Claim vs. Fact: Rice's Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission

Rice wasn't very truthful

CLAIM: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons." [responding to Kean]

FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release, 7/22/01]

CLAIM: "I was certainly not aware of [intelligence reports about planes as missiles] at the time that I spoke" in 2002. [responding to Kean]

FACT: While Rice may not have been aware of the 12 separate and explicit warnings about terrorists using planes as weapons when she made her denial in 2002, she did know about them when she wrote her March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In that piece, she once again repeated the claim there was no indication "that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04]

CLAIM: "I think that having a Homeland Security Department that can bring together the FAA and the INS and Customs and all of the various agencies is a very important step." [responding to Hamilton]

FACT: The White House vehemently opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland security. Its opposition to the concept delayed the creation of the department by months.

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One Hearing, Two Worlds

How did Condoleezza Rice do in defending the Bush administration's antiterrororism policies yesterday before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks?

Better if you kept your eyes on her than if you glanced down at the CNN headlines rolling across the bottom of the TV screen.

Just as she said that invading Iraq had removed a source "of violence and fear and instability in the world's most dangerous region," the bottom of the screen read, "IRAQ'S INTERIM INTERIOR MINISTER NURIL AL-BADRAN ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION; INTERIOR MINISTRY IS IN CHARGE OF POLICE FORCES."

All the technological trends that are making hatred more lethal (not just in communications, but in biotechnology and other realms) will continue for a long time. A sound strategy for fighting terrorism in this environment will require extreme creativity — more than President Bush or his presumptive opponent, Senator John Kerry, has shown.

Members of the 9/11 Commission Press Rice on Early Warnings

Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, testified Thursday that Mr. Bush was warned a month before the Sept. 11 terror attacks that the F.B.I. had detected "suspicious activity" that suggested terrorists might be planning a domestic hijacking. She said he was also told that the bureau was conducting 70 investigations of possible terrorist cells connected to Al Qaeda operating within American borders.

Ms. Rice suggested in her testimony on Thursday that the warnings were more explicit than previously known and that the F.B.I. was actively investigating the possibility of a terrorist strike within the United States.

The contents of the Aug. 6 report have been debated publicly since its existence was revealed in news reports in 2002.

At a White House news conference in May of that year called specifically to rebut some of the reports, Ms. Rice tried to play down the significance of the Aug. 6 intelligence report, which she said had been prepared by the C.I.A. at the president's request. She said the report was only a page and a half long and that, while it contained a reference to possible Qaeda hijackings, "it was not a warning — there was no specific time, place or method involved."

She made no mention at the time of other information in the document, including its reference to the F.B.I.'s numerous investigations of possible Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States and its blunt warning to Mr. Bush that Mr. bin Laden was determined to strike within American borders.