Condi Rice and the 9/11 Commission

They knew, but did nothing. Read this excerpt of a book titled The Commission - The Uncensored History Of The 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon. Just how good a job did the 9/11 Commission do when it came to determining how much warning the Bush Administration had of the 9/11 attacks?

The warnings were going straight to President Bush each morning in his briefings by the CIA director, George Tenet, and in the presidential daily briefings. It would later be revealed by the 9/11 commission into the September 11 attacks that more than 40 presidential briefings presented to Bush from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, included references to bin Laden.

Or this:

During his 2003 investigations it was startling to Mike Hurley, the commission member in charge of investigating intelligence, and the other investigators on his team, just what had gone on in the spring and summer of 2001 - just how often and how aggressively the White House had been warned that something terrible was about to happen.

What were Richard Clarke's emails to Condi Rice saying?

"Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack" (May 3); "Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot" (May 23); "Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing" (May 26); "Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent" (June 23); "Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats" (June 25); "Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (June 30); "Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays" (July 2)

Or this:

There is no record to show that Rice made any special effort to discuss terrorist threats with Bush. The record suggested, instead, that it was not a matter of special interest to either of them that summer.

. So why didn't we hear about any of this. Well, it seems that the 9/11 commission's chief director, Philip Zelikow, was a pretty good buddy of Condi Rice. Zelikow evidently didn't want any of this stuff shared with the public. So why didn't the Democratic members of the commission insist that this material be made public?

Much as the staff felt beaten down by Zelikow, so did the other Democratic commissioners. By the end, they had given up the fight to document the more serious failures of Bush, Rice, and others in the Administration in the months before September. Zelikow would never have permitted it. Nor, they realised, would Kean and Hamilton. The Democrats hoped the public would read through the report and understand that September 11 did not have to happen - that if the Bush Administration had been more aggressive in dealing with the threats flooding into the White House from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, the plot could have been foiled. The Clinton administration could not duck blame for having failed to stop bin Laden before 2001.

Condi Rice - this is the person some think should be on the short list for the VP of a Republican President.