CNN Transcript: Bob Kerrey calling out Bush on pre-911 negligence

[rockydem]

"KERREY: That's correct, because the president had a case, a very simple case to make: I am the commander in chief. I won the war in Afghanistan, even though John Kerry supported it, even though, by the way, there's a credible case that the president's own negligence prior to 9/11 at least in part contributed to the disaster in the first place.

ZAHN: How so?

KERREY: Well, the 9/11 report says in chapter eight -- now that it's beyond the campaign, so the promise I had to keep this out of the campaign is over.

The 9/11 report in chapter eight says that, in the summer of 2001, the government ignored repeated warnings by the CIA, ignored, and didn't do anything to harden our border security, didn't do anything to harden airport country, didn't do anything to engage local law enforcement, didn't do anything to round up INS and consular offices and say we have to shut this down, and didn't warn the American people.

The famous presidential daily briefing on August 6, we say in the report that the briefing officers believed that there was a considerable sense of urgency and it was current. So there was a case to be made that wasn't made.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: But what we continue to hear from this administration is that the threat was much too diffuse. There was no way you could zero in on the fact that al Qaeda was going to use jets as bombs and ram them into buildings.

KERREY: That is a straw man.

The president says, if I had only known that 19 Islamic men would come into the United States of America and on the morning of 11 September hijack four American aircraft, fly two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one into an unknown Pennsylvania that crashed in Shanksville, I would have moved heaven and earth. That's what he said.

Mr. President, you don't need to know that. This is an Islamic jihadist movement that has been organized since the early 1990s, declared war on the United States twice, in '96 and '98. You knew they were in the United States. You were warned by the CIA. You knew in July they were inside the United States. You were told again by briefing officers in August that it was a dire threat.

And what did you do? Nothing, so far as we could see on the 9/11 Commission. Now, that's in the report. And we took an oath not to talk about it during the campaign, I think correctly so, to increase the capacity of that commission's report to be heard by the people's Congress.

But the report, I think, it's difficult for a challenger. If I had been the challenger, it's difficult to make that case when you are running against an incumbent. He can stand back and say, oh, you're just grousing.

ZAHN: Oh, we couldn't connect the dots is what we heard.

Final question for you sir. In Falluja..."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/08/pzn.01.html

[seraph]

1. "Paula, you ignorant slut." (nt)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. .

[T Roosevelt]

3. Tad late, isn't he?

[BayStateBoy]

4. Zahn was a real ass-hole. Couldn't Defend Bush Fast Enough

I remember Bush being warned of Middle Eastern men inquiring in the US about wanting to learn to fly but not to land planes. Evidently Chimpie wasn't too concerned about those reports.

[Adams Wulff]

5. WTF??????!!!!!?????

"...now that it's beyond the campaign, so the promise I had to keep this out of the campaign is over."

Are you kidding me with this?

This WAS the campaign!!!

[tjdee]

6. No shit.

I just went from 0-60 all over again.

Thanks for nothing, 9/11 commission!

Who cares about being safe, if you make a promise to keep your mouth shut until no one can do anything about it!

[stepnw1f]

10. Maybe... But I see Much More of This

The obvious becomes much more plain to see. This is what we needed all along. The straight truth in mainstream media.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. Nice try at the limited hangout Mr. Kerrey,

and good luck trying to get your barn door closed, but the horse has left the stable. We now know the Busholini treasonous gang of corporate war profiteers and fanatical neo-con empire builders was involved in 9/11 up to their eyeballs. It wasn't just a case of Shrub sleeping at the switch.

For me, the pivotal evidence absolutely demonstrating direct government complicity in, and management of, the attacks was found in a number of undisputed, yet virtually unaddressed wargames that I will show were being conducted, coordinated and/or controlled by Vice President Dick Cheney or his immediate staff on the morning of September 11th. The names of those wargames are known to include: Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Guardian, Northern Vigilance, and Tripod II. All have been reported on by major press organizations relying on undisputed quotes from participating military personnel. They have also been confirmed by NORAD press releases. All, except for Northern Vigilance and Tripod II, had to do with hijacked airliners inside the continental United States, specifically within the Northeast Air Defense Sector where all four 9/11 hijackings occurred.

According to a clear record, some of these exercises involved commercial airline hijackings. In some cases, false blips were deliberately inserted onto FAA and military radar screens and they were present during (at least) the first attacks. This effectively paralyzed fighter response because, with only eight fighters available in the region, there were as many as 22 possible hijackings taking place. Other exercises, specifically Northern Vigilance, had pulled significant fighter resources away from the northeast U.S. – just before 9/11 – into northern Canada and Alaska. In addition, a close reading of key news stories published in the spring of 2004 revealed for the first time that some of these drills were "live-fly" exercises where actual aircraft, likely flown by remote control – were simulating the behavior of hijacked airliners in real life. All of this as the real attacks began. The fact that these exercises had never been systematically and thoroughly explored in the mainstream press, or publicly by Congress, or at least publicly in any detail by the so-called independent 9/11 Commission, made me think that they might be the holy grail of 9/11.

That's exactly what they turned out to be. Only one wargame exercise, Vigilant Guardian, was mentioned in a footnote to the Kean Commission report and then it was deliberately mislabeled as an exercise intended to intercept Russian bombers instead of a hijack exercise in the northeast sector. Even then, a deliberate lie was told to the American people as NORAD commander Ralph Eberhart testified to the Commission that the exercise actually expedited US air force response during the attacks.

