News & Politics - Bush, Cheny Go Before 9/11 Comission

migamoo · 04-29-2004, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Bush, Cheney face 9/11 panel
Rare event for a sitting president to hold such a session
Thursday, April 29, 2004 Posted: 11:41 AM EDT (1541 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have held a private session Thursday with the 9/11 commission in the Oval Office, answering questions about a terrorist attack that has defined the Bush presidency.

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and two members of his staff joined Bush and Cheney for the meeting, which had no firm timetable.

The entire 10-member bipartisan commission attended the session in the Oval Office.

It is extremely rare for a sitting president to talk to a such a panel. There have been only a handful of appearances since 1862, when President Lincoln discussed relieving a Civil War general.

Bush and Cheney are not testifying before the panel -- they are not under oath and there will be no recording of the session, nor a stenographer in the room.

The two members of the White House counsel's staff will take notes during the session, and the commission members will be allowed to take handwritten notes as well.

That means there will be no verbatim account of the question-and-answer session, but Gonzales said, "information will make ... its way into the report in some fashion or another, I suspect."

Bush and Cheney have spent several hours over the past few days preparing, aides said.

Bush, for example, reviewed intelligence briefings from 2001 and spent time talking to Gonzales, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andrew Card, who was traveling with Bush in Florida on the morning of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

A senior administration official said Bush's preparations also included conversations with Cheney.

Officials said that among the documents prepared for both men to review were intelligence reports from the months and weeks before the attacks and what one senior official called "chronologies and other records of events in that time period."

They also reviewed transcripts and summaries of previous testimony to the commission -- including that of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, officials said.

Some critics, primarily Democrats, have suggested Bush and Cheney insisted on a joint appearance so they can keep their stories consistent. In an interview with CNN, Gonzales took issue with that.

"This is not a criminal investigation," he said. "This is not someone before a grand jury. The purpose of these private sessions is for the president and vice president to provide information to the commission and that is what they are going to do."

The Bush administration initially opposed the creation of the commission, which is charged with coming up with an authoritative account of the attacks, including any intelligence and security lapses. The commission will also draft recommendations on how to safeguard against possible future attacks.

The White House relented amid pressure from some 9/11 family members and it later backed down from its opposition to an extension of time for the commission.

The commission now has until July 26 to finalize its report, but that report may not be released publicly at that time, pending a security review by the White House.

The commission recently held a series of public hearings, during which some witnesses faulted Bush's anti-terrorism policies before the 9/11 attacks. And statements by the commission staff faulted the FBI and CIA for their policies and lack of cooperation before that time.

The commission has been the subject of increasing criticism from some Republican lawmakers who say Democratic members appear to be more interesting in casting blame than finding solutions.

CNN's John King contributed to this report.

mh67511 · 04-29-2004, 11:19 AM

I personally feel this commission is a waste of time. I am confused about what their goal is...?? And I would like to know how much this is costing us, as everything the government does costs way more than it should. Those Senator's aren't getting paid "overtime" are they? Because if they are... [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img]

**Avatar** · 04-29-2004, 11:26 AM

Yeah, because spending money to figure out if Bush knew anything about the plans to kill 3000 people is of course less important than to figure out if Clinton screwed his intern.

*Juli* · 04-29-2004, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Avatar:
Yeah, because spending money to figure out if Bush knew anything about the plans to kill 3000 people is of course less important than to figure out if Clinton screwed his intern.

Touch�, my friend [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

ceilirose · 04-29-2004, 11:37 AM

Why would a commission investigating 9/11 be a waste of time? It's obvious that there was and still may be a huge problem in communication between the various agencies responsible for national security. For that matter alone I think the commission is worth it.

There are no sitting Senators on that commission. From what I can tell it's two retired Congressmen and Senators plus others who have served in the Government at one time or another.

Besides millions were spent on investigating Clinton and none of it had anything to do with national security if I remember correctly. Talk about partisanship? Talk about a waste of money? That was the defintion of it.

[ 04-29-2004: Message edited ceilirose ]

migamoo · 04-29-2004, 12:04 PM

well, the link is still the same, the story has just changed. here's the updated story.

Quote:

Bush, Cheney meet with 9/11 panel

President: 'I'm glad I did it'
Thursday, April 29, 2004 Posted: 1:35 PM EDT (1735 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Thursday he "answered every question" posed to him by the 9/11 commission during what was described as an extraordinary session at the White House with the panel investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"I'm glad I did it," Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden, shortly after the session ended. "I'm glad I took the time."

Bush, who met with the panel in a a joint appearance with Vice President Dick Cheney, answered questions from the commissioners for more than three hours.

He dismissed suggestions that he appeared with Cheney to coordinate stories.

"If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in the first place," Bush said. "We answered all their questions."

Bush described the session as "cordial," but declined to provide any details about topics discussed.

He stressed that the United States remains vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

"So long as there's an al Qaeda enemy that's willing to kill us, we are vulnerable," Bush said.

