RELEASE THE POWERPOINTS!….That hair-raising al-Qaeda briefing George Tenet supposedly gave to Condi Rice in July 2001 that she supposedly blew off and supposedly doesn’t even remember today? Apparently the 9/11 commission was told about it after all:
The independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission was given the same ?scary? briefing about an imminent al Qaida attack on a U.S. target that was presented to the White House two months before the attacks, but failed to disclose the warning in its 428-page report.
….Tenet raised the matter himself, displayed slides from a Power Point presentation that he and other officials had given to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, and offered to testify on the matter in public if the commission asked him to, they said.
Well, Rice’s office now confirms that the July 10 meeting took place. So that’s one mystery solved. But 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste says that Tenet never expressed any frustration about Rice’s reaction. ?Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,? Ben-Veniste says.
Crikey. Can we just declassify the damn PowerPoints? Is there any possible chance that making public a five-year-old set of slides about al-Qaeda would damage any sources or methods? Especially if Tenet has already offered to testify about it in public?
These mysteries are absurd. Show us the slides and let’s see who’s telling the truth. Either the content is hair-raising or it’s not. Either it specifically says bin Laden was planning attacks on U.S. soil or it doesn’t. My guess is that it doesn’t, but McClatchey quotes an anonymous official as saying Tenet’s warning rated a “10 on a scale of 1 to 10.” Fine, but the only way to know for sure is to see the slides. So let’s see ’em.
POSTSCRIPT: This is weird. I don’t know where I got the two paragraphs I excerpted above. Obviously I copied them from somewhere, but where? I can’t find them anywhere. When I figure it out, I’ll add a link.
POSTSCRIPT 2: Link found. Thanks, Victor!
