I've seen several clips from SNL, hosted by Janet Jackson; she plays Rice. Kean video from the hearings, questioning her. She starts spluttering, then rips open her blouse.
What Ashcroft DID 9/12;
Ashcroft may face
heat on FBI funds
By JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - On deck for the 9/11 hot seat this week is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who may be pressed on why he nixed FBI pleas to boost counterterror funds the day after the worst attacks ever on U.S. soil.
Fresh from grilling President Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, the 9/11 commission will hear tomorrow from Ashcroft, former Attorney General Janet Reno and ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh.
Ashcroft shot down an FBI request for $58 million in new funds to fight terror on Sept. 10, 2001. The agency received his rejection on Sept. 12, the day after Al Qaeda struck.
Exhausted FBI brass who spent the previous day reacting to the attacks were stunned.
Ashcroft aides say his penny-pinching was an example of the failure of the nation's different law enforcement agencies to communicate pre-9/11, and claim their boss was out of the loop on the terror threats.
The attorney general didn't even get the Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing, declassified Saturday, that detailed terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden's determination to strike in the U.S., Newsweek reported. Only seven national security aides read it at the time.
The Daily News has also learned that early in 2001, FBI managers were told to halt a hiring push intended to boost their counterterror efforts.
"Ratchet back from the full-court press that we were pushing when we thought we could hire 800-plus agents," said a March 20, 2001, FBI headquarters memo. The same message announced a hiring freeze for support workers. The memo, obtained by The News, shows the FBI anticipated cutting 260 agents over two years.
Sources said Ashcroft, who has aggressively prosecuted President Bush's war on terror through the powers of the Patriot Act, may defend his pre-9/11 judgments by telling the commission he inherited Clinton administration budget priorities.
His spokesman Mark Corallo said that, although Ashcroft cut some counterterror funding, he still asked for more than his predecessor, Reno.
Freeh also will face tough questions over accusations that he left the FBI ill-prepared for the war on terror before leaving in June 2001 amid a spy scandal.
An obsolete computer system installed in 1995 still prevents G-men in different cities from comparing notes.
Oliver (Buck) Revell, a retired FBI terrorism chief, said Freeh "failed to obtain infrastructure the bureau needed to counter terrorist threats."
He also knocked Freeh for not muscling Capitol Hill to give the FBI more legal powers.
Reno will undoubtedly take fire for a 1995 directive barring FBI criminal investigators from sharing evidence with intelligence agents. The Reno "wall" has been criticized for hindering terror probes and was eliminated by the Patriot Act. |
