Ashcroft Says He Should Have Been Informed

[Brown]

From CBS News and AP:

Meanwhile, former Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that he should have been notified of any such report [reported by Woodward as having been provided to Rice by Tenet and Black] dealing with a pending attack on the United States. "It just occurred to me how disappointing it was that they didn't come to me with this type of information," Ashcroft said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"The FBI is responsible for domestic terrorism," Ashcroft said. He said both Tenet and Black of the CIA should have been aware that he had pressed for a more aggressive policy in going after bin Laden and his followers in the United States and should have briefed him as well. Rice knew of this advocacy, he suggested.

"There was no covert action to kill him and we needed one," Ashcroft said.

Here is was the 9-11 Commission found:

* Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard requested an increase in counterterrorism funding from Ashcroft. Ashcroft denied Pickard's request on September 10, 2001. (Page 210)

* Ashcroft was briefed about terrorism by the CIA in May. He was repeatedly briefed by Pickard in June, July and August. Pickard testified that "Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore." (Page 265)

* "Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the threats and did not task it to take any specific action. He also did not direct the INS, then still part of the Department of Justice, to take any specific action." (Page 265)

So pardon me, Mr. Ashcroft, but I doubt that further informing you would have gotten you off your butt. Sounds to me like it's just more of your bulls***.

 

[hgc]

Oh boy. Now the really mangy rats are jumping off this ship. Who are the dead-enders now?

 

[bob_kark]

I don't know what this has to do with Ashcroft being beaten in a Senate race by a dead man... But I still think its damn funny.

Oh wait, I know what it is! No one gives a damn about John Ashcroft. If there was one man you could feel confident throwing under the bus, Ashcroft is your man. He put mini blinds on the damn Spirit of Justice for crying out loud! Anyway, perhaps he was just making a preemptive strike.

 

[hgc]

He put mini blinds on the damn Spirit of Justice for crying out loud!

He could have used pasties, thus acheiving the goal of rendering Justice modest, but also real cool.

 

[bob_kark]

He could have used pasties, thus acheiving the goal of rendering Justice modest, but also real cool.

Had he done that, I think he could have at least beaten a dead candidate at the next election.

 

[Bikewer]

A story in today's paper indicates that Ashcroft was indeed briefed in July on the "imminent threat", along with Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, etc.
He continues to deny this.

 

[zenith-nadir]

A story in today's paper indicates that Ashcroft was indeed briefed in July on the "imminent threat", along with Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, etc.
He continues to deny this.

Ashcroft is taking one out of the playbook by attempting to avoid "blowback" from his failure.

The spin that he knew nothing at all about Al Qaeda and a pending attack - after it has been repeatedly documented that he was briefed on the very topic - is the reason there was an attack. If you catch my drift.

 

[Mephisto]

A story in today's paper indicates that Ashcroft was indeed briefed in July on the "imminent threat", along with Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, etc.
He continues to deny this.

You might be interested in this:

Condi Rice, 9/11 and Another Nest of Lies
By William Rivers Pitt

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206X.shtml
__________

It seems the best excuse for inexcusable individual actions is, "I am an alcoholic," I wonder if the whole administration will admit to being drunk for the past several years.

 

[Crossbow]

So what if Ashcroft was not informed?

He was informed of other imminent terrorist threats and did not do anything substantive about them so why should anyone expect his behavior to change just because he went to one additional meeting.
And if he would have been informed about the Rice/Tenent meeting, then he would just be ducking for cover the same way she is now doing.

 

[FreeChile]

State Department confirms Tenet briefed Rice.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/03/141259

Democracy Now
Headlines for October 3, 2006

State Dept. Confirms Tenet Briefed Rice Two Months Before 9/11

The State Department has confirmed that Condoleeza Rice was personally briefed by then CIA Director George Tenet about the threat posed by al-Qaeda two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. The July 10, 2001 meeting is discussed in a new book by Bob Woodward. According to the book, Tenet went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and ’sounded the loudest warning’ to the White House of a likely attack on the United States by Bin Laden. Tenet said that he felt Rice brushed off the warning. When Woodward’s account first emerged over the weekend, Rice initially suggested no such meeting had ever taken place.

 

[Darth Rotor]

"The FBI is responsible for domestic terrorism," Ashcroft

I suspect some Cubans related to Elian Gonzalez agree with that statement.

I think he meant to say "counterterrorism" but then, based on his record as a strong arem, there are some who find this Freudian slip an admission of "the real truth."

DR