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Skriven 2006-10-03 23:31:38 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0610032) for Tue, 2006 Oct 3
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The Rest of the Story: The Rice-Tenet Meeting
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For Immediate Release
October 3, 2006

The Rest of the Story: The Rice-Tenet Meeting


˙˙˙˙˙ Setting the Record Straight

The White House And State Department Have Consistently Acknowledged The
July 10 Rice-Tenet Meeting
  ū Last Friday, the White House and State Department Confirmed the July
    10, 2001, Rice-Tenet Meeting. "White House and State Department
    officials yesterday confirmed that the July 10 meeting took place,
    although they took issue with Woodward's portrayal of its results.
    State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, responding on behalf of
    Rice, said Tenet and Black had never publicly expressed any frustration
    with her response. 'This is the first time these thoughts and feelings
    associated with that meeting have been expressed,' McCormack said.
    'People are free to revise and extend their remarks, but that is
    certainly not the story that was told to the 9/11 commission.'" (Peter
    Baker, "White House Disputes Book's Report of Anti-Rumsfeld Moves," The
    Washington Post, 9/30/06)
  ū Counselor To The President Dan Bartlett: Secretary Rice "Does Remember
    _ This Meeting." BARTLETT: "She does remember _ this meeting and other
    meetings that they had where they were talking [generally] about the
    threats and about what we're doing. But the suggestion in this is that
    they asked for a very specific plan to go after bin Laden _ we knew an
    attack to America was going to happen. That is just not how she recalls
    it whatsoever. And none of the evidence as shown in the 9/11 Commission
    book says otherwise." (CBS' "Face The Nation," 10/1/06)

Materials Provided To The 9/11 Commission Show Rice Took Tenet's Briefing
Seriously
  ū 9/11 Commission Member Richard Ben-Veniste Says Tenet Testified That
    Rice Understood The Gravity Of Tenet's Briefing. "According to three
    people present at the session, including Ben-Veniste, Tenet believed
    that Rice responded seriously to what she had been told. 'We
    particularly questioned him about whether he had the sense that Dr.
    Rice and the others on the White House side understood the gravity of
    what he was telling them,' said Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate
    prosecutor. 'He said that they believed that they did. ... We asked him
    further whether Dr. Rice just shrugged this off, and he said he did not
    have such an impression.'" (Dan Eggen and Robin Wright, "Tenet Recalled
    Warning Rice," The Washington Post, 10/3/06)
  ū Ben-Veniste: "Tenet Never Told Us That He Was Brushed Off. ... We
    Certainly Would Have Followed That Up." (Philip Shenon and Mark
    Mazzetti, "C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice On Al Qaeda," The New York Times,
    10/3/06)
  ū Rice Asked That Materials From The July 10 Meeting Be Given To
    Secretary Rumsfeld And Attorney General Ashcroft, And Materials From
    The Meeting Were Made Available To The 9/11 Commission. "McCormack said
    that after the meeting, Rice had asked that the same material be given
    to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General
    John Ashcroft. Materials from this meeting were made available to the
    independent Sept. 11 Commission, and Tenet was asked about the session
    when interviewed by the commission, McCormack said." (Anne Gearan,
    "State Dept. Confirms Rice - Tenet Meeting," The Associated Press,
    10/3/06)

The Information Provided In The Meeting Was "Not New"
  ū The Information Rice Received At The July 10 Briefing Was "Not New" And
    Not An Urgent Warning. "State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
    disputed the characterization of the meeting in the book State of
    Denial by journalist Bob Woodward, saying the information Rice got 'was
    not new' and didn't amount to an urgent warning. 'Rather, it was a good
    summary from the threat-reporting from the previous several weeks,'
    McCormack said in a statement from Saudi Arabia where Rice is
    traveling." (Judy Mathewson, "Rice Warned Of Threat Months Earlier,"
    Bloomberg, 10/3/06)

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