Testimony is just beginning, she is making her opening statements. Stay tuned.

Clinton admn briefed Bush admin on terrorism. Condi is talking about retaining the entire Clinton counter-terrorism team, including Clarke.

Bush met with Central Intel nearly every day. He received up to date intel from senior officials.

There were 40 brieifing items about al Qaeda in Jan. 2001. Rice spoke with people about al Qaeda often.

They were also concerned with Iraq and WMD at that point, when Iraq was shooting at American airspace.

They engaged in making a strategy to respond to al Qaeda, not by swatting flies one attack at a time. om 9/4, this method was approved. Elimination of al Qaed was the first counter terrorism directive approved by the Bush admin.

They wanted to eliminate al Qaeda, it was to be a high priority, use all aspects of power to meet that goal. Sec of State was to keep all countries from giving sanctuary to al Qaeda. Directed CIA to engage in covert ops to disrupt al Qaeda.

Ensure that contigency planning included all aspects of eliminating al Qaeda and dealing with WMD.

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al Qaeda was a patron of Taliban, which was backed by Pakistan and admin wanted to sever those ties. Urged Paki president to close AQ training camps.
Juen 2001, Rice said that that AQ was related to Afghanistan, which was related to Pakistan, and they had to deal with it that way. They met with specialists from other countries for strategic approach to Afghanistan. Tried to persuade Paki to drop support of Taliban.

Dick Clakre proposed strategies about AQ, some had been on table since 88. Seizse terrorist assets, increase fundings for counter terrorism, change approach to India.

HIgh state of alert and activity in summer 2001. Crisis mgt. depended on Clarke's group.

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CSG met almost daily to review actions and responses to AQ and othe threats. in spring and summer 2001, threats were not specific, but they were there. Mostly of AQ acitivty outside US, in mideast and Africa. Most accurate threats dealt with overseas attacks.

Chatter:

News coming in weeks. Big event.Veyr big uproar. attacks in near future.

Rice: ddin't tell us where, when or how.

8/6/01 - asked about AWQ intentions to strike US. Reports referred said that terrorists might atttempt to hijack planes to blackmail US ot get US to rleease 93 WTc bombing suspsects. There were NO reportsabout using planes as missiles. Meeting were held to increase security, detect, prtotect against and distrupt plans for attacks.
DoD issued at least five warnings about potentionl AWQ attacks. Taliban was wrned about being held responsible. FBI alerted coiunries and otherrs that attacks overeas could happen, but attack son US could not be ruled out.

FAA issued at least five alerts, specific warings about potential hijakcings. Wnated increased assistance from intelligence.

No silver bullte to prevent 9/11. Needes specific threats to prevent 9/11.

(lots of typos, will fix later)

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I will never forget sorrow or anger, courage relsilence of people, leadership of Bush.

We have opporunity to move forward. Catastrphy leads to change. 9/11 made possible sweeping changes. Bush established intergration of thtreat information, homeland securiruty, got organizations to work together in a better way to share information.

Work is far from complete. we neecd structural reform. Stronger analayiss. We welcome new ideas.

We are at war. Have to be right 100% of the time. To inflict damage, terrorists only have to be right once and they are trying every day. if we learned a lesson from 9/11, it is we cannot wait while dangers gather. narrow war or broad war? narrow victory or lasting peace. bush chose bolder course. Bush chose broad war. dispruting terrorist operations worldwide, one by one. nexus between terrorism and wmd, prevent wmds from getting into hands of terrorists. saddam wil never agiain use wmnd agianst pepplle or neighbors.

removing rooots of terrorism in mideast. helping iraq and afgahn build free socoieties, dmeocracies as alternative to insabtlity hatred and terror. defeat of terror will serve interest of our nation and insprie hope through mideaas. right choices for Americans, only choices of safetyfo future.

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Questions for Rice coming now.

9/11 Families want to know if the admin every got word that terrorists would use planes as weapons.

Rice says no, never remembers any reports, memos, warnings about this.

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Was Bush admin concentrating too hard on Iraq?

Where was Iraq placed after 9/11? (priority wise)

Rice: Iraq was still shooting at planes at that point in no fly zones, Bush and Blair had suspected, besides al Qaeda, both IRan and Iraq at first.

: I know what was on Bush's mind. Get financial system back and running. Get airports back and runnign, so terrorists don' thtnk they succeded. Afghanistan was the main thing on the table. Did disucss Iraq, raised by Rumselfs and Wolfowitz, should we look at wider response, nto just afganh but iraq as well. no one advised doing anything against iraq, they all concentrated on afghan.

