India has raised their national security level to “war level” following last week’s attacks in Mumbai:
The fallout from a three-day rampage that killed nearly 200 people in Mumbai threatened on Sunday to unravel India's improving ties with Pakistan and prompted the resignation of India's security minister.
New Delhi said it was raising security to a "war level" and had no doubt of a Pakistani link to the attacks, which unleashed anger at home over the intelligence failure and the delayed response to the violence that paralyzed India's financial capital.
Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.
India and Pakistan at war again. That’s real comforting in the world today, especially when we are talking about two nuclear nations. But don’t worry, we have Condi to the rescue:
President George W. Bush on Sunday dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi in support of India following the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 200 people, including six Americans.</p>
Rice and Bush wanted an opportunity "to express the condolences of the American government directly to the Indian government and the Indian people," Rice spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"To demonstrate our solidarity with the Georgian people," the president announced that he was sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Paris to assist the West's diplomatic efforts on the crisis, and then to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
Funny how the great Russian expert, Condi Rice, has been non-existent while the turmoil in Georgia spins out of control. Just another member of the "My Pet Goat" administration.
Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage.
Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science. They cited U.S. officials and others questioning scientific evidence of climate change, the reluctance to federally fund stem cell research, and some U.S. officials casting doubt on evolution as examples that have damaged America's international standing.
Yeah - who needs science? Certainly not George Bush. His science book is written in verse. Now which part of that science book explains how to make cluster bombs?
FBI agents investigating government watchdog Scott Bloch have subpoenaed any records that would reveal whether concerns about the 2004 elections prompted him to clear Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of ethics violations.
Bloch, the U.S. special counsel who investigates federal employee whistleblower complaints, found no merit to allegations that Rice, then President Bush's national security adviser, timed some of her trips to boost Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.
The FBI is investigating whether Bloch obstructed justice by destroying computer files to hinder an outside inquiry into allegations that he retaliated against employees who opposed his policies. He's also suspected of making false statements to investigators.
The United States would break faith with a strong Latin American ally that has rescued itself from failure if the U.S. Congress refuses to approve a free-trade agreement with Colombia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.
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"I think it would be ... a very bad signal for the people of Colombia -- not to mention the people of the region -- that you do difficult things, you work hard, you bring your country back from the brink and the United States doesn't deliver," Rice told reporters before arriving in Medellin.
Seriously - isn't that what we have heard for years? They blame Clinton and Carter. So then riddle me this one:
Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year.
Rice invited Carter, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies, to the State Department on Wednesday where the two discussed his Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts in the 1970s, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.
Their talks were "good and cordial," he said. They focused on the Middle East and not Carter's recent criticism of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere.
A Soviet specialist, Rice also telephoned another former Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who tried, and ultimately failed, in his eight years in office to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together.
I guess Democrats weren't too bad for the Middle East. I can't wait for the Republicans to cry foul on this one!
The Bush administration is imposing sweeping new sanctions against Iran's defense ministry, its Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks to punish them for purported support for terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East, missile sales and nuclear activities, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The measures, to be announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, will cover some of the Iranian government's largest military and financial institutions, which Washington blames for supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, Shia insurgent groups in Iraq, along with the Hamas and Hezbollah organizations, they said.
Iran's defense ministry and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are to be designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology while several banks will be hit with sanctions for "proliferation financing," the officials told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.
The Quds force and banks will be identified as "specially designated global terrorist" groups for their activities and financing of militant groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East, the officials said.
Terrorism! WMD! Where have we heard all of this before? Oh yeah - exactly 5 years ago. It looks like we are on schedule for a March invasion. Perhaps that also explains why the Pentagon is citing an immediate need for new bunker buster bombs.
Let's not forget about the sanctions Clinton imposed against Iran. There were some trying to get those limited. Does anyone remember who?
Nancy Pelosi goes to Syria and gets branded a traitor and gets accused of "bad behavior" and possibly "criminal activities". The media sure did eat up on this. Now fast forward to today and Condi Rice is heading over to Syria to meet with them:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Syria's foreign minister in the first high-level talks between the countries in years, a U.S. official said Thursday, and the chief American military spokesman in Iraq said Syria had moved to reduce "the flow of foreign fighters" across its border.
But a substantive meeting between the United States and Iran — another U.S. opponent in the Mideast — appeared less certain. The Iraqi government is pressing for Rice and her Iranian counterpart to meet during the gathering, saying Washington's conflict with the government in Tehran is only fueling Iraq's instability.
"We expect that there will be a discussion between Secretary of State Rice and the Syrian foreign minister about Iraqi security issues," said a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was still being arranged.
