Seems you have a lot of admiration for someone who couldn't get promoted so
decided to bite the hand that feeds him. You found another hero there harry?
What you gonna say when Bush gets re-elected there moron?

You think the group members will rub it in your face like you just did to
the American people in regards to the tragic and horrific incident that
happened in Iraq today where they hung the burned bodies of Americans?
Harry, give your head a shake.





"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Found notes may show Bush plan on Clarke

By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Ccorrespondent
Published 3/31/2004 12:37 PM
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WASHINGTON, March 31 (UPI) -- The White House was worried about the
damaging testimony of a former counter-terrorism chief to a commission
investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks last week but was trying to
let the issue die on its own, according to Pentagon briefing notes found
at a Washington coffee shop.

"Stay inside the lines. We don't need to puff this (up). We need (to) be
careful as hell about it," the handwritten notes say. "This thing will
go away soon and what will keep it alive will be one of us going over
the line."

The notes were written by Pentagon political appointee Eric Ruff who
left them in a Starbucks coffee shop in Dupont Circle, not far from U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's home.

The notes are genuine, a Pentagon official said. They were compiled for
an early morning briefing for Rumsfeld before the Sunday morning talk
shows, during which administration officials conducted a flurry of
interviews to counter the testimony of Richard Clarke, President George
W. Bush's former terrorism czar who left the post in 2003. Rumsfeld
appeared on Fox and ABC.

The Starbucks customer who found them gave them to the liberal advocacy
group the Center for American Progress, which published them on its Web
site Wednesday. Included in the notes was a hand-drawn map to Rumsfeld's
house, which is largely blacked out on the Web site for security reasons.

Clarke told the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that the
White House was obsessed with Iraq and ignored warning from him and
others that al-Qaida was the real threat to the United States. Bush
signed an order Sept. 17 directing the Pentagon to begin planning
military options for an invasion of Iraq, the commission staff reported.

The Starbucks notes, printed on paper titled "Eric's Telephone Log" with
a notation indicating the points came from a conference call, counseled
to "rise above Clark" and "emphasize importance of 9-11 commission and
come back to what we have done."

Since the notes were found, however, the White House has decided to
allow national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify before the
committee under oath. She will provide a direct answer to Clarke's
account.

Rice answered Clarke's allegations in media appearances last week but
declined to provide sworn public testimony to the panel, saying it set a
dangerous precedent for the separation of powers between the executive
and legislative branches of government.

One of Clarke's most damaging allegations is that he crafted an
anti-terrorism plan -- a National Security Presidential Directive -- to
take on al-Qaida in January 2001. The NSPD was not approved until Sept.
4, and neither was it substantially changed in the intervening months,
according to Clarke. He has challenged the White House to release both
documents to allow for a side-by-side comparison.

The notes address this matter, saying the plan to attack the Taliban
existed before Sept. 4.

"The NSPD wasn't signed till Sept. 4 but had an annex going back to July
(with) contingency plans to attack Taliban," the notes say.

That point is related to another in the notes. The briefing says
commission member Jamie Gorelick, a former general counsel of the
Defense Department under President Clinton, was pitting Deputy Secretary
of State Richard Armitage against Rice. Under sworn testimony, Armitage
contradicted Rice's claim the White House had a strategy before Sept. 11
that called for military operations against al-Qaida and the Taliban.