A statement from the 9/11 commission described the meeting as "extraordinary" and thanked the two men for their cooperation.

"The commission found the president and the vice president forthcoming and candid," the statement said. "The information they provided will be of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report."

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and two members of his staff joined Bush and Cheney for the private session.

The entire 10-member bipartisan commission attended the session in the Oval Office.

It is rare for a sitting president to talk to such a panel. There have been only a handful of appearances since 1862, when President Lincoln discussed relieving a Civil War general.

Bush and Cheney did not testify before the panel -- they were not under oath and there was be no recording of the session, nor a stenographer in the room.

The two members of the White House counsel's staff were expected to take notes during the session, and the commission members were also allowed to take handwritten notes as well.

That means there will be no verbatim account of the question-and-answer session, but Gonzales said, "information will make ... its way into the report in some fashion or another, I suspect."

Bush and Cheney have spent several hours over the past few days preparing, aides said.

Bush, for example, reviewed intelligence briefings from 2001 and spent time talking to Gonzales, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andrew Card, who was traveling with Bush in Florida on the morning of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

A senior administration official said Bush's preparations also included conversations with Cheney.

Officials said that among the documents prepared for both men to review were intelligence reports from the months and weeks before the attacks and what one senior official called "chronologies and other records of events in that time period."

They also reviewed transcripts and summaries of previous testimony to the commission -- including that of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, officials said.

Some critics, primarily Democrats, have suggested Bush and Cheney insisted on a joint appearance so they can keep their stories consistent. In an interview with CNN, Gonzales took issue with that.

"This is not a criminal investigation," he said. "This is not someone before a grand jury. The purpose of these private sessions is for the president and vice president to provide information to the commission and that is what they are going to do."

The Bush administration initially opposed the creation of the commission, which is charged with coming up with an authoritative account of the attacks, including any intelligence and security lapses. The commission will also draft recommendations on how to safeguard against possible future attacks.

The White House relented amid pressure from some 9/11 family members and it later backed down from its opposition to an extension of time for the commission.

The commission now has until July 26 to finalize its report, but that report may not be released publicly at that time, pending a security review by the White House.

The commission recently held a series of public hearings, during which some witnesses faulted Bush's anti-terrorism policies before the 9/11 attacks. And statements by the commission staff faulted the FBI and CIA for their policies and lack of cooperation before that time.

The commission has been the subject of increasing criticism from some Republican lawmakers who say Democratic members appear to be more interesting in casting blame than finding solutions.

CNN's John King contributed to this report.

mh67511 · 04-29-2004, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Avatar:
Yeah, because spending money to figure out if Bush knew anything about the plans to kill 3000 people is of course less important than to figure out if Clinton screwed his intern.

He didn't.

And nothing would have prevented 9/11. That has been made clear, by many people, including the administration and Richard Clarke.

This has nothing to with Clinton either. I have no idea why the hell you brought that up. [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]. Last I checked this wasn't the "Off Topic" board. For the record, I thought that was a waste of time too.

I just don't see what the point is. Yes, there was mention of terrorsm before 9/11, but I have yet to see this commission prove that ANYONE had any credible evidence regarding the actual 9/11 act.

I also wonder what their "recommendations" will be.

We already have the Dept. of Homeland Security. As well as our CIA and FBI. And of course our Dept. of Defense. Not to mention our President and his team of advisors. And as far as I know, we haven't had a terrorist attack here since 9/11, so obviously things are being done.

Yes, their needs to be a better and easier way to share intelligence. I don't think we needed this commission to figure that out.

ashley5001 · 04-29-2004, 02:25 PM

I really wish that this was being televised or recorded in some way. I know that they will be discussing classified documents, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better if I could know what was said. If the administration has nothing to hide, why can't the president testify in front of the country? Condi Rice did.

Enigma, I.C. · 04-29-2004, 02:49 PM

Well, there are no transcripts, no notes, no recording devices of any kind, so for all we know they talked football and ate moonpies.

n e r b l e · 04-29-2004, 08:31 PM

1) i'm going to go out on a limb and blame the muslim terrorists who flew into the WTC instead of the clintons or bushes.

2) i see the hearing as a way to point out all the issues with the cia and fbi and other letter groups. we've got major underfunding and communications issues from both. and yet we still have politicans voting against giving our soldiers enough funding to finish in iraq.

3) let's just say that bush was given a memo that said in a month or two muslims will highjack planes and fly them into buildings. then what? stop all muslims from flying? they have a cow now if we stop muslims at airport security. if clinton had the memo and had done the same thing republicans would have been having a field day b/c clinton was harrasing innocent muslims. its' a pre 9/11 world that you're trying to apply post 9/11 rules to. doesn't work.

4) clinton perjered himself, attempted to suborn and did in fact suborn perjury - all in an attempt to keep an american citizen from thier day in court. maybe that doesn't mean anything to you but i don't want the mail guy to be able to do that, much less a sitting president.

ros2nz · 04-30-2004, 01:08 AM

Quote:

all in an attempt to keep an american citizen from thier day in court.

