::::::::
Bush is asking the voters, "who do you trust to protect the nation, us or them?"Mr. President why should the voters trust you and your party to protect the nation?
A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did warn Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda as presented in Woodward's book "In Denial. White House records also shows Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target.
One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10" that "connected the dots" in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike in America, likely within weeks. Woodward wrote that Tenet and Black considered the briefing the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
Tenet and Black were jumping up and down, pounding on the table with their hair on fire yelling, "IN COMING!!!" as they showed Rice PowerPoint "pictures" that "connected the dots!" Richard Clarke said in his book "Against all Enemies" that he too was yelling, "IN COMING!!!" during this same time.
Yet, speaking to reporters late Sunday en route to the Middle East, Rice said she had no recollection of what she called "the supposed meeting." "What I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told that there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," she said. Ashcroft, who resigned as attorney general on Nov. 9, 2004, told the Associated Press on Monday that it was "disappointing" that he never received the briefing, either.
But on Monday evening, Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement confirming that she'd received the CIA briefing "on or around July 10" and had asked that it be given to Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.
If we believe what Rice is now saying, that she does not remember meeting with Tenet and Black, that she does not remember Clarke's repeated warnings, that she didn't recognize the dire warnings of imminent attack even when shown pictures with all the threat dots connected together, if she and Rumsfeld and Hadley and Bush couldn't understand then, and still do not understand today, they were being told (WITH PICTURES) an attack was virtually "IN COMING!!!" WHY SHOULD VOTERS TRUST that the Bush Administration and a GOP controlled congress will recognize where and how terrorists might attack next.
