Condi's lips are moving - Her denial of the 9/11 warning

One of the most damning items coming out of Woodward's book is the allegation that on July 10, 2001, CIA director Tenet and Cofer Black called then NSA Condi Rice to set up a meeting "right away" regarding the imminent threat of an Al Qaeda attack. In the face of these warnings, Condi Rice gave Tenet and Black the "brush off."

Oddly, this meeting was never reported to the 9/11 Commission.

The real purpose of this post is to note the very careful language in the public denials of this meeting.

(NYTimes) “It really didn’t match Secretary Rice’s recollection of the meeting at all,” said Dan Bartlett.

(AP) "What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible," Rice said.....

"I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," Rice said.

Read that carefully. There is no denial that such a meeting took place, just that, Reaganlike, Condi Rice doesn't specifically recall.

She says explicitly that she was not told of a specific "impending attack," but leaves open all sorts of possibilities of warnings below that level.

Black reportedly laid out secret intercepts and other data "showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaida would soon attack the United States." Tenet was so worried that he called Rice from his car and asked to see her right away, the book said......

Rice referred to the session as "the supposed meeting" and noted that it is not part of the independent Sept. 11 Commission's report.

See, no direct denial of the Woodward allegation, but a very firm sounding statement.

Good headlines, good politics, but bad government.