When Michael Kane, a brilliant young New York activist and budding investigative reporter, approached General Eberhart on an FTW assignment at the conclusion of the Commission's last public hearing and asked for information on the other exercises, Eberhart's only response was, "No comment."

www.fromthewilderness.com/PDF/CWspeech.doc

[michigandem2]

8. if it was there all along..where was our media to bring this out?

I mean why does a senator who was on the commission have to remind everyone to read chapter 8..he wasn't hiding anything..it was there...nobody bothered to bring itup...

I like Bob kerrey...but the peoeple should of known about this...this was a crucial issue that the * campaign was running on...why not remind these people that they let this happen...

[AlexHamilton]

14. Some did

People who actually read the report had the information available to them at any time. I don't blame most people for failing to read it, as it was quite dry. I wrote several articles screaming about this very issue since the day the report was released. Chapter 8 was a blatant indictment of the administration's negligence, and even people on AAR were saying the report didn't contain any new info. Like hell it didn't

You can read the most recent here:
Where's the Intelligence Failure

Also, check out my site. We keep up to date commentary which exposes issues exactly like this bombshell by Kerrey; only earlier.

Impeachment by the People

Alex Hamilton

[Cleita]

18. I signed another petition after the Supreme court selection.

It went nowhere. I signed this, but I wonder how you are going to keep up the momentum? There is a better case now, I agree.

[JudyM]

9. I didn't read the report, but why didn't Kerry/Edwards hammer this?!

Every time * said he'd keep the country safe, they could've shot back: "You had your chance and it was disastrous."

If the report is this clear, I am thoroughly disappointed with our Democratic leadership.

[stepnw1f]

11. A Political Gamble Maybe

It may be better to bring this guy down rather than vote him from office.

In the mean time, we demand every vote be counted, expose the fraud and finally we demand a paper trail for our more rudimentary, yet reliable voting system!

[Old and In the Way]

17. Kerry thought he could win without a scortched Earth policy, I think.

He could have used the 7 minutes, he could have hammered on the 8/6 PDB....he didn't. Why? Because Kerry is a Statesman. Democrats are like that. He thought he could win the Presidency on the high road, running a reasonably positive campaign without dividing this country further....can you imagine how the Republicans would have cooperated if he had won by trashing Bush? I think, in retrospect, he made a tactical error. He trusted that the American people would be objective and vote intelligently in their best interests to rid themselves of this Dimwit. Why didn't they? Because people like Paula Zahn willfully helped to cover the 9/11 LIHOP, Bush's past, and promote the Swift Boat Liars to smear Kerry. The fact that a majority of Americans still believed that there was a link between Saddam and 9/11 even after Bush flat out said no, just proves that the media helped to maintain the lie for Bush's re-election effort.

I was aware of the Vigilant Guardian simulation on 9/11, but not the extent of it. I'm sure it was LIHOP and I think Meyers and Eberhardt were in on it, too.

[JudyM]

21. Yeah but he knew the public thought he was weak on terror

Pulling that out would've been perfect. "oh yeah, well it was clear we were about to be attacked, it would've been easy to prevent, but you were on VACATION." okay, well maybe more statesmanlike than that...

What's the vigilant guardian?

[Old and In the Way]

22. I agree......and it's another reason why I'm suspicious of the

vote. Kerry must have had internal polling that showed him clearly winning on the strength of his campaign. If he was winning with a nice, clean campaign...he's into office with a strong hand to play with his Republican Congress (and, of course, he may have also seen polling that was showing Democrats taking the Senate). So he didn't have to play the criminal incompetence card. Probably should have, bigtime, in hindsight.......

What's Vigelent Guardian? Wouldn't you know it. On 9/11/01, we had real time simulation exercise of terrorists hijacking airliners underway that day. Some coincidence, eh? Didn't hear too much of that by our corporate media, either. I think it was played out to insure confusion and create delays within our military response time to the actual hi-jackings. See post 7 for some more details.....two thing I never understood about that exercise.

(1) The Joint Chief of Staff was heading to Europe that day on a plane and 2nd in command Meyers was cooling his heals in Cleland's office during the exercise and the attack....seems rather odd that the 2 top dogs were not involved with that exercise, eh?

(2) Didn't anyone tell Condi? She told us that they never dreamed terrorists would ever use planes as bombs.

[whalerider55]

12. "the people's congress?"

swore an oath so that report would be heard by the "the people's congress?" the same congress that couldn't approve porter goss as cia chief fast enough?

puh-lease. this isn't leadership, this isn't what i ever expected from kerrey. this is so disappointing.

thanks, bob. read the fine print next time before you sign the contract. your people's congress will ignore this report.

this makes me sick to my stomache.

whalerider55

[leesa]

13. Right. This bastard helped whitewash the bogus 9-11 investigation

What's the SICK, EVIL game now Kerrey??

[Rose Siding]

15. Who the hell did he PROMISE?

Some foreign govt? Because it sure didn't help ours!

Well, the 9/11 report says in chapter eight -- now that it's beyond the campaign, so the promise I had to keep this out of the campaign is over.

[Robert Oak]

16. WTF is this oath?

how can they be forced to take an oath to not talk about something
due to a campaign?????

What kind of BS is that to deny the public information...


I mean, christ that should be the opposite!

[Toby109]

19. I thought I was beyond being pissed!

What the hell do politics have to do with the well-being of the American people? And Bob Kerrey? You, of all people, should fucking know better!

God. damn. it.

[gauguin57]

20. LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP

LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP LIHOP