Bush wanted contingemcy plans against iraq should iraq act against our interests, taking advantage of post 9/11 climate. Not along lines of what was dicussed later about iraq, this wasn't on a grand scale yet. it was all about aghanistan.

Clarke says pres pushed to find a link bweteen iraq and 9/11. is this true?

Rice: Not suprrising that bush would ask about iraq but I am certain he never pushed anyone to find a link.

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Ben Veniste re: 8/6 memo

on 2/7 richard clarke toldyou aq cells were in US - did you tell pres of hte existence of of those cells:
(ooh, fiestiness!)

historical info about aspecs of aq - dick clarke told her in memo that there were cells in US - what did we need to do about that? Understood the fbi was pursuing iraaq cells, 70 full investigatoins underway - no recomm that we do something becasue the fbi was pursuing it. dont remember if i discussed it with pres. pres was aware that there were issues in US, aq cells were not something we were told that we needed to something about.

didnt the 8/6 memo (bin laden determind to attack in US) did not warn of attacks, just historical information, no new info, no warnings.

They are now semi aruging about the 8/6 pdb.

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Look! The whole opening statement transcript without typos!

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Ben Viste is just a little bit, shall we say, caustic.

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On structural problems within all organziations dealing with terrorism: The problems are not all fixed. More changes need to be implemented. But progress has been made. Need more freedom to manage Homeland Security in a better way. WE didn't have the time to make the needed changes in these structures before 9/11. We have made instiutional change, not all the work is done.

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Not ecxactly riveting testimony here. Still talking about how the information received about threats were not specific enough and most of the threats that were specific had to do with threats in Mideast.

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Rice: There were definitely differences in the Clinton admin’s plans for AQ and the Bush admin’s plans. Significant differences.

Rice: There were definitely differences in the Clinton admin’s plans for AQ and the Bush admin’s plans. Significant differences.

WE have hurt not destroyed AQ - they are more entrenched than people recognize. Not displaced, but theyd0 realize this is an all-out war.

Q: Do you not think that they are engaged in terrorism in other countries because its easier than the US?

Rice: its possible that they recognize our heightened security, its harder to attack here. But we have not made it impossible, safer but not safe.
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Rice on preemption: should we have acted against afghan sooner? Why did we wait until catastrophic attack to use strategic military power? After 9/11 we have learned not to let threats gather, yet we continue to debate whether we have go after threats before they materialize on our soil.

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She's really standing her ground in the face of some hostile questioning.

They are asking her about responding the Cole attack - which happened in October of 2000.

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Options of Clinton admin were missile strikes, perhaps long range bombers. We knew bin laden was bragging about withstanding response – we believed best approach was to put in place a plan to eliminate the threat of AQ.

Rice: do not believe it would have been good to respond to Cole with the plan that was made – the Bush admin was not presented with a plan for responding to Cole, we had a memo with a series of actionable items, a set of ideas and the delinda plan, which was considered in 98 but not adopted.

[Bob Kerrey is, in my opinion, being a incredibly hostile.]

I'm trying very hard not to interject opinion into this, but Kerrey has some pair to try to blame the Bush admin for not responding to the Cole bombing. Like this guy, I notice that Condi did not retort by brining up the obvious that THE COLE BOMBING HAPPENED DURING THE CLINTON ADMIN!

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The 8/6 memo was declassified this morning. Rice reiterates that while preparations for possible hijackings were in effect, there was no time to take other actions.

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I was interrupted briefly by my children who dared to ask for breakfast while I was trying to simulblog this thing.

However, Powerline blog is on the job, so we'll quote him (whose kids seem to not be begging him for breakfast) on the latest:

10:20 -- John Lehman is pointing out that all of the key people were carryovers from the Clinton administration. Bush essentially had the same government in place. He's struck by continuity of the policies, not differences. Rice says she wasn't told about the number of young Arab males in flight training. Lehman walks through a number of issues that she was not made aware of until after 9/11. Immigration policies, among others. She didn't know that airlines get fined if they are questioning more than two young Arab males at a time. He's now giving her an opportunity to expound on the difference between law enforcement and war. Instead of hitting the slow pitch, she goes off an analysis of bureaucratic issues. Finally, she gets to his question: Bush doesn't think this is law enforcement, he thinks it's war. For all of the war rhetoric before 9/11 we were not at war. We were focused on law enforcement. No sustained effort to destroy al Qaeda or deal with those who harbored al Qaeda. Bush put states on notice after 9/11.

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Rice makes the point I've been making all along - let's blame the terrrorists, not the front office.

Rice: Clarke's ideas wouldn't have prevented 9/11 - in fact, they might have taken us in the wrong directon.

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The questiioning has ended. Complete transcripts will be posted as they become available. Look for our open discussion post on this issue.