I thought I was having a visual illusion when I read this unbylined story from tomorrow's Washington Post--it's a brief excerpt from Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, detailing an extraordinary meeting on July 1, 2001, between then CIA director, Gene Tenet, his chief deputy on counterterrorism, J. Cofer Black, and then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Tenet and Black delivered, according to the article, an explicit warning that Osama bin Laden--al-Qaeda--was planning a major attack, quite possibly within the U.S. Immediate action was needed to thwart his plans, they reportedly told her.
But Rice seemed more interested in the missile defense system--which still works only rarely in rigged tests--and, like her boss, Bushy, had no interest in "swatting flies." The 9/11 commission's executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, who as a University of Virginia professor had once collaborated on a book with Rice, knew of the meeting, Woodward says, but apparently did nothing with that knowledge. Cryptically and suggestively, he adds that Rice hired Zelikow as a "top aide at the State Department" in 2005.
Writing in Think Progress, Peter Rundlet, former counsel for the 9/11 commission says it was never told of the meeting. Something smells foul.
2 comments:
what did woodward know when he wrote Bush at War and Plan of Attack?
my suspicion is that he is trying to make amends because he so thoroughly slimed himself the last time out.
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