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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (10135)	4/14/2004 10:12:20 AM
From: zonkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

I think the plan last night was that since junior had to pop his head up sooner or later he might as well do it on a day that they were going to get other bad press anyway. They decided they might as well trot him out there the same day to help keep ashcroft's poor testimony from being more of a news item. I can see why Mr Fielding might want to talk to ashcroft in private session after getting answers like this from him. Ashcroft basically didn't give Fielding a straight answer to any question. _____________ KEAN: Commissioner Fielding? FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Attorney General, thank you for being here. Thank you for all of the assistance you provided to our commission. And also thank you for all your years of public service. You said in your prepared statement this afternoon, that in discussing the debate on the nature of the covert action authorities, that in February 2001, shortly after becoming attorney general, you reviewed those authorities. And your thorough review revealed no covert action program to kill bin Laden. Is that correct? ASHCROFT: I believe that the covert action plan I reviewed was to capture bin Laden. And if he were to be killed it would only be in the eventual circumstance that there were some kind of inability to capture that resulted in a threat that required some kind of self- defense measure. FIELDING: What briefings did you seek in February to review this whole situation? ASHCROFT: Well, I was part of the consideration of the strategy regarding Osama bin Laden to the extent that it related to the treatment and the pursuit of Osama bin Laden himself. So this was one of the responsibilities I had. FIELDING: Now, I'm sorry, sir. What briefings did you receive? What were your sources of information when you were making this review of authorities? Were you briefed by Director Tenet? ASHCROFT: I'm not sure exactly where all the information came from that I was privy to at that time. We were very confident that this individual had been involved in very serious acts against the United States, in the embassy bombings and the like. And we felt that we had a relative assurance that he was involved in the Cole attack. We knew that Khobar Towers was what we considered to be Iranian Hezbollah; so it was a different group. But in my judgment, just knowing about the embassy bombings, the loss of life there, we all understood that the fatwa had been issued regarding his desire to kill Americans. FIELDING: Now, I appreciate that, General, and excuse me for interrupting you but we're playing with the clock here. But what I'm trying to determine is did you review MONs, for instance? FIELDING: Did your staff provide you with the documents so that you could review the existing authorities? ASHCROFT: I believe they did. FIELDING: Did you request documents from agencies? Did you request documents from the CIA? ASHCROFT: I'm not capable of telling you exactly how all the information was assembled. I just remember that having made the assessment of the information, I was struck by the fact that I believed that it was so complex and convoluted that it would be paralytic and that we owed people in the field clear direction, and that the direction should be to find and kill bin Laden and not to try and capture him. FIELDING: Did you staff prepare a briefing for you? Was there any written documentation of the process that you went through to make this evaluation? ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to remember whether or not they did at this time. FIELDING: We would request that you check that. And the reason I'm asking is I must advise you that we have received recent information in regard to MONs which I believe may alter your evaluation of existing authorities in February of 2001. ASHCROFT: Well, I took that seriously when Commissioner Ben- Veniste mentioned it to me. I've made a note of it. And unless I'm missing a bet big time, my staff has made a note of it. And we'll work to understand that more thoroughly. FIELDING: Well, thank you, sir, because we would otherwise want to review this with you in closed session, because it's obviously very highly classified, unless there's an opportunity to have this declassified so that we can supplement our staff statements as well. So thank you. We'd appreciate your cooperation in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.