Acerbic Politics

Incompetence Reigns Supreme

There's little more I can add to my previous posts about the complacency and lack of intelligence within the Bush administration - the stories in the news nearly every day tell the tale.

From the Center for American Progress (The Progress Report):

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."