T THE MEETING INCLUDED IN THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT?: The July 10 meeting, which was potentially damaging for Rice and the Bush administration, was not mentioned in 9/11 Commission report. The report's main author, Philip Zelikow co-authored a book with Rice earlier in thier careers and is now a top aide in the State Department. Yesterday, Zelikow "didn't respond to e-mail and telephone queries" asking why the meeting was kept secret.