And what is Guantanamo Bay again?
Oh...right. They're Muslim terorrists, even the little kids. So who was that guy you were talking about again? The one whose right Clinton revoked?

And this happens to be a guy you don't want to deliver your mails. Excuse me, but isn't that more than a bit hypocritical?

alli balli · 04-30-2004, 03:13 PM

If they really have nothing to hide, they'd be under oath, with a stenographer present. I don't believe for a second that everything that they told the committee was the truth. They don't even tell the truth when they're in front of cameras on national tv.

n e r b l e · 04-30-2004, 10:33 PM

scratches head? what? clinton tried to keep linda tripp from having her day in court. what did that have to do with cuba? and i said that i didn't want the mailman or the president or anyone to pull that crap. not that i wouldn't allow him to deliver my mail or whatever.

and moving on, do you not think that there are points that are matters of national security we don't need to hear about? clinton testified and we've yet to have seen anything from it. on the other hand they could type up what isn't a security issue and release that though for either people.

RedRockSedona · 05-01-2004, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by n e r b l e:
1) i'm going to go out on a limb and blame the muslim terrorists who flew into the WTC instead of the clintons or bushes.

2) i see the hearing as a way to point out all the issues with the cia and fbi and other letter groups. we've got major underfunding and communications issues from both. and yet we still have politicans voting against giving our soldiers enough funding to finish in iraq.

3) let's just say that bush was given a memo that said in a month or two muslims will highjack planes and fly them into buildings. then what? stop all muslims from flying? they have a cow now if we stop muslims at airport security. if clinton had the memo and had done the same thing republicans would have been having a field day b/c clinton was harrasing innocent muslims. its' a pre 9/11 world that you're trying to apply post 9/11 rules to. doesn't work.

4) clinton perjered himself, attempted to suborn and did in fact suborn perjury - all in an attempt to keep an american citizen from thier day in court. maybe that doesn't mean anything to you but i don't want the mail guy to be able to do that, much less a sitting president.

SHORT MEMORY MY BROTHER...

Not to mends-words but technically Clinton did not perjure himself. It is more like misleading and weasel-wording by him first asking counsel to define sexual relations as only sexual intercourse...and then answering accordingly that he "did not have sexual relations". Ethically wrong, misleading and yes in my words weasel-like, but not perjury.

And then I suppose if you want to make that seemingly unrelated point be fair warned that Bush perjured himself not once but twice in The Texas Funeral Service Commission/Service Corporation International Case

Or that Bush is also guilty of "weasel-wording" himself when he could not answered the truth about his three arrests for DWI (cocaine and alcohol) and his other arrest for vandalism/theft. Yes it's true these have been expunged from his records (courtesy of dear old dad) It still does not change the fact that he had been specifically asked about his arrests in the past. The best Bush can do is call his riddled past as the "indiscretions of youth" while denying that he had been arrested.

The GOP can't have it both ways. The want to expunge themselves of any responsibility of what happened on 9/11 and what they knew up front about Al Qaeda all the while they want to pass blame to either intelligence (or a perceived lack) or to the Clinton administration.

Thing is The Clinton Administration actually was targeting Al Qaeda with the directive to kill or capture Bin Laden. Frequently during Clinton�s Administration cruise missiles were launched in Osama Bin Laden�s direction � And all the while The GOP was accusing Clinton of "Wagging the Dog" and now years later they want to say he did nothing?

Have we forgotten that during the 2000 campaign, that Gore and Bush were asked what they thought was the biggest threat to the security of the United States. Gore said terrorism, and Bush said Iraq?

To this day there has been nothing to link Iraq to 9/11. And in fact we have more of a reason to call Saudi Arabia under task for the eleven terrorists they provided to the equation than we do Iraq who even shared prior to Saddam�s over-throw, Al Qaeda as a common enemy.

No what we have is Bush�s complete fixation on Iraq so much that it has blinding him to the fact that Al Qaeda is and was the legitimate threat...blinded so much that all the red flags going up were ignored...and then in the aftermath of 9/11 Bush extorted the sympathies of the US not to mention monies ear-marked for Afghanistan to wage war on his pet project of Iraq.

Next you write:

Quote:

and moving on, do you not think that there are points that are matters of national security we don't need to hear about? clinton testified and we've yet to have seen anything from it. on the other hand they could type up what isn't a security issue and release that though for either people.

And you see the difference here is that the freedom of information means that Clinton�s sworn-in testimony as is any from his administration is freely accessible to anybody who wishes to read it or hear it since it was recorded. Where as Bush and Cheney�s was neither recorder nor transcribed nor was it actually given while they were sworn in. Lastly, I will also add that Bush and Cheney were allowed to give their testimony together perhaps, as I believe to thwart any possibility of contradictory testimony.


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