So does Pelosi get credit for the breakthrough in relations, or is Condi a traitor too?
I believe the media needs to ask this question to everyone who attacked Pelosi for her trip. I would start at the White House. Don't forget to ask Cheney if Condi is now exhibiting "bad behavior".
President Bush will not support a war spending bill that punishes the Iraqi government for failing to meet benchmarks for progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
Rice's comments cast fresh doubt on a potential compromise between the Democratic-led Congress and the White House in getting money to U.S. troops.
Also, with a regional conference on Iraq set to begin Thursday in Egypt, Rice raised the possibility of a rare direct encounter between high-level U.S. and Iranian officials. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is expected to lead his country's delegation.
"I will not rule out that we may encounter one another," Rice said. "But what do we need to do? It's quite obvious. Stop the flow of arms to foreign fighters. Stop the flow of foreign fighters across the borders."
Make no mistake about it, Bush wants no compromise. Bush plans on continuing to dictate the conditions of his funding bill. Ironic that our forefathers purposely granted the power of the purse to the Congress to prevent such a dictatorship. If that wasn't the case then Bush would not have to go to Congress for the money - he would have it.
I believe it is time to take a page from the old Republican play book. With Bush acting like a dictator, he is obviously trying to lessen the meaning of our democracy. A democratic nation is a free nation and we were attacked on 9/11 because "they hate our freedoms" (in the world according to Republicans). So why is Bush and his Republicans trying the treasonous act of supporting the mantra of our true enemy - al Qaeda? Maybe Rudy has an answer to that one.
State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.
The annual report's release comes amid a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and a deadline favored by Democrats to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.
The last paragraph really gets me. They were going to "downplay" or "delay" this report. Why - because it proves that this administration is still failing? That would be the only answer I can think of.
President Bush's approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he's not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.
Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice garnered ...
And yet he "knows" what Americans want. Apparently not, or he would have resigned by now.
A heads up. Keith will be giving a special comment on Countdown tonight:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war and suggested President Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation. "I can't imagine a circumstance in which it's a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress," Rice said. "The president is going to, as commander in chief, need to do what the country needs done," she said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022500357.html
Sec. Rice, when asked about Democratic plans to revise the Iraq authorization, said this:
"It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."
Keith's SPECIAL COMMENT on her remarks, tonight.
It has been a couple of weeks since we had one. We are over due. Thanks Keith!
But we can hold off on Bush. John Dean said there could very well be grounds for Congress to impeach members of the administration. Bob Fertik at Democrats.com wants to start with Gonzales, but I have my eyes on someone else.
Last year Bob Woodward gave us a chilling look into the administration. In his book, State of Denial, Woodward talks about the months leading up to 9/11 and what wasn't done. I blogged about this back in September:
On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.
Condi quickly went into denial mode, but that didn't last long as this revelation came out a few weeks later:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did receive a CIA briefing about terror threats just about two months before the Sept. 11 attacks, but the information was not new, her chief spokesman said.
In doing so, Sean McCormack confirmed a meeting _ on July 10, 2001 _ that his boss had said repeatedly she could not specifically recall. She had said earlier that there were virtually daily meetings at the time.
Sadly we all know what happened. Condi ignored Tenet's warning and 2 month's later we lost over 3,000 lives.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassured Japan on Wednesday that Washington would stand by a commitment to protect its Asian ally, trying to temper concerns of an Asian nuclear arms race after North Korea's atomic test.
"The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range, and I underscore full range, of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan," Rice told a news conference in Tokyo, the first stop on a quick tour of North Asia.
The United States is worried Japan and South Korea might embark on an Asian arms race in response to North Korea building up a nuclear arsenal -- a concern Vice President Dick Cheney warned of two years ago.
"That is why it is extremely important to go out and reaffirm, and reaffirm strongly U.S. defense commitments to Japan and to South Korea," Rice told reporters traveling with her.
Wow I wish I lived in her America where we had an abundance of military forces. The America I live in can't even spare some extra helicopters to help fight in Afghanistan (you know - that little war involving the people who actually attacked us). Tomorrow she is going to South Korea to give basically the same speech. So now we are going to protect all of Asia? Hell we can't even keep our troops safe in Baghdad or protect our own people from Mother Nature. I am sure the leaders of Japan and South Korea know this and will let what Condi says go in one ear and out the other also.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
"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.
(emphasis mine)
Well here we go yet again. This is from tomorrow's New York Times:
A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.
The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.
India has raised their national security level to “war level” following last week’s attacks in Mumbai:
